Bartleby Write Vs. Grammarly – Which Writing Assistant Is Better?

This post covers everything you need to know about Bartleby Write vs. Grammarly so you can determine which is better for you.

Grammarly is close to the heart of thousands of writers, including me. I started using Grammarly three years ago as a new writer, and it helped me finetune my writing skills.

But after using and testing other writing assistants, I discovered Bartleby. It’s marketed as an editing, learning, and research hub where students and writers can improve their creative processes.

So, in this article, I’ll compare Bartleby Write and Grammarly. I’ll talk about my experiences, what I like and dislike about each, and which is better.

Product Name	Availability	Pricing	Use For	Features
Bartleby Write	Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android users.	$9.99 per month.	Students looking for an affordable study hub.	Plagiarism checker, homework help, and free textbooks.	Try Now
Grammarly	Mac, iOS, Windows, Android and Grammarly desktop app users.	Free/$29.95 per month, $59.95 every three months, or $139 per year.	Professionals in need of an advanced writing assistant and plagiarism checker.	Grammarly desktop and mobile app, writing enhancement, and tone adjustments.	Try Now

What Is Bartleby Write?

Bartleby is a student hub developed by Barnes & Noble Education. Their goal is to create a platform where students can check their research papers for grammar errors while learning from tutors.

Bartleby Write is tailored around high-school and college students. You’ll access features like:

• A citation creator
• Virtual tutoring
• Study resources
• Popular high school textbooks
• Lessons on creating better research papers

Who Is Bartleby Write For?

After using the Bartleby spelling checker, I found it can benefit the lives of:

• Students
• Parents
• Writers on a budget

Students

Bartleby is a helpful platform for students because it offers a detailed study hub with unique resources. You can get homework help from qualified tutors for a small monthly fee. If you go to their study guide, you’ll find help in subjects like:

• Business
• Engineering
• Language
• Math
• Social science

So whenever you have a problem, head over to the page that’s most relevant to you, and you’ll find homework help. 

Let’s say you’re studying mechanical engineering. Go to the mechanical engineering homework help page and ask tutors for assistance. You can even sign up to be a brand ambassador on college campus and earn $15 per hour.

Parents

If your child is currently in high school or college, Bartleby will help them complete assignments and hand in work free of grammatical errors.

But if you have two or more children in college, you won’t have to buy separate plans. Bartleby allows multiple devices to log into an account simultaneously. This way, all your children can learn and get tutoring help at once.

Writers On A Budget

Bartleby is far cheaper than Grammarly. So if Grammarly Premium is currently outside your budget, sign up for Bartleby. Although it’s less accurate, it offers similar features to Grammarly like:

• Plagiarism detection
• Grammar checker
• Real-time correction
• Professional editors
• Sentence structure correction

Now that we know what Bartleby is and who it’s for, let’s look at Grammarly.

What Is Grammarly?

In 2009, Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider founded Grammarly while living together in San Francisco. It’s available on Mac, Android, iOS, and Windows.

Their initial goal was to create an accurate yet affordable grammar checker that helps writers, students, and entrepreneurs create better content. However, they soon branched out into other areas like plagiarism checking. Grammarly even offers human proofreaders which is helpful if you’re struggling to meet deadlines.

Grammarly offers helpful features like:

• Genre-specific writing checks
• Vocabulary enhancement
• A plagiarism checker that checks over 16 billion pages
• Sentence structure checks
• Google Docs integrations

But the main reason why many writers choose Grammarly over other grammar checkers like Ginger, ProWritingAid, and Whitesmoke is its simplicity. Grammarly is super easy to use. 

Who Is Grammarly For?

Grammarly is a valuable writing assistant that empowers:

• Freelance writers and bloggers
• Authors
• Non-native English speakers

Freelance Writers And Bloggers

Grammarly is a must-have if you’re a freelance writer because it provides constructive criticism which allows you to grow.

Most new writers struggle to improve even after implementing all the advice they learn online. This is because they aren’t getting consistent feedback on their work. So they never know what they’re doing right or wrong.

If you want to know where to improve, you’ll need to hire a professional editor, which is costly. Fortunately, Grammarly sends you weekly emails telling you about mistakes you made and where to improve while suggesting articles that help. This way, you’re always getting better.

Authors

Writing a 300-page book takes a lot of willpower, discipline, and hard work. You must conduct research for weeks and create a story that’s compelling.

After this grueling process, you’ll need to proofread your work before sending it to your editor. But Grammarly saves you this extra step. You won’t need to proofread 300+ pages after writing it. Simply paste it into Grammarly, and it’ll catch most errors. 

So you can send the first draft of your book to your editor, and it won’t contain small mistakes. Instead of looking for grammar issues, your editor can now focus on plot holes and character development problems.

Non-Native English Speakers

If English isn’t your first language, but you’re looking to improve, consider using the Chrome or Firefox browser extension. When writing text messages or social media posts, Grammarly will spot your mistakes and tell you how to avoid them. 

After a few months of frequent use, you’ll iron out almost all grammar mistakes, like missing commas and incorrect formatting.

How Do Bartleby Write And Grammarly Work?

Once you’ve signed up for a Bartleby account, you’ll find an option where you can paste your writing or upload it from your computer. After you’ve entered your work, all suggestions will pop up on the right.

With Grammarly, simply go to Grammarly.com and sign up for a free account. It only takes a few minutes, and once you’re in, you can copy and paste your content. On the right, Grammarly neatly lists all your mistakes alongside the explanations. Accept or dismiss suggestions based on their relevance.

But on the free version, you can’t access advanced checks. You’ll need to sign up for Grammarly Premium where you’ll find checks like:

• Plagiarism checker
• Sentence structure checker
• Writing style enhancement
• Readability checker
• Passive voice detection

Now that we know how Bartleby and Grammarly works, let’s compare them using set criteria.

Ease Of Use

Ease of use is crucial to consider when investing in a grammar checking tool. It doesn’t matter how helpful a tool is; it’ll negatively impact your creative process if it’s tiresome to use.

After testing Bartleby and Grammarly, I can safely say that Grammarly is far easier to use. Everything is laid out neatly, and it’s super easy to understand. You can check the content by copying and pasting it or uploading it from your computer.

All suggestions are listed under one of the following categories:

• Correctness
• Clarity
• Engagement
• Delivery

And if you want to check your work for plagiarism, there’s a large icon on the bottom right. Simply click on it, and after a few seconds, Grammarly will give you a plagiarism score.

The Bartleby checker tool is cluttered and unorganized. There are different assistants like essay builder, editor, and review on the same page, which is confusing.

Once you’ve pasted your work, you’ll notice that almost every word is underlined in pink. Most of the suggestions on the right are irrelevant or incorrect. 

Also, Bartleby doesn’t offer a bulk correction feature like Grammarly that allows you to make several changes at once. You’ll have to dismiss every suggestion yourself. 

Winner: Grammarly

Accuracy

Accuracy is another deal-breaker when determining if a writing assistant is worth it. After running several checks, I found that Grammarly is far more accurate than Bartleby. I made a few spelling errors on purpose just to see if the Bartleby spell check picked it up, and it didn’t.

Here I misspelled “Post” and “Worth,” and Bartleby didn’t spot these typos.

Bartleby makes more suggestions than Grammarly, but around 80% is irrelevant. For example, it’ll tell me to change the word “Gmail” to “Email” or “LinkedIn” to “Linked In.” This is annoying because I had to manually dismiss all these suggestions.

When pasting a previous article reviewing Linguix into Bartleby, it caught 86 errors, but I had to dismiss 62 as irrelevant.

Grammarly only found 52 errors, but almost all were correct and relevant. It corrected spelling errors, structural issues, and word choice problems.

Winner: Grammarly

Pricing

Bartleby offers one pricing plan, and it costs $9.99 per month. If you’d like a writing expert to review your work, it’ll set you back another $19.99 for one paper, and $49.99 for three.

But this is where Bartleby loses a lot of credibility. Its customer support is unreliable, and pricing practices are shady. 

This never happened to me, but hundreds of users online say that Bartleby will charge you even after you’ve canceled your subscription. Due to the poor customer service, getting this resolved is a headache, and users rarely get their money back.

Grammarly’s premium version might be costly, but its pricing practices are transparent and 100% legit. It costs:

• $29.95 per month
• $59.95 every three months
• $139 per year

Unlike Bartleby, Grammarly doesn’t make it near impossible to cancel your account, and they’ll never charge you after your account is canceled. The customer support team is also super helpful. So although Bartleby is cheaper, I’d say Grammarly offers better pricing due to its transparency.

Winner: Grammarly

Additional Features

Grammarly’s Mobile App Allows You To Edit On-The-Go

If you’re always busy and looking to optimize your time, download the Grammarly app and edit articles, emails, and social media posts while sitting on the bus or waiting for somebody.

Like the desktop and web apps, the mobile app is simple and easy to use. It integrates with your desktop so you can edit on-the-go.

Bartleby Offers An In-Depth Student Learning Hub

Bartleby has a detailed learning hub that empowers the lives of thousands of students globally. It teaches advanced subjects like engineering, business, finance, and more. So although the writing assistant is inaccurate and cluttered, the learning hub offers some value.

Winner: Tie

Areas Of Improvement

Grammarly Should Accommodate Other Languages

Although Grammarly is an accurate tool that’s easy to use, it has its limitations. Grammarly doesn’t work in languages other than English. So if you write Spanish or French essays, consider using Microsoft Word Editor or ProWritingAid Premium.

Read our ProWritingAid review.

Bartleby Write Isn’t Transparent

Bartleby doesn’t offer refunds or money-back guarantees. Many users also report that Bartleby continues to take money off their account even after they’ve canceled their subscription.

Combined with bad customer support, Bartleby can be a real headache to deal with. I’d like Bartleby to invest more time into customer support. They should also be more transparent regarding pricing policies and not charge people who already cancelled their subscriptions.

If you’re looking for more transparent proofreading software, consider Grammarly, Hemingway, or PaperRater.

Why Trust Us?

I’ve been writing for multiple websites for around three years now, and no tool has helped me more than Grammarly.

My favorite feature is the weekly emails. Grammarly sends emails letting you know what you’re doing right, where you can improve, and how to avoid common mistakes. This helped my writing development.

I recently started using and testing Bartleby Write to see how it compares against Grammarly. The writing assistant isn’t accurate, but it offers students helpful study tools. Since I’m not a student, I won’t renew my Bartleby subscription.

My Testing Criteria

When testing and reviewing Bartleby and Grammarly, I used the following criteria:

• Accuracy
• Accessibility
• Transparency
• Affordability
• Flexibility

Grammarly comfortably meets all these criteria. However, Bartleby struggles with accuracy and transparency.

The Bartleby writing assistant makes many suggestions, but few are correct. I pasted several documents into Bartleby, and I ended up dismissing most changes. Many users also complained that Bartleby has shady pricing practices because they found it draws money from your account after you’ve canceled your subscription.

Final Word On Bartleby Write Vs. Grammarly

Grammarly is clearly the better spell checker. After using Bartleby Write to check multiple articles, it’s a poor quality tool that doesn’t catch as many obvious errors. Bartleby is criticized for bad customer service online.

But Bartleby offers helpful study resources that are valuable to students. You can learn about every subject and get access to free textbooks.

In short, use Grammarly if you’re looking for a transparent proofreading tool that catches almost all mistakes. Use Bartleby if you’re a student looking for an affordable study hub. To learn more, read our Grammarly review.