Santiago Mallea
Chief of Content At Gradehacker
See our Grammarly vs. ProWritingAid comparison in our YouTube video!
As writing is one of the most important aspects of your academic journey, grammatical errors are a common mistake. Luckily, many editing and grammar checkers are available to make your experience better. You want to use the best, so you end up comparing two of the most well-known: ProWritingAid vs. Grammarly.
Grammar checking tools are not new. College students can take advantage of their basic features not only to avoid grammatical mistakes and spelling errors but also to improve their writing skills. And while there are many options available, the most complete and popular alternatives are Grammarly & ProWritingAid.
But what are the main differences? How much do they cost? What are the ProWritingAid features? Is Grammarly easier to use? Which one should you choose?
At first sight, they both seem to share the same essential tools, but the differences come up when we look at the additional features. Before you pick which online editing tool you’ll use, you want a detailed list of all their main benefits and differences.
Here at Gradehacker, we know how life-saving these writing apps can be. We’ve used them for years and are experts in taking full advantage of their features. That’s why we are comparing Grammarly vs. ProWritingAid and listing their pros and cons so you can choose the one that suits you best.
Before we start, you must know what these grammar checkers are.
What is ProWritingAid?
ProWritingAid is a writing app designed for professional writers. It works better with longer pieces and is meant for best-selling authors, editors, bloggers, and academic students.
With their editing software, you get grammar, spelling, and readability improvements while writing. The editing tool also highlights other elements such as repetitiveness, sentence length variation, vague wording, over-dependence on adverbs, passive voice, and so much more.
It’s an editing tool that checks everything for you!
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is a writing app that helps you check and correct your grammar and spelling mistakes.
When you run your text through Grammarly, its Artificial Intelligence reviews it and points out all grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. Plus, it gives you stylistic suggestions that fit the purpose of what you are writing.
Basically, Grammarly is your own online editor. And the best thing about them is that they are a freemium app.
What does freemium mean? While it has a premium version with advanced features, they also offer a free version with the most essential features.
Now you might be thinking; they are both the same! And while they are two popular grammar checking tools, each one has its own set of specifications and premium features.
Let’s see them!
Design & Interface
The first difference can be found in how each app looks and how they display their information. It’s worth mentioning that here, we’ll be talking about each web editor or desktop app, as it is the main workspaces where you can use all of their features.
ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid design is divided into three dashboards.
The main bar is on the right, where you’ll find your Goals and Improvements. On the first option, they give you statistics on key aspects of your paper, such as a percentage of passive voice, length, and readability, while in the latter, you have style suggestions and corrections for grammar mistakes.
You have the search bar on the left, where you can access your documents, and on top, you have all their additional features.
A complete but over-packed design. With so many buttons and menus available, it can be easy to get yourself lost among the many features, especially if you are only planning on using the most basic ones.
Luckily, all these dashboards can be hidden, and you can choose which one to use. You have the option of a clean space with all the features out of sight or write having all the features at hand.
Grammarly
On the other hand, Grammarly’s interface is more straightforward.
On your right, you first have a list of suggestions for grammar mistakes, with a detailed explanation of why you should take it into account. Next to it, you have a narrow sidebar with the basic statistics of your paper, like correctness and engagement. Finally, at the bottom, you can find their plagiarism checker.
It’s a much simpler and clean design that automatically incorporates all their features.
Features
Now, let’s get on with what really makes each app unique: its features.
ProWritingAid
While the basic features like general statistics and grammar checks are included in the ProWritingAid free version, all of their advanced features only work on the first 500 words of your paper. To unlock them, it’s necessary to acquire the premium plan.
So, which features do they have?
First of all, their grammar checker identifies spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. They also offer many writing reports that highlight key elements like repetitiveness, length variation, vague wording, adverbs, over-complicated sentence constructions, and more!
One of our favorite tools they have is the Thesaurus help, which shows possible replacements for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. An excellent tool if you struggle to find synonyms and want to find better words that add value to your paper.
Other great features are:
- Overused: Checks your writing for commonly overused words and phrases
- All Repeats: Checks for repeated words and phrases
- Structure: Compares your usage of different sentence structures to published texts in your genre
- Transition: Highlights the transitions in your paper and recommends when to use them
Grammarly
Similarly, Grammarly shares the same main features of correcting grammar and punctuation errors, poor sentence formation, and lengthy or wordy sentences.
Grammarly also lets you improve your vocabulary. You can find synonyms by double-clicking on a word, or if the editing software finds a more appropriate word that fits your essay’s tone, it will automatically suggest it to you.
Plus, it recognizes and points out words that you are repeating too much!
But the best they have to offer is their plagiarism checker tool, which compares your paper with thousands of existing web pages to identify any plagiarism. With this feature, you can see and correct any flagged sentences that Grammarly underlines as plagiarism.
Integrations
Chances are you might want to use these editing software apps with your mobile phone or other writing processors.
Well, we have good and bad news. While both have add-ons for Google Docs and Word, only Grammarly has a mobile app.
How do these integrations work? Keep reading!
ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid has a free Chrome extension available for Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Its browser extension gives you a quick check of what you are writing on popular websites such as Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and WordPress.
Additionally, they have one add-on extension for Google Docs and another for Word. These plug-ins integrate directly into your processor and barely change its design and interface.
Both of these features are only available with the premium plan.
Unfortunately, ProWritingAid currently doesn’t have a mobile app.
Grammarly
On the contrary, Grammarly does have an app for cell phones! You can integrate it as your default keyboard, and its proofreading software will give you better suggestions when writing emails or text messages!
Then, just as ProWritingAid, it has a Chrome extension that automatically plugs itself into most of websites where you can write so that you can correct your grammar as you go. It also runs spelling checks as you type so that you don’t need to go back and change it later.
Similarly, they also have add-on extensions for Word and Google Docs, which work the same as the desktop version and analyze your writing as you type.
Unlike ProWritingAid, these features are free! The bad news is that in order to unlock all the other tools, you need to have a Grammarly premium account.
Cost
Finally, the last aspect we need to consider is how much each writing app costs and what payment plans they offer.
One of the advantages ProWritingAid has is its prices. Their options are:
- $20 for the monthly plan
- $79 for the annual plan
- $399 for the lifetime plan (one-time payment and includes all future updates)
Their prices clearly aim to establish a long-term relationship with their clients, as you can save over 75% by paying for the annual plan. And it could be even more with the lifetime option, even though this will depend on the use you will give it once you’ve finished college.
Still, if you are starting your college journey and know that you have at least four years coming up, you might as well pay for the lifetime plan and spend almost as much as you would pay for many yearly subscriptions.
One of the best pros Grammarly has is that its free version is not bound by a free trial period. You can use it and enjoy all of its basic features for nothing!
Still, their premium version is much more complete and lets you access all of their premium features.
Grammarly Premium’s pricing plans are:
- $12 per month for the annual plan ($144 billed as one payment)
- $20 per month for the quarterly plan ($60 billed as one payment)
- $30 a month for the monthly plan
Which One Should You Choose?
So, you are almost ready to choose which proofreading tool will be the one for you. But first, here’s a quick recap of the best and worst each writing app has to offer.
ProWritingAid Pros and Cons
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
|
Lower prices |
Doesn't have a mobile version |
|
Accurate grammar checker |
Its interface can be messy |
|
Lots of advanced features |
|
|
Integrates to Chrome, Google Docs, and Word |
Grammarly Pros and Cons
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
|
Extensive online grammar knowledge base |
More expensive prices |
|
Accurate grammar checker |
|
|
Many advanced features |
|
|
Integrates to Chrome, Google Docs, and Word |
|
|
Has a mobile app |
Pick One And Improve Your Writing Skills!
Overall, the most important difference can be seen in the pricing plans. Grammarly costs much more ($144 vs. $79 for the annual plan), but we can assure you it’s worth it. We have used it as our default writing app for years, and it has significantly improved our vocabulary and writing skills.
If you want to read a more in-depth review about Grammarly, you can read our extensive article on our experience using it.
But if you don’t want to spend that much on a writing enhancement tool that you will only use on a few occasions, choosing ProWritingAid will be a great fit! You get the same advanced features for half the money.
In any case, you need to remember that no app will ever replace the understanding of a human editor. Even if you choose one of these, not all of their suggestions will be accurate, and they can even worsen your sentence! Always check that their corrections are valid and fit into your specific paper.
But with these tips in mind, now you can go ahead and pick which editing tool will be the one that will help you throughout your college experience to write the best essays of your career.
However, if you continue struggling with grammatical mistakes when writing your paper, you can always trust Gradehacker to assist you. We’ll give you a free-grammar mistake paper that both you and your professor will be proud of!
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