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samanthawriter7
Community Member

FRUSTRATING! Why are some clients now asking for Grammarly use? They seem to think it's infallible!

I've noticed a bit of a trend lately, a really frustrating one: clients asking for freelancers to use Grammarly. I personally detest Grammarly. Why? Well, because it's entirely unreliable! Every time I've used the free part of the service it provides (I've never done a subscription), almost all of the "errors" it pointed out weren't actually, ahem, errors! And then they invariably tell you that there are numeorus "other errors" that they can only tell you about if you pay for a subscription. How convenient (for their bottom line). Grammarly subscriptions are about $29 (Canadian) a month!

I really don't know the best way to address this issue, if I end up applying to any jobs that specifically say they want Grammarly use. Any ideas? Does anyone else here feel the same way I do? 

2 REPLIES 2
prachi163
Community Member

Grammarly's 'suggestions' always need to be taken with a pinch of salt. I use the free version, too, and it's been a bittersweet experience.

Bitter: I had an excruciatingly frustrating argument with an 'editor' who told me I need to use the word 'backlashes' instead of 'backlash' because Grammarly said so!

Sweet: I had Grammarly tell me once that I better use the word 'sacred' instead of 'scared' to describe the marital bond. Though I had my reservations from a purely philosophical point of view, I decided to go with grammarly.

 

Anyway, if clients point out that my content is not vetted by grammarly, I tell them it's only a software. I, on the other hand, am human.

michael_skaggs
Community Member

If the client is asking you to do this after a contract is already in progress, just tell them you would be happy to do so provided they pay for the subscription.

 

As for other clients, you can simply not work with them (since they will probably use it to nitpick all sorts of things in order to get out of paying you), you can increase your prices to account for a monthly subscription, or you can simply write it off as a business expense.

 

Not being a writer, I don't have much insight to give, but if a client insisted on checking my work with some automated system that's prone to error, I'd definitely reconsider working for them.

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