How to Clone Grammarly
AI writing assistant that checks grammar, clarity and tone in real time
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is an AI writing assistant that catches grammar and spelling mistakes, then goes further - flagging clarity, conciseness, tone and engagement issues as you type. It lives everywhere you write: a browser extension, desktop apps, a web editor and mobile keyboards. The free tier hooks tens of millions of daily users; the paid Premium and Business tiers unlock the deeper rewriting and style suggestions.
The product started in 2009 as a simple grammar checker and spent a decade building proprietary NLP before the generative-AI wave. That head start matters: the moat isn't the spell-check (anyone can ship that today) but the breadth of integrations, the writing-style data, and the trust of being switched on inside someone's work all day. Grammarly reports more than 30 million daily active users and 70,000+ teams.
For a builder, cloning the full Grammarly is genuinely hard - but you don't have to. The realistic opportunity is a narrow writing assistant for one language, one domain, or one workflow the giant ignores: medical-note polishing, German business email, academic-citation tone, or a Shopify product-description rewriter. With today's LLM APIs the hard NLP is a call away; your edge is the niche, the UX and the distribution.
Who it's for: Anyone who writes for work or study - knowledge workers, students, non-native English speakers, and teams that want consistent on-brand writing. The clone opportunity is a vertical assistant: one language, profession or content type where generic tools feel too broad.
How Grammarly makes money
- $ Premium subscriptions: individual users pay roughly $12–$30/month for advanced clarity, tone and rewrite suggestions - the volume driver.
- $ Business plans: per-seat pricing (about $15/seat/month) with shared style guides, brand tones and admin controls, which lifts revenue per account.
- $ Enterprise & education: annual contracts with SSO, security review, analytics and seat minimums.
- $ Add-on AI features: generative writing/'GrammarlyGO'-style prompts bundled into higher tiers to justify price increases.
- $ Free tier as the funnel: the always-on free checker drives word-of-mouth and converts a small percentage to paid over time.
Rough estimate derived from third-party analyst reports; Grammarly is private and does not publish revenue. CloneMRR is not affiliated with Grammarly; figures are for educational purposes.
Features to build
MVP ship this first
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✓ Rich-text editorA clean web editor where users paste or type text and get inline suggestions, like a Google-Docs-lite writing surface.
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✓ Grammar & spelling checksUnderline errors and suggest corrections; one-click accept replaces the text in place.
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✓ Clarity & tone rewritesAn LLM call rewrites flagged sentences for concision or a chosen tone (formal, friendly, confident).
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✓ Writing scoreA simple 0–100 score per document with category breakdowns (correctness, clarity, engagement) to motivate edits.
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✓ User accounts & historyEmail/Google auth; saved documents and a history of past checks per user.
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✓ Usage limits + paywallFree users get N checks/rewrites per day; a Stripe paywall unlocks unlimited and advanced suggestions.
Full version add later
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+ Browser extensionA Chrome/Edge extension that checks text in any input field across the web - the hardest part and the real distribution lever.
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+ Custom style guideTeams define preferred terms, banned words and a brand tone the assistant enforces across members.
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+ Tone detectorAnalyze a draft and tell the writer how it will read (e.g. 'sounds curt') before they hit send.
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+ Plagiarism / AI-text checkCompare against web sources or estimate AI-likelihood - often a third-party API, not something to build from scratch.
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+ Team workspace & analyticsShared dictionaries, seat management, and an admin dashboard of usage and quality trends.
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+ Generative prompts'Rewrite this email', 'make it shorter', 'reply to this thread' - guided LLM actions beyond pure correction.
Recommended tech stack
| Layer | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend | Next.js + Tailwind CSS | Marketing pages need SEO; the editor is a rich client surface. Tailwind keeps the suggestion UI fast to iterate. |
| Editor | TipTap or Lexical | A mature rich-text framework gives you decorations/marks for inline underlines and suggestion popovers without reinventing contenteditable. |
| AI layer | Claude or GPT-4 class API + a fast rules pass | LLMs handle clarity, tone and rewrites; cheap deterministic rules (or LanguageTool) catch obvious typos without burning tokens. |
| Backend | Node.js (Next.js API routes) | Thin orchestration: auth, quota metering, prompt assembly and streaming the model response back to the editor. |
| Database | PostgreSQL (Supabase) | Users, documents, usage counters and team style guides - relational, with row-level security and built-in auth. |
| Payments | Stripe Billing | Subscriptions, metered free-tier limits and seat-based team plans handled out of the box. |
AI prompts to clone Grammarly
Pick your builder, copy the prompt, paste it and iterate. Enter your email once to unlock all prompts on every page - we'll also send you this full prompt pack.
Build an AI writing assistant web app called ClearScribe, modeled on Grammarly but focused on polishing professional emails and documents.
## Core concept
Users paste or type text into an editor and get instant suggestions for grammar, clarity and tone. Free users get a limited number of checks per day; a paid plan unlocks unlimited checks and one-click rewrites.
## User roles
- Free user: limited daily checks, basic grammar fixes
- Pro user: unlimited checks, tone rewrites, document history
- Admin: sees signups, usage and revenue
Tools to build your Grammarly clone
Describe your app in plain English and Lovable builds a full-stack web app with auth, database and deployment included.
Best for: Full-stack web apps without writing code
StackBlitz's AI builder. Prompt, run and edit full-stack apps directly in the browser, then deploy in one click.
Best for: Rapid prototypes and web apps
AI app builder with built-in database, auth and hosting. Strong for internal tools and CRUD-heavy products.
Best for: Dashboards, marketplaces and internal tools
The AI code editor. Full control over your codebase with AI agents that write and refactor code for you.
Best for: Developers who want full code ownership
Generates production-grade React + Tailwind UI from a prompt, deployable to Vercel instantly.
Best for: Polished UI and front-ends
Workers, Pages, R2 and D1 - host your clone on a global edge network with a generous free tier.
Best for: Serverless apps and APIs
Cheap VPS and managed hosting with an AI website builder. Easiest way to put a clone online on a budget.
Best for: Budget VPS and WordPress-style sites
How to make money with a Grammarly clone
Pick one language or domain
Don't out-Grammarly Grammarly in English. Win a niche it serves poorly - German business writing, academic English for researchers, or plain-language rewriting for legal/medical - where specialized suggestions justify a subscription.
Bundle into a workflow
Instead of a standalone checker, embed the assistant where a specific job happens: a Shopify product-description polisher, a cold-email rewriter for sales reps, or a support-reply assistant - distribution beats a generic editor.
Team style-guide enforcement
Companies pay to keep writing on-brand. Sell a team plan with shared banned-words lists, preferred terminology and a tone the assistant enforces across every member - sticky, per-seat recurring revenue.
Browser extension as the funnel
The extension that works in every text field is the real growth engine. It's the hardest piece to build, but it's also what makes the product always-on and word-of-mouth-worthy - invest there once the web app converts.
Frequently asked questions
How much money does Grammarly make?
Grammarly is private and doesn't publish figures, but third-party analysts estimate annual revenue in the $200M–$280M range (roughly $16M–$25M per month) as of 2023–2024, driven by Premium subscriptions and Business team plans on top of a very large free user base. Treat all of this as an outside estimate.
How hard is it to build a Grammarly clone?
The full product is hard - the moat is a browser extension that works in every text field plus a decade of NLP. But a focused web-based writing assistant is much easier in 2026: an LLM API does the heavy lifting on clarity and tone, so an MVP editor with suggestions and a paywall is a 2–3 week build. The real difficulty is accuracy, latency and cost control at scale.
Is it legal to clone Grammarly?
Yes - building a writing assistant is legal, and many exist (ProWritingAid, LanguageTool, Hemingway). You cannot copy Grammarly's name, logo, UI artwork or proprietary code. Build an original brand, write your own prompts and rules, and you're competing fairly on a known model.
What tech stack should I use for a Grammarly clone?
A solid 2026 stack: Next.js + Tailwind for the app, TipTap or Lexical for the rich-text editor with inline suggestion marks, an LLM API (Claude or GPT-4 class) for clarity/tone with an optional LanguageTool pass for cheap typo catching, Supabase (Postgres) for data and auth, and Stripe Billing for subscriptions. Keep every model call server-side.
How much does it cost to build and run a Grammarly clone?
Tooling for an MVP is under $100/month, but the variable cost is the AI: every check is an API call, so token costs scale with usage. Budget for that by capping free-tier checks, running a cheap deterministic pass first, and batching requests. A production build with custom development typically runs $20,000–$80,000 depending on scope.
Can an LLM API really replace Grammarly's grammar engine?
For clarity, tone and rewriting - yes, modern LLMs are excellent. For high-volume, low-latency typo and grammar catching, a deterministic engine (like the open-source LanguageTool) is cheaper and faster, so the best clones combine both: rules for the obvious errors, an LLM for the nuanced suggestions and rewrites.
More apps to clone
CloneMRR is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Grammarly. Revenue figures are rough estimates based on public reports and are provided for educational purposes only. "Cloning" here means building an original product inspired by a proven business model - never copy a brand's name, logo, content or code.