ProWritingAid vs Readability Formulas

ProWritingAid provides grammar and style suggestions through browser extensions and a desktop editor. It works with Word, Google Docs, Scrivener, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and browser extensions are available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. The free account handles 500 words at a time and includes two line-editing runs, ten rephrases, three Sparks, and three Creative Nudges per day. Premium and Premium Pro support documents of any length. Premium includes document sharing, real-time comments, and more than 25 writing analysis reports. Its plagiarism checker compares work against webpages, published works, and academic papers. The product supports English only, including general, British, US, Australian, and Canadian English. ProWritingAid says text entered into its editor is not kept on processing servers, is encrypted during processing, and is not used to train algorithms. The free plan is available; listed paid plans include Premium at $30 a month and Premium Pro at $36 a month, both billed monthly.

Readability Formulas offers tools to score English text and estimate the grade level and age of readers likely to understand it. Its Readability Scoring System includes formulas such as Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Dale-Chall, Spache, FORCAST, Fry and Raygor. Text can be pasted or supplied as .txt, .docx, .rtf, .html or .pdf files. Text Statistics reports measures including syllable count, average sentence length, abbreviations, proper nouns and passive voice. The beta Robert Gunning Editor helps locate difficult words and wordiness, with editing tools for phrases, nominalizations, fuzzy words and weak verbs. Batch Processing, also in beta, scores multiple texts with one or more formulas. A Chrome and Microsoft Edge extension can score highlighted web text, open the editor and show word statistics. The privacy policy says processing runs through local browser scripts and submitted text is not stored on a server or accessible to the site. The Synonym Finder connects to Datamuse and may transmit one word at a time.