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Verified Free / Software

Is Grammarly actually free?

Free-ish
How free60/100
Value6/10
How these scores work
Free Score (0–100) follows a fixed rubric: cards up front, auto-billing, hard time cutoffs, withheld core features, and paying with your data or attention all deduct points. 90–100 truly free · 70–89 free forever · 45–69 squeezed · 15–44 trial mechanics · under 15 fake or gone. Value (0–10) is editorial: real-world worth of the free offering measured against its paid equivalent. Full rubric on the methodology page.

Sort of. Basic spelling and grammar checking is genuinely free with no card — but the app constantly shows you grayed-out 'advanced' fixes it won't reveal.

What it’s worth

Premium runs about $144/year; the free layer catches the embarrassing mistakes.

What you get free

  • Core spelling, grammar, and punctuation checking
  • Works across your browser, email, and docs
  • Tone detection basics

In practice: it catches the typos and grammar slips that embarrass you — the safety-net layer is genuinely free.

Drawbacks

  • Constant Premium nagging with grayed-out fixes
  • Your text is processed on their servers
  • Free suggestions stay surface-level

Also paywalled

  • Full-sentence rewrites and clarity suggestions
  • Advanced tone and word-choice fixes
  • Plagiarism detection

Free facts

VerdictFree-ish
Card requiredNo
Auto-bills—
AccountRequired
LimitsAdvanced suggestions locked
The real costAn account, your text on their servers, and constant Premium nudges.

The catch

Showing you the number of Premium suggestions it's withholding is the business model. Also worth knowing: your writing is processed on their servers.

The smart play

  • Never paste confidential text — your writing is processed on their servers
  • The free browser extension already covers email and docs; you don't need more
  • For rewrites, a free AI chat assistant does what Premium charges $144/year for

More info — tap to expand

Where your text actually goes
Suggestions are computed on Grammarly's servers, which means your prose transits their cloud. For personal writing that's a normal trade; for confidential client or legal material, it's a reason to pause the extension on those tabs.
The withheld-suggestions meter
Free shows you a count of 'advanced suggestions' it found but won't reveal — clarity rewrites, tone shifts, word choice. That number is the sales pitch. A free AI assistant will happily do full rewrites if you paste the text, which quietly deflates the Premium case.

Last checked: August 2026 · Verdict: Free-ish — a free tier exists, but it's shaped to squeeze you toward paying.

Ratings elsewhereTrustpilot 4.4/5G2 4.7/5Live scores from the sources named — not ours. Store counts rounded.

What users actually say

Trustpilot 4.4/5 · G2 4.7/5 — rare agreement between consumer and business reviewers.

What they praiseBoth audiences credit the same thing: it catches what a spellchecker misses, in whatever box you're typing into, and the free tier alone measurably tidies up writing.
What they complain aboutThe recurring frustrations are the upsell mechanics — being shown a running count of the Premium suggestions being withheld — and unease about text being processed on Grammarly's servers. Cancellation friction appears in a minority of negative reviews.

One of the few listings where the crowd is broadly happy. The thing to weigh isn't quality or billing — it's whether you want your drafts leaving your machine.

Our reading of the public review record — patterns, not quotes. Scores link to their sources above.

Visit Grammarly →

Was this verdict right?

Free tiers change without notice. If you have just used it, you know something we don't.

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