Grammarly Free Vs Grammarly Premium: Is this AI-Powered Writing Assistant Worth It?
Can Grammarly help you write top-notch?
You’ve probably heard about Grammarly and might be curious about trying it. But is it worth it? How much does it cost? Perhaps you’re concerned about your budget and wonder whether there’s a Grammarly discount.
This post will help you understand what exactly Grammarly is, the difference between free and premium versions, how much it costs, and why it’s an excellent tool for students, professionals, and anyone who writes a lot.
What Is Grammarly?
Grammarly is one of the most well-known grammar checker tools available online. At its core, I can describe it as an advanced spell checker and writing assistant.
“Isn’t that what Microsoft Word does?” you might be wondering.
The answer is yes and no. However, anyone who’s ever used Grammarly knows that it includes many more features that help writers polish their writing.
Indeed, Grammarly was designed to go beyond the capabilities of rich text processors, and it’s capable of fixing grammar errors and giving you writing tips that Word doesn’t. It functions much more as an editor than a typical word processor, so much so that lots of writers find it an invaluable tool when they need to put their best foot forward.
How Much Does Grammarly Cost?
One thing that makes Grammarly popular and attractive is that anyone can use it for free. All you have to do is create an account (I’ll discuss what comes in the free version below) and get started.
But if you want to unlock the full power of this tool, you’ll have to purchase a premium plan. Grammarly offers various subscription plans but only one for individual users; the Premium option for $12.00 per month.
Does Grammarly Offer a Student Discount?
Unfortunately, there is no dedicated Grammarly student discount. If you want to take advantage of everything the premium service offers, there’s no way around paying for it. However, there are two exceptions.
One is if your educational institution signs up for a site license. This bulk discount is available for schools of all levels, but the institution must pass the benefit along to you.
The other exception to the no-discount rule is that some companies form partnerships with Grammarly to offer discounts to their audience. While these aren’t exclusively student discounts, anyone can use their favorite site or service’s sign-up link for deals like 20 percent off a subscription.
However, you can use the tool’s free version for as long as possible (there is no trial period to use it). The free version of Grammarly allows for use with the Chrome extension, which many college students find helpful.
Grammarly Free vs. Grammarly Premium
Before deciding whether to spend money on Grammarly Premium, it’s helpful to understand what you get with each tier. Let’s look at the differences between the two, so you can decide whether Grammarly Premium is worth it.
Grammarly Free
If you’ve ever tried the free version of any product, you know that most of the time, you’re only getting a poor or extremely limited taste of the service. However, Grammarly’s free version is pretty fantastic—fantastic enough to be sufficient for certain people.
As mentioned above, it expands on the capabilities of an average word processor’s typical spell checker. You simply paste your work into Grammarly (or you can use the tool to check for mistakes as you write), and the tool offers excellent spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks. It highlights errors in red, which you can address individually.
For example, the free version alerts you to basic writing mistakes. It detects words that you may have confused, as well as spelling errors. I also like that it allows you to choose the English variations (pick between British, American, Canadian, and Australian) to use appropriate spelling for that region (i.e., favorite vs. favorite).
You’ll notice those Grammarly Premium corrections are highlighted yellow when using the free version. However, you cannot click on them to see the suggestions unless you upgrade.
Grammarly Premium
With Grammarly Premium, you get everything in the free version and much more. When you open a new document, you can adjust specific settings to meet your writing goals. These settings are:
- Style (formal, neutral, informal)
- Audience (general, knowledgeable, expert)
- Domain (business, academic, email, etc.)
- Tone (confident, analytic, formal)
- Intent (describe, tell a story, etc.).
Once you’ve adjusted these settings, Grammarly offers many checks to ensure your writing is more engaging and clear. These include:
- Vocabulary enhancement suggestions
- Wordiness
- Word repetition
- Unclear structure
- Tone suggestion
- Insensitive language
Plagiarism is always a concern, no matter who you are, but students must be careful not to plagiarize their work. For this reason, Grammarly’s comprehensive plagiarism checker is a handy feature. It’s highly accurate, as it compares your writing against more than 16 billion different web sources and can help give you peace of mind when writing.
Grammarly also makes consistent suggestions to keep things uniform. For example, it will alert you if you switch between “pounds” and “.lbs,” or “AM” and “a.m.”
Is Grammarly Premium Worth it? My final review
While Grammarly certainly has shortcomings (it can never fully replace a human proofreader or an editor), it’s an excellent tool—especially for students who need to communicate their ideas clearly.
Most people can benefit from the free version, which is probably robust enough for someone who writes in non-academic or non-professional contexts (like on personal social media accounts or email).
However, there is much to be gained from the premium service, even without a dedicated Grammarly student discount. The plagiarism checker is worth the price, plus the suggestions Grammarly premium provides can help you become a stronger writer.
Overall, the service helps you avoid distracting errors and write more concisely. While it would be nice if Grammarly offered an exclusive student discount, you can’t go wrong with the free tool version while searching the web for deals.
