I Tested Top 20 AI Writers For Students and Here’s What I Found

Sylvie Wang

Oct 4, 2024
All Things AI
I Tested Top 20 AI Writers For Students and Here’s What I Found
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Intro

Writing essays could be tough and, let's be honest, pretty tedious – especially if writing isn’t exactly your strong point. That's why there are so many AI-powered content creation tools out there designed to help you get the job done. Those tools can generate surprisingly human-like text on a wide range of topics, and are cool enough to try. However, finding the right AI content generator might not be that easy.

That's why I decided to write this review. As a senior college student majoring in English Literature and Studies, I spend most of my time writing for work and school, and I've got an essay due next week for my creative writing class. I’ll admit—I’m actually looking forward to working on it  But I also know that for a lot of people, writing essays can feel like a struggle. So I tested out a few popular AI essay tools, just to see how they really performed. Here’s a brief summary of what I found.

How do these popular AI essay tools really perform?


  1. Quick and Efficient Research
  • Afforai
  • PaperGen
  • PaperPal
  1. Customizable Outline
  • PaperGen
  • copy.ai
  • Rytr
  1. Budget-Friendly
  • PaperPile
  • Wordtune
  • Text Blaze
  1. Great User Experience
  • Jenni.ai
  • Jasper.ai
  • Wordtune
  1. High Writing Quality(with graphic editing function)
  • PaperGen
  • Jenni.ai
  • Writesonic
  1. Platform integration
  • hix.ai
  • PaperPal
  • Jasper.ai

For me, the best AI content writer needs to be reliable, starting with research, building a solid outline, giving polished body text, and, most importantly, avoiding AI detection. Based on these criteria, I’ve picked my top three: Afforai, PaperGen, and Jenni.ai.

What’s the best 3 AI writing tools among these 20? - My recommend list

  • Afforai: Known for its ease of use, Afforai is an excellent choice for students who need to manage multiple paper tasks simultaneously. It suggests improvements, and makes sure all your citations are properly formatted, making it a life-saver for essay writers.
  • PaperGen.ai: With its specialized focus on academic papers and essays, PaperGen stands out with its unique AI detection rate of 0, ensuring unparalleled originality and customization for students. From sourcing academic resources, generating professional outlines, to formatting final paper with customizable functions, PaperGen does an excellent job in helping with comprehensive writing tasks.
  • Jenni.ai: This powerful and intuitive writing assistant helps students articulate their thoughts more clearly and coherently. With its user-friendly interface and features, Jenni.ai is a great option for various writing tasks as well.  If your budget allows for the $25/month plan, it’s definitely worth trying.

PaperGen.ai does an excellent job in helping with comprehensive writing

In the following article, I’ll explore:

Whether AI writers are worth considering, and what you should be looking at in those AI content generators. After that, I list the top 20 AI writers along with why I have chosen them. Here's my assessment:

Whether AI content generators are worth considering

Writing manually can be time-consuming, especially when you need to do the research from vast database. AI content generators provide a solution to reduce the burden on constant manual input while maintaining both relevancy and readability. They intelligently integrate a wealth of academic resources and help generate possible bullet pointThis is just one of the many capabilities AI excels at.

What you should look in those AI content generators?

Not all AI writers are created alike, so choosing the right one can be overwhelming. When you’re deciding what’s the best tool for your essay, consider these key features:

Functionlity

Accuracy

Responsiveness

Adaptability to Various Writing Tasks

Performance Consistency

Tech Support and Help Availability

Be sure to check if this tool offers customer service and accessible contact options.

Pricing

Different tools come with a wide range of pricing models, so it's crucial to pick one that fits your budget. Some offer free trials with limited features, while others have tiered subscription plans based on the level of service provided. So, make sure to check what features come with each pricing tier and if there are any extra costs for premium services.

Top 20 AI writers and why I choose them

Top 20 AI Writers and Why I Choose Them?

Why I choose them?

What I considered popularity, usefulness, and great user evaluations influenced my selection of these 20 AI writers. These tools showcase the many and impactful ways artificial intelligence is utilized daily to enhance content creation. From simplifying grammar checks and formatting to streamlining citations, these cutting-edge AI tools offer real practical solutions. Their user-friendly interfaces, personalized experiences, and ability to leverage AI for efficient solutions across industries make them stand out.

Now, let's dive in to see how these 20 tools can help you to make the best of your content.  

  1. Jenni.ai

Jenni.ai is an AI-powered writing assistant specifically designed for academic writing. Utilizing natural language processing, it offers a range of features to help students streamline their essay and research paper writing process. It can help generate ideas, expand on concepts, and as you type, it offers real-time suggestions for sentence completion, paragraph structuring, and even entire sections based on your outline. The tool also helps with research by suggesting relevant sources and automatically formatting citations.

Key Features:

  • Intelligent outlining and structuring
  • Context-aware content suggestions
  • Citation and reference management
  • Plagiarism checker
  • Research assistance

Pricing:

  • Free trial available
  • Student plan: $25/month
  • Professional plan: $39/month

As a professional word processing tool, Jenni.ai really does a great job in generating content with strong quality and flow, and its citation management is a valuable bonus for those struggling with various citation formats. However, this tool won't generate a complete article for you - unless you purchase a subscription. And when I try to write a paragraph, I need to click to generate each subsequent sentence, which can feel like a time-consuming process.

  1. PaperPal

PaperPal is an AI-powered writing assistant designed specifically for academic and research writing as well. It offers a user-friendly interface that integrates seamlessly with popular word processors.

Key Features:

  • Grammar and style suggestions tailored for academic writing
  • Citation and reference management
  • Plagiarism detection
  • Research paper structure guidance

Pricing:

  • Free plan: Limited features and word count
  • Student plan: $9.99/month
  • Professional plan: $19.99/month

Just like Jenni.ai, PaperPal also does well in citation management, and provides real-time grammar checks with helpful correction suggestions, which I find particularly useful.  I really like this aspect. But the whole interface looks messy to me, making it difficult to navigate. With so many functions listed, I'm not sure how to proceed to the next step.

  1. Hix.ai

Hix.AI is an AI writing tool that claims to 'humanize' AI-generated content. Packed with powerful features and functionalities, HIX.AI empowers you to generate various content formats quickly and enhance your writing quality with minimal effort.

Key Features:

  • Streamline content creation for blog posts, product descriptions, emails, social media content, and more.
  • The Hix Bypass tool is designed to ensure that your text is not caught by AI content detectors.
  • Apps can be accessed directly from the landing page, offering a simple and user-friendly experience.

Pricing:

When it comes to pricing, things can get quite complicated with Hix AI.  First, you need to decide which specific tool you want to use, as Hix AI charges separately for each toolset. For example, you'll need to pay separately for the Hix article writer and the AI writer. So I would say that's one of the things that doesn't make sense about this one. And Hix AI shares a problem I had with PaperPal - its features are overly dispersed, and there's a noticeable lack of integration between these features. After testing it, I also found out some citations were inaccurate and even fake.

  1. Afforai

Afforai is a versatile AI writing tool that caters to various writing needs, including academic essays, SEO blog posts, and creative writing.

Key Features:

  • Multi-language support
  • Content summarization
  • SEO optimization suggestions
  • Customizable writing styles

Pricing:

  • Free tier: Basic features with limited usage
  • Pro plan: $15/month
  • Business plan: $30/month

Afforai has a very intuitive user interface and a very academic focus. Referencing is simple and fast, with little learning curve. Upload your own PDFs, clear metadata, and enter the DOI, it will automatically correct the information. In three easy steps, you can create almost perfect metadata for references. This is what makes Afforai so good compared to other services. Unfortunately, it cannot help to generate essays from start to end.

  1. Jasper

By generating convincing and clear responses, Jasper helps to generate social media captions, blog posts, product descriptions, company biographies, scripts, and advertisement content.The tool has many templates for long blog posts and reviews, which reduces page-starting anxiety.

Key Features:

  • Chat lets you generate ideas rapidly and in your voice.
  • You may quickly build voice outlines and let Jasper finish.
  • Your comments can match professional, academic, or technical writing.

Pricing:

  • Free 7-day trial
  • Pro plan $69/month
  • Business plan: Custom pricing

Jasper AI's website looks really professional to me, and it provides a smooth onboarding process for new users like me. However, a downside is the mandatory information collection before use, which can be off-putting. And then there's no way for me to try the product without first choosing a payment plan.

  1. Rytr

Rytr is an AI writing tool that focuses on providing a wide range of writing templates and use cases, making it suitable for both academic and professional writing.

Key Features:

  • 30+ use cases and templates
  • Tone and language customization
  • Plagiarism checker
  • SEO analyzer

Pricing:

  • Free plan: 10,000 characters per month
  • Saver plan: $9/month
  • Unlimited plan: $29/month

Rytr generated the blog article I needed pretty quickly, which was impressive. However, their old-school user interface makes me concerned about potential usability and somewhat detracts me from the overall user experience.

  1. Copy.ai

Copy.ai is a popular AI writing assistant that uses advanced language models to generate high-quality content across various formats, including blog posts, social media content, emails, and more.

Key Features:

  • Extensive template library
  • Blog post and article generation
  • Social media content creation
  • Product descriptions
  • Email writing assistance

Pricing:

  • Free plan: Limited features and credits
  • Pro plan: $49/month
  • Enterprise plan: Custom pricing

You are able to create either long or short-form content using Copy.ai, as it has a variety of templates, from Facebook ads to cover letters. It ensures high-quality output and offers a free trial plan. Although it can help students in drafting essay outlines, its primary business-oriented focus may not fully align with the students' needs.

  1. PaperGen.ai

PaperGen is a specialized AI tool designed specifically for generating academic papers and essays based on user inputs, helping students quickly produce well-structured drafts. Unlike fully automated AI writers, PaperGen acts as an intelligent writing assistant. It provides suggestions, helps with research, and offers structural guidance, but does not generate content autonomously. This approach ensures that the student's original thoughts and ideas remain at the forefront of the writing process.

Key Features:

  • Automatic paper generation
  • Citation management
  • Customizable writing styles
  • Integration with academic databases
  • Multiple academic styles supported
  • Zero AI content generation (AI rate = 0)

Pricing:

  • Free trial
  • $9.99/month for Plus plan
  • $25.99/month for Pro plan
  • $49.99/month for Ultra plan

PaperGen's output is really impressive. The article is complete with a customizable outline and genuine academic citations. A standout feature is its zero AI detection rate, meaning it generates original content without relying on external AI models. While the interface could have some improvements, it remains clear and smooth, so i guess it's not a major issue given the overall quality of the tool.
I then tested some tools that claim to generate high-quality content in just a few steps. And because some of them have comprehensive functions, their essay-writing effectiveness were not as compromised as they needed to balance other features. I also tried several highly-rated essay writers and although they generated articles quickly, either the user interface was obstructive or the content quality was less than impressive. Take a look at the overview of these products. They are indeed worth mentioning, but I don't think they compare favorably to the top 8 tools I mentioned earlier.

  1. PaperPile

Paperpile is primarily a reference management tool that has incorporated AI features to assist with academic writing and research.

Key Features:

  • Automatic citation generation
  • PDF annotation and management
  • Collaborative writing features
  • Integration with Google Docs

Pricing:

  • Free trial: 30 days
  • Individual plan: $3/month for students, $5/month for professionals
  • Team plan: Custom pricing
  1. Copysmith

Copysmith is a collection of AI-powered products, empowering content teams to easily produce high quality content across multiple communication channels.You can use it to generate ad content, long-form blog articles, web copy, marketing content, and more. Copysmith also has some cool integrations, like an integrated plagiarism checker and an SEO keyword integration powered by Frase.

Key Features:

  • High-quality content
  • Many different writing tools available
  • Decent value for money
  • Includes keyword and plagiarism integrations
  • Uses data scraping to gather information on each project

Pricing:

  • 7-day free trial
  • Starter at $19/month
  • Professional at $59/month
  • Teams at $118/month
  • Custom Enterprise option
  1. Merlin AI

Merlin AI is an excellent tool for anyone who wants their email responses, blog posts, or other content to sound as professional as possible.The tool seamlessly integrates with apps like Gmail and Twitter and allows you to input information and get high-quality responses on the go without having to constantly go back to a website-based platform.

Key Features:

  • Google Search Integration
  • Article Summarizer
  • Art Generation Function

Pricing:

  • The Starter Plan - $19 per month
  • The Boost Plan - $39 per month
  • The Elite Plan - $119 per month
  1. Wordtune

Wordtune is a simple AI writing helper. The simple UI of this application allows you to focus on time and budget while creating flawless content: emails, documents, or instant client conversations. As a work productivity APP, Wordtune leverages Generative AI to improve your writing and streamline your professional needs.

Key Features:

  • Wordtune works with Microsoft Word, iOS, and Google Chrome to speed up editing and writing.
  • Its synonyms tool suggests new word and phrase combinations.
  • YouTube summary lets you turn videos into blogs.

Pricing:

  • Free Basic Plan
  • Advanced Plan: $6.99/month
  • Unlimited Plan: $9.99/month
  • Business plan: Custom pricing
  1. Lex.ai

Lex.ai is a minimalist AI writing tool that aims to boost creativity and productivity for various types of writing, including academic work. It uses advanced AI to provide context-aware suggestions as you write. It can help you overcome writer's block and generate ideas for your essays or research papers.

Key Features:

  • Distraction-free writing interface
  • AI-powered writing suggestions
  • Customizable writing prompts
  • Collaboration features

Pricing:

  • Free trial available
  • Individual plan: $30/month
  • Team plan: Custom pricing
  1. WriteSonic

WriteSonic is a powerhouse AI tool that gives writers and content creators everything they need to do their jobs in a fraction of the time. The prompt templates and tools are pre-configured for you, so you don’t need to become a ChatGPT expert to use it, either.

Key Features:

  • Long Form Content Creation
  • Writing-adjacent tools
  • AI Image Generator
  • SEO Keyword Generator

Pricing:

  • Free Trial
  • Unlimited plan starts at $16 per month
  • Standard plan starts at $79 per month
  1. LongShot AI

LongShot AI is designed to research, generate, and optimize content, making it a comprehensive platform for big content marketing teams, content agencies, etc.

Key Features:

  • Fact Check and Claim Detection features
  • Templates to generate content
  • FactGPT to create fresh and relevant user-sourced content

Pricing:

  • Free 5-day trial
  • Initial Pro plan $29/month
  • Team plan $59/month
  1. Simplified AI Writer

Simplified AI is tailored for small teams who are already stretched for time and resources. The aim of the platform is to offer AI content creation across text, imagery, and video, so you can find all of your tools within this one single platform.

Key Features:

  • AI Chatbot
  • Create your own designs using AI or opt to browse the high-quality pre-made templates on offer
  • Create AI videos from the templates provided, or add subtitles to a chosen video
  • High-quality AI writer to add text to your brand-new image and video content

Pricing:

  • 35,000 words and one seat - $12 per month
  • 100,000 words and five seats - $32 per month
  • 250,000 words and ten seats - $64 per month
  • 600,000 words and ten seats - $129 per month
  • 1,000,000 words and 20 seats - $259 per month
  • 3,000,000 words and 20 seats - $649 per month
  1. Samwell AI

Samwell AI is a powerful artificial intelligence tool for students, educators, and professionals. It offers a suite of services to help users quickly and easily write high-quality essays, research papers, and other documents. With Samwell AI, users can access a huge library of pre-written content and find helpful writing tips and strategies. It also features an AI-driven assistant that can help with grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Key Features:

  • Customized Writing
  • Plagiarism-Free
  • Iterative Refinement
  • SEO Optimized Content
  • Different Writing Styles

Pricing:

  • $14/month for high school students
  • $18/month for university students
  • $26/month for academic users
  1. Text Blaze

Text Blaze is an extension for Google Chrome that lets you insert text snippets, templates and macros into any website.

Key Features:

  • The Autopilot Feature helps your content follow the steps described in your previous commands. This feature works in conjunction with other features of the tool that help your content to adopt the right things fast.
  • Suggesting Feature: This tool provides a user with writing suggestions. This helps users get ideas on what to write next, based on the content.
  • A Snippet Feature is a tool that allows you to write specific sentences. The feature generates text commands. If you write a blog post or email, snippets can be useful.
  • Templates can be used for writing emails, blog posts, product reviews and other forms of content. Select any template that you want and get writing.

Pricing:Free Basic PlanPro Plan $2.99/monthBusiness Plan $6.99/monthCustom Pricing for Enterprise Plan

  1. Content Harmony

Content Harmony is a content marketing platform designed to streamline the content creation process and elevate your brand's online presence.

Key Features:

  • Content Briefs & Research: Content Harmony uses algorithms to research relevant topics, trending keywords, and competitive insights, and can generate detailed briefs based on target keywords and topics, outlining key points and structures to guide writers.
  • Content Collaboration
  • Content Performance Tracking:  Content Harmony provides comprehensive analytics and reporting tools to track key metrics such as traffic and engagement, helping you to make data-driven decisions to enhance your content strategy.

Pricing:

  • $10 Trial
  • 5 Content Workflows/$50 Per Month
  • 12 Content Workflows/$99 Per Month
  • 25 Content Workflows/$199 Per Month
  • ...
  • 200+ Content Workflows/Enterprise Plan Starting from $1,000/Per Month

  1. WriteCream

WriteCream is a comprehensive solution designed to cater to a wide range of needs, from email marketing to blog writing and even creating personalized icebreakers for cold emails.

Key Features:

  • Generate Blog Articles, Marketing content, and sales email
  • Experimenting with different inputs to see how the tool responds can also help tailor the output more closely to your desired tone and style.

Pricing:$29-$69/Monthly



Featuring specialized academic features, user-friendly interfaces, and affordable pricing, these top picks make excellent choices for students seeking to improve their writing skills and productivity. Now it's time for you to find the right one that fits your needs the best, and get your writing on the road to success!

Start composing your initial paper draft today.