Grammarly vs. PerfectIt: Which Is Better?

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Both Grammarly and PerfectIt are used as proofreading software, but which one is better? As a proofreader who has used Grammarly and PerfectIt for several years, I can help you answer this question.

Grammarly is “better” if you need software that helps eliminate errors and improve your writing. PerfectIt is “better” if you need a tool that specializes in checking consistency. However, comparing these proofreading tools is difficult because they serve different purposes.

Let’s examine the pros, cons, and applications of these products to see which one makes the most sense for you. We’ll also see the key features of these tools, including accuracy, speed, where they work, and opportunities for customization.

Grammarly vs. PerfectIt: Which Is Better?

Since these two programs have different purposes, it wouldn’t be fair to say one is “better” than the other. We can only say that one will work better for you based on your goals.

We can draw more direct comparisons between Grammarly and tools like ProWritingAid, Ginger, Hemingway, and WhiteSmoke since these tools overlap in functionality.

However, only a bit of overlap exists between what Grammarly and PerfectIt are designed to do.

We’ll learn more about this when we look closely at both products. For now, let’s see their basic similarities and differences.

Grammarly vs. PerfectIt

	PerfectIt	Grammarly Pro
proofreading software	✔	✔
can be customized	✔	✔
cuts down proofreading/ copyediting time	✔	✔
improves document quality	✔	✔
robust consistency checks	✔
checks for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors		✔
suggestions for clarity and concision		✔
makes sure writing is engaging and has an appropriate tone		✔

The Pros and Cons of Grammarly

Pros

• offers a free version with a generous number of features
• can tailor writing suggestions to your audience
• helps you become a better writer (includes generative AI assistance)
• includes detection of plagiarism and AI-generated content

Cons

• doesn’t check documents for consistency
• both versions occasionally give incorrect suggestions
• doesn’t take style guides into account

The Pros and Cons of PerfectIt

Pros

• provides an impressive range of consistency checks
• finds mistakes that other proofreading software misses
• includes several built-in styles to check writing against
• integration of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) for CMOS Online subscribers is useful

Cons

• occasionally overlooks an inconsistency
• only focuses on one writing-related issue: consistency
• doesn’t work in Google Docs

Is Grammarly or PerfectIt Best for You?

If you need software that serves primarily as a spelling and grammar checker and improves the quality of writing across many areas, Grammarly is your go-to.

This software will likely appeal to more people than PerfectIt, as it can serve as the primary proofreading tool for all types of editors and anyone who produces written content.

You can get Grammarly Free here.

If you’re looking for a tool that will boost a document’s quality by meticulously checking for consistency, especially with long texts, PerfectIt is the right choice.

This software is especially beneficial if you write or edit documents that must adhere to one of PerfectIt’s built-in styles, which we’ll discuss in this article.

Proofreaders and copy editors bear the most responsibility for a document’s consistency, so this tool is ideal for them.

You can begin a free trial of PerfectIt here.

Grammarly vs. PerfectIt: Comparing Ten Key Selling Points

Let’s dive deeper into the details of these tools by looking at the following:

1. What They Do
2. Price
3. Free Trial Availability
4. Accuracy
5. Where They Work
6. Speed
7. Support Provided
8. Improvements
9. User Interface
10. Ability to Customize

1) What They Do

What Does Grammarly Do?

Grammarly comes in two versions: Grammarly Free and Grammarly Pro.

What Can Grammarly Free Do?

Grammarly Free finds and offers one-click fixes in these three areas:

• grammar
• spelling
• punctuation

It also detects the tone of your writing (e.g., formal, concerned, sarcastic, confident, cordial).

What Can Grammarly Pro Do?

Grammarly Pro makes your writing better in many ways, including the following:

• improves fluency by ensuring appropriate word choices
• enhances clarity by restructuring hard-to-read sentences
• boosts engagement by offering more specific word choices
• strengthens delivery by fine-tuning the tone of your writing

It also helps you avoid plagiarism, and it comes with an AI-generated text detector.

If you’d like more information, please see my comprehensive comparison of Grammarly Free and Grammarly Pro.

What Does PerfectIt Do?

PerfectIt checks a document’s consistency across seven categories:

1. abbreviations
2. capitalization
3. house style
4. hyphens and dashes
5. bullets, lists, and tables
6. spelling, typos, and numbers
7. table/figure numbering

It runs numerous checks across these seven areas.

For example, it can flag instances where you use both email and e-mail in the same document or where a number is written as 10 in one place and ten in another.

I’ll give you an example of a check performed within each category.

If you’d like more information about these checks, please see my detailed review of PerfectIt.

According to Intelligent Editing—the company that created PerfectIt—these are the primary benefits of using the software:

• reduces time needed for proofreading and copyediting
• decreases number of mistakes
• helps your writing make a good impression
• aids in building your brand

As you can see, Grammarly and PerfectIt offer similar benefits, but they achieve them in different ways.

PerfectIt for Word (Windows) vs. PerfectIt Cloud

Like Grammarly, PerfectIt is available in two versions: PerfectIt for Word (Windows) and PerfectIt Cloud.

You need Microsoft Office (also known as Microsoft 365 or Office 365) to run PerfectIt.

PerfectIt for Word is recommended for Windows users.

To use PerfectIt for Word, you need Windows 11 or later, with Office 2021 or later. It’s compatible with every version of Microsoft 365.

For compatibility with older versions of Word and Windows, please see this page.

PerfectIt Cloud is suggested for Mac users.

To use PerfectIt Cloud, you need a Mac or iPad with Microsoft 365.

It also works on Windows PCs with those same editions of Microsoft 365. And it requires Microsoft’s Connected Experiences to be enabled.

Both iterations of the software are similar, but a few differences are worth noting.

PerfectIt for Word vs. PerfectIt Cloud

	PerfectIt for Word	PerfectIt Cloud
connects to a server	no	yes
Internet speed affects software speed	no	yes
can add your own customized style sheets	yes	not yet

Even though you can’t create customized style sheets in PerfectIt Cloud, both versions of PerfectIt come with these built-in styles:

• American Legal Style
• Australian Government Style
• Chicago Manual of Style (requires a CMOS Online subscription to activate)
• European Union Style
• Government Publishing Office Style
• Microsoft Style
• United Nations Style
• World Health Organization Style
• styles for Australian, Canadian, UK, and US spelling

Now that we’ve seen how you can use these tools, let’s see how much they cost.

2) Price

How Much Does Grammarly Cost?

Here are the prices for Grammarly Pro, depending on which payment plan you choose.

Grammarly Pro Pricing

Annually	Quarterly	Monthly
$12.00 / month (save 60%) – billed as a single payment of $144.00 per year	$20.00 / month (save 33%) – billed as a single payment of $60.00 every 3 months	$30.00 / month

How Much Does PerfectIt Cost?

PerfectIt offers four pricing plans: Professional, Elite, Team, and Enterprise.

PerfectIt Pricing

The chart below shows the features included in each plan. If the print in the screenshot is too small, the link below will take you to the page with this chart.

PerfectIt Plans and Prices (per User)

Both Grammarly and PerfectIt purchases come with support and all updates.

3) Free Trial Availability

Grammarly occasionally offers a free trial of Grammarly Pro to individual subscribers. When one is available, you’ll see the option to sign up on Grammarly’s site.

PerfectIt offers a 14-day free trial. No credit card information is required.

4) Accuracy

Both PerfectIt and Grammarly are reasonably accurate.

However, I’ve found that PerfectIt is more accurate than Grammarly.

This difference exists because Grammarly’s algorithm has to evaluate issues that are less clear cut, many of which depend on subtleties.

Checking for consistency is more straightforward than evaluating the finer points of grammar and punctuation.

And Grammarly can struggle to understand context, which sometimes results in overlooked errors.

It’s worth noting that neither Grammarly nor PerfectIt can offer the same benefits as a trained proofreader or copy editor.

These professionals will consistently outperform software due to the complexities and nuances of the English language.

However, if you plan to hire a proofreader or editor, this software can save you money since your document won’t need as much work when you send it to be edited.

5) Where They Work

Grammarly takes the cake when it comes to where you can use these tools.

Where Does Grammarly Work?

Where doesn’t Grammarly work may be the better question.

Grammarly has browser extensions for the following:

• Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox
• Edge

It works in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, as well as Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, and most other email clients. You can also use it on social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, and X.

Grammarly even offers a mobile keyboard so you can use it on your iPhone or Android phone.

Where Does PerfectIt Work?

PerfectIt works with Office 365 on Mac, iPad, PC, and Word Online. 

It does not work in Google Docs.

Furthermore, PerfectIt doesn’t provide browser extensions; however, I don’t think one would be helpful.

This software is mainly used for checking long documents (e.g., 1,000+ words) that are more likely to contain inconsistencies. Additionally, it’s longer pieces of writing that often need to adhere to a specific style guide.

Using PerfectIt to check a brief email or social media post would provide minimal benefits.

6) Speed

Both tools offer impressive speed. Of course, the longer the document, the more time the software will need to work.

7) Support Provided

I reached out to Grammarly for support in 2020 and PerfectIt in 2019.

Both support teams responded very quickly to help me.

My Experience with Grammarly Support

Here are screenshots of my exchange with Grammarly’s support team, showing how they got back to me in six minutes. Six minutes. Wow!

In addition to having a contact form on its site, Grammarly provides a help center with an FAQ section. You can also talk to Grammarly Support via live chat.

My Experience with Intelligent Editing Support

And here’s my email exchange with Intelligent Editing’s support team. They responded to me in 12 minutes. Super impressive!

In addition to a contact form, the Intelligent Editing team supports users with numerous video tutorials, user guides, and an FAQ section.

They also created a PerfectIt users group on LinkedIn and Facebook where members can support each other.

8) Improvements

How Grammarly Continually Improves Its Software

Grammarly regularly improves its algorithm by making it faster and more accurate. It also refines the suggestions given to users.

Grammarly is able to make these enhancements by considering user feedback.  

It also utilizes experts in natural language processing, linguistics, and machine learning (source).

How Intelligent Editing Continuously Improves PerfectIt

Intelligent Editing regularly enhances PerfectIt.

Over the years, PerfectIt has become faster and more accurate. It has been programmed with additional consistency checks, and the built-in styles have become more comprehensive.

Furthermore, Intelligent Editing has put substantial effort into adding consistency checks within the American Legal Style, which now includes over 125,000 legal-specific corrections (source).

Many proofreaders and copy editors welcomed the opportunity for CMOS Online subscribers to integrate CMOS with PerfectIt.

Considering the widespread use of CMOS in the publishing industry, this was a big deal! Thanks, Intelligent Editing! 😊

9) User Interface

I think Grammarly provides a slightly better user interface since it color-codes different categories of corrections.

However, both interfaces are intuitive and easy to use.

And both provide one-click fixes for errors.

10) Ability to Customize

How Can You Customize Grammarly?

You can get tailored writing suggestions by customizing Grammarly in the following ways:

1. Choose a primary language to get tailored suggestions.
2. Specify your document’s English dialect (US, UK, Canadian, Australian, or Indian).
3. Add words to your personal dictionary.
4. Turn off recommendations you don’t want. (Grammarly Pro only)
5. Use the plagiarism detector and AI-generated text detector. (Grammarly Pro only)

How Can You Customize PerfectIt?

You can adjust PerfectIt in these ways:

1. Choose the style you want PerfectIt to adhere to as it checks your writing.
2. Deselect any checks you don’t want the software to perform.
3. Skip sections of text you don’t want checked.

The screenshot below shows how easy it is to untick a box to have PerfectIt skip a particular check.

If you have PerfectIt for Word, you can create your own style sheets.

This feature is handy for proofreaders and copy editors because creating style sheets for individual clients can save time.

Here are a few examples of what you can program these style sheets to do:

• verify that people’s names are spelled correctly
• check for industry-specific errors
• ensure a company’s rules for capitalization and italicization are followed

That wraps up our feature comparison of Grammarly and PerfectIt.

I hope this review helped you understand how these products can assist you in your writing-related endeavors.

Best wishes to you!

“Inspiration is sometimes as simple as a shared smile.”

– Amy Leigh Mercree