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If you’ve ever struggled with Instagram disconnects, glitchy scheduling, unhelpful support, or Buffer’s strict per-channel pricing, you’re not alone. Many users find its limits more frustrating than helpful. That’s why I’ve looked at the top Buffer alternatives to...
Sep 15, 2025
Dedicated content writing tools speed up content strategizing, research, and the creation process itself — all without compromising on quality. Plus, they help content collaboration tools move faster with approvals, in-document comments, and a bunch of other handy features already baked in.
To cut you some slack, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best content writing tools available, spanning across various categories from platforms that help with the writing process to SEO software, editing tools, and more.
Planable is a collaboration platform that makes it easy to work on anything and everything content-related — social media posts, blogs, newsletters, scripts, just to name a few.
Planable content writing tool interface
The platform includes numerous collaboration tools like in-document comments (internal and external), clear text suggestions, and annotations — just like Google Docs, but better.
Planable stands out through its customizable approval workflows. You can streamline review and approval through four different workflow types: none, optional, required, and multi-level — the latter being the highlight here. You can set up multiple approval layers, and content has to go through each specific level to get published.
Planable’s review and approval workflow interface
The platform also takes care of content planning — you can set up your blog content calendar via a drag-and-drop interface. Plus, Planable also doubles as a social media management tool.
That means you can schedule social media posts across most popular social platforms, while its color-coded labels are perfect for planning, organizing, and tracking multi-channel marketing campaigns.
Planable’s content calendar interface
Other handy features include the AI Creation Hub — great for content ideation or editing — and the option to invite external stakeholders to your workspace by simply sharing an email link.
Key features:
Drawbacks: Planable currently lacks integrations with CMS platforms — you cannot publish posts from Planable to your CMS.
Pricing: Planable starts at $33 per month per workspace (billed yearly). You can also plan your first 50 posts completely for free.
Google Docs is simple, free, and effective. Writers and editors can collaborate on long-form content through comments, annotations, and suggestions.
Plus, you can use Google Gemini to write up quick first drafts, rewrite existing or AI-generated content, and create images. Google Docs also includes paid versions with a few extra features like simple approval workflows, for example.
Key features:
Drawbacks: Google Docs doesn’t go beyond basic functionalities — it lacks more advanced features like multi-level approvals, direct publishing, and so on.
Pricing: Paid versions start at $6 per user per month (billed yearly).
ButterDocs helps writers and editors work better together. The platform lets editors set up content briefs and assign them to particular writers — complete with extra notes and references for research.
Once a draft is ready, writers and editors can make tweaks in real time via comments, track changes through version control, and so on. Branch copies are also super handy — you can edit content separately without altering the original draft.
Key features:
Drawbacks: ButterDocs is still in early access — it’s not a complete product yet.
Pricing: ButterDocs offers a monthly and yearly plan, which will set you back either $10 per month or $60 per year. You can also try the platform for free for up to seven days.
Grammarly is a solid free option for proofreading and quick editing. The platform highlights spelling errors, while its AI suggestions improve sentence structure, clarity, and conciseness.
Grammarly’s paid plans go into a little more depth. You can use them to automatically rewrite complete sentences, check for plagiarism, and adjust texts to fit your specific brand voice and tone — perfect for editing content at scale.
Key features:
Drawbacks: Grammarly occasionally over-corrects texts — especially those written in more informal language.
Pricing: Grammarly’s paid plans cost from $12 per user per month (billed yearly), with a free forever version available.
Hemingway Editor, on the other hand, focuses on text readability. The platform checks for passive voice, sentence wordiness, and complexity.
Hemingway then scores your content’s readability level and highlights areas where you can simplify your text. Paid plans also automatically rewrite texts and highlight any grammar or spelling issues.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The free version doesn’t cover grammar checks. Just like Grammarly, Hemingway occasionally over-corrects.
Pricing: Hemingway Editor Plus plans start at $8.33 per month (billed yearly).
Copy.ai lets you set up complete workflows to automate each step of the content creation process — from generating briefs to publishing posts.
It does this through a visual workflow builder that lets you map out various processes and automate them through triggers and conditional logic.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The platform has a bit of a learning curve due to its complexity.
Pricing: There’s a free version available, while paid plans start at $36 per month (billed yearly).
Jasper’s AI writing tool covers any type of content — be it social media posts, landing pages, blog posts, email sequences, and more. Plus, the platform’s Content Remix repurposes content across multiple other formats.
Jasper also stands out through its Knowledge Hub. You can upload your style guides, business assets, and writing samples. The platform will use these documents to learn about your company’s voice and generate on-brand content.
Key features:
Drawbacks: Jasper locks some key features behind its top-tier plan, like content collaboration and style guides, for example.
Pricing: Jasper’s pricing plans cost from $39 per user per month (billed yearly), with the option to try the platform for free for seven days.
ChatGPT is useful for content outlines, translations, repurposing, basic keyword research and optimization, and so on — a great all-rounder.
Paid versions of the app also allow you to turn databases into either static or interactive tables and charts — perfect for infographics.
Key features:
Drawbacks: You often have to be very particular about your prompts to generate accurate outputs — it might take some time to get used to.
Pricing: You can use ChatGPT completely for free, while paid plans start at $20 per month (billed annually).
Quillbot is an AI rewriting and paraphrasing tool with excellent translation capabilities. The platform translates texts in up to 50 languages — Hindi and Gujarati included.
Quillbot also includes a built-in plagiarism checker, grammar checker, and text summarizer.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The free version caps text translations at 5,000 characters.
Pricing: Quillbot’s paid plan costs $8.33 per month (billed yearly).
Peppertype includes a broad set of AI assistants designed to streamline all aspects of the content creation and marketing processes — from keyword and topic research to drafting, editing, publishing, and performance tracking.
It also includes built-in task management tools — perfect for tracking and delegating work across your team more evenly.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The platform includes a built-in AI content generator, but users report that the output is often bland and generic.
Pricing: Pricing is not disclosed — you’ll need to get in touch with the sales team.
Surfer is an end-to-end content optimization platform that handles anything from keyword research to blog post outlines and fully-SEO-optimized content.
Surfer’s Topical Maps lets you visualize all semantically related queries based on your seed keyword — perfect for identifying high-interest topics and starting off your content writing process on the right foot.
Plus, you can plug in your domain address via Google Search Console to spot gaps in your existing content strategy.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The platform’s AI writing tools are quite slow — it can take a while to generate content and outlines.
Pricing: Surfer starts at $79 per month (billed yearly).
Semrush is an all-in-one search optimization platform that covers SEO, PPC, and competitor analysis. The platform includes excellent keyword research tools for both organic and paid listings, as well as a backlink checker tool.
Its Keyword Magic tool pulls huge lists of keywords based on seed terms — complete with insights on each search term’s intent, ranking difficulty, CPC, and more. It also reveals whether particular keywords tend to rank for SERP features like featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and so on.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The platform’s price tag gives Semrush a rather high barrier to entry.
Pricing: Semrush starts at $117.33 per month (billed yearly), with a seven-day free trial available. There are also a few free tools you can try, like AI writing assistants, keyword and backlink checkers, etc.
Ahrefs’ Portfolio lets you track groups of pages and compare their performance side-by-side.
You can measure all sorts of metrics including backlinks, referring domains, traffic growth, and top-ranking keywords — ideal to gauge your website’s, client’s, or competitor’s content performance.
The platform’s Content Explorer is also useful for finding authoritative niche-specific websites for content ideation and link-building opportunities.
Key features:
Drawbacks: The platform’s site auditing tool works on a credit-based system. Also, the number of audits you can run monthly is limited regardless of the pricing package.
Pricing: Ahrefs starts at $29 per month (billed monthly).
Clearscope stands out through how easy it makes to maximize the performance of existing content. The platform’s Content Inventory pages let you import all your published blog posts onto the platform.
Clearscope then offers insights into each post’s total clicks and SEO value — the estimated revenue a particular post could bring to your company. Plus, you can optimize existing content via the platform’s editor, complete with on-page SEO and readability suggestions.
Key features:
Drawbacks: Clearscope’s Content Inventory is solid, but the platform’s other tools are not as in-depth as some of its competitors. For example, Clearscope’s AI tools can only generate outlines — not full posts.
Pricing: Clearscope starts at $189 per month (billed monthly).
Frase’s built-in editor scores your content based on topic coverage — how well you cover the ins and outs of specific subjects compared to your competitors.
Frase’s AI goes through your target keyword’s top 20 search results and uses the gathered data to compile a detailed list of semantic search terms for the keyword in question. This helps ensure your content is in-depth and covers all aspects of your target topic.
Key features:
Drawbacks: Unlike the other SEO tools in this list, Frase doesn’t have any dedicated keyword planning tools.
Pricing: Frase starts at $38 per month (billed annually). You can also try Frase for free.
Regardless of the content writing tools you pick, keep in mind that collaboration is what can make or break your strategy. Great content involves input from SEOs, content marketers, writers, editors, and, of course, clients.
Tools like Planable help ensure you get everyone on the same page. Its multi-level approvals, media asset library, and in-document collaboration tools are ideal for getting all stakeholders actively involved in the creation process. Plus, its scheduling tools are perfect for boosting your social media presence.
And did I mention you can try out the platform completely for free? See for yourself right here!
Horea is a software reviewer and tester, content writer, and tech geek. He loves to fiddle with MarTech solutions to find what each software is best for and help you decide which one might be your best fit. His content is allergic to fluff and eats research for breakfast. If you’re on the fence about whether you should commit to a particular platform, Horea probably already wrote about it.
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