LanguageTool
A grammar and style checker covering more than 30 languages, with an open-source engine you can run on your own server if the text cannot leave the building.
What you'd use it for
Catching grammar and style mistakes in a language you work in but did not grow up writing.
- Check grammar, punctuation and spelling across 30-plus languages and dialects, including on the free tier
- Catch the things a spellchecker cannot -- word confusion, double negation, a wrong name in an email, an impossible date
- Flag repetition, wordiness, overused phrases and informal register in a draft meant to read professionally
- Rephrase a sentence with AI, three times a day free and without limit on Premium
- Keep a personal or team style guide so the same correction does not have to be made twice
The verdict
LanguageTool is the grammar checker for people who do not write only in English, and that is a genuinely under-served job -- 30-plus languages on the free tier, where most competitors treat anything but English as an afterthought. The free version is useful and real: it checks up to 2,000 characters per field, which is a long email but not a document, and gives three AI rephrasings a day. Premium removes the ceiling to 150,000 characters and adds the style and semantic checks that are most of the value, but read the price carefully -- everything on the page is currently marked down 50%, and the undiscounted rates are $24.90 a month or $69.90 a year. It suits a team writing professionally in a second language, or anyone whose policy forbids sending text to a cloud checker, since self-hosting is an option here that competitors do not offer.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $0 | Emails and short pieces, in any of the supported languages. | Grammar, punctuation and basic spelling in 30-plus languages and dialects, 2,000 characters per text field, three AI sentence rephrasings a day, a limited Picky Mode, a personal dictionary and text statistics. A few style, semantic and typography checks are included -- basic standard language, non-standard spellings, measurement units, incorrect dates and inconsistent numbering -- but the substantial ones are not. |
| Premium -- monthly | $24.90/month list, currently $12.45 with a 50% discount running site-wide | Someone who wants Premium without committing to a year. | Everything in Basic, plus 150,000 characters per text field, unlimited AI sentence rephrasing, full Picky Mode, a personal style guide, and the style, semantic, typography and advanced spelling checks the free tier omits. |
| Premium -- quarterly | $49.90/quarter list, currently $24.95 -- $8.32 a month | A middle option, and the worst value of the four intervals. | The same Premium feature set. |
| Premium -- annual | $69.90/year list, currently $34.95 -- which is the $2.91/month the page leads with | The plan the vendor marks as its bestseller, and the honest comparison point. | The same Premium feature set. A two-year option is also offered at $119.80 list, currently $59.90, working out at $2.50 a month. |
| Teams | From 2 users at US$150.98/year list, currently US$71.70 -- about $35.85 per user per year, scaling in the picker up to 1,000 users | An organisation that wants one style guide and dictionary applied across everyone. | Everything in Premium, plus user management, a shared Team Style Guide and a Team Dictionary. |
Read from LanguageTool's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- Nothing to start -- the free checker runs in the browser with no account
- The browser extension, or one of the desktop apps, if you want checking where you actually write rather than in a text box on the site
- Your own server and someone to run it, only if you take the self-hosted route
A couple of minutes to install the extension and see corrections in your own writing. Building a personal or team style guide so it stops flagging your house conventions is a longer, optional job that only pays back if several people write to the same standard.
Your first run Install the browser extension, type anywhere, and corrections appear underlined as you write -- no document to upload and no account needed for the free tier. The first thing you will notice is the 2,000-character ceiling on a long text field.
Where it breaks
Every price on the pricing page currently carries a 50% discount badge, with the list price struck through beside it. The list prices are $24.90 a month, $69.90 a year and $119.80 for two years; the Teams rate shows a 53% discount against US$150.98 for two users. Both numbers are given above because a discount running today is not a price, and the ratio matters: the $2.91 a month the page leads with is the discounted annual rate, against a list monthly rate of $24.90. Anyone budgeting from the headline should know they are comparing a promotional annual figure to a competitor's list monthly one.
Extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and Opera, plus Thunderbird, desktop apps for Windows and macOS, and iOS. The engine is open source and a self-hostable server exists for organisations that cannot send text to a third party, which is the feature most likely to decide this against a competitor. Prices are quoted including VAT.
Previously unpublished: LanguageTool renders its prices through a checkout widget that returns nothing to a fetch, so the entry had no figures and was held as a draft. Read in a browser and now published with all four individual intervals and the Teams rate, at both list and current prices.
When not to use it
Not for a team writing only in English that wants an AI writing assistant as much as a proofreader -- Grammarly is more polished at that and priced accordingly. Not for anyone who needs the text rewritten rather than corrected, since the AI rephrasing is a sentence at a time rather than a drafting tool. And be careful signing up on the headline monthly figure: at full price the monthly plan is $24.90, more than eight times the advertised annual-equivalent rate, so the cheap number on the page is doing two kinds of work at once.
LanguageTool solves a narrower problem than Grammarly: it is the checker for people who do not write primarily in English. The free tier covers more than 30 languages and dialects, and the underlying engine is open source, which is why it turns up embedded inside other people’s products as well as standing on its own.
What the free tier actually stops you doing
Free is not a trial. It checks grammar, punctuation and spelling in every supported language, indefinitely, and for short writing it is all most people need.
Two ceilings decide whether that holds. The first is 2,000 characters per text field — roughly 300 words, so a long email passes and a document does not. The second is subtler and matters more: free gives you the correctness checks and withholds the style ones. Repetition, wordiness, overused phrases, informal register, word confusion, double negation, an inconsistent date format, the wrong person’s name left in an email — all Premium.
Free is not entirely bare on style — it catches non-standard spellings, inconsistent measurement units, an impossible date, inconsistent numbering. But the checks that find the problems you cannot see yourself are the paid ones.
That split is well chosen from the vendor’s side and worth understanding from yours. If your problem is “I am not certain this is grammatical”, free solves it. If your problem is “this is grammatical and still reads badly”, free will mostly tell you nothing is wrong.
The price on the page is half the price
Every interval on LanguageTool’s pricing page currently shows a 50% discount, with the list price struck through next to it. The Teams block shows 53%.
So the $2.91 a month the page leads with is the discounted annual rate. The list annual rate is $69.90, and the list monthly rate is $24.90 — more than eight times the advertised figure. Both sets are in the table above, because a discount running on the day we checked is not a price, and a reference that records only the promotional number is useful for about as long as the promotion.
The practical advice: if you want LanguageTool and a discount is running, take the annual or two-year interval, because that is where the ratio is most in your favour. Just do not compare its discounted annual figure to a competitor’s list monthly figure and conclude it is eight times cheaper.
Self-hosting is the argument competitors cannot answer
LanguageTool’s engine is open source and can run on your own server. For most small businesses that is irrelevant. For the ones where it matters — a law firm, a clinic, anyone whose contracts forbid sending client text to a third-party service — it is the entire decision, and it is not a feature Grammarly offers at any price.
If that is your situation, this is the tool to evaluate first rather than the cheap alternative you consider second.
Where it fits
If your team writes only in English and wants an AI rewrite assistant as much as a grammar check, Grammarly is the more polished, more expensive option. Against QuillBot, the split is correction versus rewriting: QuillBot shows you five other sentences, LanguageTool tells you what is wrong with this one. LanguageTool’s edge over both is coverage — non-English teams, and anyone whose compliance policy rules out a cloud checker at all.
Alternatives
Writing & editingAppsGrammarly
An AI writing assistant that lives inside the apps you already type in, correcting and rewriting as you go rather than waiting for you to paste something into a chat box.
QuillBot
Rephrases a sentence several ways, checks grammar, and summarises long text, in the browser or inside Word.
Writing & editingAppsWordtune
Rewrites a sentence several ways so you can pick the tone you meant, and summarises long pages down to the parts worth reading.
Writing & editingAppsTrinka
A grammar checker built for technical and academic writing, tuned to subject-specific terminology and journal style guides rather than general prose.
Get LanguageTool
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
The ebook is about what to hand over, in what order, and how you find out when it goes wrong. One payment, no subscription.