Just imagine: A flick of the wrist is all that would stand between you and the end of editing your writing. No frustration. Minimal time investment. An amazing manuscript or blog post.

Alas, no such magic wand exists.

But we do have grammar checker tools, which are the next-best things.

Just remember grammar checkers are designed to make editing easier, not to eliminate the work completely.

Putting the best grammar checker tools to the test

During self-edits on my latest manuscript, I experimented with editing tools, both free and paid, to determine which could be most beneficial to The Write Life’s audience. Besides being an author, I’m an editor, so I also weighed each tool against what I’d look for when editing.

Since editing has a broad definition — basically anything that improves your writing — it’s not surprising that the tools I tried had different functions, from checking grammar and style to eliminating unnecessary words, to identifying areas for improvement.

What you want in a grammar checker or editing tool will influence which one(s) you choose. No one tool can do it all — nor can one of these tools wave away the work and critical thinking necessary for a well-edited blog post, magazine article or book.

A grammar checker doesn’t replace a human editor. Because language rules and elements of a good story can be so flexible, human eyes will always be superior to the rigidity of automatic tools.

Here are 9 of the best grammar checker tools.

1. ProWritingAid

What It Does:  ProWritingAid is a web editor and plugin that will clean up your writing by detecting grammar and spelling mistakes, plagiarism and contextual errors. It also analyzes your writing and produces reports on writing style, sentence length, grammar, and repeated words and phrases.

Price: There’s a limited free version. If you upgrade to the premium membership, you can edit in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, access a desktop app and Chrome add-ins, and — best of all — lose the word-count cap.

A monthly membership is $20, a year’s membership is $120,  or go the whole hog and buy a lifetime membership for $399.

Who It’s For: Anyone, including students, authors, freelancers or ESL writers.

How It Works: Click on “Try the editing tool,” create a free account, then paste in your text.

The Best Part: ProWritingAid has a premium option, but most of the areas you’ll want checked are available for free.

What Would Make It Better: Though ProWritingAid checks grammar, I slipped in a your/you’re mistake without getting flagged. I wasn’t overly fond of the tool’s inability to work offline, but its overall functionality is hard to argue with.

Our Recommendation: Use ProWritingAid in the self-editing stage to guide your edits. 

More Details: For an in-depth explainer of ProwritingAid’s free and premium versions, check out our full ProwritingAid review.

2. AutoCrit

What It Does: AutoCrit analyzes your manuscript to identify areas for improvement, including pacing and momentum, dialogue, strong writing, word choice and repetition. Depending on what plan you choose, you can also compare your writing to that of popular authors like Danielle Steel or James Patterson.

Price: Three different plans are available: the “Free Forever” plan, which is free; the “Professional” for $30, or the “Annual Professional” for $297 per year. The latter offers a built-in discount of two months free every year. 

Who It’s For: Fiction and non-fiction writers.

How It Works: Paste your text into the online dashboard or upload a document and click on AutoCrit’s tabs to see its analysis. This tool uses data from various genres and more than a million books to provide a word-by-word level analysis of your writing and shows easy ways to improve the readability of your work.

The Best Part: I spent the most time in the “Compare to Fiction” tab, which provides a comprehensive look at common issues. It highlighted my tendency to start sentences with “and” and “but,” and identified my most repeated words. I felt like I learned something about my writing, and that’s something I don’t think I could say about some other tools.

What Would Make It Better: A more accurate definition of passive voice. It highlights any use of the “be” and “had” verbs, neither of which fully capture passive voice (you need a past participle in addition to a “be” verb), and many active voice constructions were falsely labeled as passive.

Our Recommendation: AutoCrit is great to guide your edits in the self-editing stage. It’s best used for developmental edits, rewrites and avoiding common writing no-nos.

More Details: For an in-depth explainer of Autocrit’s Free Forever and paid versions, check out our full Autocrit review.

3. Grammarly

What It Does: Grammarly is a grammar checker and proofreader.

Price: A limited version is available for free, and Grammarly also offers a number of other free services such as a wordiness checker and tone detection. The business plan starts at $25 per member per month. For the most up-to-date info on Grammarly pricing, see their website. 

Who It’s For: Anyone, including writers, business people and academics.

How It Works: Copy and paste or upload your text into the online dashboard and let Grammarly work its magic. It flags potential errors, gives suggestions and provides an explanation so you can learn why it suggests the change. There’s also a free Grammarly Add-in available for Microsoft Word and a Grammarly for Chrome extension that’s also compatible with Google Docs.

The Best Part: Grammarly is easy to use and pointed out a vocabulary issue or two that none of the other tools did. It’s superior to Microsoft Word’s grammar checker. Its synonym suggestion feature is pretty nifty, too.

What Would Make It Better: As an editor, I work with many styles of writing, so it’d be helpful if Grammarly provided the option to switch between a few to ensure writers receive fitting suggestions to improve their work. For example, if you don’t use the Oxford comma, the editor will prompt you to do so, which isn’t right for all writing styles. 

Our Recommendation: Grammarly is best for the final proofreading stage, or for people who want to learn more about the technical aspects of grammar. If you’re an editor or strong writer, you might find yourself ignoring more flagged items than you fix.

More Details: For an in-depth explainer of Grammarly’s free and premium versions, check out our full Grammarly review. You can dig deeper into Grammarly features and benefits here.

4. Hemingway Editor

What It Does: Hemingway Editor is like a spellchecker, but for style. It provides a readability score — the lowest grade level someone would need to understand your text — and analyzes your writing to identify areas for improvement. Because it doesn’t require an internet connection, you can use it anywhere.

Price: Free online, and a one-time payment of $19.99 for the desktop version, which is available for both Mac and PC.

Who It’s For: Anyone

How It Works: Paste your text into the dashboard and scan for highlighted sections of text. The highlighted text is color coded depending on your area of improvement, whether it’s hard-to-read sentences, the presence of adverbs, or passive voice.

The Best Part: In addition to providing examples on how to fix passive voice or complex phrases, Hemingway Editor also identifies how many “-ly” adverbs and passive voice constructions you’ve used and suggests a maximum number based on your word count.

In my prologue, for example, I had one use of passive voice, and Hemingway Editor suggested aiming for six uses or fewer — which I nailed. These recommendations reinforce the idea that not all adverbs or passive voice constructions are bad, and that’s something other tools miss.

What Would Make It Better: Hemingway Editor was the cleanest and easiest to use of the free editing tools, but it’s not a true grammar checker or proofreader. Even though it’s not meant to catch grammar and spelling mistakes, any editing application that catches those mistakes is instantly more attractive.

Our Recommendation: Use Hemingway Editor to increase the readability of your writing and identify problem sentences during the copyediting stage, but supplement your efforts with a grammar and spell checker.

5. WordRake

What It Does: WordRake cuts out the unnecessary words or phrases that creep into your writing. It works with Microsoft Word and Outlook, depending on which license you purchase. I tested the Microsoft Word version.

Price: The Microsoft Word version is available for Mac or Windows, and you’ll pay $129 for a year or $259 for three years. The Microsoft Word and Outlook package version is only available for Windows, and it costs $199 for a year or $399 for three.

Who It’s For: Bloggers, authors and editors using Microsoft Word or Outlook.

How It Works: WordRake is an add-in for Microsoft products and requires you to install the program before using it, though it’s as easy as following the instructions. Select the text you want to edit, then use the WordRake add-in. It uses Track Changes to suggest edits, which you can accept or reject.

The Best Part: WordRake is as close as you can get to an automatic editor. It appealed to me more as an editor than a writer, but it’s great at eliminating unnecessary phrases and words that bog down your writing.

What Would Make It Better: I threw a your/you’re mistake in to see if WordRake would catch it. It didn’t, even though Microsoft Word flagged it. If WordRake could catch common writing mistakes like your/you’re or their/they’re/there in addition to unnecessary words, it’d be a hard tool to beat.

Our Recommendation: WordRake is a great tool for the copyediting stage. Verbose writers, authors wanting to cut down on editing costs or editors looking to speed up their editing process will most benefit from WordRake. Watch out if you’re running Word on a slow computer: WordRake could increase your load time.

6. Ginger Software

What It Does: This AI-powered writing assistant and grammar and spelling checker works to improve your style and speed, plus boost your creativity. It also scans full, complex sentences and suggests context-based corrections. 

Price: Ginger offers a free (but very limited) plan, so you’ll find it to be more effective through its premium offerings: $13.99 per month, $89.88 per year or $167.76 for two years. Heads up: It’s currently running a 30% off promo for all plans, so these prices may increase at any time. For most up-to-date pricing, check this page.

Who It’s For: Anyone.

How It Works: Whether you choose to download Ginger to your Chrome browser, as a desktop app or otherwise, all you have to do to get started is follow the setup instructions to install it. As an add-on or app, Ginger will highlight spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, and it’ll even help you rephrase sentences by giving you tons of alternative options.

The Best Part: One word: cross-compatibility. Writers can download Ginger as a desktop app for Mac or Windows or directly into Google Chrome or Safari, and it works seamlessly with programs like Outlook, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint — you can even download it as a keyboard or app for Android phones and an app for Apple phones. 

What Would Make It Better: Most grammar checkers offer a plagiarism detector, but Ginger doesn’t. Even if it only added it to premium plans, this would be a helpful feature to include. 

Our Recommendation: Download Ginger If you have a good grasp of grammar and punctuation, and you need a grammar editor to back up your knowledge. 

7. Scribens

What It Does: Scribens is a free grammar checker that corrects more than 250 types of grammar, spelling and stylistic mistakes including nouns, verbs, prepositions, pronouns, homonyms, typography and punctuation.

Price: Free for everyone.

Who It’s For: Anyone, including writers, editors and authors of any genre, business people and academics.

How It Works: Choose which extension(s) where you want to install Scribens, then download it and begin writing. To test it first, click ‘Grammar Check,’ then paste your text or import a file into the editor. Through color-coded suggestions, it’ll check your style, vocabulary, grammar and spelling, it detects patterns in your writing, and it grades readability. 

The Best Part: You can download the Scribens extension in just about any place you’d need to write — i.e., social networks, websites with text zones (WordPress or forums), email platforms and more. Writers will be sure to enjoy this flexibility and the assurance that they can edit their writing right from any website or application. 

What Would Make It Better: For a free grammar checker, Scribens offers more than the average free tool, but it’s not as intuitive as others on this list. I tested a simple their/they’re mistake and it didn’t flag it. It’s helpful that it notes bigger grammar errors like compound predicates, but as a grammar corrector, it should also be able to avoid smaller ones from slipping through the cracks.

Our Recommendation: Use Scribens in the final stages of your copyediting. With minor issues out of the way, you can focus on addressing readability, syntax errors and stylistic elements with Scribens deeper analysis of your work.  

8. WhiteSmoke

What It Does: WhiteSmoke is a grammar checker and proofreading software that corrects spelling, word choice, grammar, punctuation and style mistakes. It also offers a translator and dictionary that supports more than 50 languages. 

Price: WhiteSmoke offers three plans that include a web plan for $5.99 per month, which is compatible with all browsers. Its premium option is $6.66 per month. Its business option is $11.50 per month. For updates on pricing, check this page.

Who It’s For: Students, professional writers and bloggers, business executives and employees and English learners.

How It Works: After you register, choose a package and install this grammar checker, WhiteSmoke’s all-in-one English tool will provide grammar, spelling, punctuation and style checks when you click on highlighted text from any application or browser. 

The Best Part: If you’re unsure about grammar rules during your writing process, check out WhiteSmoke’s handy video tutorials that focus on common writing problems and how to avoid them. Plus, if you need a template, it has more than 100 document and letter templates you can access.

What Would Make It Better: Unfortunately, this grammar editor isn’t the most intuitive tool on this list, plus it has a limit of 10,000 characters at a time, where each letter, punctuation mark and space counts. (For reference, you can check 150,000 words on Grammarly!) If you write long-form pieces, this may not be the best tool to use to check your work. 

Our Recommendation: WhiteSmoke offers many innovative features, but it shouldn’t be your main squeeze. Although it uses Natural Language Processing technology to enhance your writing, WhiteSmoke openly warns it won’t catch every grammar mistake, so supplement this checker with another one. 

9. LanguageTool

What It Does: A multilingual grammar, style and spell-checking software, LanguageTool is an Open Source application that checks your spelling, grammar, tone and writing style and instantly generates context-aware suggestions for more than 30 languages.

Price: Besides the free plan that allows basic grammar checks of up to 10,000 words, LanguageTool also offers monthly or yearly plans for individual users. You can expect to pay $4.99 per month or $60 per year. For updates on pricing, check this page.

Who It’s For: Anyone, including students, authors, freelancers, ESL writers and business people.

How It Works: Try the grammar checker on the website’s homepage or download it as a Google Docs add-on or a Microsoft Word add-in. Write or paste your text into the editor, and it’ll underline your errors in red, yellow or blue to indicate whether you need to correct your spelling, grammar or style. 

The Best Part: Similar to Hemingway Editor, you can take advantage of the web-based platform of this grammar corrector without the need to install anything. And because it’s multilingual, it offers a premium feature that detects gender while proofreading, which is super helpful when you’re unsure of how another language structures gender in writing. 

What Would Make It Better: While they offer fun features like detection of incorrect numbers and of incorrect names and titles in emails, LanguageTool’s premium plans limit you to 60,000 characters per text field. It’s an improvement from the 10,000-character limit in its free plan but still a pain point for long works.

Our Recommendation: LanguageTool grammar checker is a worthy writing assistant to consider if you write in or for other languages regularly, especially for its value. 

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This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via rCarner/ Shutterstock 

But you’re not finished. No, not even after you wrap up your self-edits.

It’s time to pass your manuscript off to beta readers — volunteers who provide feedback on your book. If you’re thinking about skipping this stage and just hitting “Publish,” you might want to reconsider.

The ultimate guide to working with beta readers

In this guide, we’ll explain what a beta reader is, and why you need beta readers to make your work-in-progress stronger.

What is a beta reader? (And why do you need one?)

Software companies release beta, or test, versions of their programs to work out kinks and bugs before releasing to the general public. Businesses offer beta versions of their courses so they can tweak the content to ensure it serves the needs of their students.

Authors need beta readers to understand how people read their book and, like software companies and businesses, to identify confusing or irrelevant spots. Every author has weaknesses. You do too — but you’re blind to them.

Beta readers won’t be. And soliciting feedback from beta readers is your chance to address the weak spots of your manuscript before you publish and share it with the world.

Who do you want as a beta reader?

As easy as it is to get them to help, best friends, significant others and family members are the worst beta readers. They know and love you, so they’re predisposed to loving whatever you write — no matter how good it is. While you might enjoy their glowing comments on your work, it won’t be the feedback you need to improve your manuscript.

Here’s who you want to enlist:

• An acquaintance or a friend of a friend. People close to you can muddle through confusing sections or sentences to guess what you meant. That won’t give you useful feedback. Pick someone who doesn’t know you well enough to figure out your meaning.
• A member of your target audience. If your book doesn’t resonate with your readers, you’re not going to sell copies.
• Someone who’s not afraid to be honest. You need positive and constructive feedback.
• Someone who’s reliable. This seems obvious, but people can overcommit. Be conscientious of your betas’ time and priorities.

You need more than one beta reader. There’s no set number, but three to five is a good start. If you’re bootstrapping your book, find even more betas: good beta readers can mean forgoing the cost of a developmental editor.

You might send your first beta reader draft to two or three people. Then you’ll implement their feedback and send the next draft out to the following group two or three people. Do this a few times depending on how much work the book needs.

The reason we don’t recommend sending out your manuscript to all your beta readers at once is because even after the first batch of feedback comes through, there might still be kinks to catch.

Also, let’s say you rearrange scenes, add an epilogue or rewrite some parts of the book. You’ll want to get feedback on the new version, too.

After you have an idea of who you want, it’s time to find them. Look at your network. Reach out to people already in your community who fit the criteria. Consider posting in writing groups or on your social media channels. You can even hire betas on Fiverr, or join Facebook or Goodreads groups. Don’t be afraid to ask. Many people will be honored you want their help.

Why should you always work with new beta readers?

As beta readers become more familiar and comfortable with your writing, it can be difficult for them to see the flaws.

Try to add a few new people to your team each time, preferably one or two who have never read your work before so you get fresh eyes on your work. You can connect with new people by asking your current beta readers for suggestions. They probably know a friend or two who’s willing to help out.

For people you stop working with in the beta reader stage, consider moving them to your Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) team. They’ll still get a free copy of your book, but it will be closer to finished, and won’t need the same in-depth feedback. Instead, your ARC readers will help you gather reviews for release day.

The beta reading stage can be long and sometimes difficult if you don’t already have a team in place. That said, it’s definitely worth it, and your beta readers can do wonders for your story.

How do you prepare your manuscript for a beta reader?

Even though betas help you edit, that doesn’t mean you can skip the self-editing step. Your betas can only raise the quality of your manuscript, not perfect it. That means you need to hit all types of editing (developmental, copy and proofreading) before handing it off to them.

As you edit, create a “needs-to-be-fixed” list. It might be something like “add character” or “move section to a different chapter” or “add description to opening scene.” Ask your betas to pay close attention to these items because they’ll be able to determine whether you’re on the right track — or not.

When you get ready to hand your manuscript over, ask your betas which format they prefer. Microsoft Word lends itself best to receiving feedback because it’s easy to add and delete comments, and most people have access to the program. Even if you prefer not to write in Word, converting to .doc from Scrivener or Google docs is simple. Some readers may prefer a hard copy, especially if your manuscript is long. Make it easy for them — they are donating their time to help you.

If you send Word documents, create and save a document for each person. Give it a specific name, like ManucriptNameBetaReader’sName.doc. You can merge these documents into one, but when you start incorporating edits and throwing everything together, it’s easy to accidentally delete a comment you need. If you preserve the originals with comments individually as well, you’ll be able to recover any lost feedback.

What do you want from your beta readers?

Feedback, yes. But don’t be vague: give your betas clear instructions about what feedback you need.

Remember that “needs-to-be-fixed” list you created during self-edits? Use that to guide what you need from your betas. Here’s a basic formula for instructions:

• Have betas comment with their thoughts or take notes as they read, even if it’s to say, “Ooh, I like this” or to make predictions about what will happen next. This shows you how people read your book. It also helps you pinpoint where changes need to be made and gives you a feel for how they reacted while reading.
• Specify what kind of feedback you’re looking for. My betas looked for:
  • Areas they felt were missing something or weren’t developed enough
  • Sections or scenes superfluous to the story
  • Any part of the story, dialogue, or narrative they didn’t understand or found confusing
  • The flow and pace of the chapters
• Ask them to focus on certain aspects of your book. My manuscript had weak worldbuilding, so I had them pay close attention to it.
• Tell them to supply “whys,” not “shoulds.” “I’m confused here because…” or “I don’t like this because…” will be more helpful than “You should do…” statements.
• Set a due date. But build in cushion — if you want it back in three weeks, tell them you need it in two.

Another idea is to send your beta readers a list of questions. Since beta readers aren’t professionals, they don’t always know what to look for in your manuscript. Ask them questions to help guide their experience.

Those who have beta read before — either for you or another author — will have a good idea, but if they’re new to beta reading, asking smart questions helps to give them some guidance.

Some generic questions you might ask include:

• Did the opening scene capture your attention? Why or why not?
• Did you notice any inconsistencies in setting, timeline or characters? If so, where?
• Did the dialogue keep your interest and sound natural to you?
• Was the ending satisfying and believable?

If you have specific concerns about your story, be sure to ask about that, too.

I suggest keeping your list of questions short (about 15 or less). Too many questions might turn some people off.

Remember, your readers are doing this for free. I never require anyone to answer my questions or take notes, but making the suggestion helps guide them and improves the type of feedback you receive.

How do you deal with feedback from a beta reader (without freaking out)?

It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to share something you’ve poured effort into. What if they hate it? The trick to dealing with feedback without freaking out is your mindset. Here’s what you need to remember:

• Your goal is to make your book better, and you can’t do that without constructive criticism.
• Your betas are nice people who want to help you write a better book, not tear you down.
• Having something to fix doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer or that your book isn’t worth publishing.
• You don’t have to accept every piece of advice you get.
• You can do it.

Dealing with beta feedback is where many writers give up. Don’t be one of them. Sorting through feedback — especially if it’s conflicting advice — gets overwhelming quickly. I had more than 500 beta comments on my novel. Cue the panic!

When you feel that panic and overwhelm — and you will — stop and take a deep breath. Remember: this isn’t about you; it’s about your book. They’re not the same. Pull your ego out of the equation and focus on writing the best book possible.

And if that means deleting 7,000 words from the end of your book and rewriting it, gird your fingers and hit the delete key. That’s what happened to me, and look: I survived.

How do you implement beta reader feedback?

Once you’ve beaten the inevitable freakout, you have to evaluate each piece of feedback to decide what to revise. Think critically about what your betas said and how it fits into what your book, characters or plot needs to accomplish.

If your book is about how you started your business, for example, and your beta says, “I want to know about your childhood,” but your childhood has nothing to do with the beginning of your business, you can ignore the comment. Yes, ignore. As the author, you have the power to accept or reject feedback.

Because I asked my betas to comment as they read, I created a new Word document with all 531 comments. New documents are important: If you decide your original wording is better, you want to be able to revert back. Tracking changes and creating new files makes this easy.

But before I changed anything in my manuscript, I went through each comment and made one decision: keep or delete.

Comment #1: “I like the disjointedness of the beginning.” Delete.

Comment #5: “You’ve used ‘eyes’ three times in two sentences.” Keep.

Comment #7: “The others didn’t notice the door?” Comment #8: “She’s been there how long, and she’s just now going through the door?” Keep. Keep.

Comment #13: “At what point does frostbite become an issue?” Though this is a good question, only one beta pointed it out, and she’s never experienced cold weather. Delete.

Once I’d gone through the entire document and deleted comments, the remaining ones became my new “needs-to-be-fixed” list. These items can range from tasks like copyediting (comment #5) to adding information (comments #7 and #8) to rewriting entire chapters (the last 7,000 words).

Don’t take feedback at face value — dig deeper. Notice how two comments expressed disbelief at the door. That’s a red flag. But it’s not just about answering their questions — it’s about understanding the missing story elements.

From their comments, I knew I had to flesh out the setting (why the door is hard to notice) and how the setting affects my characters (why one girl would wait to go through the door and why the others didn’t notice it). Confusion means you’re missing something, and it’s up to you to figure out what it is and how to fix it.

When you implement feedback, get in touch with your author gut. Your instincts will tell you what needs to be fixed and what’s fine as is. Listen to it. Not sure what a beta meant by a particular comment? Don’t be afraid to follow up with them to ask for clarification.

Once you’ve incorporated your beta feedback, you’re one step closer to hitting “Publish.” Congratulations — and best of luck with the final stages of the process!

Don’t forget to thank your beta readers

Finally, remember to thank your beta readers. Unless you paid them, your betas volunteered their time and effort to help you produce a better, stronger manuscript, so make sure to show your appreciation. 

I’ve found that all the beta readers I’ve worked with have been more than happy to simply receive a book for free, even if that means they have to leave feedback on it. Most are surprised and excited when I tell them they’ll also be receiving a print copy of the book when it’s finalized.

You don’t have to send out print books, but do make sure your beta readers feel appreciated for the time they put into helping you. If your betas are writers as well, you could even offer to be a beta for their future writing projects.

Have you worked with beta readers — or been one?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via Impact Photography / Shutterstock