Summon is a Grammarly alternative for Mac when you want a command on the text in front of you, run by a model you chose, instead of a writing account that follows you across the web. Grammarly is the bigger product. Summon is the smaller loop.
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly checks spelling, grammar, and tone, and on paid plans it rewrites sentences and generates text. It works across browsers and apps where its extension or editor is available. As of October 27, 2026, Grammarly’s plans page lists a free plan and Pro at $12, with a $0 trial. The page presents Pro as a subscription. Confirm the billing period there before you pay, because the price and the trial are easier to see than the interval.
Free covers spelling and grammar, plus 100 AI prompts a month. Pro adds full-sentence rewrites, tone changes, plagiarism and AI-text detection, and 2,000 prompts per member per month. Your writing goes to Grammarly. That is the product.
Why look for a Grammarly alternative?
- The check lives in Grammarly’s account. Useful if you want the same suggestions in the browser, in docs, and on a phone. Less useful if you only wanted the paragraph in Mail fixed, and you did not want an account in the middle.
- The suggestions are theirs. You do not pick Anthropic for one command and a smaller OpenAI model for another. You get Grammarly’s writing help.
- Pro is a subscription for the writing, not just the app. The prompts are included, up to the plan’s cap. There is no separate “pay the lab” switch on the individual plans.
Summon as a Grammarly alternative
Select the text, press ⌘K, and run Fix writing, a shorter pass, a translation, or a command you wrote. The command library has more of those ready to install. The result sits in a panel so you can follow up, then you insert it.
The model is whichever you attached: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or xAI. Summon does not keep the text. Grammarly’s plagiarism checks, AI-text detection, and team style guides are not in Summon. If those are why you pay for Pro, stay there.
Grammarly vs. Summon
| Grammarly | Summon | |
|---|---|---|
| How you use it | Suggestions and rewrites in Grammarly’s editors and extensions | Select text in any Mac app, press ⌘K, insert the result |
| Models | Grammarly’s own writing help | Your key: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or xAI |
| What it is best at | Ongoing grammar, tone, citations, and team style | A command on text you already selected |
| Privacy | Text is processed by Grammarly | The request goes to the provider you chose. Summon does not store prompts or results. See the privacy policy |
| Platform | Browsers and supported apps, not only Mac | Apple silicon, macOS 15 or later |
| Price | Free, and Pro listed at $12 with a $0 trial, checked October 27, 2026 | Weekly $1.99, yearly $29.99, or lifetime $79.99, plus provider tokens. 72-hour trial on weekly and yearly |
Grammarly wins if you want a writing account everywhere you type. Summon wins if the Mac app in front of you is the whole job, and you want to choose the model.
Is there a free Grammarly alternative on Mac?
Grammarly’s free plan still covers basic corrections. Summon’s weekly and yearly plans include a 72-hour trial of the full app, then you pay for the app and your provider bills the tokens. There is no forever-free Summon tier.
Which one should you use?
Choose Grammarly if the green underlines, the tone view, and the team features are the product you actually open.
Choose Summon if you already have an API key and you want one shortcut in every Mac app. Built-in macOS help is a different tradeoff, covered as an Apple Writing Tools alternative.
Facts were checked against grammarly.com/plans on October 27, 2026.