Grammarly Charged Me $140 a Year. This Free Android Keyboard Does the Same Thing.

I have a recurring calendar event called "Grammarly Renewal" that makes me sad every January.

$139.99.

Automatic charge.

And I don't even get the courtesy of an email warning anymore.

It just happens.

Like a yearly tax on my inability to spell "necessary" correctly.

I paid for Grammarly for three years because I honestly thought I needed it.

On my laptop, Grammarly is pretty useful. It catches mistakes, suggests better wording, and occasionally makes me sound like I actually paid attention in English class.

But on my phone?

That's where things got frustrating.

The free version gives you basic spelling corrections. If you want the more advanced rewriting, tone adjustment, and full-sentence improvements, you need Premium.

And I was already paying for Premium on my laptop.

I wasn't interested in paying another subscription just to make my WhatsApp messages look slightly less chaotic.

So I started looking for a free Grammarly alternative for Android.

That search took longer than I expected.

The Free Options Were Mostly Disappointing

I tried the obvious options first.

Gboard

Gboard is free.

It's fast.

It works well.

And it catches spelling mistakes.

But if I type:

"hey sorry i didnt get bak to u"

it will happily point out that "bak" should be "back."

Great.

But what if I want the entire sentence rewritten?

What if I want it to sound professional?

What if I want to turn that messy sentence into something I can actually send to a client?

That's where basic spell-check starts to feel limited.

SwiftKey

Then I tried SwiftKey.

It has AI features through Microsoft's Copilot integration, which sounds great on paper.

But when all I want to do is rewrite one sentence, I don't necessarily want to jump through multiple menus and wait for a server response.

I want to type.

Fix it.

Send it.

That's it.

Other Grammar Apps

I tried several free grammar apps too.

Most of them were essentially spell-checkers with a nicer interface.

The apps that actually offered useful rewriting usually wanted a subscription.

Which brought me right back to the same problem.

I didn't want another monthly or yearly bill.

Then I found FlickReply.

And honestly, I was annoyed that I hadn't found it earlier.

What FlickReply Actually Does

FlickReply is an Android keyboard with an AI-powered Polish feature.

The idea is extremely simple.

You type your message however you normally would.

Typos.

Missing punctuation.

Run-on sentences.

Whatever.

Then you tap Polish.

Instead of manually correcting everything, FlickReply gives you several improved versions of your message.

You choose the one you like.

Done.

No copying the message into another app.

No opening a separate grammar checker.

No rewriting the entire thing yourself.

The keyboard is already where you are typing.

A Real Message I Tested

Last Tuesday, I had to message a client.

This is what I originally typed:

"hey sorry for the delay on this i was swamped yesterday can we push the deadline to friday i want to make sure the numbers are right before i send them"

It wasn't terrible.

But it definitely wasn't something I wanted to send to a client.

I tapped Polish and selected the professional tone.

FlickReply gave me several options.

One was:

"Apologies for the delay on this. I was swamped yesterday. Could we push the deadline to Friday? I want to make sure the numbers are right before sending them."

Another was:

"Sorry for the delay — yesterday was hectic. Would Friday work for the deadline? I would like to double-check the numbers before sending them over."

And another:

"Hey, sorry for the delay. Yesterday was a busy one. Could we move the deadline to Friday so I can verify the numbers before sending?"

I picked the second one.

It took a couple of seconds.

My client replied a few minutes later and described the updated timeline as "clear."

I have never been called clear before.

I'll take it.

Grammarly vs FlickReply

The point isn't that Grammarly is bad.

It isn't.

Grammarly is a useful product, especially if you use it heavily on a laptop.

My problem was much simpler:

I didn't want to pay a yearly subscription just to get better grammar help while typing on my phone.

And that's where FlickReply made more sense for me.

The Catch — Because There Is Always a Catch

FlickReply isn't perfect.

Sometimes an AI rewrite is too formal.

Sometimes it changes the wording more than I wanted.

And sometimes it completely misses the emotion.

Once I wrote:

"I am pissed."

The AI changed it to:

"I am disappointed."

Technically, that's more polite.

Emotionally?

Absolutely not the same thing.

I was pissed.

There is a difference.

So you still need to read the suggestion before sending it.

That's true for any AI writing tool.

The other thing to know is that FlickReply's AI features have a daily allowance.

For normal use, that's not really an issue for me.

I polish around ten messages a day and haven't needed more.

If you're writing an entire novel from your phone every day, though, you might eventually hit the limit.

At that point, I would recommend getting a laptop anyway.

What I Actually Like About It

The biggest advantage isn't even the grammar correction.

It's the fact that I don't have to leave the app.

I'm already in WhatsApp.

Or Instagram.

Or a work chat.

I type my message.

I tap the AI button.

I choose Polish or a tone.

I review the suggestion.

And I'm done.

That small difference makes the feature much more useful than a separate grammar app.

Because when you have to copy a message, open another app, paste it, fix it, copy it again, go back to the original conversation, and paste it...

Eventually you just think:

Never mind. I'll send it like this.

I've done that more times than I want to admit.

The Other Thing I Started Using

Once I got used to Polish, I started using the tone controls too.

Sometimes the grammar is completely fine.

The problem is the way it sounds.

For example:

"Send me the file."

There is nothing grammatically wrong with that.

But depending on who receives it, it can sound pretty blunt.

A friendlier version could be:

"Could you send me the file when you get a chance?"

Same request.

Different feeling.

That's something a normal spell checker doesn't really solve.

You're not fixing a spelling mistake.

You're fixing the way the message might be interpreted.

Why I Wish I Found This Earlier

Over three years, I spent roughly $420 on Grammarly Premium.

That's real money.

And the frustrating part is that I mostly wanted something simple on my phone:

Fix my grammar.

Make my messages readable.

Help me sound professional when I need to.

Make sure I don't accidentally send a sentence that looks like I typed it while half asleep.

I didn't need another complicated writing platform.

I needed a better keyboard.

FlickReply gives me that without requiring another subscription for normal everyday use.

The keyboard itself is free, and the AI features come with a daily free allowance.

For someone who sends a normal number of messages every day, that's more than enough to actually use the features and see whether they help.

Should You Cancel Grammarly?

If you love Grammarly and use it every day on your laptop, I'm not going to tell you to cancel it.

Keep it.

It's useful.

But if you're paying for Grammarly Premium mainly because you want grammar and rewriting help on your Android phone, I'd at least try a free alternative first.

Install FlickReply.

Use the Polish feature.

Try the different tones.

Give it a week.

See if it actually changes the way you write.

That's what I did.

And after three years of paying for Grammarly, I finally cancelled that depressing January calendar reminder.

Honestly, that might be my favourite feature.

The Bottom Line

You don't necessarily need an expensive grammar subscription to write better messages on your phone.

Sometimes you just need the right tools in the place where you're already typing.

FlickReply gives you spelling and grammar help, AI rewriting, and tone adjustment directly from the Android keyboard.

No copying and pasting.

No switching between apps.

No complicated workflow.

Just type the message.

Polish it.

Choose the version you like.

Send it.

And maybe, finally, stop paying $140 every January because you can't remember how to spell "necessary."