Grammarly vs QuillBot (2026): Which AI Writing Assistant Is Better?

For most people, Grammarly is the better AI writing assistant. It catches more kinds of problems as you type, it works in more places (including a proper mobile keyboard and desktop apps), and its free plan is useful on its own. If you write emails, reports, cover letters or blog posts and just want them to read cleanly, install Grammarly Free and see if you ever feel the need to pay.

QuillBot wins on one thing, and it wins it clearly: rewriting text. Its paraphraser, with multiple modes and a synonym slider, is still the best reason anyone opens QuillBot. It's also cheaper. Premium costs $99.95 a year versus $144 a year for Grammarly Pro, and it bundles a summarizer, citation generator, translator and plagiarism checker. If your writing life is mostly reworking sources, tightening drafts, or summarizing reading, QuillBot is the better buy.

Below: what each plan costs in September 2026, what changed after Grammarly's company became Superhuman, and which tool fits which kind of writer.

Quick verdict

Our pick

G

Grammarly

4.5

Best for: Professionals and anyone who wants polished writing everywhere they type · Free; Pro $12/mo billed annually ($30 month-to-month)

Grammarly is the pick for most people. It's the stronger real-time editor, it follows you into nearly every app, and its free tier covers the basics well. Pay for Pro if you need plagiarism checks, AI detection or heavy use of generative rewrites.

Pick QuillBot instead if paraphrasing and summarizing are your main jobs, if you want plagiarism checking for less money, or if you're a student on a tight budget.

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What changed in 2025–2026

Two things matter if you last looked at these tools a couple of years ago.

Grammarly the company is now called Superhuman. On October 29, 2025, Grammarly renamed itself Superhuman and folded Grammarly, Coda and Superhuman Mail into one suite, plus a new AI assistant called Superhuman Go. TechCrunch's coverage notes that the Grammarly product keeps its name. So you still install "Grammarly," you still see the green icon, and the individual plans are still Free, Pro and Enterprise. The rebrand mainly matters if you're buying for a team and want the wider Superhuman suite.

Grammarly added AI agents and its own editor. In August 2025 it launched Grammarly Docs, a writing surface with specialized agents: Reader Reactions, AI Grader, Citation Finder, Expert Review, Proofreader, Paraphraser, Plagiarism Checker and AI Detector among them. That's Grammarly moving onto QuillBot's turf, with a paraphraser of its own and a citation tool, though plagiarism and AI detection stay on the paid plan.

QuillBot, meanwhile, has kept expanding sideways. Its free tier now includes the Paraphraser, Grammar Checker, AI Detector, AI Humanizer, Summarizer, Citation Generator and Translate, according to its own free-plan FAQ. QuillBot is owned by Learneo, the company that also runs Course Hero and LanguageTool.

Plans and prices (September 2026)

Grammarly figures come from its plans page and support article on Pro pricing. QuillBot figures are from its Premium pricing FAQ.

The monthly prices tell the story. Grammarly Pro at $30 a month is steep for anyone who needs it for a single semester or one big project. QuillBot's monthly plan is two-thirds of that, and QuillBot also lets you pause your subscription when you're not using it. If you're going to pay either one, pay annually. The discount is large on both.

Feature comparison

Grammarly vs QuillBot at a glance (September 2026)

Feature	WinnerGGrammarly	QQuillBot
Our rating	4.5	4.2
Pricing	Free; Pro $12/mo billed annually ($30 month-to-month)	Free; Premium $8.33/mo billed annually ($19.95 monthly)
Best for	Professionals and anyone who wants polished writing everywhere they type	Paraphrasing, summarizing and budget-conscious students
Starting paid price	$12/mo billed annually	$8.33/mo billed annually
Free AI usage	100 AI prompts per month	Paraphraser capped at 125 words per run
Free paraphrasing modes	Rewrites via AI prompts	2 (Standard and Fluency)
Paid paraphrasing	Unlimited paragraph rewrites on Pro	9 modes, no word cap, custom modes
Plagiarism checker	Pro and Enterprise only	Premium only, 25,000 words per month
Translation	Free translator, in-app translation on Pro	Free, 50+ languages
Mobile keyboard	Yes	Yes
Opt out of AI training	Yes	Yes

A note on the checkmarks: "AI detector" means the feature exists somewhere in the product. Grammarly keeps its AI detector on paid plans, while QuillBot lists its AI Detector among its free tools. For "Citation generator," Grammarly's version is the Citation Finder agent in Grammarly Docs, which looks for supporting sources, while QuillBot's is a classic generator that formats APA, MLA and Chicago citations from a URL or title.

Grammar checking

This is Grammarly's home ground. It was built as a real-time editor first, and it shows. The free plan covers spelling, grammar and punctuation plus tone detection, and suggestions pop up underlined as you write in your email client, browser, Word or Google Docs. Pro adds full-sentence rewrites, tone adjustments, fluency suggestions and inclusive-language checks, per the plans page.

QuillBot's grammar checker is solid for the basics. Per its help center, free users get grammar, spelling and punctuation fixes, while Premium adds Advanced Recommendations (passive voice, repetitive phrasing, clarity rewrites) and Tone Insights. So the tone feedback Grammarly gives away for free is a paid feature at QuillBot.

Here's an illustrative example of how the two approaches differ. Take a sentence like "Per our discussion, the report which I sent yesterday have some mistakes that needs fixing." Both tools are designed to flag the subject-verb agreement errors. Grammarly's design goes further in the moment: it's built to also suggest tightening the wordy clause and to show you, via tone detection, that the sentence might read as blunt. QuillBot's natural move is to send you to the Paraphraser for a cleaner version. Neither is wrong. They just reflect what each company built first.

Paraphrasing and rewriting

Flip it around and QuillBot leads. The Paraphraser is its flagship. Free users can rewrite up to 125 words at a time in Standard and Fluency modes, per QuillBot's help center. Premium removes the word cap and opens up all the modes, including Formal, Simple, Creative, Academic, Expand, Shorten and Humanize, plus custom modes you define yourself.

That mode system is what Grammarly doesn't really replicate. With Grammarly, you highlight text and ask the AI to rewrite it, shorten it or change its tone, which is flexible but prompt-driven. QuillBot gives you a dial. You pick "Shorten" and a synonym level and compare versions side by side. For a non-native English writer who wants to see three ways of saying the same thing, or a blogger trimming a bloated intro, that's faster.

Grammarly's generative side is broader, though. Its AI prompts can draft emails, reply to messages, brainstorm outlines and rewrite paragraphs, with 100 prompts a month on Free, 2,000 per member on Pro and unlimited on Enterprise, according to the plans page. QuillBot has its own AI chat and Co-Writer features, but most people use it for transforming text they already have, not generating new text from scratch. If you want an actual drafting tool for marketing copy, neither is the strongest option. See our roundup of the best AI writing tools for bloggers and marketers for dedicated generators like Jasper.

AI detection, plagiarism and humanizing

Both tools now sell into the same anxiety: "Will this get flagged?"

• Plagiarism. Neither offers it free. Grammarly includes plagiarism detection on Pro and Enterprise. QuillBot's Premium includes 25,000 words of plagiarism scanning per month, with the option to buy more.
• AI detection. Grammarly's AI detector is on paid plans. QuillBot lists its AI Detector as a free tool.
• Humanizing. QuillBot has a dedicated AI Humanizer, with a free tier that handles up to 125 words at a time. Grammarly's agent lineup focuses on proofreading, paraphrasing and citations rather than a tool marketed specifically for disguising AI text.

A word of caution for students: AI detectors from any company produce false positives and negatives, and running AI output through a humanizer to dodge your school's policy is the kind of thing that ends badly. We cover the integrity side properly in our guide to AI tools for students writing essays.

The extras: summarizer, citations, translator

QuillBot's bundle is its best value argument. Summarizer, Citation Generator and Translate are all available on the free plan. The citation generator handles APA, MLA and Chicago, and the translator covers 50+ languages. If you're a student juggling readings and references, that's a lot of free utility in one tab.

Grammarly now has a free web translator covering 50+ languages, and Pro adds translation right where you're writing, which is handy for anyone emailing across languages. It doesn't have a stand-alone summarizer comparable to QuillBot's, though its AI prompts can summarize selected text. If summarizing long documents is your main need, a chatbot may do it better than either. Our guide to summarizing long PDFs with AI for free walks through the options.

Where they work

Both cover the essentials: browser extensions, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, desktop apps and mobile. QuillBot lists extensions for Chrome, Safari and Edge, desktop apps for Windows and macOS, and iOS and Android apps, plus a Word add-in.

Grammarly's integration story is deeper, though. It runs on Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, has desktop apps, and offers a mobile keyboard that checks writing in any app on your phone. Its parent company claims more than 40 million daily users and over 1 million app and website integrations. In practice, Grammarly is the one that quietly shows up in Slack, Gmail, LinkedIn and your CMS without you thinking about it. QuillBot tends to be a place you go to, not a layer that follows you.

Privacy and data use

Both companies let individual users stop their text from being used to train AI models, but both have it switched on by default.

Grammarly says it never sells your content or lets third parties train on it. Free, Pro and single-user accounts can turn off the Product Improvement and Training setting in account privacy settings. It's on by default for individuals.

QuillBot updated its privacy policy in November 2025. It offers two separate controls: one to stop storing your text inputs (available to everyone) and one to stop using them for model training (account holders only). Team plan inputs aren't used for training by default.

Our advice is the same for both: flip the training toggle off on day one if you paste in client work, contracts or anything personal. And for regulated or confidential material, use a business plan with a proper data agreement, or keep it out of consumer AI tools entirely.

Which one should you choose?

G

Grammarly Our pick

4.5

Visit Grammarly(opens in a new tab)

Pricing

Free; Pro $12/mo billed annually ($30 month-to-month)

Best for

Professionals and anyone who wants polished writing everywhere they type

Choose Grammarly if you're a professional writing emails, reports, proposals or LinkedIn posts all day. The real-time checks and tone detection catch the small stuff that makes writing look careless, and they work in almost every app you use. It's also the better fit if you'll use AI to draft replies or rework paragraphs inside your normal tools. Tidying up a résumé? Pair it with our guide to rewriting your CV with AI.

Start on Free. Upgrade to Pro only if you hit the 100-prompt ceiling regularly or need plagiarism and AI detection.

Q

QuillBot

4.2

Visit QuillBot(opens in a new tab)

Pricing

Free; Premium $8.33/mo billed annually ($19.95 monthly)

Best for

Paraphrasing, summarizing and budget-conscious students

Choose QuillBot if your writing involves reworking existing text: paraphrasing research notes, adjusting a draft to a different register, summarizing sources and building a bibliography. It's also the budget pick. Premium is cheaper than Grammarly Pro and includes plagiarism scanning.

It's a good match for non-native English writers who want to compare different phrasings side by side, and for bloggers who need to shorten or restructure drafts quickly.

By user type

• Students: QuillBot for value, since its free summarizer, citation generator and paraphraser cover a lot of coursework. Many students run Grammarly Free alongside it for proofreading, which costs nothing.
• Professionals: Grammarly. Real-time tone checks in email and chat matter more than a paraphrasing dial.
• Non-native English writers: It's close. Grammarly catches errors and explains tone as you go, which helps you learn. QuillBot's Fluency and Formal modes are faster for turning an awkward sentence into a natural one. If you can only pick one, Grammarly teaches more; QuillBot fixes faster.
• Bloggers and marketers: Grammarly for final polish, QuillBot for reshaping drafts. Neither is a full content generator. If you're drafting with AI, our guide to writing a blog post with AI that doesn't sound robotic matters more than which checker you use.

The bottom line

Grammarly is the better everyday writing assistant, and its free plan is the one to install first. QuillBot is the better rewriting toolkit and the cheaper subscription. If you're paying for only one and your main goal is clean, professional writing across your apps, pay for Grammarly. If you're paying for only one and your main goal is paraphrasing, summarizing and checking plagiarism on a budget, pay for QuillBot.

Frequently asked questions

Is Grammarly still called Grammarly after the Superhuman rebrand?

Yes. The company changed its name to Superhuman in October 2025, but the Grammarly product kept its name. Individual plans are still Free, Pro and Enterprise. The Superhuman suite bundles Grammarly with Superhuman Mail, Coda-based docs and the Superhuman Go assistant for teams that want all of it.

Is QuillBot free to use?

Yes, with limits. The free plan includes the Paraphraser (125 words at a time, Standard and Fluency modes), Grammar Checker, AI Detector, AI Humanizer, Summarizer, Citation Generator and Translate. The plagiarism checker and the other paraphrasing modes require Premium.

Which is cheaper, Grammarly Pro or QuillBot Premium?

QuillBot Premium. It's $99.95 a year or $19.95 month to month, compared with $144 a year or $30 month to month for Grammarly Pro.

Does Grammarly have a paraphrasing tool now?

Yes. Grammarly added a Paraphraser agent in Grammarly Docs, and its AI prompts can rewrite text anywhere it runs. QuillBot's mode-based paraphraser is still more specialized, though, especially if you want to compare several rewrites quickly.

Can I stop Grammarly or QuillBot from training AI on my writing?

Yes, both let individual users opt out, but the setting is on by default. In Grammarly, turn off Product Improvement and Training in your account's privacy settings. In QuillBot, you can separately turn off storing your inputs and using them for model training.