Sudowrite Alternatives for Writers Who Want Feedback, Not Generated Prose

Most lists of Sudowrite alternatives make the same mistake: they hand you five more tools that also write your book for you, when the reason you are shopping might be that you do not want a tool to write your book at all. The best Sudowrite alternative depends entirely on which job you are hiring the software to do.

Here is the fork in the road. If you want AI to draft prose faster, the real alternatives are Novelcrafter and NovelAI. If you want the opposite, software that reads the manuscript you wrote and tells you where it is weak, you want an analysis tool like AutoCrit, ProWritingAid, Fictionary, Marlowe, or StoryWith AI. Sudowrite is a generation tool, so half the people searching for an alternative actually want a different category entirely.

I have paid for most of these out of my own pocket across eleven self-published thrillers, so this is a hands-on list, not an affiliate roundup. And I will say plainly up front that StoryWith AI is our own product, so you should weigh my praise of it accordingly. I will also tell you exactly who should not use it, because a recommendation with no downside is just an ad.

Key takeaways

• Sudowrite generates prose. Before picking an alternative, decide whether you want generation or analysis, because they are different tools.
• For drafting, Novelcrafter and NovelAI are the closest alternatives, and Novelcrafter's bring-your-own-key model can be cheaper if you already pay for an AI provider.
• For feedback and analysis, AutoCrit, ProWritingAid, Fictionary, Marlowe, and StoryWith AI read what you wrote instead of writing for you.
• Watch the pricing model, not just the price. Sudowrite bills in credits that mostly expire monthly, which behaves very differently from a flat subscription.
• If you want to keep your own voice and stay clearly on the assisted side of publishing rules, an analysis-first tool is the safer fit.

Understand what Sudowrite actually is

Sudowrite is an AI writing partner built to generate fiction. It drafts scenes, expands beats, rewrites passages, and brainstorms, and it is genuinely good at it. Its pricing runs on credits: as of 2026 the Hobby and Student plan is around ten dollars a month billed annually for 225,000 credits, Professional is about twenty-two dollars a month annually for a million credits, and Max is roughly forty-four dollars a month for two million rollover credits, per Sudowrite's plans. Credits on the lower tiers expire each month, which is the detail that sends people looking for alternatives once they realize a heavy month can burn through an allowance fast.

So the honest first question is not "what is like Sudowrite," it is "did I want a tool to write for me in the first place." If yes, you want a better or cheaper generator. If the credit anxiety is a symptom of a deeper doubt about handing your prose to a machine, you want a different kind of tool altogether.

The drafting alternatives

If you liked what Sudowrite did but want a different price or feel, two tools compete directly.

Novelcrafter is the one most Sudowrite users switch to. It separates the writing workspace from the AI, using a bring-your-own-key model: you pay a low platform subscription, roughly four to twenty dollars a month depending on tier per Novelcrafter's pricing, and connect your own AI provider, paying that provider separately for usage. If you already pay for an AI subscription, this can undercut Sudowrite meaningfully. NovelAI leans toward story generation and roleplay, with a distinct fan base, and is worth a look mainly if that style fits you. Neither of these changes the fundamental thing, though: they still generate prose. If that is what you want, pick on price and interface. If a quiet part of you is uneasy about it, keep reading.

The analysis alternatives

This is the category almost nobody frames correctly, and it is where I have spent most of my own money. These tools do not write. They read your manuscript and report back, the way a developmental editor or a careful beta reader would.

Fictionary and Marlowe are the closest in spirit to what an analysis-first writer wants: Fictionary at roughly nineteen to forty-nine dollars a month per Fictionary's pricing walks you through structural self-editing, and Marlowe by Authors A.I. offers a free basic report with a Pro tier around twenty dollars a month per Authors A.I.'s pricing. AutoCrit and ProWritingAid lean more line-level, catching pacing, dialogue tags, and repetition.

Where StoryWith fits, and who should skip it

StoryWith AI, which again is ours, sits in the analysis camp but adds the thing none of the others do: it pairs manuscript analysis with real reader feedback sessions, so you get the machine's structural read and actual humans' reactions in one place. It analyzes structure, pacing, character arcs, dialogue, and continuity, and it never drafts prose for you, which keeps your work squarely on the assisted side of publishing rules. It has a free plan and paid tiers from nineteen dollars a month, so you can test the analysis on a real chapter before paying. You can see the approach at storywith.ai, and if you are weighing the whole category I keep an honest running comparison in the best AI tools for authors.

Here is who should not pick StoryWith: if what you actually want is a tool to generate prose and draft scenes for you, we are the wrong choice, and you should look hard at Sudowrite or Novelcrafter instead. We are built for writers who want to keep writing the words themselves and just want to know what is working. If that is not you, no analysis tool will scratch the itch. And if you are still deciding whether using any of these even counts as AI writing you have to disclose, I wrote up the assisted versus generated line in plain language.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free alternative to Sudowrite? Sudowrite itself only offers a limited trial with no ongoing free plan, but several alternatives have real free tiers. Marlowe offers free basic reports, ProWritingAid has a free version with a word limit, and StoryWith AI has a free plan that includes its analyzers with a one-time AI allowance. The free options skew toward analysis rather than generation.

What is the cheapest Sudowrite alternative for drafting? Novelcrafter is usually cheapest for drafting if you already pay for an AI provider, because its platform fee starts around four dollars a month and you supply your own AI key rather than buying bundled credits. The catch is that your total cost depends on how much AI usage you rack up with your provider.

Which Sudowrite alternative is best if I do not want AI to write for me? Choose an analysis tool rather than a generator. Fictionary and Marlowe focus on structural analysis, AutoCrit and ProWritingAid focus on line-level editing, and StoryWith AI combines analysis with real reader feedback. All of them read what you wrote instead of writing it for you, which is the whole point if keeping your own voice matters.