Grammarly Review: What I Learned After 3 Months of Daily Use
I started using Grammarly back in April. Not because I wanted to — my editor basically told me to. She was tired of fixing the same mistakes in my drafts week after week.
Three months later, I have some thoughts that go beyond what you will find on the marketing page.
The Setup
I write about 3,000 words a week. Mostly blog posts, some email newsletters, the occasional landing page. Before Grammarly, I would publish and hope for the best. After, I run everything through the editor first.
The Chrome extension was the first thing I installed. It works in Google Docs, WordPress, and even LinkedIn. I did not realize how many typos I was making until little red underlines started showing up everywhere.
The Free Version
Here is what the free version actually catches:
Spelling errors. Missing commas. Sentences that run on for too long without a break. It also catches when you use the wrong there/their/they’re — which I apparently do more often than I would like to admit.
In my first week, it flagged 34 issues in a single 1,200-word article. Fourteen of them were actual errors. The rest were style suggestions that I ignored. That alone saved me about 20 minutes of proofreading.
The Premium Version
I upgraded to Premium in May. The main reason was the tone detection feature. I send a lot of cold emails, and apparently my natural writing voice comes across as too direct — which is a polite way of saying I sound rude.
Grammarly now adds a little tone meter on the side of my draft. Green means friendly. Red means aggressive. I aim for somewhere in the middle.
It also suggests shorter sentences. My habit is to write long, rambling sentences that connect four or five ideas with commas. Grammarly flags these and asks me to break them up. I ignore it about half the time. But the other half, I split the sentence and the result is genuinely easier to read.
The plagiarism checker caught one thing: a paragraph I wrote about SEO that apparently used the same phrasing as a HubSpot blog post from 2022. I rewrote it. That alone probably saved me from an awkward conversation.
What I Do Not Like
First: Grammarly is slow on large documents. I pasted a 5,000-word guide into the editor last month and it took about 15 seconds to scan everything. That is not a huge deal, but it is annoying when you are in a hurry.
Second: it sometimes suggests changes that make the text worse. The algorithm prefers simple, clean sentences. But sometimes a messy sentence has a specific rhythm or voice that you want to keep. I have learned to use Grammarly as a suggestion engine, not a boss.
Third: the desktop app is not great. I installed it on Windows and uninstalled it within a week. It slowed down my machine and the integration with Word felt clunky. The browser extension is where Grammarly really shines.
The Cost
Premium costs 2 per month if you pay annually. That is 44 for the year. For me, it pays for itself because I spend less time editing. But if you only write a couple of emails a week, the free version is probably enough.
There is also a business plan at 5 per user per month. I have not tried it, but a friend who manages a team of 5 writers swears by it. He says it cuts their editing time by about 30%.
Who Should Get It
If you write in English and it is not your first language — get it. If you send a lot of professional emails — get it. If you are a student working on essays — the free version will do.
If you are a professional editor who already knows grammar rules cold? Skip it. You will spend more time rejecting suggestions than fixing actual mistakes.
Bottom Line
Grammarly is not perfect. It makes mistakes. It slows down sometimes. It tries to flatten your voice into something generic. But it catches real errors that would otherwise slip through. That alone is worth the price of admission.
The best way to test it? Install the free version today. Write something. See how many red lines show up. Then decide if Premium is worth it for you.