If you write for work, study or your own business, you already know the pain: you re-read the same paragraph five times and still miss the typo that everyone else spots first. A good AI proofreader closes that gap in seconds — but the free tools vary wildly in quality, and the free plan that looks generous in the pricing table often collapses the moment you paste in real work.
Here's what a live proofread of a sentence like that looks like in Verbao:
The free plans free plan that looks look generous in the pricing table often colapses collapses the moment you paste in real work.
What a great AI proofreader actually does
Spellcheck has existed for decades. Modern AI proofreading goes further: it understands context, catches homophones (their vs there), fixes punctuation, flags inconsistent capitalisation, and rewrites clunky sentences without changing your meaning. The last part is the giveaway of a mature tool — anything that only underlines problems and leaves you to guess the fix isn't proofreading, it's testing you.
- Spelling and typos — including real-word errors like 'form' vs 'from'
- Grammar and agreement — verb tense, singular/plural, article use
- Punctuation — commas, apostrophes, quotation marks, dashes
- Style — passive voice, wordiness, repeated words
- Formatting — inconsistent capitalisation, spacing, list style
Homophones are the sneakiest of the lot because your eyes and your spellcheck both nod them through. A modern proofreader treats them as first-class citizens:
Please send the report too the whole team — its due tomorrow.
Please send the report to the whole team — it's due tomorrow.
'too' vs 'to' and 'its' vs 'it's' — two real-word errors on one line.
What to look for in a free plan
Most free proofreaders limit you in one of three ways: a low word count per check, watered-down suggestions, or a nag-wall to upgrade before you can copy the fix. Look for a tool that gives you the full report on the free tier — even if the word limit is smaller. A capped word count is honest; a capped feature set is not.
The other thing worth checking is what happens to your text. A free tool that saves your writing to train its model is a hidden cost. Read the privacy page before you paste anything sensitive. Verbao processes your text in-memory and never stores it — the free plan gets the same privacy posture as the paid one.
How Verbao's free plan works
Verbao gives you the full proofreading engine on the free plan — the same fixes, explanations and corrected version that paid users get. The only limit is 500 words per submission, and there's no card required. For longer documents you can buy a single credit for £0.99 (up to 50,000 words), or go unlimited for £2.99 a month. That's it — no upsell wall, no drip-fed suggestions, no 'sign in to see the rest'.
Rewriting without losing your voice
A common worry: won't AI make everything sound the same? Only if you let it. The trick is to use the paraphraser on individual sentences rather than the whole piece, and to keep the tone dial on 'standard' unless you actively want formal or concise. Here's the same sentence in two flavours:
We wanted to reach out and let you know that we've now completed the initial review of your application.
We've finished the first review of your application.
Concise mode strips filler; formal mode does the opposite; standard mode just rewords with the same length. The point is that you choose — the tool doesn't flatten you by default.
Getting the most out of it
- Paste in your first draft, not your final one — you'll learn from the fixes.
- Use UK or US English deliberately; switch in settings before you paste.
- Accept fixes one at a time when your voice matters (blog posts, cover letters).
- Use 'accept all' when speed matters (internal emails, chat replies).
- Run tricky sentences through the paraphraser separately — don't rewrite the whole piece.
Free should mean 'the real product, smaller.' Not 'a demo of the real product.'
Try it free — paste a paragraph you're about to send and see what it catches. If the free plan does the job, stay on it. That's the whole point.