The popular grammar-checking tool LanguageTool has decided to make its browser extension available only to premium users. Until now, premium subscribers have made it possible to cover the costs of free users using the extension. The company says it needs to stay competitive with the likes of Grammarly and offer generative AI features, which cost money.
For this reason, it says it cannot give users access to the extension for free anymore and is not willing to introduce ads or sell user data to keep the service free. The company said that it has six million browser extension users who use the service for free, and just a minority pay for the premium service.
If you use the website version of LanguageTool, then you can continue to use it, as this change only affects the browser extension. To ease the transition, it seems that LanguageTool has given users a 14-day trial of premium so that the extension continues to work. After it runs out, you will either need to upgrade or lose functionality.
The company also said that developers can still host and run their own instance of LanguageTool’s server to keep the browser extension working.
LanguageTool premium can be paid for on a 2-year, annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. The longer you choose to subscribe, the lower the monthly fee will be. Right now, they have a 50% discount on all tiers, so you can grab it for as low as $2.50 a month.
For users who don’t want to pay, it is pushing its sister brand, QuillBot, which offers free grammar-checking and paraphrasing via a browser extension. Other free alternatives available as Chrome extensions include Harper, ProWritingAid, and DeepL Write.
Were you using LanguageTool? How do you feel about this change, let us know in the comments what you plan to do.
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