Grammarly vs. TextExpander: Which One Do You Actually Need?

Most people searching “Grammarly vs. TextExpander” are asking the wrong question. These tools don’t compete. They don’t even solve the same problem. One checks what you’ve already written. The other eliminates much of the writing altogether.

If you’re here because Grammarly’s price or scope has you looking for options, you’re in the right place. This post gives you a direct answer: what each tool actually does, which Grammarly alternatives are worth your time as a grammar checker, and when TextExpander is the smarter answer for a completely different writing bottleneck. And if the smartest move is using both tools together, we’ll cover that too.

The honest answer: Grammarly and TextExpander solve different problems

Grammarly is a grammar and spell-check layer. It watches what you type, flags errors in real time, and suggests corrections. It’s a proofreader sitting over your shoulder in every app that supports it. That’s genuinely useful, and it does that job well.

TextExpander is a text expansion tool. You save your most-used phrases, paragraphs, templates, and responses as Snippets, each paired with a short abbreviation. Type the abbreviation and the full Snippet appears instantly in any app. TextExpander handles the typing before you even start.

Think of it this way: Grammarly catches mistakes in what you write. TextExpander replaces the writing entirely.

These tools sit at different points in your workflow. Grammarly is for anyone who wants cleaner, more polished prose. TextExpander is for anyone who types the same things over and over: support agents, sales reps, medical professionals, developers, and anyone whose work involves repetitive writing. They’re not rivals. They solve different problems.

When someone searches “Grammarly alternative,” they’re often price-fatigued, feature-fatigued, or realizing that grammar correction isn’t their actual bottleneck. If you recognize yourself in that last group, TextExpander is the tool Grammarly was never designed to be. Understanding what text expansion actually does is the fastest way to know if it’s the right fit.

Grammarly vs. TextExpander: At a glance

| Grammarly | TextExpander
What it does | Grammar, spell, and style checking | Text expansion and typing automation
Works in | Browser, select desktop apps | Every app, every platform, system-wide
Best for | Catching writing errors in real time | Automating repetitive typing
Free tier | Yes: basic grammar checking | Free trial available
Paid pricing | From $12/month | From $3.33/user/month
Team features | Style guides, tone consistency | Shared Snippet libraries, group templates
Platform | Browser extension-first | Desktop, mobile, browser

If your frustration is grammar mistakes, the tools in the next section are your Grammarly alternatives. If your frustration is typing the same things over and over, skip ahead to the TextExpander section.

The best Grammarly alternatives for grammar checking

If grammar and style correction is the job, here are the tools worth your attention.

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is the most thorough Grammarly alternative for writers who want real depth. Where Grammarly flags errors, ProWritingAid generates style reports that cover overused words, sentence length variation, readability scores, and pacing. It integrates with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Scrivener.

The interface is less polished than Grammarly’s, and real-time checking is a touch slower. If you’re writing something long enough that chapter-level consistency checks matter, the analysis depth earns its keep. For quick inline corrections, Grammarly’s simpler interface is the better fit.

Pricing: Free tier with word count limits. Premium from $10/month, or a one-time lifetime license. That’s a meaningful advantage over Grammarly’s subscription-only model.

Best for: Novelists, content writers, and academics who need more than error correction.

LanguageTool

LanguageTool is open-source, supports 30+ languages, and works as a browser extension, in desktop apps, and as a standalone checker. For multilingual teams or writers working in languages beyond English, there’s no better option in this category. Grammarly supports 23 languages, significantly fewer than LanguageTool’s 30+.

LanguageTool’s free tier is genuinely generous. It handles most common errors without a paid account. Premium adds style suggestions, a plagiarism checker, and higher character limits.

Pricing: Free tier. Premium from $4.99/month billed annually.

Best for: Multilingual writers, privacy-conscious users, and budget-focused teams that need solid grammar checking without Grammarly’s price tag.

If you’re exploring AI writing tools alongside grammar checkers, LanguageTool’s open-source model fits naturally in a privacy-first stack.

Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor doesn’t fix grammar. It fixes clarity. The tool highlights passive voice, overly complex sentences, unnecessary adverbs, and dense passages. Run your draft through it and you’ll see exactly where readers are likely to lose the thread.

Pricing: Free on the web with no account required. The desktop app is a one-time $19.99 purchase.

Best for: Content writers, bloggers, and marketers who want cleaner, more direct prose.

AI writing assistants

A separate category worth acknowledging: AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Jasper, and Copy.ai. These aren’t grammar checkers. They generate and rewrite content from a prompt. If the frustration with Grammarly is that grammar correction isn’t the bottleneck and you want generative help building first drafts, AI assistants go further than any tool on this list.

The tradeoff is control. AI tools require deliberate prompting, and the output still needs editing. For individual writers experimenting with content generation, that’s a reasonable workflow. For teams that need standardized, approved messaging, where brand voice consistency matters as much as grammar, AI-generated output is harder to control than a curated Snippet library.

Pricing: Free tiers available from ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Paid plans from $10–20/month for most tools.

Best for: Writers who want generative content assistance beyond grammar correction.

Free Grammarly alternatives

If the price is the real issue, several solid free options are worth a look:

LanguageTool: The most capable free grammar checker in this category. Handles multiple languages and covers most common errors with no paid plan required.

Hemingway Editor: No account needed. Paste your text and get an instant readability analysis on the free web app.

QuillBot: Combines paraphrasing with grammar checking. Useful for rephrasing awkward sentences as well as catching errors. Free tier available.

Tool | Free tier | Paid starts at
LanguageTool | Yes: 10,000 chars/check | $4.99/month
Hemingway Editor | Yes: unlimited web use | $19.99 one-time
QuillBot | Yes: limited rewrites | $8.33/month
Grammarly | Yes: basic checking | $12/month

When TextExpander is the smarter choice

Grammar isn’t everyone’s bottleneck. For a large portion of professionals, the real friction is typing the same phrases, sentences, and paragraphs hundreds of times every week. A grammar checker doesn’t touch that problem.

TextExpander does. You save your most-used content as text Snippets: email sign-offs, support responses, medical notes, legal language, and sales scripts, each triggered by a short abbreviation you define. Type ;thanks and a full three-paragraph thank-you email appears. Type ;cpt and a complete clinical progress note fills in. Type ;price and your current pricing table drops into whatever you’re writing.

Here’s the distinction: Grammarly catches errors after you type. TextExpander eliminates the typing entirely.

TextExpander runs system-wide in every app: Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Chrome, Word, your EHR, your CRM, your help desk platform. You set it up once and it works everywhere. That system-wide reach matters most to teams who’ve run into Grammarly’s browser extension dependency and found it missing from the desktop apps where they spend most of their day.

It also means TextExpander can handle autocorrect everywhere Grammarly can’t reach. The popular TidBITS autocorrect Snippet group is a ready-made library of hundreds of common typo fixes that activates in every app on your system — not just the browser.

We’ve seen support teams build a Snippet library before new agents start. New hires get the same tools as top performers from day one.

Common use cases where TextExpander pays off fast:

Customer support: Save canned responses as Snippets and handle tickets in a fraction of the time. The best response becomes the default for the whole team.

Sales outreach: Personalized prospecting emails built from Snippet templates, with fill-in fields for the custom details.

Healthcare documentation: Clinical notes, standard documentation frameworks, and approved language saved as Snippets to cut keyboard time in the EHR.

Legal and compliance: Standard contract clauses and approved language deployed consistently without manual typing.

Development: Code templates, API patterns, and terminal commands available with a short abbreviation.

If you want to automate repetitive typing across your entire workflow, TextExpander is built specifically for that. Grammarly improves writing quality. TextExpander improves writing speed. They measure different things.

TextExpander for teams: Shared content that scales

The practical difference comes down to this: Grammarly Business helps your team write correctly. TextExpander makes sure they write consistently. Those aren’t the same thing.

Grammarly Business adds style guides and tone consistency for teams at $15/seat/month. Useful if consistent grammar across the organization is the goal.

TextExpander’s team features solve a different problem: standardized content at scale. One person builds a Snippet library of approved email templates, response frameworks, scripts, and product descriptions, and the entire team uses it identically, starting on day one.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Brand voice consistency: Marketing writes the approved product messaging. Everyone on the team deploys it word-for-word, with no variation and no guessing.

Faster onboarding: New team members get access to the full ready-to-use Snippet templates library on day one instead of spending weeks building their own.

Support team alignment: Every support agent sends the same high-quality response, regardless of experience level. The team’s best work becomes the starting point for everyone.

For teams where message accuracy and brand voice matter as much as grammar, TextExpander fills the gap.

And for teams already using AI tools: TextExpander works alongside AI, not against it. AI generates first drafts. TextExpander deploys your approved, consistent content everywhere your team types. No context switching, no copy-pasting from another tab.

The best setup: Use Grammarly and TextExpander together

Here’s the take no one else in this comparison is making: you don’t have to choose.

These tools don’t conflict. They work at different stages of the writing process. TextExpander handles first-draft speed. Your Snippet expands instantly with the right content already in place. Grammarly reviews the output, catches any errors, and you send. The whole workflow takes seconds.

A practical example: a support agent types ;refund to expand a complete refund policy explanation. Grammarly reviews it for grammar. The agent sends a polished, consistent response without typing a single sentence from scratch.

If you want to write blog posts faster, the same logic applies: expand your Snippet templates, run Grammarly over the draft, publish.

The honest recommendation: if both writing speed and writing quality matter, run both tools. They’re designed for different layers of the same workflow and they complement each other cleanly.

Frequently asked questions

Is TextExpander a Grammarly alternative?

TextExpander is a Grammarly alternative only if repetitive typing is your core bottleneck, not grammar mistakes. Grammarly checks correctness and style. TextExpander automates typing with Snippet shortcuts. These are different tools built for different problems. If your frustration is writing errors, ProWritingAid or LanguageTool are the better fit.

What is the best free alternative to Grammarly?

LanguageTool’s free tier is the most capable free grammar checker available. It supports 30+ languages and covers most common errors without a paid plan. Hemingway Editor’s free web app is a strong complement for readability and clarity, with no account required. Both are solid free picks for the Grammarly alternative free search.

Can I use TextExpander and Grammarly at the same time?

Yes. They don’t conflict. TextExpander expands your Snippets first, then Grammarly reviews the output. Many writers and support teams run both tools together, using TextExpander for speed and Grammarly for polish. The combination covers both sides of the writing workflow: creation speed and error-free output.

What is TextExpander used for?

TextExpander automates repetitive typing using short abbreviation triggers. You save your most-used text as Snippets: email templates, support responses, medical notes, sales language, and legal clauses, then deploy them with a few keystrokes in any app on any device. Common users include support teams, sales reps, healthcare providers, legal staff, and developers.

Is Grammarly worth it for teams?

Grammarly Business at $15/seat/month adds team style guides and brand tone settings, useful if consistent grammar across the organization is the priority. TextExpander is often a better fit for teams that need standardized full responses and approved messaging templates, not grammar rules alone. TextExpander is more affordable at scale, and shared Snippet libraries mean one person’s best work becomes everyone’s starting point.

Conclusion

Grammarly fixes what you write. TextExpander replaces the writing. If grammar errors are the frustration, ProWritingAid or LanguageTool are the honest picks. If repetitive typing is the real problem, TextExpander is the tool Grammarly was never designed to be.

And if both speed and quality matter? Use both. They work better together than either does alone.