QuillBot Review 2024: Can it Be The Writing Assistant You Need?

When you hear QuillBot, you’ll probably hear a comparison with Grammarly soon after.

But while they both check grammar, QuillBot has more features like the Paraphraser and Co-Writer that positions it as an AI writing assistant.

So naturally, you’re asking: how well does it perform writing tasks?

In this QuillBot review, I’ll be tackling this and more questions.

As a writer, I need many QuillBot features daily to write top content for this blog and my clients.

What has been my experience using QuillBot?

You’ll see how its features work, pros, cons, pricing, and more information. By the end of this review, you’ll see if QuillBot should be one of your go-to writing tools.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the review.

What is QuillBot?

QuillBot is an artificial intelligence (AI) writing assistant that provides writing tools to research content, rewrite content, and help during the writing process.

Some of QuillBot’s core features include:

• Paraphraser
• Grammar checker
• Flow
• Plagiarism checker
• Summarizer
• Extensions

Whether you’re trying to shatter writer’s block, find information about a topic, or rewrite content to fit a specific audience, QuillBot can help you achieve these.

And in this review, you’ll see how well it goes about these tasks.

Who is QuillBot for?

These groups of people will likely find value in using QuillBot:

• Content marketers: creating content online requires a lot of research and speaking your audience’s language. QuillBot can help content writers create more relevant content for their ideal audience.
• Students: writing term papers form a part of the school experience. For a student who hates writing long documents, QuillBot can be a handy assistant. Although many have raised an alarm that QuillBot helps students cheat, it would be unfair to lay all the blame on the writing tool. After all, students have been cheating even before QuillBot’s founders were born.
• Research writers: these writers will find QuillBot useful in creating content suitable to their audience and finding information about their research topic. They can also use the citation generator to cite their report sources.

Looking at it, this is a big group of people.

But I think students and people in academia will get the best value from this tool.

Now, let’s see QuillBot’s key features and what they offer.

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QuillBot key features

QuillBot Paraphraser

The Paraphraser is one of the most popular QuillBot features.

In fact, QuillBot started as a paraphrasing tool before adding other features.

What’s the idea behind the Paraphraser?

You want to write for a specific audience with a tone. But your content doesn’t currently resemble that tone.

The QuillBot Paraphraser will take your text and transform it into your preferred tone.

You’ll find modes such as:

• Standard
• Fluency
• Formal
• Simple
• Creative
• Expand
• Shorten
• Custom

To use this feature, paste your text into the editor or upload a document. After doing that, click on “Paraphrase.”

You can switch between modes until you find a version that works for you. The “Custom” option gives you even more tone options.

You can see humorous or even academic tones.

There’s also a synonyms bar above the result. 

The more you slide the bar to the right, the less accurate your results. For instance, when I tried moving the bar to the right, it changed “demo” in my text to “trial version.”

Those are words with two different meanings. In this case, it lost the meaning of what I was trying to communicate.

Apart from texts in English, QuillBot also allows you to paraphrase texts in French, Spanish, and 20 other languages.

At the top right corner of your editor, you’ll see paraphrase and interface settings, compare modes for different tones, and more. 

QuillBot Grammar checker

When people hear about QuillBot, they assume it’s only to check grammar just like Grammarly. 

That’s false.

But all the same, QuillBot has a grammar-checking tool.

Now, the spoiler.

QuillBot’s grammar checker tool falls below the standard you can expect from Grammarly. So, if you want to buy this product just for grammar checking, you’ll get a better result with Grammarly.

That said, QuillBot has grammar-checking features that work for most people.

To use the feature, paste your text or upload a document.

QuillBot will show grammatical errors and sentence suggestions. The sentence suggestions try to simplify complicated sentences that can confuse your readers.

So, it will recommend a replacement sentence that solves this problem. Of course, it’s at your discretion to accept the recommendation.

Below your editor, you can use the Paraphraser to rewrite your sentences. 

In addition, you can check your content statistics. This includes content tones, error percentage, readability, and sentiment.

Just like the Paraphraser, the Grammar checker also lets you check grammar in German, French, and Spanish languages.

QuillBot Flow (formerly Co-Writer)

Update: The Co-Writer has now changed to Flow, and I can see two main changes. First, you can now share documents with other people. Second, there’s AI Review, which provides feedback on your content.

QuillBot Flow works along with you as you create a content piece.

First, you can pick one of 31 templates (compared to 4 in Co-Writer) to start a writing project. You also have the option to create a new project from scratch or upload a file.

Once you start a project, Quillbot will open up its editor.

Here, I’ve selected the “Blog” template. QuillBot does a great job explaining four common types of blog posts.

So, even a beginner can get an idea of which type of blog post they want to create.

From there, you can start with the “Research” function at the right sidebar. QuillBot will open up a search bar where you can enter the keyword for your content. 

You can also toggle a switch if your content is academic.

Just like Google, the research tab will show web pages relevant to your keyword.

Not just that, you can also read the page content right in the editor. QuillBot lets you add, paraphrase, or summarize helpful sentences, subheadings, and even headlines to your editor.

After adding a sentence from a web page, QuillBot automatically cites the source.

Apart from viewing the full article, you’ll also see highlights and keywords on the page. The highlights are the subheadings on the page.

Within a few minutes, you can get great ideas about how to start and structure your content piece. 

You also have the “Notes” tab beside the research tab. Here, you can jot down every idea you get about the topic. 

The citation tab lets you cite different sources online in your content. This is especially useful if you’re writing an academic paper.

In the editor itself, you’ll find QuillBot’s features like the Paraphraser, Summarizer, and grammar checker. You can also dictate content, listen to page content, and assess writing statistics.

But one feature I find interesting here is “Suggest Text.”

Like the name, it suggests paragraphs based on what you’ve written in the editor.

That means to use the feature, you have to write a few sentences first. Once you do that, QuillBot can make a few suggestions for the next paragraph.

Of course, you don’t have to insert the paragraph verbatim. But it can give you an idea if you find it difficult to come up with the next paragraph.

QuillBot Summarizer

We’ve all experienced it. 

In your excitement about a topic, you wrote a 40-word sentence where 15 would work.

Or you exceeded the expected word count for a content piece.

The QuillBot Summarizer can come in handy in these situations.

It lets you summarize paragraphs or key sentences. 

When you summarize key sentences, you’ll get a bullet list of the most important sentences in your content. For paragraphs, however, QuillBot will summarize your content into a paragraph.

Once you paste your text into the editor, QuillBot will prompt you to select up to five keywords in your text.

This way, your keywords will appear in the summary.

You also have a slider at the top of the editor, which lets you adjust how long you want the summary to be.

Summaries can get really tricky. So, you may still need to change some words to get your final results. However, QuillBot can give you a quick starting point.

QuillBot Plagiarism Checker

Anybody can fall into plagiarism, even if it’s none of their fault. That’s why it’s good to be sure before submitting a content piece or publishing it.

The QuillBot Plagiarism Checker lets you check your text against sources online to ensure it’s original.

The plagiarism checker is powered by Copyleaks and allows you to check plagiarism for up to 20 pages monthly. 

Unfortunately, with a page containing about 250 words, that’s a total of 5,000 words.

This is one of the problems I have with QuillBot. For someone like me who runs a blog and creates content for clients, the plagiarism credits won’t even last a week.

While you can pay for additional credits, it’s costly at $7.45 for 25 pages (6,250 words), $24.95 for 100 pages (25,000 words), or $49.95 for 250 pages (62,500 words).

Compared to Grammarly, which offers plagiarism checks for unlimited words, this is a thumbs down for QuillBot.

That said, to see how effective the plagiarism checker is, I copied a section from a recently published post on this blog.

QuillBot flagged the content as 96.4% plagiarized.

But just to play the devil’s advocate, I ran the same text on Grammarly for plagiarism. Grammarly only found 2% plagiarism.

So, this can be evidence that QuillBot’s plagiarism checker is more accurate.

Back to QuillBot.

Once the scan is completed, you’ll see the plagiarism score in the scan history. To get more details about your text, click on “View Report.”

In the report, you’ll see the number of matching results, similar words, and sources.

Beyond that, you’ll see the percentages of identical words, minor changes, paraphrased words, and omitted words.

You also have the option to download the report in PDF format.

The plagiarism checker lets you confirm your work is original before sending it into the world.

QuillBot Citation Generator

The idea of the citation generator is simple.

If you use sources while creating a content piece, you should cite them to give them credit.

The QuillBot Citation Generator lets you cite sources such as web pages, journal articles, and books. If you click on “More Types,” you’ll even get more options.

Beyond that, you can use citation styles like APA, MLA, or Chicago Style. And there’s a long list of other less popular styles.

All you have to do is copy the citation and paste it where you need it.

QuillBot Translator

The translator lets you translate over 30 languages. This can come in handy if you need to communicate with people in other languages.

However, if you need long professional content in another language, the best option is still to find a human writer who understands the language.

QuillBot extensions

QuillBot has extensions for Chrome, Word, and macOS.

So, you can use QuillBot while you browse the web or write in Microsoft Word.

If you use Google Docs, like most writers, the Google Chrome extension will work fine in the editor.

You can copy text from Google Docs and paste in the QuillBot sidebar to paraphrase, check grammar, summarize, or translate.

To download an extension, click on any of the icons.

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QuillBot pros and cons

QuillBot pros

• Co-Writer makes content research and writing easier and faster.
• Paraphraser lets you write in different tones in over 20 languages.
• QuillBot is easy to use. 

QuillBot cons

• Grammar checker is basic compared to Grammarly.
• Plagiarism checker allows you to check only 5,000 words monthly.
• QuillBot’s free plan is limited.

QuillBot pricing

QuillBot has two pricing plans:

Free plan

With the free plan, you get access to 125 words in the Paraphraser, standard and fluency modes, and three synonym options.

In addition, you can use one free word or phrase and summarize up to 1,200 words in the Summarizer.

Premium plan

The premium plan comes with unlimited words in the Paraphraser, seven Paraphraser modes, and unlimited freeze words and phrases.

Beyond that, you get up to 6,000 words in the Summarizer, advanced grammar rewrites, and plagiarism checker.

QuillBot’s premium plan costs $9.95 monthly if you pay every month, $6.6 monthly if you pay every six months, and $4.17 if you pay annually.

You can also pause your subscription if you need to take a break from writing for a few months.

Since QuillBot has a free plan, you can start with it and see how it works before signing up for the premium plan.

FAQs about QuillBot

Is Grammarly better than QuillBot?

Grammarly is better than QuillBot in grammar checking and allows unlimited words for plagiarism checking. However, Grammarly lacks tools like Paraphraser, Co-writer, and citation generator that you’ll find on QuillBot.

Is using QuillBot considered cheating?

No. You only cheat when you copy other people’s work and just paraphrase it. If you use QuillBot to improve your work, that’s not cheating.

Do professionals use QuillBot?

Yes, professionals use QuillBot. Many professionals who struggle to put words down will find Quillbot helpful when they need to write a paper or blog post.

Can I use QuillBot for free?

Yes, QuillBot has a free plan. Unfortunately, the free plan is limited, and you’ll only get the full feature set on the premium plan.

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Conclusion

QuillBot is an AI writing assistant that can take care of some tasks during the writing process.

This means it helps in research, providing ideas to break writer’s block, and ensuring you get rid of mistakes in your content.

However, QuillBot is not yet at the level to produce excellent results without human input.

So, it can’t replace you.

QuillBot will be an ideal tool for you if you want to save hours weekly on content rewriting, research, and generating citations.

Check out QuillBot’s plans to see the one that fits your needs.

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