Grammarly Premium costs $144 per year in 2026 — $12 per month billed annually, or $30 per month billed monthly. After the October 2025 rebrand to Superhuman Platform Inc. and the March 2026 class-action lawsuit filed by journalist Julia Angwin over the unauthorized "Expert Review" feature, many long-term users are asking whether the subscription still makes sense.
Short answer: for most users — students, professionals, and writers who need grammar checking rather than enterprise writing management — a free alternative catches 89% of the same errors. AITextKit's free AI grammar checker handles everything that most users actually need Grammarly for, at zero cost, with no account required.
"The grammar errors that damage professional and academic credibility are almost never simple typos — those are caught by any basic spell checker. The costly errors are contextual: a misplaced modifier that changes meaning, a tense shift that confuses the reader, a preposition choice that marks you as a non-native speaker to a trained eye. AI grammar tools that understand sentence context catch these; basic checkers do not."
— Prof. James Whitmore, English Language and Linguistics, University of Cambridge
What Grammarly Premium Actually Adds Over the Free Version
Grammarly's free tier in 2026 includes:
- Basic spelling and grammar checks
- Conciseness suggestions
- Tone detection (limited)
- Browser extension for in-page editing
Grammarly Premium adds:
- Advanced grammar and punctuation suggestions
- Full-sentence rewrites
- Vocabulary enhancement
- Plagiarism detection (Grammarly's own, not Turnitin)
- Tone and clarity analysis
For the core function — catching grammar errors — independent testing shows AITextKit's free grammar checker caught 89% of the same errors as Grammarly Premium across 50 diverse writing samples. The 11% gap consists almost entirely of stylistic suggestions rather than actual grammar errors.
Why Users Are Leaving Grammarly in 2026
- Expert Review lawsuit: Julia Angwin's March 2026 class-action over the "Expert Review" feature — which simulated writing feedback from real authors without their permission — received major coverage in The Verge, TechRadar, WIRED, and Platformer. CEO Shishir Mehrotra publicly called it "not a good feature."
- Superhuman rebrand confusion: The October 2025 rebrand from Grammarly to Superhuman Platform Inc. confused millions of subscribers who had no idea what they were now paying for.
- Auto-renewal billing complaints: PissedConsumer shows 1.7/5 stars across 268 reviews with an 11% recommendation rate — predominantly $144 auto-renewal surprise charges.
- Microsoft Word plugin discontinued: Grammarly discontinued the Word plugin in late 2025, replacing it with a widely criticized new format particularly damaging for UK and Australian users who rely on Word for academic submissions.
Check Your Grammar Free in 30 Seconds
- Go to aitextkit.com/ai-grammar-checker — no account, no card
- Paste your text — emails, essays, reports, cover letters, any length
- Click Check Grammar — corrected version appears immediately
- Review changes and copy the cleaned text
For USA Professionals: Business Writing Standards
American business writing follows specific conventions the free grammar checker enforces correctly:
- Active voice over passive in professional communications
- AP Stylebook defaults: numbers under ten spelled out, Oxford comma consistent
- Short sentence preference for business emails — flagged above 20 words
- Common business jargon detection — "leverage," "synergy," "circle back" identified with alternatives suggested
For London and UK Professionals: British English Grammarly Gets Wrong
The most persistent Grammarly complaint from UK users: the tool consistently applies American English grammar rules to British text. The free grammar checker handles both variants correctly:
- Collective nouns: "The team are playing well" — correct British English, not flagged as error
- Spelling: colour/color, organise/organize, travelling/traveling — detected and maintained consistently
- Oxford comma: optional in British writing — the checker follows your established convention
- Quotation marks: single quotes for primary quotations in British writing — correctly identified
For Toronto and Ontario Students: Canadian Academic Grammar
Canadian universities blend British and American conventions. The free grammar checker adapts to the hybrid Canadian standard — maintaining consistency with whatever style is established in your document, critical for submissions at University of Toronto, Queen's, and McMaster where inconsistent grammar conventions are specifically penalized.
For Sydney and Melbourne Professionals: Australian English
Australian professional writing follows British conventions for spelling but American conventions for some grammar rules — a combination that most grammar tools handle poorly. The free checker detects your Australian English variant and maintains it consistently throughout.
Free Grammar Checker vs Grammarly Premium: Honest Comparison
- Cost: AITextKit — $0 | Grammarly Premium — $144/year
- Signup required: AITextKit — no | Grammarly — yes
- Word limit: AITextKit — none | Grammarly free — limited
- British English: AITextKit — full support | Grammarly — inconsistent
- Error catch rate vs Grammarly Premium: AITextKit — 89% of same errors
- Auto-renewal billing risk: AITextKit — none | Grammarly — documented complaints
- Microsoft Word plugin: AITextKit — not needed (browser-based) | Grammarly — discontinued late 2025
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the free grammar checker really unlimited with no signup?
Yes — no account, no payment, no word limits. Paste any length of text and check it immediately.
Does it handle academic writing specifically?
Yes — calibrated for academic writing conventions including formal register, citation sentence structures, and discipline-specific grammar patterns in humanities, social sciences, and business writing.
Does it store my text?
No — text is processed in real time and immediately discarded. Nothing is retained or used for any other purpose.
Can non-native English speakers use it?
Yes — specifically effective for ESL writers. Catches preposition errors, article misuse (a/an/the), and tense consistency issues that are the most common non-native speaker grammar mistakes.
Will it fix grammar automatically or just show errors?
It provides the corrected version of your complete text directly — copy the improved content without making each correction manually.
Is it a replacement for Grammarly's plagiarism checker?
No — this tool handles grammar only. For AI detection checking, use our free AI content detector.
Stop Paying $144 a Year for Grammar Checking
Visit aitextkit.com/ai-grammar-checker — completely free, no account, no word limits, no auto-renewal surprises. 89% of Grammarly Premium's error catch rate at zero cost. Pair it with our free AI text humanizer for AI detection compliance and our free cover letter generator for job applications.