Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the world of content writing has seen a drastic shift. AI content writing tools have improved content creation by saving hours.
Though they have a long way to go before they’re ready to replace humans (which they won’t), AI tools have shown their impact in some areas. For example, creating the first draft, polishing copy, easing out ideation, etc.
AI tools for content writing can never be a substitute for human writing, and that shouldn’t be the goal. In fact, with the humongous rise of AI-written content, people have become more aware of the bland content it creates. Not to forget the high inaccuracy and incorrect data that AI often produces.
But when used with the right intentions and for the right purpose, AI has proved to be a trustworthy assistant for human expertise.
With so many tools out in the market and new ones coming each day, how do you find the best AI content writing tools?
If that’s the question bothering you, this article is your solution. I’ve reviewed 8 AI tools costing below $50 to help you find the best fit for your needs and budget.
I’ve reviewed them based on:
- Price
- Key features
- What they’re best used for
Let’s dig in!
Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links to products that help me run this blog. If you decide to use the products, it won’t cost you anything extra. I only recommend products and services I’ve tried myself and liked.
TL;DR?
Don’t have time to go through the entire article? Here’s a summary for you.
I’ve reviewed the 8 AI content generation tools based on their capabilities to aid in content ideation, SEO optimization, content research, and writing abilities. I believe that AI is only good for the first draft. For detailed and bottom-of-the-funnel content that generates business, AI can never replace humans.
That’s why, for this article, the reviews of the AI tools for SEO content writing are based on their features for SEO optimization and content ideation.
My favorite AI tool: Scalenut excelled on all fronts. It includes everything—SERP research, outline, AI content, SEO optimization, and integrations. If you aim to write blogs that generate traffic and sales alike, Scalenut is your go-to tool.
Tool | Pricing (Basic plan) | Best Feature | Used For | Pros | Cons |
Scalenut | $39/month | Comparison of top 10 SERP results for SEO | Article writing, content optimization, keyword research | Connects with Google Search Console and Semrush. AI templates for blog outlines. | Limited trials in the free plan. |
Writesonic | $19/month | SEO review and optimizer | SEO content creation | Affordable prices. Option to choose between GPT models. | Can generate repetitive content. |
Copy.ai | $49/month | Workflow and automation | Copywriting | Automation for marketing. Customizable brand voice. | Limited scope for content writing, more focused on copywriting. |
Reword | $49/month | Better at long-form content generation | Long-form content creation | Uses Google Search Console to train the writer. Customizable brand voice. | Overpriced for the features offered. |
Anyword | $49/month | Blog post ideation | Ideation, blog post title and outline generation | Audience persona generation. SEO-friendly blog title suggestions. | Actual content generation may not be impressive. |
Rytr | $9/month | SEO review and optimizer | SEO content creation | Recently released free Chrome extension. SEO tools for analysis. | Content generation may not be as in-depth. Limited words in free plan. |
Jasper | $49/month | Brand voice creation, integration with tools | Content creation, brand voice and tone development | Create brand voice based on sample text. Knowledge Base integration. | Pricing is expensive. |
Frase | $14.99/month | Comprehensive AI tool for SEO content | SERP research, outline, AI content, SEO optimization | Excels in SERP research, outline, AI content, and SEO. | No integration with Keyword research tools. |
What Should You Look For in an AI Content Writing Tool?
If you Google the best AI writing tools, you’ll find most of them with similar features. The reason is most of the AI writing tools use Large Language Models (LLMs) for generating texts. And most of them are OpenAI’s GPT-3 or GPT-4 models.
LLMs are expansive neural networks trained on vast and varied datasets to process and understand the complexities of human language. It helps them analyze your prompts and generate coherent, human-like responses.
That doesn’t mean all the tools have the same features without any variations. Some tools have other features along with the LLMs to give better, more accurate results. For example, some tools can set a brand voice for all your queries so you get results in the writing tone of your brand.
These tools are also prone to generating incorrect, repetitive, and plagiarized content. That’s why it’s essential not to rely on tools that only produce AI content.
So, when looking for the best AI content writing tool, choose tools that offer features focused on pre-writing steps like research and ideation.
Scalenut
Free/Paid: 7-day free trial available
Basic Plan Price: $39 for the essential plan, $79, and $149 for growth and pro plans.
Best feature: Integration with keyword research tools, plagiarism checker, and WordPress available.
Key features:
- Offers tools for article writing, content optimization, keyword research, and traffic analysis.
- Takes you through the complete process, from creating a blog outline to AI-generated content.
- Scalenut lists key terms you can use in the article and their importance to get the on-page SEO right. It also analyzes competitor blogs by comparing their SEO scores, statistics, headings, etc.
- Another helpful feature is the questions it presents from Reddit, Quora, and SERP.
A complete tool for SEO content creation, Scalenut gives you the tools for content research and writing. You get to analyze the top-ranking articles and preview each header from all articles to create your outline. There’s a research tool where you can search for mostly asked questions on forms like Reddit and Quora and review the statistics used by the ranking articles.
It has a built-in optimizer that shows the frequency of keywords to insert in the article. Play around the feature to explore issues in the headers, keyword density, links, etc.
By integrating with WordPress, you can directly publish or schedule your articles on your blog from Scalenut. You can easily get the topic cluster and keyword metrics like the cluster and keyword difficulty, CPC, data from competitors, and Google Trends using the Semrush integrations. Scalenut also integrates with Copyscape to give you an instant plagiarism checker.
Overall, I liked Scalenut’s SEO features and end-to-end support from the research phase to the publishing.
If you’re a business, the Pro model is perfect for you. As a complete package, the tool benefits you as an individual or a team.
Pros:
- Connects with Google Search Console.
- Offers integrations with WordPress, Semrush, and Copyscape for plagiarism checking.
- Offers AI templates for creating blog outlines, headings, meta descriptions, etc.
Cons:
- Limited trials are available in the free plan.
Writesonic
Free/Paid: Free forever with a monthly limit of 10k words.
Basic Plan Price: $19/month. As you increase the monthly word count and user count, the price goes up. $500 for the enterprise plan. (The Freelancer plan with only the GPT3.5 model at $20/month.)
Best feature: SEO review and optimizer.
Key features:
- SEO score for articles
- SEO analyzer for keyword difficulty, traffic, and volume.
- SEO optimizer for keywords, meta description, title, etc.
Easily a tool similar to Scalenut, Writesonic shows you the difficulty of keywords, volume, and traffic. With that, you get a list of related keywords and questions to target in the blog.
Writesonic openly says it uses the GPT-3 and GPT-4 models by OpenAI, so the final output is similar to what you’d get from ChatGPT. But an added benefit is the SEO features and integrations it offers. Blog outlines are an area where it fails to impress, and the training curve is large.
What does stand out for Writesonic are its SEO tools. If you have already written an article’s final draft, the tool will give you a detailed analysis of the SEO score.
Apart from that, Writesonic also offers a better user interface and a cheap freelancer plan with unlimited words (if you go solo).
Writesonic makes up for its lack in the training curve with Semrush, WordPress, and Zapier integrations. With Zapier, you can connect to around 5000 tools to make your workflow smooth.
If you’re in doubt, try out both tools for free before you decide which one to go with.
Pros:
- Affordable prices.
- Option to choose between GPT models.
- SEO content review available.
- Zapier integration with 5000 tools and WordPress integration.
Cons:
- Can generate repetitive content.
- Not at par with creating quality SEO-optimized content.
Copy.ai
Free/Paid: Free forever with 1 seat, 2000 words in chat, and 200 bonus credits.
Basic Plan Price: $49/month.
Best feature: Workflow and automation.
Key features:
- Automation for marketing.
- Customizable brand voice.
- 2000+ integrations.
Copy AI is more of a tool for copywriting than content writing. Unlike other tools, it can annoy you with its compulsion to work with its chatbot. You have to go through the templates, which only offer a limited scope, to get the prompt you want.
Its features work better if you’re planning to use it for copywriting. But since we’re limiting our discussion to content writing, the limited opportunity to play around with the prompt is a bummer.
But there’s a bright side with the option to add your brand voice.
If you’re a big team, using Copy AI for your marketing initiatives would be beneficial as it’s cheaper for a team. But the individual plan starts at $49/month, which doesn’t justify its features.
Pros:
- Knowledge database and automation.
- A free plan is available if you don’t want to commit to the subscription model.
Cons:
- Not suited for long-form content.
- Limited prompts without customization.
Reword
Free/Paid: 7-day free trial.
Basic Plan Price: $49/month for 10 drafts. The price increases with increasing drafts.
Best feature: Better at long-form content generation than other tools.
Key features:
- Uses Google Search Console to train the writer.
- Customizable brand voice.
- Ease of selecting search intent.
One of the highlights of Reword is its compatibility with long-form content. This tool impressed me with generating human-like content with enough depth that can be considered as a first draft.
The ability to retrieve data from URLs and Google Search Console is another significant benefit. You may rely on relevant information and prevent guesswork whether or not you already have a website. It also lets you train your brand voice or personal speech.
Reword performed the best with its headers suggestions and content generation. But what it makes up in content, it loses in the cost. The tool costs $49/month only for 10 articles. Though the features are good, the tool is heavily overpriced for the features it offers.
Pros:
- AI supplementation with unique human creativity. You get a blend of content quality with AI content.
- It generates more engaging and unique blog sections than other tools.
Cons:
- High price for limited features.
Anyword
Free/Paid: 7-day free trial with a limit of 2500 words.
Basic Plan Price: $49/month.
Best feature: Blog post ideation.
Key features:
- Audience persona generation.
- Blog post title generation with SEO score.
- Blog post outline generation.
Anyword is a decent tool for ideation and outline creation. Similar to Reword, it lets you choose the writing tone based on either of the three:
- Manually entering text
- A website
- A sample text
Another win for Anyword is its detailed audience personas. You can add your target audience like you created the brand voice. Simply add a sample text or a competitor website whose audience is the same as yours, and Anyword will create a new persona for you.
Think of going SEO-optimized from the get-go; this tool is the answer. You can add 2 primary and 20 secondary keywords in the blog prompt. Anyword suggests 5+ blog title suggestions with their SEO score. And they’re pretty neat!
The same goes for the blog outline. You get header suggestions and can generate more if you aren’t unsatisfied.
Once you have selected a title and an outline, you can have it generate either a complete blog post of approximately 2,000 words or a blank document. In the latter case, you can provide additional instructions for each section of the outline, specifying details such as the facts to include, the preferred writing style, and the specific details to cover. Although it may be a slower process compared to most applications, it grants you substantial control over the content you are developing.
Though Anyword didn’t impress me with the actual content, it’s a good option if you’re looking for blog post ideation.
Pros:
- Multiple suggestions for blog title and outline.
- It is easy to integrate specific keywords and SEO details.
Cons:
- The user interface is a little old-fashioned and clumsy.
- Costly compared to the features it offers.
Rytr
Free/Paid: Free forever with a monthly limit of 10k words.
Basic Plan Price: $9/month
Best feature: SEO review and optimizer.
Key features:
- SEO score for articles
- SEO analyzer for keyword difficulty, traffic, and volume.
- SEO optimizer for keywords, meta description, title, etc.
- Recently released free Chrome extension.
Again, I’m not a big fan of the content Rytr generated, but the blog outlines were decent. You can select whether you want a single or multiple variants of the outlines.
If you often struggle with getting your first sentence out, Rytr is good to get you started. As an add-on, it also detects plagiarism.
However, you’re set to struggle if you want the tool to create even slightly in-depth articles. Other tools offer better content generation at similar and even lower prices, which brings me to another drawback. Rytr only allows 10k words per month, which is pretty less for the features you get.
Overall, if you’re looking for long-form content generation, explore other tools. Rytr is good for outline ideation if that’s your priority. If you’re a big organization with a large team, the enterprise plan for $500 is worth exploring for content ideation.
Pros:
- Free tool for AI content generation.
- Availability to choose more than 1 variation of content.
Cons:
- The unlimited plan can add more features.
- The content generated can be very basic at times. The AI needs to train more.
Jasper
Free/Paid: 7-day free trial.
Basic Plan Price: Creator plan at $49/month.
Best feature: Knowledge base to put your business details so the tool gets them right.
Key features:
- Brand voice and style guide.
- It has it’s own AI art generator
- Integrates with Surfer SEO.
Jasper is one of the first few GPT-based AI apps. It’s the most featured-packed in relation to the price compared to other apps.
You can create a unique voice and tone for your brand by supplying relevant sample text. Similarly, it has a knowledge base and options to insert the case studies you want to add to the blog. Not only that, you get to add a target audience and the type of blog post you need to get more specific results.
With the Surfer SEO integration, you can compare your content with what is currently ranking. Zapier and Pabbly Connect integrations open up the avenue for easy integrations with other tools to help you create complete campaigns.
The only con of Jasper is its pricing. But if you’re not short on budget, give Jasper a try.
Pros:
- Works in 30+ languages.
- One of the most feature-packed tools.
- Integrates with Zapier, Pabbly content, Grammarly, and Surfer SEO.
Cons:
- Works best in English language. Needs proofreading in some other.
- The tool could be more affordable.
Frase
Free/Paid: 5-day trial for $1.
Basic Plan Price: Solo for $14.99 with 4 articles/month.
Best feature: SEO review and optimizer.
Key features:
- SEO research for articles
- Outline generation.
- AI tools for on-page SEO.
- Focus on semantic keywords.
Think of what Scalenut can do; Frase can do most of it for you. From the interface to the features, Frase is pretty much similar to Scalenut when it comes to SEO research.
Create a new document and enter your target search query. You’ll get:
- Overview of top 10 SERP results
- Headers used in top SERP results
- Statistics used by the top results
- The topic score of semantic keywords used in your content vs in competitors’ content
Frase goes a step ahead in content generation with its AI tools. Simply enter your blog title and target keyword, and the tools generate multitudes of content for you:
- Number lists for How-to articles
- Meta descriptions
- Blog outlines
- List of semantic topics
- Social media content
- Analogies for your topic
- And much more
Simply put, Frase is determined not to let you stare at a blank document.
But one area where Frase falls short is app integrations. While it integrates with Google Search Console and WordPress, it doesn’t let you connect with SEO tools like Semrush or plagiarism checkers.
If you plan on optimizing content and ideating for your blog, Frase is a great tool. The basic plan for $44.99 with 30 articles/month is ideal for both freelancers and small organizations.
Pros:
- Integration with Google search console and WordPress.
- Simple user interface.
- Affordable plans for both solo writers and organizations.
- Facebook community to help shorten the learning curve.
Cons:
- AI article writer generates repetitive content.
- No integration with Keyword research tools.
Conclusion
Finally, AI isn’t human and can’t generate content like the human brain. The best way to use AI is to reduce the content research time and eliminate mundane tasks. The final draft should always be human.
Look at every AI writing tool with these filters, and you’ll choose the one that saves you time and elevates your content. If you select the right tool, you not only invest in it, but it brings you opportunities to earn money.
Due to the scope of this article, I left out some good AI writing tools. Here are some other tools:
ChatGPT: What’s the best thing about it? You can use it for free. ChatGPT is an all-purpose AI assistant as well as a writing tool. Many now turn to ChatGPT for tasks like making content calendars and synonym generators.
WordTune: It’s a decent tool to help you fight those unnecessary long sentences or rewrite when you don’t have the right words. Another time-saving feature is the text or video summaries, making taking notes easier.
Notion AI: This is a great add-on if you already use Notion.