Playbook by MediaBistro | Tools & Software for Creative Professionals
Writer and Grammarly serve different segments of the AI writing market. Writer targets enterprises requiring brand compliance, custom AI models, and regulatory guardrails, while Grammarly offers accessible grammar and style assistance across platforms for individuals and teams. Your choice depends on whether you need enterprise governance or versatile everyday writing support.
Writer positions itself as the enterprise-grade AI writing solution for organizations that can't afford compliance risks or brand inconsistencies. Built specifically for companies with strict regulatory requirements, established brand guidelines, and security concerns, Writer provides generative AI capabilities wrapped in governance layers. The platform enforces style guides automatically, flags compliance issues before content goes live, and allows organizations to train custom AI models on their own approved content.
Unlike consumer-focused writing tools, Writer integrates directly into enterprise workflows with SSO, role-based permissions, and audit trails. The platform's Knowledge Graph feature allows companies to feed their proprietary terminology, product names, and brand voice into the AI, ensuring outputs align with established standards. For legal, healthcare, financial services, and other regulated industries, Writer's compliance-first approach addresses the gap between AI capability and corporate responsibility.
Grammarly has established itself as the ubiquitous writing assistant, used by over 30 million people daily across emails, documents, social media, and web browsers. Its core strength lies in real-time suggestions that improve grammar, punctuation, clarity, and tone without disrupting your writing flow. Grammarly works where you work—integrating seamlessly with Gmail, Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Slack, and virtually every text input field through browser extensions.
Beyond basic grammar checking, Grammarly has evolved into an AI-powered communication assistant that adapts to context. It distinguishes between formal business proposals and casual social posts, offers vocabulary enhancements, detects plagiarism in premium tiers, and provides tone adjustments to ensure your message lands as intended. The freemium model makes professional-quality editing accessible to students, freelancers, and professionals, while Business and Enterprise tiers add team style guides and analytics for organizations wanting consistency without Writer's heavyweight enterprise features.
Custom AI models trained on brand content with automatic style guide enforcement across all outputs
Style guides available in Business/Enterprise tiers with consistency checking
API access, enterprise integrations, custom deployment options
Browser extension, mobile apps, and native integrations with 500+ apps including Gmail, Slack, Notion
SOC 2 Type II, custom data residency, content filtering, audit logs, compliance checks for regulated industries
SOC 2 Type II, encrypted data transmission, GDPR compliant; basic security for most use cases
AI generation with guardrails; focused on content creation rather than inline editing
Instant grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity, and tone suggestions as you type anywhere
Full generative AI capabilities with custom models, templates, and brand-specific outputs
GrammarlyGO provides AI writing assistance for ideation, rewriting, and composition
Custom pricing, enterprise sales process, implementation required
Free tier available, instant signup, works immediately in browser with minimal setup
The pricing philosophies reflect different target markets entirely. Grammarly's transparent, accessible pricing lets anyone start for free and upgrade as needs grow, while Writer's enterprise model requires budget approval and procurement processes. Grammarly delivers immediate ROI for individual productivity; Writer requires organizational buy-in but addresses compliance risks that could cost far more than the platform investment.
These tools occupy different universes within the AI writing landscape, making direct comparison less about which is 'better' and more about which solves your actual problem. Choose Writer if you're an enterprise dealing with regulatory compliance, brand governance at scale, or security requirements that prevent using consumer AI tools. It's built for scenarios where a compliance violation or brand mishap costs more than the platform investment—think pharmaceutical companies generating patient communications or financial institutions creating marketing materials under SEC scrutiny.
Choose Grammarly for virtually every other scenario. If you're an individual professional wanting to write better emails, a marketing team needing consistent quality without enterprise overhead, or a small business improving communication across the organization, Grammarly delivers immediate value with zero friction. Its strength is universal applicability—it works everywhere you write, requires no training, and scales from free individual use to team deployment. Most creative professionals will find Grammarly's combination of accessibility, breadth of integration, and real-time assistance more immediately useful than Writer's specialized enterprise capabilities.
