As content writers, we know how long it takes to create high-quality, engaging content. When you’re producing multiple articles weekly, it feels like an insurmountable mountain. That’s why we, like many others, use writing tools.

Content writing tools help streamline more manual parts of the content creation process, improve overall productivity, and help keep writers happy.

But content writing is a complex process that involves many unique steps, with each step requiring different features and tools.

Working out which tools you do and don’t need is time-consuming. Which is why we’ve done the legwork for you.

Here are 20 tools split into four categories: content research, SEO content optimization tools, editing, and miscellaneous. For each tool, we’ve broken down the features, integrations, pros and cons, and pricing. We also give a recommendation for the best overall content writing tool.

Features to Look For in a Content Writing Tool

A great content tool matches your budget, works with your current writing process, offers the features you need but not the ones you don’t, and is highly customizable. With that in mind, here are four features you should look for in a content writing tool.

Price

There’s a vast array of pricing options out there, from free to $500+ per month.

The amount you should pay depends on how many tools you need, how many people will use the tool, how frequently you intend to use the tool, and how important the tool’s output is.

Features

Some tools offer a lighter touch and help you improve your writing without doing it for you. Others offer a heavier touch and generate content in bulk. And some tools offer a mixture, giving you the freedom to choose.

To get the best tool for you, decide on how involved you’d like the features to be before purchasing.

Integrations

Do you prefer writing online or offline? Would you like to work in a dedicated app or have a tool that slots into your favorite writing app?

It’s essential you answer these two questions before deciding on a tool. If you don’t, you may find yourself with a tool that slows you down rather than speeds you up.

Customizability

Do you need to add a custom dictionary? Does your business have specific writing and content rules you need the tool to abide by? Do you need to write in multiple languages? Do you have additional security requirements?

If you’re looking for a fully customizable tool, we recommend starting with the paid tools, as the free tools are more generic.

Best Overall Content Writing Tool

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is an all-in-one AI tool that strikes the perfect balance between being a writing aid and giving writers autonomy over their work.

The tool offers 25+ online writing tools and reports that help with every aspect of writing, from improving sentence length and structure, to adding transitions, highlighting overused words, correcting grammar and spelling, and even providing suggestions to enhance dialogue.

In addition to this, you can also see in-tool articles, videos, and quizzes so you can learn and improve as you go.

With a Premium Pro license, you get access to Sparks, which is an AI generative tool that provides more options than any other software on the market. With Sparks, you can improve fluency, summarize text, add sensory descriptions, expand from notes, add dialogue, quotes, emphasis, counterarguments, and much more.

Integrations: Windows, Mac, MS Word (Windows & Mac), Google Docs, Scrivener, Final Draft, Chrome, Firefox, Edge.

Price: ProWritingAid has three pricing options: Free, Premium, and Premium Pro. The Free plan allows users to access 25+ reports with a 500-word limit. The Premium plan has an unlimited word count and costs $10 a month. The Premium Pro plan adds 10x the usage of AI features and costs $12 a month.

Conclusion: If you want a tool that can help you with every aspect of writing, including generative AI, then try ProWritingAid for free.

Free Research Content Writing Tools

Google Bard

Google Bard is a conversational AI tool available to the public in over 40 languages in 230 countries and territories.

It has three different generative options: Understand, Create, and Explore. Understand provides specific details and information. Create generates text based on a user’s prompt. Explore is for general requests and exploration.

The tool also offers voice commands, translation in over 100 languages, and a share feature, so you can continue and refine responses with others.

Integrations: Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.

Price: Free to everyone aged 18 and older.

Conclusion: It’s useful for providing information for general use, but it isn’t a top choice for business writers or students due to the lack of citations, the limited privacy, and the fact that you cannot sign up with a business account.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an online chatbot that can answer questions in a conversational manner.

It uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand messages, make inferences, and generate replies. The program uses information that is publicly available on the internet, information from licensed third parties, and information from users and human trainers.

It has a few limitations. For example, it’s only trained on information up to September 2021, the tool generates responses that can be biased, and it is not a grammar checker tool.

The interface is simple. You simply add a prompt and ask ChatGPT to generate content. You can then edit the prompt and regenerate responses.

Integrations: Online and Android, iPhone, and iPad apps.

Price: Free.

Conclusion: Despite its limitations, ChatGPT is a great free online tool with a lot of potential as a content generator. However, you have to spend significant time and effort generating the right prompts to get the most out of the tool.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a tool that analyzes search queries and shows search trends over a set time period.

It works by sampling search data and generating a graph. This process means that users can quickly generate results, which would not be possible if the tool crawled the billions of search results for each search query.

Instead of providing exact data, it provides comparative data, rating each keyword from 1 to 100, with 100 representing the highest amount of traffic at a given time.

Integrations: Online only.

Price: Free.

Conclusion: Like most of Google’s tools, Trends is incredibly intuitive, and the limited features it offers are excellent. However, this is a tool that should be used alongside other tools rather than a stand-alone.

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SEO Content Writing Tools

Frase

Frase is an SEO-optimized content generation tool for digital content creators.

It helps with the four stages of the content creation process: researching, outlining, writing, and optimizing.

In the research stage, you can analyze competitors and generate content briefs. Then, in the outline stage, you can generate heading and sub-heading ideas. In the writing stage, the tool can create blog intros, FAQs, and general content. Finally, in the final stage, you can identify target keywords and compare your article to competitors.

Integrations: Google Doc, Chrome, Google Search Console, and WordPress.

Price: Frase has three plans: Solo, Basic, and Team. The Solo plan is $14.99 a month and allows you to optimize four articles a month. The Basic plan is $44.99 a month, and you can optimize 30 articles a month. The Team plan is $114.99 a month. It includes three seats and has unlimited use.

Conclusion: It’s a great tool for producing SEO-optimized article drafts, but writers will need to run their work through another tool to edit because Frase doesn’t offer advanced writing suggestions.

Writesonic

Writesonic is an AI content creation tool that generates text, images, and audio.

It pulls information from Google, and it has built-in SEO optimization tools. The tool also offers the ability to generate prompts if you are facing writer’s block, and AI images.

One of the most popular features is brand style, which allows you to create content in line with your brand voice. This helps users ensure their content is always consistent.

Integrations: Zapier.

Price: There are four plans: Free, Freelancer, Small Team, and Enterprise. The Free plan has a maximum of 10,000 words a month. The Small Team costs $13 a month, and the Freelancer costs $16 a month. They both offer a few more features than the Free plan. The Enterprise plan is $500+ a month and offers enhanced security, onboarding, and support.

Conclusion: The tool speeds up content creation, but the difference between the four plans is not clear, and they’re on the higher end of the price spectrum.

SurferSEO

SurferSEO is a tool designed for writers to optimize their content for search engines.

It analyzes your content against the existing content that ranks for a particular keyword. It provides target keywords, titles, image counts, and word counts. Plus, SurferSEO works in any language, so you can rank content anywhere.

The tool can also generate briefs with headlines and check for plagiarism, so you can ensure your content is always your own.

Integrations: Jasper, Contentful, WordPress, Google Docs and Keyword Surfer.

Price: There are four plans: Essential AI, Advanced AI, Max AI, and Enterprise. The Essential AI plan costs $139 a month and allows you to generate five articles a month with 15 content editors. The Max AI plan allows you to generate 20 articles per month with 90 content editors, and it costs $499 per month.

Conclusion: The content editing features are incredibly user-friendly, meaning that anyone can use them with ease. However, the tool is quite pricey, and only the cheapest plan is suitable for individual writers.

Semrush

Semrush is an SEO content tool designed for small to medium-sized businesses.

It offers help with keyword research, on-page SEO, competitor analysis, local SEO, rank tracking, content marketing, social media management, link building, and more.

The tool has a simple interface that is suitable for marketing teams who don’t have a dedicated SEO expert. The inbuilt reporting and social media tracking also mean that it’s suitable for teams who are tight on resources.

Integrations: Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Docs, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, WordPress, Trello, and more.

Price: There are four plans: Free, Pro, Guru, and Business. The Free plan gives you an idea of how the interface works and what the tool can do. The Pro plan costs $129.95 monthly and allows you to create up to five projects. The Business plan costs $499.95 a month, is designed for agencies, and allows you to create 40 projects.

Conclusion: This is an excellent tool for teams and individuals who are getting started with SEO. However, it prioritizes search engines over the reader, so if you would like content that does it all, you’ll need a writing tool alongside this.

Scalenut

Scalenut is a research and optimization SEO tool designed for marketing and content teams.

It has a variety of features, including a keyword planner that suggests keywords and interlinking structures. There is also a topic researcher, content optimizer, traffic analyzer, and more.

The tool works in multiple languages, including English, German, Japanese, French, Chinese, and more.

Integrations: WordPress, Semrush, and Copyscape.

Price: There are four plans: Essential, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. The Essential plan costs $39 a month and allows you to generate 100,000 words. The Pro plan costs $74 a month, includes two seats, and allows you to audit and create 75 articles per month.

Conclusion: The UI is easy to use and suitable for SEO beginners. However, the tool doesn’t suggest any writing improvements, so you may want to run your long-form content through another tool before publishing.

Free Grammar and Editing Content Writing Tools

LanguageTool

LanguageTool is a paraphraser, text editor, and grammar checker.

It can fix punctuation mistakes, help with formatting, and allow you to set up your own style guide. Premium users have access to unlimited rephrasing, while Free users are limited to five per day.

Additionally, LanguageTool works in over 25 languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Although it doesn’t offer the option to translate any text.

Integrations: Chrome, Edge, Google Docs, Firefox, and more.

Price: There are three plans: Free, Premium, and Teams. The Free plan offers basic features, with the advanced features behind a pay wall. The Premium plan offers four payment intervals, with the cheapest being the two-year plan, and the most expensive being the monthly. The Team plan is priced per number of users and offers additional features like a team style guide and dictionary.

Conclusion: LanguageTool’s price is on the lower end, and it offers a fair selection of features. However, the lack of a plagiarism checker, tone checker, and structural reports means that academic and creative writers may need to carry out additional edits.

Grammarly

Like ProWritingAid, Grammarly is an AI writing tool that checks grammatical errors in your writing in real time. It’s designed to streamline the writing process and reduce writing errors.

It’s available for multiple different English dialects, including British English, Canadian English, and American English.

Some of its most popular features are spell check, engagement ratings, citation generator, grammar check, synonym checker, readability score, writing style suggestions, plagiarism detection, tone adjustments, and writing assistant.

Another popular feature is the paraphraser, which allows you to reword sentences, emails, articles, academic work, and more.

Integrations: Windows, Mac, MS Word (Windows & Mac), Google Docs, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.

Price: Grammarly offers four different subscriptions: Free, Premium, Business, and Enterprise. The Free plan is simple and corrects written mistakes. The Premium plan includes rewrites, plagiarism checks, and more. The Business and Enterprise plans are designed for teams and organizations, and they include enhanced security and customized integrations.

Conclusion: This is a generalized tool suitable for most types of writers. However, if you’re looking for a targeted tool that offers customized writing options for creative, academic, or business writers, other tools may be better suited.

Quillbot

Quillbot is a writing tool for students and working professionals.

Quillbot offers seven features: paraphraser, grammar checker, co-writer, plagiarism checker, summarizer, translator, and citation generator. The most well-known of these features is paraphrase, which has a variety of modes, including standard, fluency, and creative.

The tool is available in over 20 languages, including English, Spanish, German, and French.

Integrations: Chrome, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and more.

Price: There are two plans available: Free and Premium. The Free plan is limited and gives users an idea of what the tool can do. The Premium plan includes all the features and is available in three different payment plans: annual, semi-annual, and monthly. The annual plan costs $99.95 a year, and the monthly plan totals to $239.40 a year.

Conclusion: The plagiarism checker and citation text generator tools make Quillbot a useful tool for students, although the pricing is on the higher end for academic aids.

Ginger

Ginger is an AI-powered writing assistant and proofreading tool designed for all types of writers.

The tool offers basic grammar and spell checking, which you can accept and correct in bulk, a translator, a rephraser, text-to-speech, and more.

The translator is the feature that sets Ginger apart. It allows you to translate into 50 languages, plus it can proofread text in those languages too.

Integrations: Microsoft Office, Gmail, Chrome, Safari, Edge, desktop and mobile apps, and more.

Price: There are six plans: Free, Monthly, Quarterly, Annual, 2-year, and Teams. The Monthly plan is $19.99, and the 2-year plan is $120 overall. The Teams plan is $4.99 per month per member. Each paid plan offers the same features.

Conclusion: It’s a top choice for English second language (ESL) speakers because of the translator, but for native English speakers, it doesn’t have as many advanced features as some of the other writing tools on this list.

Miscellaneous Content Writing Tools

Spinbot

Spinbot is a free grammar checker, summarizer, and article rewriter tool, primarily designed for students and academics.

You can use it to rewrite large pieces of text, or you can split content down into smaller pieces and paraphrase paragraph by paragraph.

It’s not a content generator, so users have to first generate text with the important points before pasting it into the tool and running a basic paraphrase. You can ask the tool to rephrase the text, shorten it, or lengthen it.

Integrations: Online only.

Price: Free.

Conclusion: The tool is basic and functions much like a synonym generator. It’s useful if you have a sentence that you want to change, but it is not effective for long chunks of text.

Claude

Claude is an AI writing assistant that is accessible through a simple chat interface.

It’s designed for business professionals and can help with coding, content generation, customer support, editing, translation, summarization, and more.

One of the most popular features of the tool is the high security. Unlike many other generative AI tools on the market, Claude does not use user data to train. This makes it perfect for businesses who need help working with sensitive information.

Integrations: Zapier.

Price: There are two options, Claude instant and Claude 2. Claude instant is good for lightweight requests at a reasonable price. Claude 2 is a more expensive version of the tool designed for complex tasks. Each plan is priced per million tokens, which are used to complete actions.

Conclusion: Claude is an excellent option for business professionals who frequently encounter limits and issues with other free generative AI tools. However, if you are a casual user, its functionality is probably more advanced than you need.

Anyword

Anyword is an AI writing tool for marketers.

It can create a variety of content in your brand voice, including emails, ads, social media posts, and web pages. The tool analyzes all the published content you have in order to learn and replicate your brand voice, tone, and messaging. You can optimize this process by feeding the tool information about which pieces of content were the most successful.

Integrations: Chrome, Notion, Canva, and more.

Price: There are four plans: Starter, Data-Driven, Business, and Enterprise. The Starter plan is $39 a month and is suitable for one user. The Data-Driven plan allows up to three users and is $79 a month. The Business plan is $249 a month and also allows three users alongside additional integrations with other marketing channels. The Enterprise plan has pricing on request and includes customizable security options.

Conclusion: With the cheapest plan coming in at $468 a year, it is likely too pricey for small businesses.

Rytr

Rytr is an AI writing assistant for content creators.

It can create blog post outlines, copywriting frameworks, emails, social media posts, SEO meta titles, job descriptions, and more.

The tool works in over 30 languages and has a built-in plagiarism checker to ensure all copy is original. It also has an image generator, although this is limited on every plan (including Unlimited).

Integrations: Chrome and desktop apps for Mac and PC.

Price: There are three plans: Free, Saver, and Unlimited. The Free plan allows you to generate 10,000 characters per month. The Saver plan costs $9 a month and allows you to generate 100,000 characters and 20 images. The Unlimited plan costs $29 a month and allows for unlimited content generation.

Conclusion: It’s adept at generating short-form copy, such as social media posts and emails, but it isn’t as good at creating long-form content, such as reports and articles.

Paraphraser.io

Paraphraser.io is a text rephraser designed for academics, freelancers, and SEO content writers.

There are six rephrasing options: fluency, standard, word changer, creative, smarten, and shorten. There is also a plagiarism checker, although the word count is limited if you’re on a free plan.

The company doesn’t offer refunds on purchases, so it’s important to try the free version and make sure it works for you before upgrading.

Integrations: Online only, unless you’re an enterprise customer.

Price: There are three plans for students: Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. All the plans have similar limits on plagiarism checks, word changes, and paraphrasing. The Weekly plan is $9 a week, the Monthly plan is $23 a month, and the Yearly plan is $69 a year. There are also enterprise options available.

Conclusion: The functionality is limited, and other rephrasing tools provide more for cheaper. Although the free option, which has a limit of 600 words, is great for the occasional user.

Jasper

Jasper is an AI content generator that markets itself toward enterprise teams.

It can learn from your brand’s style and tone and generate unique high-quality and engaging content that matches your brand voice.

Jasper can create a variety of content, like product descriptions, social posts, landing page copy, ad copy, and unique articles.

Integrations: Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

Price: There are three plans: Creator, Teams, and Business. Creator is for individuals and costs $39 a month. Teams includes up to three seats and is $99 a month. The Business plan includes all the same features and is available on request.

Conclusion: A comprehensive tool with a user-friendly interface, although it’s quite expensive if it’s for occasional use.

Smodin

Smodin is an AI writing tool designed for students. It can help with homework, grading, plagiarism detection, and more.

It can simplify homework by showing explanations for any type of question, providing relevant resources, and assessing the structure and quality of a piece.

You can grade your own papers by using a premade grading system, or you can upload your own. It provides an estimated grade with feedback about why you received that grade, meaning you can improve your work before turning it in.

There is also a plagiarism detector, which students can use to ensure they only turn in original content and never unintentionally plagiarize.

Integrations: Online only.

Price: There are three plans: Limited, Essentials, and Productive. The Limited plan is free, the Essentials plan is $10 a month, and the Productive plan is $29 a month. The best plan for you depends on your intended usage frequency.

Conclusion: A useful tool for students with some unique features, although the pricing is quite steep if you plan to use it often.

How to Pick the Best Tools for Content Writing

When it comes to picking a content tool, free trials, money-back guarantees, and free plans are your best friend.

Reading reviews, talking to colleagues, and looking at feature lists will give you a good idea about how a tool works, but there’s no better way to decide whether it’s right for you than by trying it for yourself.

If you’re looking for a tool to help with every aspect of writing, including ideation, drafting, editing, and proofing, then why not give ProWritingAid a try?

There’s a 14-day money-back guarantee for yearly and lifetime memberships, and a free plan that allows you to test 25+ reports on up to 500 words of your text.