Our BloggingTips Breakdown
Cons
- ProWritingAid’s focus on web content for its database means that some forms of creative writing won’t get the same level of feedback as nonfiction writing.
- There is no included plagiarism checker as the company requires separate fees for every check on their website
- Large files uploaded into ProWritingAid can cause the standalone program to lag, preventing fast turnaround times compared to breaking the text up
Pros
- ProWritingAid offers plenty of basic and advanced revision tools to improve your writing and works on most operating systems and applications.
- Access to basic and advanced editing tools to clean up writing
- Integrations with many popular writing apps like Scrivener and Google Drive
- Regular updates to its tools and databases to keep delivering quality editing suggestions
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Contact us for QuestionsWriting assistants have come a long way over the years.
Now more than ever, writers are flush with options for AI assistants, applications that will help them craft and revise their projects for the Web.
ProWritingAid has offered this service to writers for almost a decade now.
So, with this ProWritingAid review, let’s check out what makes ProWritingAid a valuable tool for many writers and how a writer can ensure they get the most out of their subscription.
Overview of ProWritingAid
First, let’s start with a quick look at what ProWritingAid is and what they do as a service.
What is ProWritingAid?
ProWritingAid is an AI-backed writing tool designed to help writers improve their writing.
Between basic functions like spell check tools and advanced features like detailed writing reports, ProWritingAid gives writers guidance on how to improve their writing to deliver their message to their target audience.
ProWritingAid History
ProWritingAid was founded back in 2012 to help writers use AI software to improve their writing.
The company views its tool as a way to clean up writing before sending it out to an editor, improving the chances the writing is picked up and reducing the time between draft and publication.
Since its founding, the company has grown to employ roughly 30 employees and generate an average of $4 million per year.
Pros and Cons of ProWritingAid
There are some pros and cons to using ProWritingAid:
Pros of ProWritingAid
The benefits of using ProWritingAid include:
- Access to basic and advanced editing tools to clean up writing
- Integrations with many popular writing apps like Scrivener and Google Drive
- Regular updates to its tools and databases to keep delivering quality editing suggestions
Cons of ProWritingAid
However, there are some downsides with ProWritingAid, such as:
- There is no included plagiarism checker as the company requires separate fees for every check on their website
- Large files uploaded into ProWritingAid can cause the standalone program to lag, preventing fast turnaround times compared to breaking the text up
How Much Does ProWritingAid Cost?
The cost of ProWritingAid depends on how much you want your subscription fee to be and if you want to buy access to the program forever.
The monthly subscription ranges between $6.67 and $20 per month for access to the premium features.
Opting into a yearly subscription gets you a lower dollar amount, while buying month-to-month is more expensive.
If you’d rather not mess around with subscriptions, paying $399 upfront gets you access to ProWritingAid’s premium features for your lifetime.
Pro Tip: Take advantage of any ProWritingAid discounts that are being offered.
If there are none being offered at the time of signup, reach out to support.
The competition in this space is fierce, so the sales team will likely work with you to get you on board.
Is ProWritingAid Worth the Cost?
Overall, the cost of ProWritingAid is worth the price they charge for any serious writer.
Why ProWritingAid Is Worth the Cost
It’s easy to underestimate how much reviewing a draft can improve one’s writing.
While going through a draft with basic tools will help a writer catch some mistakes, the ability to identify more advanced or technical mistakes with writing can help a writer take their work to the next level.
ProWritingAid has dozens of tools packaged into one place that a writer can use to review their writing before sending it out for review or publication.
Given that the cost of this tool can be as little as $7 per month, ProWritingAid is worth it for anyone that writes for their job.
The Problem ProWritingAid Solves
ProWritingAid helps solve the troubles some writers have when it comes to getting feedback on their writing.
While basic tools can catch spelling or grammar mistakes, only advanced tools like this app will catch more nuanced issues like repetition or tone issues.
Why Would Somebody Want to Use ProWritingAid?
Writers want to send their best work out to editors.
By using advanced revision tools like ProWritingAid, a writer can better review and tweak their writing to reduce the workload needed by the editor and writer to get the piece into a better position.
Who Is ProWritingAid Best For?
Overall, ProWritingAid is great for any writer trying to improve their writing.
Rather than run the risk of having a piece send back or outright rejected, writers can use ProWritingAid to check for mistakes and improvements in their writing for almost any nonfiction application.
Why ProWritingAid Is Best for Business Writing
ProWritingAid works best for business writing thanks to the way the tools are focused.
While this software can work with fiction works, it won’t recognize some of the proper nouns used for some genres like fantasy or sci-fi.
With business writing, ProWritingAid can compare your writing to other writing online and more easily make comparisons and suggestions thanks to the huge amount of web pages out there for businesses.
Who Should NOT Use ProWritingAid?
ProWritingAids with most genres and styles of writing, but certain writers will get more out of this tool than others.
Why Poets Should Not Use ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid doesn’t work well for poetry, mostly due to the database backing ProWritingIAd.
Poetry hasn’t had the same support and uses online as educational or news articles.
So, the algorithm backing ProWritingAid is geared more toward nonfiction writing than it is more stylistic genres like poetry.
Poets will be able to use ProWritingAid for some basic functions and as a source of inspiration from the thesaurus.
However, the analytic tools in ProWritingAid won’t help with the things that matter more in poetry, like meter and rhyme.
What to Think About Before Buying ProWritingAid
Before you grab a subscription for ProWritingAid, you’ll want to keep a few questions in mind about your writing first:
How Much Writing Do You Do?
While everyone has to write a little bit for their jobs, most folks won’t need ProWritingAid to tackle the amount or type of writing they do.
Most writing for office professionals consists of basic communications like emails and presentation outlines.
These formats of writing will do well with the basic proofreading tools out there, like the spell checker in Microsoft Word.
So, before you pick up the premium version of this app, you might want to reconsider if the amount of writing you do is minimal or if the tone tends to be casual or conversational.
How Much Revision Do You Need for Your Writing?
As mentioned earlier, most writing for the average working professional will just be to communicate some ideas to folks within the department or company.
There’s no optimization needed to get a search engine’s attention or to set the right tone or voice in these kinds of tasks.
So, unless you usually run your work emails or presentations by an editor first, ProWritingAid won’t add much to your writing’s effectiveness.
Where Do You Do Your Editing/Revision Work?
ProWritingAid has plenty of ways you can integrate the app into your workflow.
Regardless of if you use the web app, the standalone program, or the browser extension, you can get the tools needed to revise your writing.
But, there’s one place you won’t be native support for ProWritingAid: your smartphone.
As of now, ProWritingAid doesn’t have a mobile app for either Android or iOS devices.
The closest you’ll get is by logging into the web application from your mobile browser and copying text into the field there.
While this might work out okay for the occasional on-the-go revisions, it won’t be pleasant to rely on this avenue compared to the desktop computer experience.
Can You Get By With Just the Free Version?
Assuming you can get good use of ProWritingAid, it’s worth thinking about how much you could get from just the free version of the application.
For free users, there is a 500-word cap on the number of words you can have reviewed by ProWritingAid – this isn’t a huge amount, but it could be good for double-checking the occasional important email or company announcement.
If you don’t need to review articles or manuscripts every day, you might be able to get by with just the free version of ProWritingAid, saving money in the long run.
Subscription vs. One-Time Fee
Finally, ProWritingAid offers both a subscription fee model and a one-time fee model to get access to their revision tools.
It’s worth considering how long you plan on using ProWritingAid before choosing a payment method for yourself.
Say, for example, you plan on using ProWritingAid for the next five years.
If you pay annually, that means you will spend about $400 over those five years for access to the application – this is almost identical to the one-time fee for the software.
So, if you want to use ProWritingAid for the rest of your writing career, the one-time fee makes sense.
Otherwise, you might be better using ProWritingAid for a year or two and keeping an eye out for new developments in AI writing assistants.
Features and Benefits of ProWritingAid
So, with those thoughts in mind, here are the main draws and benefits of using ProWritingAid:
1. Grammar/Syntax Correction
ProWritingAid’s main feature is its grammar and syntax issue detection and correction.
The program uses AI-supported databases to look for the most common writing errors in submitted writing and highlights those issues to the user.
The app also suggest what changes to make to fix the error.
This feature is the big reason folks will use the app’s free version.
Plus, thanks to offering a web app and browser extension, ProWritingAid brings this feature to plenty of integrated platforms for the free and premium users.
2. Numerous Editing Tools
Included with the premium version of ProWritingAid is a broader range of editing tools than just a grammar and syntax checker.
Other facets of writing, such as writing style and word choice, can be analyzed using ProWritingAid’s capabilities.
One example of this is ProWritingAid’s phrase repetition detector.
This application scans documents and notices when a writer repeats a phrase too much within a set word count.
Pointing this out for the writer gives them a chance to vary their word choice to keep their writing from sounding stale.
ProWritingAid also lets writers review how their writing sounds when compared to different tones or audiences.
Sentence structure or sentence order can affect how a piece of writing comes across to a reader.
So, giving writers a chance to see if their piece matches the tone or audience they want to target can be a big help.
3. Thesaurus and Inspiration Tools
To help with writer’s block, ProWritingAid adds some ways for premium writers to find the words they need.
The software has a built0in thesaurus that writers can go through to find the word they need at the moment based on context, mood, or tone.
While giving writers a way to continue their writing, this also can be a way to get inspiration for a piece.
Sorting through the thesaurus based on categories like emotion can give writers an anchor to their creative works, allowing the writer to focus on crafting their writing.
4. Wide Platform Support
ProWritingAid has many integrations, mostly with popular apps like Google Drive, Scrivener, and Microsoft Word.
Even if your favorite app is not part of ProWritingAid’s integrations, writers can use both the web application and browser extension, depending on their preference.
The extension works on any Chrome-based web browser.
There is also a standalone program you can download onto your device.
This program works just like the web app or browser extension, except you have to copy the text into the text field of the program to use ProWritingAid’s review tools.
When finished, a writer can copy and paste the reviewed text into whatever program or app they need the text to go to.
You can also export the text as a document or similar file type to send off to a coworker or collaborator.
5. Deep Writing Reports
Finally, ProWritingAid has over 20 different types of writing reports they can generate for your writing.
Each report focuses on a different facet of writing and provides feedback on what you can change to improve in that area of writing.
For example, some writing reports visualize your average sentence length and sentence structure variety.
By taking these tips into account, a writer can improve their writing for the future.
ProWritingAid Customer Service
Next, let’s look at what ProWriting has in the way of customer service:
Does ProWritingAid Have Customer Service?
ProWritingAid does offer customer service.
Their main avenue for providing this support is through an email portal that lets users send in their questions or issues for review.
What Types of Customer Service Does ProWritingAid Offer?
When you send in an email to support, you will have to provide a couple of pieces of info.
In addition to a summary of the issue at hand, you will also select your query type from a handful of options like customer support, press details, or suggestions.
ProWritingAid also has an FAQ page for their users to look at, too.
This page features over 100 articles covering some of the common questions their customers have asked in the past.
Reviewing these FAQs will give most users a way to fix their issue or act as somewhere to start troubleshooting on their end before sending an email to ProWritingAid.
Why Should You Trust Us?
We know that writing is hard.
Our brand is dedicated to helping writers start blogging, which is only one part of the umbrella of writing careers.
So, we search across the Web looking for tools that will help writers stay productive and professional, all while saving time and headache down the road!
What ProWritingAid Users Are Saying
ProWritingAid users have plenty to say about their experiences with the program.
The main theme is improvements in writing.
Many users mention in reviews that ProWritingAid offers suggestions that improve not only their writing but also their understanding of how to direct their writing to an audience.
The writing reports are a major contributor to these testimonies.
The visual displays detailing different writing metrics make it easy to see what needs working on for the future.
Finally, reports claim that customer services tend to resolve issues quickly.
Given that this tool is needed for writing professionals, a quick turnaround on customer services means less time lost on writing projects.
ProWritingAid Alternatives
In case you want to look at some alternatives, here are some competitors to ProWritingAid:
1. Grammarly
Grammarly is another AI writing assistant meant to help writers revise for writing mistakes and receive feedback.
How Does Grammarly Differ From ProWritingAid?
Grammarly focuses more on the revision side of editing than the improvement tools ProWritingAid offers.
Most of Grammarly’s features tie back to improving submitted writing rather than getting feedback on what to do next time.
However, Grammarly’s plagiarism checker is included with their premium services, unlike ProWritingAid.
Who Is Grammarly For?
Grammarly is for writers and editors that focus on improving individual writing pieces rather than honing their craft as a writer.
It has good response times, and the enterprise version is cheaper than ProWritingAid’s.
2. Hemingway Editor
Hemingway Editor is a web application meant to help writers improve their writing by helping simplify it.
How Does Hemingway Editor Differ From ProWritingAid?
This program follows the writing principles made famous by Hemingway’s writing style.
It points out adverb usage, lengthy sentences, and other points in the writing that can trip up readers.
It also features a reading grade level to help writers simplify their writing for their target audience.
Who Is Hemingway Editor For?
Hemingway Editor is for writers that need help cutting their writing down.
While adverbs and run-on sentences can feel great to use, they trip up the average reader and prevent them from understanding what you are trying to say.
This app will not help fix things like grammar and syntax errors, though.
3. Paper Rater
Paper Rater is an online proofreading application meant to help students craft essays that will grade high.
How Does Paper Rater Differ From ProWritingAid?
Paper Rater is geared specifically for students with its features.
Chief among these is a free plagiarism checker and mock grade generator to help students figure out what grade they might get from their teachers.
While this app has many standard revision tools, it does not have the same level of depth as ProWritingAid.
Who Is Paper Rater For?
Paper Rater is for students trying to improve their assignments before submitting them to the teacher.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some of the common questions out there about ProWritingAid.
Can ProWritingAid replace an editor?
ProWritingAid cannot replace a good editor.
This application will help find problems in your writing, but it cannot make value judgments about how the piece will fit with the publisher.
Trained editors know not just how to revise writing mistakes but also how to identify if the piece will work for the publication.
What software do professional proofreaders use?
Most professional proofreaders use a combination of a word processor like Microsoft Word and an advanced writing analysis tool like ProWritingAid to review writing.
These tools give a proofreader ways to find mistakes, repetition, and other frequent writing mistakes quickly.
Wrapping Up
ProWritingAid is a powerful tool for most writers.
Using the standard revision tools alongside the writing reports can give a writer plenty of insight into how to improve their writing both now and in the future.
Combined with the low monthly price, this app can be a great tool to have on hand for years and years.
If you haven’t used ProWritingAid, they offer a free trial for their premium service.
Checking out that free trial will give you an idea of if this application is the right one for you and your writing career!
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