AI writing tools: the seat, the credit and the daily cap
Eight tools priced on three incompatible meters. Which number actually decides your bill, and the discount that will not stack with annual billing.
Three different meters in one price column
Copy.ai's Chat plan includes five seats. Jasper's Pro plan includes one. Sudowrite meters credits by the month. ProWritingAid leaves its editing reports unlimited but caps certain AI features per day. A comparison table sorted by monthly price lines these up as though they were the same kind of product, and they are not. The meter, not the price, is what decides whether a tool fits.
Seats are the largest hidden difference here
Copy.ai lists 5 seats on Chat at $24 a month billed annually, which is $288 for the year. Jasper Pro is a single seat at $59 a month billed annually. On the sticker Jasper looks roughly twice the price. For a team of three actually using it, the gap is closer to sevenfold. If more than one person writes, count seats before you look at anything else.
Credits usually do not roll over, and that decides more than the rate
Sudowrite's Hobby and Student tier is $10 a month paid annually against $19 monthly, with 225,000 credits a month. Only the Max plan rolls unused credits forward, and then for 12 months. On Hobby and Professional, a credit unused at month end is gone. That is the deciding fact for anyone whose writing is seasonal: three quiet months and one intense one are billed as four and served as one.
The plan named for students that asks for no proof
Worth stating plainly, because the assumption usually runs the other way. Sudowrite's Hobby and Student tier is a price level, not a verified-student program, and the vendor describes no enrolment check. Anyone can take it. We flag it because the opposite mistake costs more: assuming a discount is open when it needs verification, and finding out after paying the full rate.
Daily caps hide inside the word unlimited
ProWritingAid Premium is $10 a month billed yearly, $120 up front, against $30 monthly. That is a 67% saving and the largest verified percentage in this group. Its line-editing report runs are unlimited. Its AI features are not: 5 Sparks and 1 Chapter Critique a day on Premium, with Story Critiques excluded from the unlimited runs and Story Credits sold separately on top. If the critique is the reason you are buying, the daily number is your real limit and the price is a detail.
The free tier that is a paragraph tool, not a document tool
QuillBot's free plan paraphrases up to 100 words at a time in 2 of its modes, with basic grammar fixes, basic summaries, and humanising capped at 100 words with "limited usage", read on its premium page on October 2, 2026. It was 125 words, and 6 humanising uses a day, when we first read it on September 2: the free tier shrank in between. The 100 words are per paste rather than per month, which makes it genuinely useful for polishing a paragraph and unworkable for a manuscript. It is a real $0 plan rather than a trial, so nothing expires while you find that out.
An eligibility discount that will not stack, and only applies forwards
Wordtune offers 30% off Advanced and Unlimited to anyone with an academic email address, or proof of enrolment or employment at an academic institution or a nonprofit. Three conditions decide whether it is worth claiming. It cannot be combined with the annual-billing saving or any other promotion, so price both and take the larger. It applies to future invoices only and never retroactively. And it lasts 12 months, after which eligibility has to be proven again. Verification is manual, by uploading a document of up to 10 MB.
Settle three questions before opening any pricing page
How many people write. Whether your volume is steady or lumpy. And which of three jobs you are actually buying, because the tools here each do one well and none does all three. Grammarly Pro is the cleanest arithmetic in the group at $144 a year per member against $360 in monthly payments, and the least ambiguous product: it corrects prose, it does not draft it. Writesonic Starter at $79 a month billed annually and Jasper Pro at $59 are built for marketing teams producing at volume, and are poor value for one person writing occasionally. Sudowrite and ProWritingAid are aimed at long-form manuscripts, which is a different job again.
Questions
Which of these is cheapest?
On sticker price, Sudowrite Hobby and Student and ProWritingAid Premium, both $10 a month on annual billing. Which is cheapest for you depends on whether your usage is metered in credits or in daily AI runs.
Do I have to prove I am a student for Sudowrite's price?
No. Despite the plan name, the vendor describes no enrolment check. It is a price tier that anyone can select.
Can I combine Wordtune's academic 30% with annual billing?
No. Wordtune states the academic discount cannot be stacked with the annual saving or other promotions. Price both routes and take whichever is larger.
Does Copy.ai have a free plan?
Not on its published pricing page. The cheapest listed tier is Chat at $29 a month, or $24 billed annually. Claims of a free Copy.ai plan elsewhere do not match the vendor's own page.
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