Scribbr Review: Is Scribbr the Right Choice for AI Writing?

What’s Scribbr? What AI Tools Does It Have?

What is Scribbr? It’s one of the top plagiarism checkers that partners with Turnitin, which makes Scribbr particularly attractive for students. However, what a lot of customers don’t know is that a plagiarism checker is only one of Scribbr’s writing tools. Some of those are very helpful and, surprisingly, available for free, including:

- AI paraphrasing tool. If you’re trying to get rid of plagiarism in your paper, Scribbr’s paraphrase might be exactly what you’re looking for. However, we recommend double-checking the text after paraphrasing it, as Scribbr doesn’t always remove 100% of plagiarism.

- AI humanizer. Scribbr partners with Quillbot, a popular content humanizing tool, and it’s really good. You might have some issues with style upon humanizing your AI-generated writing, but that’s the case with all content humanizers.

- AI detector. Scribbr’s AI detector is quite accurate. You can fool it, of course, but that’s the biggest flaw of all AI detectors – Scribbr’s isn’t any worse than the rest.

- AI proofreader. Scribbr’s AI proofreader is similar to Grammarly, and, frankly, we like Grammarly better. Still, it’s convenient to have all of your writing tools in one place, so it might be worth it.

Also, Scribbr offers a summarizer – which can be really helpful for students – but it’s not free.

Scribbr’s Customer Support: Is It Quick and Helpful?

The most convenient way to contact Scribbr’s support is via the live chat on the Scribbr website. Unlike most, it’s not AI-powered. While you might have to wait for a bit to have a human agent respond, it doesn’t take longer than a few minutes. We’ve talked to a few Scribbr support agents, and all of them have been friendly and helpful.

Also, Scribbr’s live chat has something like a knowledge base for frequently asked questions. If you suspect that the information you need is something that a lot of customers might be looking for, we recommend you check the “Search for help” option in the live chat. It’s very likely that the answer to your question is already there.

Alternatively, you can open the live chat and click on “Reach out via WhatsApp.” According to some reviews, this is the quickest way to contact Scribbr’s support. Based on our experience, though, it will take you roughly the same amount of time as texting the team via the live chat itself.

Is Scribbr’s AI Detector Accurate?

Yes, Scribbr’s AI detector is pretty accurate. In particular, it does a great job at identifying texts that are fully human-written and those that are completely AI-generated. However, that’s true for most popular AI detectors. They might struggle with correctly flagging everything in a text that’s half-written, half-generated, but typically perform well when the text leans fully in one direction.

To check if that’s the case with Scribbr, too, we ran three different texts through it: a human-written one, an AI-generated one, and one with a little bit of both. Scribbr did a great job the first two times but failed to identify all the AI-generated fragments in the third text. Besides, as is often the case with AI detectors, some of the sentences it highlighted in the third text were false positives.

By the way, Scribbr’s AI detector is also based on Quillbot, so if that’s what you’re considering Scribbr for, you might be better off simply using Quillbot.

How Much Does Scribbr Cost? Is It Available for Free?

One of the things we love the most about Scribbr is that the majority of its features are available for free. In particular, you can use the AI detector, paraphraser, and humanizer for free (although you’ll have to deal with word limits, which isn’t always convenient).

The summarizer is also available for free, but the word limit is only 600 words, which makes it basically useless unless you’re willing to pay. Most students need summarizing tools for class readings, which are typically dozens, if not hundreds, of pages long. It would be impossible to summarize those when there’s a 600-word limit.

If you want to have unlimited access to all Scribbr’s writing tools except the plagiarism checker, you’ll have to pay. The Scribbr pricing is reasonable: premium access to all AI writing tools (AI proofreader, AI detector, paraphrase, etc.) costs $9.95/month or even $3.32/month if you’re paying for six months at once.

Are Scribbr’s AI Humanizer and Paraphraser Any Good?

If you’re familiar with Quillbot, there won’t be anything new about Scribbr’s AI humanizer for you – it’s the same tool. It does make AI-generated content more or less undetectable, at least for AI detectors.

However, the downside is that the style and tone of voice of your original text change completely, and not necessarily in a good way. You’ll have to spend a lot of time editing the text after, not much less than what you would’ve spent on writing it from scratch in the first place. If you skip this step and submit your “humanized” AI-generated text as is, an experienced reader will probably be able to guess what you’ve done with it.

In contrast, Scribbr’s AI paraphraser works well. It removes most of the detectable plagiarism in the text (although the style might suffer as well). Still, don’t trust it blindly. To be safe, run the paraphrased test through a plagiarism checker again to make sure it’s good to go.

How Quick Are Scribbr’s AI Writing Tools?

Except for the plagiarism checker, all Scribbr’s AI writing tools are quick. It only takes a couple of seconds to detect AI content in the text. However, don’t forget about the word limits you’ll have to deal with unless you pay for Premium. When you can only check 120 or so words at once, it might take you a while to check a 2,000-word essay.

If you do pay for Premium, your checks will be more convenient yet longer, which makes perfect sense. When you’re checking 2,000 words at once, it’s only natural that it takes the tool more time compared to 120 words. Still, you won’t have to wait for long – up to 10 seconds or so.

Scribbr Plagiarism: Is the Plagiarism Checker Worth the Price?

Yes, although Scribbr’s plagiarism checker is one of the priciest in the market, it might still be worth it. What makes it stand out is that, unlike the competitors, Scribbr partners with Turnitin, the checker that most colleges use. So, the results you’ll get if you run your paper through Scribbr will be the closest to those your professor will see when you eventually upload the paper to Turnitin.

However, you’ll have to pay significantly more for Scribbr’s plagiarism checker than almost any competitor. Instead of having a fixed subscription price, Scribbr makes its customers pay for each individual check. So, it will cost you a whopping $19.95 to check a single essay up to 7,500 words long.

Scribbr’s Pros and Cons

Is Scribbl reliable? Yes. Is Scribbr safe to use? Yes. Is it convenient? For sure (at least if you pay for Premium). However, the price for plagiarism checks is borderline unreasonable. Besides, if you’re using the free version of Scribbr’s AI writing tools, the word limits can get frustrating. So, in place of a conclusion, let’s look at the list of Scribbr’s main strengths and flaws.

Pros:

✅ It’s convenient that Scribbr has a variety of AI writing tools in one place ✅ Most of Scribbr’s AI writing tools are available for free, even if there are word limits for checks ✅ Scribbr’s customer support is quick and efficient ✅ Scribbr is one of the leaders of the industry with a solid reputation. It’s safer to use than almost any other similar service

Cons:

❌ While Scribbr’s AI writing tools are affordable, that’s not the case for its plagiarism checker, which is extremely expensive ❌ The word limits for the free version of Scribbr’s AI writing tools are too low.