The ultimate guide to finding the best free AI writing tool

Trying to scale up content creation without compromising quality can feel like a constant battle. You need more blog posts, more social media updates, and more of everything, but there are only so many hours in a day.

That’s where the idea of a free AI writing tool starts to look appealing. For marketers, founders, and creators, it can seem like a promising solution for the content treadmill. For example, some companies have successfully used AI blog writers to significantly increase their online visibility by scaling content production.

This guide provides a deep dive into the world of free AI writers. We’ll explore what they are, what separates a basic text generator from a comprehensive content creation tool, and review top options along with their limitations.

What exactly is a free AI writing tool?

Basically, a free AI writing tool is a platform that uses large language models (LLMs), the same tech behind ChatGPT, to generate text that sounds human. You feed it a prompt, and it produces text in response.

People use them for all sorts of things, like:

• Drafting sections of a blog post

• Whipping up social media captions

• Writing quick emails

• Brainstorming ad copy

It is a good idea to set realistic expectations. Most free tools are designed to give you a starting point, not a finished piece. The quality can be variable, and you’ll often find yourself spending a decent amount of time editing, fact-checking, and rewriting to turn a rough draft into something you’d publish.

This is what I do. I outline, have it do a first draft, edit it for a good period, and then add the “me” to it.

Reddit

Beyond the basics: Key features of a useful AI writing tool

Not all free tools are built the same. The best ones have features that do more than just generate a block of text; they help you create a complete, high-performing article from the ground up.

Content quality that avoids "AI slop"

"AI slop" is a term for generic, robotic text that repeats itself, sounds slightly off, and doesn't offer new information. It's filler content that readers can often spot easily.

A high-quality AI writer is trained to research a topic, understand nuances, and write in a more engaging, human-like voice. The goal isn't just to produce words, but to produce content that people want to read because it offers real value.

Built-in SEO and AEO optimization

Getting your content to rank is often a primary goal. That means it needs to be optimized for how people search for things today.

This comes down to two things:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This involves classic techniques for ranking on Google, such as ensuring your target keywords are in the right places (like headings and meta descriptions) and that your content is structured in a way search engines can easily crawl.

• Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): This is about optimizing your content to be the source for AI-powered search results.

Some AI writers handle both automatically, building these optimizations right into the content so you don't have to go back and do it manually.

Automatic asset and media generation

A wall of text can be unengaging. Good content is often visual, using images, tables, and social proof to break up the text, add credibility, and make complex information easier to understand.

Many AI writers understand this. They don't just hand you text; they build a complete article. This can mean automatically generating and inserting relevant assets like images, charts, and tables. Some can even pull in external media like relevant YouTube videos and authentic Reddit quotes to add layers of authority and a real-world perspective.

Brand and topic context awareness

A challenge with some AI tools is that they lack context about your brand. They don't know your products or your voice, which can lead to bland, irrelevant content that feels disconnected from the rest of your site.

More advanced tools can learn about your business. By providing a website URL, they can pick up on brand context, keep the voice consistent, and find natural ways to mention products without sounding forced. It’s the difference between a random writer and one that understands your business.

A review of popular free AI writing tools

Let's get into the details. We reviewed some of the most popular free AI writing tools to see what they offer, their strengths, and their limitations.

eesel AI blog writer

• Overview: The eesel AI blog writer is designed as an end-to-end content tool. It takes a single keyword to generate a full blog post with SEO optimization and media assets.

• Free Offering: It offers a free trial that allows users to generate one full blog post without a credit card.

• Features: It generates a full article with an introduction, headings, a conclusion, and FAQs. The tool automatically includes AI-generated images, tables, charts, and embeds relevant YouTube videos and Reddit quotes. Content is optimized for SEO and AEO, and it can learn brand context from a provided URL to include product mentions.

• Limitations: The free trial is limited to one full article generation. Continued use requires purchasing credits.

Grammarly AI writer

• Overview: Grammarly has added an AI writing assistant to its popular proofreading tool. It’s designed to help you generate smaller bits of text, like a paragraph, an outline, or an email.

• Free Offering: The free plan provides 100 AI prompts per month. A prompt could be asking it to write an intro, summarize a paragraph, or brainstorm some ideas.

• Features: Grammarly provides a set of tools for specific jobs. You can ask it to generate an article outline, write a paragraph, or draft a conclusion. You provide key points and set a tone.

• Limitations: It functions as a suite of individual tools rather than a single workflow for generating a complete article. Users generate each component, like an outline or paragraph, separately and must assemble the final document. The 100-prompt monthly limit may be quickly reached, and the tool does not include features for research, asset generation, or brand context awareness.

QuillBot AI writer

• Overview: QuillBot is primarily known as a paraphrasing and summarizing tool, and that’s its main strength. It has other writing tools that function as add-ons.

• Free Offering: The free plan has specific limitations. According to their help center, you can only paraphrase up to 125 words at a time and summarize up to 1,200 words. The plagiarism checker is not included.

• Features: The suite includes a Paraphraser, Summarizer, Grammar Checker, and Translator. It's useful for rewriting or cleaning up a short piece of text.

• Limitations: The word count limits on the free plan make it better suited for short-form text rather than long-form articles. Processing a full blog post would require working in small 125-word increments. It is primarily a collection of editing utilities rather than a tool for generating complete articles from scratch.

Copy.ai

• Overview: Copy.ai is a platform for go-to-market teams, with a focus on generating short-form copy for sales and marketing.

• Free Offering: They offer a number of free, task-specific generators for things like headlines, product descriptions, and social media posts. Their main pricing page does not list a permanent free plan, suggesting a focus on paid subscriptions for their primary tools.

• Features: It has a large library of specialized tools. There are individual tools for tasks like generating blog post ideas or meta descriptions. It’s helpful for brainstorming or creating small, specific pieces of copy.

• Limitations: The platform is structured around multiple, distinct tools. To create a blog post, a user would combine outputs from several different generators. It does not offer a single, unified workflow for producing a complete article that includes research, assets, and media.

Wordtune

• Overview: Wordtune is marketed as an AI writing assistant that helps improve text you've already written, rather than generating it from scratch.

• Free Offering: The free "Basic" plan offers 10 "Rewrites" and 3 AI generations per day.

• Features: It provides smart suggestions for rephrasing sentences, allows users to switch between casual and formal tones, and has a context-aware synonym generator.

• Limitations: Wordtune functions primarily as a writing editor and rephrasing tool, not a long-form content generator. The daily limits on the free plan are suited for light, occasional editing of a few paragraphs rather than extensive document work.

The hidden costs of a standard free AI writing tool

The word "free" is appealing, but it can come with hidden costs in time, quality, and missed opportunities.

The cost of generic content

Some free tools may produce generic content that can sound robotic. This type of content, sometimes called "AI slop," may not engage readers and could impact a brand's credibility. When someone lands on a post that offers no real value, they are likely to leave.

The time spent on manual additions

A block of raw text is not a blog post. After a standard free tool provides a draft, the work has often just started. You may still need to spend hours finding stock photos, creating images, formatting tables, finding relevant videos, and structuring the post to be readable. This manual work can add significant time to the content creation process. Tools that automate asset creation can help reduce this manual effort by bundling those elements into the generation process.

The missed opportunity of poor SEO

If content isn't optimized, it may not be visible in search results. Many free generators are built primarily to produce text and may not include critical SEO and AEO elements. Every piece of unoptimized content is a missed chance to attract organic traffic. For visibility, it's beneficial to use a tool designed with search optimization in mind.

For a different perspective, check out this video review of several popular free AI writing tools available today.

A video from The Nerdy Novelist reviewing the 9 best free AI writing tool options for content creators and authors.

Choosing a free AI writing tool that fits your needs

Many free AI writing tools can provide a solid starting point for content, but often the user is responsible for research, editing, asset creation, and optimization.

The value of an AI writing tool depends on your specific needs. Some users may only require basic text generation, while others might benefit from a tool that handles the entire content process, including research, writing, asset generation, and SEO.

If you're looking for a tool that produces a complete article, you might consider trying one that offers a full-featured trial. For example, you can generate a blog post with eesel AI to evaluate if it meets your needs.