Stop Renting Your Keyboard: The Best No-Subscription Alternatives to Grammarly for Mac (2025)

Let's do some quick math. Grammarly costs $12/month. That sounds innocent enough, right?

But over 5 years, that is $720.

Ask yourself: Is a spellchecker really worth the price of a brand new MacBook Air over time?

We don't think so. It's time to stop renting your own ability to write clearly.

The Privacy & Bloat Problem

Beyond the cost, there is the bloat. Browser extensions are notorious for slowing down Chrome, eating up RAM, and—worst of all—reading everything you type. From emails to private docs, that extension is watching.

The Hard Way: Free Alternatives

You have options, but they aren't great:

• ChatGPT Free Tier: You can copy-paste your text into ChatGPT. It works, but you lose all your formatting (bold, italics, links) and waste precious minutes switching tabs.
• Apple's Autocorrect: It's free and built-in, but let's be honest—it's not exactly "smart." It catches distinct typos but misses tone and nuance completely.

The Smart Way: Rephrase for macOS

This is why we built Rephrase.

Rephrase is a native macOS application, not a bloated browser extension. It lives quietly in your menu bar and works in every single app you use—Slack, Notion, Mail, Xcode, Discord.

• Native Performance: No Electron bloat. No browser drag.
• Multilingual: Unlike Grammarly (English only), Rephrase understands and fixes dozens of languages.
• Context Aware: It keeps your formatting perfect. Code blocks stay code blocks.

The Kicker: You Own It.

Rephrase is a lifetime deal. You pay once ($29), and you own it forever. No monthly drain on your bank account. No surprise price hikes.

Stop paying rent on your keyboard.

Download the free trial (50 fixes) and cancel your subscription today.