What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is a free writing assistant that you can add to browser extensions, or download a Desktop app. It automatically detects issues like grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes in your writing.
Whether you’re writing a document, email, or social media post, Grammarly can assist you. It’s even possible to add to Microsoft Office.
The software was released in July 2009 in San Francisco and is now used by over 20-million people. What makes this writing tool stand out, is that it’s more than a grammar aid. It helps with writing style and tone, wordiness, vocabulary enhancement, contextual issues, plagiarism checks, and more.
Grammarly offers advice for casual writing, business writing, creative writing, technical writing, academic writing, and general writing. With this software, you can confidently write and post online knowing your work is clear and mistake-free.
Features
- Grammar, spelling & punctuation checks
- Grammar rule explanations
- Performance statistics
- Vocabulary suggestions
- Word definitions
- Detects style and tones
- Easy-to-use extensions and apps
- Can integrate with Microsoft Office
- Plagiarism checker
- Personal dictionary
- Checks repetitive words
- Checks weak adjectives
- Checks wordiness & readability
- Can use on various devices
- Goal setting for relevant suggestions
- Can choose America, British, Australian or Canadian spelling
- Updated with some slang and word abbreviations
How to Use Grammarly
Once you sign up for a free account, you can start using Grammarly within minutes. The software is extremely user-friendly and readily available.
As you write (e.g. online post or blog) Grammarly will mark any errors in red. You can correct them with just one click of your mouse. You’re also given the option to add any words to your personal dictionary.
It can indicate the tone of your text, provide performance stats, and more.
Who is it For?
Grammarly is ideal for work, academic, and personal use. Suitable for business workers, writers, bloggers, students, teachers, freelancers, marketers, and more. Everyone can benefit from using Grammarly.
Does it Cost?
Grammarly offers a free plan and a premium plan.
Free Plan
This plan is a fantastic way to familiarise yourself with the software. You get a free browser extension and an online text editor you can use with email, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, blogs, and more.
Grammarly will check grammar, spelling, conciseness, clarity, tone, performance and provide you with a personal dictionary to add words to. You can choose to view definitions and synonyms on any particular word.
You can also set goals so Grammarly can make helpful suggestions (e.g. what target audience you’re writing for, the style, emotion, and intent of your writing, etc).
You will have access to Grammarly’s Facebook and Twitter community, an online grammar handbook, and Grammarly blogs for daily tips.
Premium Plan
A premium plan will give you access to all of Grammarly’s functions. The pricing is affordable and offers super value for the services you receive.
It provides the same as the free plan plus it runs over 400 checks, including sentence structures and advanced punctuation. It helps with source citation for research papers and detects plagiarism (checks over 16 billion web pages).
It can adapt to different writing genres and provide weekly statistics. You can also integrate it with Microsoft Word and Outlook. Here is a full list of the premium plan’s inclusions:
Grammarly statistics indicate that premium users correct twice as many mistakes, see improved writing grades and find writing more enjoyable.
Premium pricing:
And there’s a Grammarly Business option to cater to entire business teams. This includes monitoring tools, hundreds of checks and features, centralized billing, and 24/7 support. Visit Grammarly to find out more.
Grammarly Pros
User-Friendly
This software is accurate, reliable, and very simple to use. It checks errors in real-time, catching typos and spelling mistakes before you post or email. It’s very easy to understand and operate.
Excellent Functions
Grammarly has many great functions, including 400+ checks, language preferences, essay assistance, and more. It can also identify words used in the wrong context (e.g. whether/weather) which makes a significant difference.
Using all these functions will give you the best chance of producing work to the highest standard.
Customisation
With Grammarly you can choose which websites you want to use it on; set your language preference and more.
If you often use brand names/words/slang that Grammarly doesn’t recognize, you can ‘Add to Dictionary’. This prevents Grammarly from constantly highlighting it as an error.
Improves Writing Skills
Grammarly is known to strengthen your writing. It provides plenty of insights, performance statistics and helps you learn common errors. It can assist with structure, tone, and intent, based on your goals.
Grammarly Cons
Still Testing on Google Docs
Grammarly is in the process of extending its services. It’s currently beta-testing for Google Docs, so it doesn’t include Grammarly Premium corrections. However, I can still use the editor to make immediate corrections without any problems.
Free Plan is Limited
If you need advanced editing tools, then you may find the free plan restrictive. Premium offers far more functions, including integration with Microsoft Office. The free plan is sufficient for people wanting day-to-day grammar checks.
Doesn’t Pick up on Everything
Grammarly is an automated system, so it doesn’t pick up on everything, i.e. certain slang and acronyms. You need to add them individually to your dictionary.
See What Customers are Saying…
How do I Access it?
Firstly, you need to sign up for a free account. Then you get a browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox.
You can access the Chrome extension straight from the Grammarly site. Or go to your preferred store (e.g. Chrome Store), search ‘Grammarly browser extension’, and download.
To download the phone app, go to Play Store for Android, or the App Store for iOS devices.
Premium users can get instructions from Grammarly on how to add to Microsoft Word and Outlook.
Feedback and Support
If you’re still unsure, rest assured that Grammarly has a support team available 24/7. Their goal is to respond to email support issues within eight hours.
They also have an extensive Help Centre and FAQ section for common issues and questions, and blogs with tips and advice. Or you can contact them via social media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Improve Your Work the Easy Way
Whether you’re using Grammarly for work, personal or academic, it can vastly improve your writing and grammar skills. With over 20-million active users, Grammarly has a high customer satisfaction rate.
I’ve loved using this software (both free plan and premium) and highly recommend it.
I use Grammarly in Chrome at the moment, it’s very useful. I’m considering it for Google Docs, how do you find it?
Hi Cyndy, yes Grammarly is highly useful. Your Grammarly chrome extension should show in the top right corner of your browser, and it’ll be marked ‘BETA’ while you’re in Google Docs. If you can’t see the icon, go to your internet tab settings → Extensions → turn the blue slider on to show the icon in your browser. As you write, the green Grammarly icon will appear in the right corner of your page, and Grammarly will underline spelling/grammar errors in red as usual. Have fun with it!
Thank you so much for your article. I already use Grammarly so thank you so much for added the extra features in your article as this is not something that I currently have. Your article is very informative and has a lot of detail together with access to how you can get it free or upgrade.
Hi Imelda, for sure Grammarly has a lot of cool features. Glad you liked it, thanks for reading!
Hello CJ
I concur with you on using grammarly to check our write ups especially when sending out emails, news letter or writing an article. Its a tool I use in most of my writing and it is efficient. The premium section and the free section are almost the same though premium goes deep to the usage of vocabulary and more indepth grammar and sentence construction.
I have been using grammarly for a long time now I have never downloaded it though it has an app to download if anyone wish to download it. You can use it through a tab on your computer and you insert your text.
Thanks for sharing this, and i would to request sharing your article on my social media platform for others to have an idea about grammarly.
Hi Jeff, I just love Grammarly and agree with what you’ve said. The free version is definitely sufficient enough for anyone not needing the in-depth assistance. I would be very grateful if you choose to share and let everyone know about this awesome program 🙂 Thanks for reading!
I have been thinking of getting a grammar program for a while now. I am writing a lot in English and it is not my native language. I think this could be a good tool for me. I think I should go for the premium. I need to have more features than in the free version. I think the price is very good too. Thank you for providing helpful information about Grammarly. I love your website. You provide a lot of helpful tips on writing. I have bookmarked your site. I think I will save a lot of time using Grammarly. What do you recommend? Should I start with the free version or go straight on Premium?
Hi Hilde, I highly recommend this program, particularly if English is not your native language. It’s very helpful and either version is sufficient. I recommend you start with the free version to get familiar with it, you can upgrade to premium at any time 🙂 Just click on the link to add to Chrome. Glad you’re enjoying the site, let me know if there’s anything I can help with. Thanks for reading!
Hello CJ,
Thank you for your comprehensive review on Grammarly!
Your post is an opportunity to me to discover a tool which will help me perform well on my English skills improvement. I really take it for me. I appreciate also your explanations on the easy way to go and the tutorial video provided.
I’d therefore recommend Grammarlly to those who, like me, want to use better English in their business to download Grammarly without delay.
I’m so glad you’ve found this helpful. This program will definitely help improve English skills. It teaches a lot and fixes mistakes with just a click of a button. I just love how user-friendly it is. Appreciate the recommendation, thanks for reading!
I would like to thank you for this awesome article on grammarly.
before i installed grammerly on my system, i always had grammatical errors in the bid of been fast enough to finish work on time but since i started using grammarly, everything goes well. there is even an autocorrect feature. thank you for this post.
Yes, having grammatically correct work is just as important! I’m glad it’s working out for you, the autocorrect feature is very handy. Thanks for reading!