Trying Out Grammarly

Or, how to do freemium wrong

Micah Bauer
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

I’m a thing a thing that does a thing a thing. you’d a poop derpity hoop a hoop. Chubby tubby in a mummy. Rest a rant a rat race rave. Tell the tumor I’m a Tudor tooter tutor. Give the gave a goose–geek gravel. Spinach on the floor. Sippy dip dollop. But cuz a can, I can. Now this thinks much monkey matter. Apparently sinister the sister six twister test.

My 11-year-old son thinks this is the best article ever written.

Then the thin thinker thank a thought. Fantastic! Fruity foot food fowl! I said a sent spigot in the center of the city in the hizzy.

Grammarly is mostly okay with everything I’ve written so far. With the exception of “derpity” which it wants me to replace with “despite.” It also suggests that “tubby” might be confusing in its current context.

Chrome was already spell-checking for me. So I was aware of the “derpity” problem before I used Grammarly. The built-in spell checker also had issues with “sippy,” “cuz,” and “hizzy.” Apparently, those don’t present a problem for Grammarly.

Notice, however that there are 2 critical issues and 4 advanced issues with my article.

I suppose that this is Grammarly’s business model:
1. Get people to use their software.
2. Make it as unhelpful as possible.
3. Offer to be more helpful for a price.

I’ve seen this “Freemium” model used before, and in some cases it was used very successfully. The problem with Grammarly, and many other products and services like it, is that it feels like a trick. This is especially true of free apps and mobile games. Nobody likes being tricked! Nobody wants to feel like they were fooled into buying your product!

Nobody wants to feel like they were fooled into buying your product!

As a potential customer I had to put a little trust in the company to download their product or try their service. This trust manifests itself with the time I spent registering to use it. This is a small act but it’s significant.

I’m showing a small, but sincere, trust that my investment. It will cost me an inevitable spam Email, but the promise of the product has made it worth the hassle of unsubscribing.

But my trust was misplaced. The promise was not fulfilled. Not only has Grammarly not provided a very useful service in their free version, they haven’t given me sufficient evidence that the paid version will do much more.

Maybe “2 critical issues” is incentive enough for some people to purchase the product, but for me, Grammarly hasn’t proven that they can provide anything of value yet. This makes me less than confident that if I paid for the full version that the information will be helpful.

The easy solution is to allow people to see the first critical or advanced issue but not the remainder. Does this allow people to game the system and get the service for free? Yes. But those people are most likely not going to buy the software anyway, at any price.

I know everyone wants everything for free these days. I know that getting anyone to pay for a product or service at all is a monumental challenge. I know that giving away software and hoping people will pay for it is risky, but I also know that doing so makes it essential that your product is needed, useful, and usable. It also shows trust and respect for your customers. Shouldn’t that be the goal anyway? Maybe adopting a business model that encourages you to make the best product possible is exactly what every product team should do.

Poop derpity hoop.

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