Should you build your own Grammarly?
Switch to LanguageTool if spelling and grammar are what you use. It costs about half as much as Grammarly Pro.
Short answer
One person on Grammarly Pro pays about $432 over 3 years. LanguageTool Premium costs about $5.70 (4.90 euros) a month on yearly billing, and its free plan, Microsoft Editor and Harper handle basic spelling and grammar at no cost. You give up Grammarly’s tone rewrites and plagiarism checks. Building your own checker would cost about $3,300 over 3 years and needs a browser extension that survives Gmail and Docs updates.
- Buy for 3 years
- $432 Pro, $12/mo × 1 seat
- Build and run for 3 years
- $3,265 30 h to build, 2 h/mo upkeep
- Verdict
- SWITCH Money and risk combined
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Cheaper options
Grammarly pricing in 2026
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Pro Typical | $12/seat/mo | $30/seat/mo |
Free plan: Spelling, grammar and tone checks, plus 100 AI prompts a month
Paying too much? The Free plan is enough for spelling, grammar and tone checks, with 100 AI prompts a month.
Per member, billed yearly. Grammarly’s page showed euros and rupees when we checked, so these USD figures come from two 2026 sources that agree. Pro now includes the team features that used to need the Business plan, and 2,000 AI prompts a month. Checked October 26, 2026 from 2026 reviews.
Run your own numbers
Defaults are a typical small team at $30/hour. Change anything.
Buying is about $2,833 cheaper over 3 years.
3-year totals. Building includes your time, upkeep, running costs and one month of an AI app builder ($25). Change any number to match your situation.
What you’d build
- A browser extension that checks text boxes as you type
- A web editor for longer documents
- Grammar, spelling and clarity fixes from an AI model
- Tone and rewrite buttons
- A shared word list for brand terms
A small AI model checks a few thousand words a day for a few dollars a month, plus basic hosting.
What you’d give up
- Suggestions that work inside Google Docs, Gmail and Slack
- Plagiarism and AI-text checks
- Years of tuning on grammar edge cases
- Apps for Word, Outlook and phone keyboards
Risks the price doesn’t show
Browser extensions break whenever Gmail, Docs or LinkedIn change their pages.
An AI model sometimes rewrites correct sentences, which annoys people.
Your text goes to a model provider, so you need a clear data policy.
When the verdict flips
Stay on Grammarly if you rely on tone rewrites, plagiarism checks or its brand style guide. For writing in languages other than English, LanguageTool covers more.
Sources
Grammarly plans · Grammarly pricing capture (Usage Pricing, October 25, 2026) · Is Grammarly worth it (Layer3 Labs, July 2026)
Build hours are our estimates for one person using an AI app builder. How we score. Spotted a wrong price? Tell us on X @BuildictHQ.
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