August 29, 2024

AI Writing Tool Comparison: Type vs. Grammarly Premium

Type Content Team

Experts in AI and writing

With so many AI tools to choose from, how do you decide which one to go with?

You want one that can generate drafts with a voice like yours, while also providing grammar and content suggestions to refine your writing. You've most likely heard of Grammarly, but with some research, you've found Type. Which is better?

In this article, we compare the two writing tools to help you decide.

What is Type?

Type is an AI-powered document editor focused on speeding up the writing process without sacrificing quality. It uses AI to help writers do everything from generate first drafts to refine individual words, sentences, and paragraphs directly inside of a text editor.

Type's features include:

Generate Draft - An AI document generator that uses your signature style to create blog posts, emails, and more so you start with a full page, or transforms your existing content into a new format for different uses.
AI Rewrites - Customizable AI instructions that reword, rewrite, paraphrase, and more by highlighting text. Review multiple revisions and choose the version that just feels right.
Type Chat - An AI chatbot that lives right next to and can read your writing as you go. Chat understands complex instructions and can implement changes directly—handy for when it gives back professional-level editorial feedback.
Content ideas - A limitless list of suggestions that evolve as your document changes. If you like something it recommends, ask Type to write it for you directly in the document with a click of a button.‍
AI inline commands - Keyboard shortcuts that use OpenAI's GPT and Anthropic's Claude to generate words, sentences, and paragraphs at your cursor.

Adjust the side panel to your preferences, or hide it for a focused writing session.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is mostly known for their popular Chrome browser extension, which is useful for proofreading whatever you’re writing at the moment, but they also offer a document editor with a handful of features. Grammarly Premium focuses on grammar and mechanics with the help of AI.

Grammarly Premium's features include:

Plagiarism checker: A scanner that compares your work "against billions of web pages." When we tested it, the plagiarism tracker said that the phrase we wrote ourselves, "Artificial intelligence (AI) has the ability to significantly..." was possibly plagiarized from an interview with Tim Cook that we'd never seen before.
AI citation generator: A generator for a works cited entry for APA, MLA, and Chicago formats that informs the audience AI was involved in the writing of your document.
Document goals: Four settings that tell Grammarly what you're aiming to do with your writing so it can give tailored suggestions and calculate a score.
Performance score: A score that calculates your document's writing quality based on word count, reading level, and vocabulary in context of the goals you set.
Grammarly Assistant: A pop-up window that houses nearly all of Grammarly's AI features. AI shortcuts change based on what you've highlighted, or you can open the full list of ideas. While you can insert revisions with a click of a button, you cannot preview them in context.

A preview of Grammarly's document editor.

Differences between using Type and Grammarly

There are some major differences between the two writing tools.

Type:

Give you a choice from the latest AI models developed by industry leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic. With Type, you get access to Claude Haiku, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-3.5 Turbo, and GPT-4o for all your writing needs—creative, technical, or both. Meanwhile, Grammarly developed its own AI model to use.
Uses style, format, and knowledge attachments to generate any first draft that sounds like you and includes relevant information. We found that Grammarly AI can only generate a few specific document types, such as a cover letter or thank you note, but can't accept any reference attachments. The output resulted in more of a template that required significantly more writing. Meanwhile, Type generates any document you need to create a first draft that you can quickly edit.
Speeds up writing with keyboard commands. In Type, you can use shortcuts to generate or rewrite text, keeping you in the zone and easily integrating AI into your writing process. With Grammarly, you primarily use your mouse and click to run all AI controls.
Saves your AI prompts and transformations for later reuse. These custom instructions help you do common tasks faster, putting you in the AI driving seat. You can't save prompts or transformations in Grammarly. Chat history disappears if you close the pop-up, and its "More ideas" options cater more to general writing tasks rather than personalized workflows.
Offers an adjustable, organized side panel. Change the width of Type's side panel by dragging the border. The side panel separates Type Chat and Content Ideas in a toggle. Meanwhile, Grammarly's fixed side panels that always take up 1/3 of your screen contain a mix of suggestions, buttons, and menus.

Generate any document you need and Include attachments to create a first draft that's closer to "done."

Grammarly:

Proofreads your work while teaching you why. Grammarly offers suggestions while explaining its reasoning and checks your work as you write. However, you can ask Type Chat to proofread your work and automatically make corrections instead of clicking through each one. Additionally, you can ask Type to explain its edits to learn more.
Displays your prompt limit. Users are allotted 1,000 prompts that refill every 30 days. However, if you run a prompt that Grammarly can't generate or perform, it still counts toward your prompt limit. Type instead implements the industry-standard policy of rate limiting. In the rare event you hit the rate limit, you can email hello@type.ai to request a one-time reset.
Checks for plagiarism. Grammarly checks your work against publicly available external sources. While this is not always 100% accurate, it's a great safeguard for those concerned about academic integrity or Turnitin.
Scores your work based on your goals. You can tell Grammarly what you're trying to accomplish, and it will tailor its live recommendations based on the goals you set. We want to note that heavy use of its suggestions can make your work sound like someone else or out of character. While Type doesn't give your writing a score, you can ask Type Chat to offer suggestions based on how you want the document to sound and what you want it to accomplish.

How much does Grammarly Premium cost? How much does Type cost?

In both instances, we looked at individual plans billed monthly.

Cost

Grammarly Premium: $30/month
Type: $29/month

Free trial duration

Grammarly Premium: 7 days
Type: 14 days, cancel anytime and refunds with no questions asked

Customer support

Grammarly Premium: Email
Type: 1:1 personalized onboarding, email, and 24/7 live in a members-only Discord

When you enable document access, you can make changes directly, and Type Chat generates responses with your writing in mind.

Which is better for you: Type or Grammarly?

Deciding which AI writing tool you should use depends on what you need from your word processor.

Grammarly may be best suited for students, non-native English speakers, and people who don't have much experience writing, thanks to its plagiarism checker and spell-checking abilities.

Experienced writers, marketing professionals, and small business owners will find more value in Type. Its design, AI features, and other tools all speed up writing workflows without sacrificing quality or voice. Type is perfect for anyone who regularly produces a lot of written work and ideas.

Don't just take our word for it, experience the difference yourself. Try Type risk-free for 14 days.