Welcome to my Grammarly Review. I bet you must be looking for the best grammar checker and that's how you landed on my page. Just to let you know, I've been using Grammarly for years and that's why I decided to write this review to share my experience as a person who earns money from writing.
| QUICK NAVIGATION |
| What is Grammarly? How Does Grammarly Work? Who is Grammarly For? The Truth About Grammarly Things I Like About Grammarly Can Grammarly Be Trusted? How I Start A Small Business Online |
My name is Florence, a c-level executive turned digital marketer who writes product review articles on online marketing tools, training, and affiliate marketing opportunities. Apart from managing my blog, I'm also a brand strategist who provides branding and marketing consultancy to small businesses in Malaysia. Here's how I make money from digital marketing if you are curious to know.
Before I continue, I would like to let you know upfront that I'm not promoting Grammarly, neither do I earn any commission from writing this review. That's why you can be assured to only get the most reliable information from my personal real experience as a daily user.
If you're considering to subscribe to Grammarly, then this is definitely a must read review from a frequent user.
GRAMMARLY REVIEW SUMMARY
Program/Product Name: Grammarly
Founder/Owner: Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn and Dmytro Lider
Product Type: Online digital writing tool to verify correctness, clarity, engagement, delivery, and originality of writings
Price: $29.95/month (monthly billing), $19.98/month (quarterly billing), $11.66/month (annual billing)
Best For: Grammarly is best for anyone who needs to fine-tune their written words, particularly useful for writers, bloggers and content creators that earn money with writing
Summary: Grammarly is a great online tool to improve any original written composition as it automatically checks spelling, punctuations, grammar, spacing, and even plagiarism. Similar to other tools, Grammarly free version comes with limited features. Although there is a lack of training tutorials about this product, the good thing is it's user-friendly so you'll handle this tool very well in no time.
Rating: 8/10
Recommendation: Yes
What Is Grammarly?
Grammarly is an online grammar and plagiarism checker of any written composition. Aside from improving spelling, grammar, and punctuation, it also provides suggestions on how to enhance words and clarity of each sentence, making your writing more interesting.
Grammarly story started in Kiev, Ukraine's capital, where MyDropbox company is located. Alex Shevchenko and Max Lytvyn founded this company. Later on, MyDropbox veteran Dmytro Lider joined them in their pursuit to find a way to check the written words online without the need to download the software onto a desktop computer.
The founders originally meant to track whether academic papers submitted by students were plagiarized or not. However, they analyzed the reason behind plagiarism and found out that the main issue lies with the lack of confidence in students to write better.
Thus, the founders can now clearly see their calling: the creation of a toolset that will bridge the communication gaps of people. On April 1, 2009, Grammarly, was launched to fine-tune any composition to come up with well-written and accurate words.
It was introduced to the public using the simplest interface. The user is required to copy-paste the writings in the Grammarly text box, then click the “Start Review” button to analyze. It was not able to encourage users to consider Grammarly as part of their writing tool as the features provided are too little.
Grammarly continued accepting challenges through the years, and that resulted in the creation of useful add-on in browsers to office applications like Microsoft Word and Google Suite. The add-on and other upgrades have helped to automate the faster resolution of any written composition problem. This gave a significant boost to those who wish to earn money online through creative writings, blogs, social media, website content, and email marketing, among others.
Grammarly is free to use if you just want to do simple grammar and spelling checks. For more features such as plagiarism, readability and enhancement of vocabs, it's available on its Premium plan for a single user, starting from as low as $11.66 to as high as $29.95 per month, depending on the frequency of your payment.
If you manage a team, then a Business plan for teams of 3 to 149 people will be more affordable. This comes with priority email support and team statistics.
How Does Grammarly Works?
There are three ways to use Grammarly.
- Include add-on or extension to online applications
- Install the Grammarly keyboard onto Android or iOS
- Download Grammarly Desktop or use Grammarly Editor right from member's dashboard
Grammarly Add-on, Extension and Android/iOS Keyboard
When Grammarly is installed as an add-on or extension to any approved application, the language checker will automatically do its work as you type in your words. For instance, when you write a post on Microsoft Word, Grammarly will automate grammar, spelling, and vocab checks, then make recommendations. Apart from add-ons to Microsoft products, it's also available on browsers such as Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox.
This is the same when you download Grammarly Android/iOS keyboard onto your mobile gadget. The app will automatically recommend improvement to vocabs and grammar as you type with any applications. Some apps that I've tried to use include WhatsApp, Facebook, WordPress, Outlook, Gmail, and Telegram.
Bloggers, writers, and digital marketers will love the automatic features, which allow users to write continuously and efficiently since error detection and alerts are discreet. Basically, the add-on/extension feature focuses on these areas:
- Spelling – It identifies spelling mistakes based on the language you select: American, Canadian, Australian or British English
- Grammatical recommendation – It detects grammar mistakes, including punctuations and spacing.
- Vocabulary alternatives – It provides a list of alternative words that will match the settings of your composition like its tone and target reader.
- Clarity and engagement – It helps to make your writing easier to understand, exciting and effective
- Plagiarism with percentage – It highlights the phrases that are detected the same with another person's work
Grammarly Editor
Without add-on, you can also use Grammarly Editor directly from its member's dashboard or any desktop application. Simply open the Editor, upload the document that required checking into this Editor, and Grammarly will start doing its work.
Other than uploading the document directly onto Grammarly Editor, you can also opt to copy-paste the written composition to the “New” document area. The main difference between the two is that choosing “New” will remove the format of the document. On the other hand, “Upload” retains all formats.
Goal Setting
Before Grammarly starts to review, the platform will ask some goals that you wish to set so that it's able to provide the most suitable recommendations according to your needs. This way, the recommended tone, style, and words that you use in your writings will be tailored towards a specific group of readers. Below are the 4 goals users will have to determine before proceed.
- Audience: Who will read (general, knowledgeable, or expert)
- Formality: What are the appropriate words or expressions to use (informal, neutral, or formal)
- Domain: Where will you submit (academic, business, general, technical, casual, or creative)
- Tone: How do you want your audience to react (neutral, confident, joyful, optimistic, friendly, urgent, analytical, respectful)
Alerts from Grammarly
Whether you are using Grammarly Editor directly from its member's dashboard or any add-on/extension, Grammarly, in general, automates the following check functions by showing all problematic areas on the Alert section.
- Correctness: Focuses on grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Clarity: Make the writing easier to understand
- Engagement: Ensures the composition is exciting and effective
- Delivery: Confirms the words leave the right impression to the reader
- Plagiarism: Identify unoriginal text by searching over 8 billion web pages
When there's an alert in any of those issue areas, you will see different underline colors like purple, green, blue, or red, depending on what type of problem is highlighted.
If you click the underlined phrase or word, you will be able to see the suggestions and several explanations. Then, pick the opinion you prefer, or you may simply ignore the alert by clicking the trash button. There is also a three-dot icon next to the trash button, which, when clicked, will show two options: incorrect suggestion or offensive content.
For spelling alert, there is an option to add new words to your personal dictionary. You may choose to do that in case the word is correct, and you wanted Grammarly to take note of that for future reference.
Performance Reports
This section gives an indication of overall performance, downloadable as a pdf document. By expanding the Overall Score, users will see the Word Count showing number of characters, words, and sentences, including an estimation of reading and speaking time.
Another thing you will see inside this feature is Readability and Vocabulary, which pertains to the likelihood that your target audience can understand your composition.
Grammarly Expert Team
Inside the member's dashboard, there's an option to opt for their expert writing service. This feature will allow you to submit your written composition to a team composed of writing experts. Of course it comes with an additional fee. Simply go to Get Expert Writing Help located in the lower right area of the document screen. Then, you may choose the turnaround time and your target type of editing: correctness only or correctness and clarity.
Training & Tutorial
Grammarly has its own Youtube channel, where it shows the benefits of using the tool. Also, it provides timely updates on new features of the product and briefly explains how it will function. Although there is no video showing a step-by-step method to use this automated grammar checker, you can browse a lot of informative videos on their channel.
Customer Service and After-Sales Support
Grammarly provides a Help Center to assist users in troubleshooting the tool. Grammarly is a simple tool to use and therefore, users can easily find answers from their knowledge base. If you still need help, you can opt to submit a ticket to its support team to seek clarification on complex problems.
Who Is Grammarly For?
Grammarly is for everyone who writes, be it as a hobby or for a living. Students may use it to double-check their academic papers, new graduates can compose their first resumes to impress future employers and small businesses can use Grammarly for writing proposals and reports.
I would say Grammarly is most valuable for writers. Those who are constantly creating information-packed content pieces or monetize with words will find Grammarly useful.
Related Post
Affiliate Marketing For The Beginners: Step-by-Step Method
10 Best Ways to Earn Money Online: Only Legit & Proven Methods
The Truth About Grammarly
Although Grammarly has high points everywhere, from its features to its efficiency, there are still certain areas that the program may improve.
Truth #1: No Training To use the software
The truth is, you hardly find tutorial videos showing step-by-step on how this grammar checker works. is noticeable that most assistance is just in text format combined with pictures. It would be more beneficial if there's a training video for the Free version, Premium, and for every upgrade or new release they have.
Truth #2: only support English language
It's sad to say that Grammarly does not support languages other than English. That's why when I tried to use Grammarly to check my native language which is Malay, it doesn't work at all. Nevertheless, Grammarly is still one of the best options out there for English writers even though some suggestions, might not be acceptable to all.
Things I Like About Grammarly
For so long, Grammarly offered the platform as freemium. Yes, it's free, and it's a tool that allows free use for as long as you need it. Small business owners can utilize the free version of Grammarly to check for simple spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes, giving them opportunities to improve their writing skills.
However, for people who earn money writing in freelance job platforms like Upwork or Textbroker, it's advisable to pay for a Premium plan as the additional features such as writing tone, fluency, and readability suggestions can indeed help to create more engaging pieces to delight targeted readers.
Can Grammarly Be Trusted?
Grammarly is indeed a trusted grammar checker used by many writers. Although there are some areas that need improvement, Grammarly proves through its previous upgrades that this software is determined to consistently improve, finding ways on how to make it more efficient and reliable.
It is a good buy, especially if you are targeting writing as a profession to get full-time income. However, do not expect zero human intervention since it is still you who will decide on each Grammarly alert received. I highly recommend this software because it can truly add value to every piece of the writing produced.
How I Start A Small Business Online
I've been working as a Chief Operating Officer in a company in Malaysia, moving up my rank throughout 8 years. However, due to my character of liking freedom more than corporate perks, I've decided to learn online marketing so I could quit my 9 to 5 job in no time.
Well, my dream comes true, thanks to one program that I've been following until today. To cut it short, this awesome program has let me learn all the online marketing skills that are needed to start a small business online. Now, I truly work from home and from anywhere around the world.
I hope you've gain insights into Grammarly from this review. Should you require more information or have something to share about this grammar checker, do leave me a comment so other readers will be able to benefit.