Writing9 alternative
A Writing9 alternative that grades your first essay free.
Writing9 puts its essay checker behind a weekly subscription. Gradeful grades your first essay free and, if you keep going, charges $19 once for 30 days — never a recurring bill.
Gradeful vs Writing9, feature by feature
Writing9 is a long-running IELTS Writing practice site that scores essays and shows sample answers.
| Gradeful | Writing9 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free graded essay | Yes — your first full report is free | Essay checking is Premium-only — no free graded check |
| Pricing | $19 one-time, 30-day pass — no subscription | Weekly, monthly and yearly auto-renewing subscriptions (from $7.99/week) |
| Scoring basis | The four official IELTS band descriptors | AI band score across the same four criteria |
| Score calibration | Calibrated against inflation — rounds down, not up | Users report scores that run optimistic |
| Feedback | Sentence-level rewrites with the criterion each one costs | Band scores and sample essays; less sentence-level rewriting |
Writing9 details reflect its publicly visible product and pricing as of July 2026. See a live head-to-head comparison.
Questions
- Is Gradeful a good Writing9 alternative?
- If you want an honest band score without a subscription, yes. Gradeful grades your first IELTS Task 2 essay free against the four official band descriptors, then charges $19 once for 30 days of unlimited checks.
- Is there a free Writing9 alternative?
- Gradeful grades your first full essay for free — no account, no card. Writing9 puts its essay checker behind a weekly subscription. Gradeful grades your first essay free and, if you keep going, charges $19 once for 30 days — never a recurring bill.
- Does Gradeful use the official IELTS criteria?
- Yes — Task Response, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range & Accuracy, with the overall band rounded the way IELTS rounds.
Try the Writing9 alternative free
Your first full report is free. After that, a 30-Day Pass is $19, one-time — unlimited essays, no subscription.
Prep is temporary. So is our billing.
Grade my essay free