Ginger Software Review (Grammar, Writing, and Pricing) 2020

Is there anything more awkward than looking at the document you approved or the email you sent and finding a bunch of obvious typos?

It isn’t just professional writers and indie authors who need a good editor.

Luckily, these days, there are a bunch of great spelling and grammar checkers you can try.

One popular spelling and grammar checker is Ginger. In this article, we’ll look at Ginger and review its pros and cons, and see if the tool is right for you.

Before we start, a quick heads up: some of the links below are affiliate links. That helps me keep the lights on and the coffee flowing so I can keep writing and sharing what I learn with you. Of course, it didn’t affect my review. Now, let’s get started.

Can’t Wait? Here’s Our Verdict

For proofreading software, there’s a lot to take into consideration. You have to look at what operating systems the tool works on, how accurate the tool is, and what other bells and whistles are included.

With all that said and done, Ginger is an excellent tool. While it may not be the best on the market, it’s pretty good at almost everything and has a cheaper price than most competitors. There’s also a great free version that gives you a great insight into the tool. For many, the free version might offer enough!

Now, if you’re interested in how we got to that conclusion, read the rest of our Ginger software review below.

Ginger’s Features and Integrations

Ginger has a lot of the features that more expensive competitors have, like a Chrome plugin and a mobile app. Actually, I’d say that Ginger’s app is better than popular competitor Grammarly’s. It’s custom-made whereas the Grammarly app feels like a mobile version of their site.

You’ll get more than just the basics that you’ll get with a Ginger account. They have a bunch of other significant features. Check it out:

• A sentence rephraser that will give you plenty of options to change up your writing. For example, if you’re writing the same email a few days in a row but want it to sound a little different, the sentence rephraser will offer a range of synonyms, idioms, expressions, etc. that you can use in your work to give it a different vibe.

• A text-to-speech app that will read your work for you. If you’re one who likes to read your work aloud when editing, then you’ll love this feature. The app can read your writing to you, leaving you the time to make notes and alterations.
• A “personal trainer” that has lessons tailor-made to suit your common mistakes. For example, if you use too much passive language, your activities will focus on that.
• A “change all” feature if you want Ginger to approve all suggested changes at once. After you approve them, you can deselect any false positives or any conscious writing decisions. This will help you write faster as it can take a while to click approve for every little change.

One thing that Ginger doesn’t offer is a decent web editor, guiding customers to use add-ons and a desktop app instead.

Check out all Ginger’s features here.

Ginger’s Design and User Experience

I don’t know what it is, but there seems to be an enormous gap in quality when it comes to user experience with editing tools. Some are absolutely seamless and feel like they come pre-installed with your computer, while others take so long, you could almost drive down to the library, find a dictionary, and figure out the correct spelling yourself!

Ginger is somewhere toward the top of the list.

The interface takes a little getting used to, but once you play around with it for five minutes, it becomes clear. Ginger’s interface works well with WordPress too, so if you write on a blog or other website, you’ll get a lot of use out of it.

How Much Does Ginger Cost?

Ginger has a pricing package that’s stock-standard for software. There is a limited free version and pricing plans that are either monthly, annual, or two-year plans, with the cost per month decreasing depending on how long your subscription lasts.

As you can tell from the picture, Ginger was running a sale when I took this screenshot, so the price might go up. However, every time I’ve checked the prices over the past few months the sale price has stayed the same—maybe I’m just lucky . . .

Now, the $20.97 monthly price seems super high, and it is. Ginger wants you to sign up for either the annual plan or two-year option rather than sign up monthly and potentially leave after a month. However, as the consumer, it’s a win-win because the $7.49 a month for the annual or $6.66 a month for the two-year option is a great price-point.

I’d first look at Ginger’s free option though, as it has a lot of the core features you might be after.

What’s Great About Ginger?

Now we’ve looked at what Ginger offers, let’s have a look at the pros of the platform.

Unlimited Premium Use

If you’ve paid the membership, you can use Ginger on an unlimited amount of devices. That means you can use the tool on your phone, tablet, personal computer, and work computer with no hassle.

There’s also no limit to the number of corrections you can make. You can filter a novel a day through Ginger and it’ll do it with ease.

Is Ginger Accurate?

I’ve used tools like ProWritingAid and Grammarly a bunch, and I didn’t really notice too much of a difference between what Ginger offers and what a tool like Grammarly gives as far as spelling and grammar checks. ProWritingAid still has both beat for the amount of writing style checks it offers, but if you’re not a fiction author, Ginger gives you consistently accurate results.

Translation!

When you consider that only twenty percent of people around the world speak English as a first language, it’s kind of odd that most writing tools don’t offer any translation services.

If you have the premium account, you can translate up to sixty languages (forty if you have the free version). You can translate bulk slabs of text too, which is great. On top of that, Ginger will even pick up mistakes in the foreign language.

Give Ginger a try to see what you like about it here.

What Could Be Improved?

While there’s a lot to like about Ginger, no tool is perfect. Here are a few things that I think could be improved.

Commentary on Ginger’s Translation Service

For starters, I’ve seen customer comments suggesting that Ginger’s translation service is basically just Google Translate (which isn’t renowned for quality). Now, I don’t know this for a fact as I’m not fluent in enough languages to test it for myself. Just something to keep an eye on.

Advanced Reporting is Poor Compared to Competitors

While Ginger’s basic reporting is great, their advanced reporting leaves a little to be desired.

When you head into Grammarly’s web editor, for example, you’re given an option to choose what style of writing you’re doing and the audience you’re writing for. These choices strongly alter the suggestions the software makes to help your writing. This tailored suggestion list means you get a lot of suggestions and they’re all highly relevant.

However, with Ginger, even advanced reporting is pretty generic. This makes it a suitable tool to get your work readable, but it won’t make it great.

No Web Editor

Speaking of a web editor, I know I touched on it before, but Ginger’s lack of a web editor is annoying. You won’t realize how often you use your ProWritingAid or Grammarly web editor until you switch to Ginger and you type the “www.gin—” before you remember there isn’t an editor.

I can’t imagine this would be a colossal task to bring in, considering all the capability that’s already there. It’s definitely something that could be improved.

Ginger Review: Final Thoughts

On the whole, Ginger is a great tool for most web users. It’s pretty easy to use, has solid spelling and grammar checks (even if the advanced reporting isn’t great), and it’s in a very reasonable price range.

If you’re an advanced writer, or a fiction writer, you may want to look at a tool more suited to your needs, like ProWritingAid (check out our ProWritingAid review here).

But if you’re someone who is after a solid spell checking tool, you should definitely give Ginger a try.