PaperRater vs Grammarly: What’s The Best Choice for Your Essay?

PaperRater vs Grammarly: Which tool is worth your time and money for checking an essay? Let’s find out!

I’ve used Grammarly since I started my career as a freelance writer, and it helped me write more engaging and error-free essays.

I recently discovered an alternative called PaperRater. According to the founders, PaperRater is an online proofreader designed for students in high school and college. This writing assistant corrects your mistakes and checks essays and writing samples for plagiarism.

After using PaperRater for a few weeks, I started wondering which software is better? How do they compare in terms of accurate corrections and plagiarism checks for essayists? 

Here, I’ll cover what I like about each tool, how they can improve, and which one is better.

Product NameAvailabilityPricingUse ForFeatures
PaperRaterMac, iOS, Windows, and Android users.Free/$7.95 per month or $95.40 per yearStudents and essayists looking for a free plagiarism checker.Automated scoring, spelling checker, no install required.Try Now
GrammarlyMac, 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
Best AI writing assistant
Grammarly
From $12 Per Month

We tested dozens of grammar checkers, and Grammarly is the best tool on the market today. It'll help you write and edit your work much faster. Grammarly provides a powerful AI writing assistant and plagiarism checker.


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What Is PaperRater?

PaperRater is proofreading software owned by Barnes and Noble Education. It uses artificial intelligence to help students write better essays, papers, and articles. Founded in 2009, PaperRater aims to provide students with an affordable way to check their work for spelling mistakes and plagiarism issues.

PaperRater suggests edits that improve clarity, grammar, and readability

If you’re writing an assignment for school or college, avoiding plagiarism is hugely important unless you enjoy sanctions.

After using PaperRater for these checks, I can say it’s a practical option for students looking to improve their writing without spending a lot of money. PaperRater suggests edits that improve clarity, grammar, and readability. 

Its plagiarism checker is also a powerful tool that most students find handy when writing essays. It searches billions of pages on Google and Bing to ensure that your work is unique. The best part is, checking up to five submissions is free.

My Experience With Grammarly

Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmitro Lider founded Grammarly in 2009 to help people communicate more efficiently. This grammar checking tool creates clean and error-free content. It’s available for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android users. It’s also available for most web browsers and some writing apps via add-ons.

Grammarly will always stay close to my heart. After starting my career as a freelance writer, I barely understood the basic principles of writing, and my content was awful. But one day, I discovered Grammarly and started copying and pasting my work into this software.

I used advanced tools like plagiarism detection and tone adjustments to strengthen my work even more

Using the free version, I cleared up grammar errors and structural problems. Grammarly made my writing more engaging. Once I invested in Grammarly Premium, I used advanced tools like plagiarism detection and tone adjustments to strengthen my work even more.

Grammarly Vs. PaperRater

PaperRater and Grammarly are both advanced writing assistants. However, they’re designed for different target audiences.

  • PaperRater is a practical option for students and essayists
  • Grammarly is for a wider audience including: freelancers, content marketers, small business owners and entrepreneurs

Grammarly is a must-have tool for all freelance writers, entrepreneurs, professionals, and students.

However, after using PaperRater for a few weeks, I can safely say that it isn’t an essential tool. The software isn’t as accurate as other writing assistants. But if you’re looking for a free tool to check your writing for plagiarism, then PaperRater is the answer.

Let me explain more.

Pricing

Both PaperRater and Grammarly offer free grammar checking plans. Although these plans give you a feel for each platform without spending money, they’re limited.

With PaperRater Premium, you have two payment options:

  1. A monthly plan of $7.95 per month
  2. An annual plan of $95.40 per year

With this premium plan, you get access to extra features like:

  • Enhanced plagiarism checker
  • Faster processing
  • File uploads (doc, docx, text)

If you decide to go with Grammarly’s Premium version, you get a choice between three pricing plans:

  1. A monthly plan of $29.95 per month
  2. A quarterly plan of $59.95 every three months
  3. An annual plan of $139.00 per year

With Grammarly’s Premium Plan, you can use additional features like:

  • Plagiarism checker
  • Premium customer support
  • Readability analysis

As a freelance writer, these extra tools helped me increase the clarity and engagement of my writing, which I’ll cover in a moment.

PaperRater is an affordable type of writing assistant software. The free version allows you to check your writing for plagiarism and grammatical errors. If you’re a college student or you’re simply on a tight budget, this can be super helpful.

If you decide to opt for PaperRater Premium, you’ll be happy to know it only costs $7.95 per month. That’s the price of three cups of coffee. And discounts are available. Compared to Grammarly’s $29.95 per month, PaperRater is clearly more affordable.

Winner: Paper Rater, although Grammarly offers a lot more functionality.

Functionality

Unlike other spell checkers, when Grammarly asks you to make a change, it explains why. Maybe you misplaced a comma or used the passive voice. This way, you know your mistake and how to improve next time.

When I started out in freelance writing, this checker tool helped me improve at a rapid rate. After copying and pasting your work, the software highlights all your mistakes in red. Grammarly also highlights clarity issues in blue and engagement issues in green.

In the bar next to each suggestion, Grammarly tells you why this is wrong. You can then create a list of common mistakes and try to avoid them in the future. You can also use this feature with Firefox or Safari browsers.

Winner: Grammarly

Ease of Use

PaperRater and Grammarly only take around five to ten seconds to process your document. During this time, they analyze sentence structure, mark all the mistakes, and suggest edits on improving your writing.

PaperRater and Grammarly can both save you time when self-editing and essay. However, Grammarly provides additional writing insights and suggestions you can accept at the click of a button.

PaperRater and Grammarly only take around five to ten seconds to process your document

Winner: Grammarly

Accuracy

After using both platforms for some time now, I can safely say PaperRater isn’t as accurate as Grammarly. PaperRater only costs $7.95 per month, and you get what you pay for. 

For example, when I pasted this piece of text into Grammarly, it found 23 errors. It also gave me a 2% plagiarism score and matched my content with three websites.

When I pasted this piece of text into Grammarly, it found 23 errors

But when I pasted the same piece of content into PaperRater, it only found three errors.

PaperRater isn’t as accurate as Grammarly

It also found no plagiarism issues in my essay sample.

Accuracy is the most important trait in a writing assistant

This can be a dealbreaker for many people since accuracy is the most important trait in a writing assistant.

Winner: Grammarly

Support for Other Languages

If you’re writing blog posts or assignments in other languages, then Grammarly isn’t for you. Grammarly only works on English writing. 

This might change in the future as the company aims to accommodate people living in non-English speaking countries. But currently, Grammarly is only available for English writers (US, Canadian, British).

Paper Rater also only supports English.

PaperRater vs Grammarly: Which Is Better?

Compared to PaperRater, Grammarly is a superior grammar checker. When using Grammarly, I noticed it makes more detailed and accurate suggestions and style improvements.

Grammarly tends to spot more inadvertent plagiarism issues than PaperRater. This is helpful if you’re writing content for the web since search engines will penalize duplicate content, even if they’re accidental. It’s also ideal if you work with freelance writers a lot and want to vet their content. 

Grammarly’s desktop app is cleaner and more user-friendly. It doesn’t display ads on its platform, unlike PaperRater. 

In my opinion, Grammarly is superior. Most of its corrections are accurate. Even if you’re a student, the free version is useful when typing in Google Docs and Microsoft Word. 

PaperRater isn’t the most accurate spelling checker since it missed some errors during my test. It also faces stiff competition from other affordable Grammarly alternatives like ProWritingAid, Hemingway Editor, Whitesmoke, and Ginger.

Paper Rater also isn’t widely available compared to Grammarly, since you can’t use it on Google Docs, Outlook, or Gmail. However, the premium version of PaperRater is comparably affordable.

PaperRater Is A Practical Option For Students

If you’re a student on a budget and you’re looking for a tool to paste your work into without installing apps or plugins, PaperRater is a practical choice.

This software is used by schools and universities in over one hundred countries worldwide. So if you’re currently working on an assignment, feel free to head over to Paperrater.com and check your writing for plagiarism and spelling errors for free. It’s quick and easy. 

Grammarly Is The Best Option For Freelancers And Entrepreneurs

If you’re a freelance writer, academic, or simply have a bigger budget, opt for Grammarly Premium instead. This writing software is more advanced, and it should catch more mistakes in your essays than PaperRater.

Grammarly’s integration tools are also better. You can download the Chrome extension, and Grammarly will suggest edits while you’re typing in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Gmail, and other social media platforms.

Remember, Grammarly can’t replace a real-life editor, but it’s like a second pair of eyes looking through your work.

My Testing Criteria

When writing this article, I used the following criteria to find out if PaperRater and Grammarly are practical options for students, bloggers, and freelance writers who spend time writing essays:

  • Accuracy
  • Affordability
  • Functionality

Why Trust Us?

I’ve used Grammarly since I started my career as a freelance writer, and it helped me get a better understanding of grammar. It also saved me a lot of time editing essays because it’s like an extra pair of eyes looking at my work.

However, the biggest reason I use Grammarly is because of its plagiarism checker. Accidental plagiarism is a big problem when posting content online since search engines penalize duplicate content. I use this feature to check for missing links and citations. 

Paper Rater vs Grammarly: The Final Word

Both tools can make your essay editing process easier and more efficient. Grammarly is a more accurate spelling checker, and it has advanced writing suggestions that I loved.

However, PaperRater is still a practical option if you want to check an essay for plagiarism without investing in a paid tool or installing anything.

In short, use Grammarly if you’re looking for an advanced proofreading tool to check your work. Use PaperRater if you’re in a hurry and need a free plagiarism checker.

Essay Writing Resources

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Essay Writing Tips

Author

  • Yaseen is a personal trainer turned professional writer and he’s obsessed with everything health, fitness, and business-related. If he isn’t at the gym, you can find him playing video games or spending time with friends and family.

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