I Tested Four Proofreading Tools So You Don’t Have To!

There are a lot of proofreading tools out there that claim they can edit your work. I first heard of Grammarly years ago and immediately didn’t trust it.I know that these programs are not 100% accurate; however, human error exists. Having a tool to catch all the smaller errors means that the human can spend more time and energy where it counts and your document gets a head start.

So, I finally had some of the most common proofreading tools check a chapter of my fiction story, which is a work-in-progress. I wanted to know how much these editors would mark “wrong” when it wasn’t, or miss things that were actually wrong. I tested 4 programs—Grammarly, Quillbot AI, Wordvice AI, and ProWritingAid (all were the free versions). I give a summary of my thoughts on each individual one (in no particular order) and then an overall summary at the end. I’ll spare you from the spreadsheet of each individual error caught, and by which specific program it was caught … I am a scientist at heart.

By the way, none of these programs are sponsored in any way. Maybe one day …

Grammarly

For no particular reason, Grammarly was my nemesis for years. I decided to finally try it and give it an honest chance. Surprisingly (to me at least), it actually did pretty well.

I liked that there was a desktop option and that it could be used with Scrivener, my personal writing program of choice. It did have issues the first time I ran it, which may have been user error because after that, it was fine. It was pretty good at catching grammar errors. It did find fewer errors overall than the other programs, which means it gave less false alarms, but it also missed some stuff. And it was using a different dictionary than I do, so I had to double-check all the spelling “errors.”

My rating: 5/10, and it has lost its nemesis status

Quillbot AI

Quillbot AI found roughly double the errors of Grammarly, which isn’t necessarily good. I also noticed it was catering to professional writing. It wanted the writing to be as concise as possible, which in fiction can change how the story feels. Not good. Something like “I was mildly upset” and “I was upset” have different feels to them even though both are technically correct. So each error had to be double-checked to see if it was actually helpful or not.

My rating: 6/10, be cautious with fiction writing

Wordvice AI

Honestly, I didn’t like Wordvice AI. This proofreading tool found a lot of things that weren’t errors, and most of the errors were marked as “unclear” or “awkward” without any explanation of what that meant or how to fix it. This bogged down the whole editing process.

The free option will only do 500 words at a time. Now, could you break your writing up into 500-word chunks for this proofreading tool to edit? Sure. I wouldn’t suggest that with human editors since they’re also checking the bigger picture.

My rating: -1/10, this is my new nemesis

ProWritingAid free online

I was pretty happy with this one, actually. It made about 60 suggestions, which was halfway in between Grammarly and Quillbot AI. It left more of my style choices and slang alone, which was nice. It still tried to make things more concise. Also, this program found an error, an actual error, that none of the other programs caught. The suggestion it gave was wrong, but it actually flagged the problem so I could fix it. Impressive.

Now, if you want this proofreading tool on your computer, it looks like it’s $10/month or you have limiters like word count, etc.

My rating: 7.5/10, may actually use this in the future

How do I feel about proofreading tools now?

My original bias of “Humans are always better!” was somewhat unwarranted. Except Wordvice AI. glares

Yes, humans understand nuances better, but they aren’t perfect. There’s no problem using both. In that case, I’d have the human read through after the program.

I was also surprised at how helpful it was to have the program look at it. I’ve read through that chapter so many times that I go cross-eyed whenever I look at it. A proofreading tool is another set of eyes to catch the things you’ve overlooked. It guides you to what needs a closer look.

Will I use one of these proofreading tools in the future? Probably. Just remember, every “error” is a suggestion, even with human editors. In the end, it’s your story.

P.S. Here are the links to the different programs if you want to check them out yourself.
https://app.grammarly.com
https://quillbot.com/online-proofreader
https://wordvice.ai/proofreading
https://prowritingaid.com/proofreading-tool

Hello! I'm Amanda Rosehart and I'm the founder of Manatee Editing. My goal is to help writers so that their work is polished and ready for the public. Outside of work, I love playing games with friends and family, reading books (especially fantasy), and doing different DIY crafts around the house.

Want to work with me?