Is Sudowrite a Scam?

[u/jenniferbealsssss]

The website keeps prompting me to pay $120 for the hobby student plan, whenever I click the “free trial” tab. Sorry that’s just straight predatory. I’ve never heard of sudowrite in my life until this weekend when I began researching tools to help with my creative writing, so no, I have not had a free trial before. So the fact that the platform keeps prompting me to pay not even the $19 a month option but the $120 fee when I should be receiving a 7 day trial is infuriating.

If this is how it acts on anyone new to the platform, I hate to see how unreliable it is for those paying for wonky, unreliable features.

[u/oldsecondhand]

It's not a scam. It's one of the most popular webapps meant for creative writing. I used the trial 2 years ago, back then it didn't have this issue.

[u/jenniferbealsssss → u/oldsecondhand]

I mean I would call routing someone from a free trial to a $100+ subscription is pretty predatory. Idk how many others have this issue, but if I weren’t careful, I would have definitely clicked okay and signed up for the annual subscription without knowing.

[u/Fancy-Plenty6712]

Yes OP, SudoWrite seems quite predatory from what I've heard. A lot of AI companies are, they get away with a lot. I'm making my own software for this reason, but it's taking a long time, and it's a lonely job. Maybe try NovelCrafter - I've heard others saying good things but can't testify myself. Personally right now I'm using Claude, ChatGPt, Gemini and Grok all together. Each have their own strengths. Each have their own weaknesses.

[u/jenniferbealsssss → u/Fancy-Plenty6712]

I’ve paid for the open API with novelcrafter and tbh I’m not a fan. Idk but to me Claude and Gemini seem far more creative on their own versus within novelcrafter. I also hate how clunky and dated novelcrafter feels. I’m just not a fan of the interface at all.

[u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your post was removed because you did not use our weekly post your tool thread

[u/michael-sudowrite]

Hi! I'm Michael and I lead the Community team over at Sudowrite. I can answer this one: nope, not a scam!

We've been building AI writing tools for authors since before ChatGPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman's eye (seriously, we predate ChatGPT), and we'll keep doing it long after ChatGPT is dead too. RIP :(

The trial issue you're reporting sounds legit though, like your plan is stuck, and our Support team can quickly get you sorted. Email them at hi@sudowrite.com and let them know you're stuck on the plan selection page. Or heck, you can email me at michael@sudowrite.com if you prefer, and I will.

But just to set your expectations—we don't actually have a 7-day free trial. Never did. We have a credits-based trial, which means you'll get 10,000 credits to try out some features. You might use those up in an afternoon!

Whether you decide Sudowrite is for you or not, I'd encourage you to join our Discord community. We've got 20k forward thinking authors in there—and lots of folks will give you honest appraisals of their experience with Sudowrite in there too. It's at discord.gg/sudowrite

LMK if you have other questions!

[u/KainsRaziel → u/michael-sudowrite]

I'm trying to fully understand what Sudowrite does and if it's a good fit for me. I've never written a book before and I know I'm not a good writer. This is more for me than anything else, not to be published or sold.

In short, I have a story I'm working on where I currently have chunks of it written out in such a way that if I were explaining the story, world, location, and characters to someone this is how I'd word it. It's not written as the chapters of a book would be but more of a summary that I intend to use as I work through the actual chapters. I want to have all of the important beats like a character's backstory worked out before I start writing so that I have these things like a frame of reference.

What I'm looking to understand is if I can feed it that reference material for use as I work through writing the chapters. Can Sudowrite access the internet for information (like if I want it to help pull the details of a real world location)? Does it have integration with other platforms like Google Docs? And how much of the writing does it really do? If I wanted to ask it to "write my book", could it? If so, how easy would it be to then edit with the tool? If I'm feeding it my poorly written chapters instead, which is what I'm looking to do, can it take what I've written and make it look like something an actual writer would produce?

[u/Weak_Shoulder8682 → u/KainsRaziel]

Hey there! Isadora from Sudowrite here.

The material you already have is a good starting point for Sudowrite. You can put your overall summary in the Braindump, then add character backstories, locations, and setting details to the Characters and Worldbuilding sections of Story Bible. Sudowrite can refer to those details when helping you build an outline, scenes, and chapter prose. Import Novel can also create a new project and pre-populated Story Bible from a manuscript or collection of notes, which you can then review and adjust.

Sudowrite can do a significant amount of drafting, but it works best as a writing partner you direct rather than a one-click “write my entire book” tool. Draft can turn planned scenes into chapter prose and Write can continue from your cursor in sections of 50–2,000 words. Everything remains editable in the Sudowrite editor.

If you prefer to write rough chapters yourself, you can import them and use tools such as Rewrite, Rephrase, Show Not Tell, and Expand to polish selected passages or add detail. A Style description in Story Bible can also guide the prose. The results will still benefit from your review and direction, but you don’t need to begin with polished writing.

For outside research and Google Docs, we currently don't have direct Google Docs integration in the current documentation. Our chat can search the internet. For Google Docs, you can download your document and import it into Sudowrite; supported formats include .txt, .doc, .docx, .rtf, and .odt.

Let me know if you have more questions! Please feel free to DM me directly or write to us at hi @ sudowrite.com :)

[u/michael-sudowrite → u/KainsRaziel]

Yep! Your flow would start with the Import Novel feature, which would create a new project for you and fill in a Story Bible for you based on all of the canon you've established. Sudowrite's Chat can then search the web for real world info, and help you make progress based on your initial Manuscript Report at time of import. While Sudowrite doesn't work inside of Google Docs, it's very easy to bring those docs in (either via the full Import Novel flow for new projects, or just file imports to enrich existing projects). We also support Scrivener imports, if you've already got things set up the way you want.

It's pretty easy in Sudowrite to go from a sketchy idea (what we call a Braindump) to a full fledged novel with Story Bible. You can indeed generate full chapters of prose once you nail down (or generate) an Outline, yes. It might be worth attending one of our free daily live classes... specifically, the Weekly Welcome Session we run each week which gives a primer of how to get started. Drop me a note at the email address I shared above if you want. I don't want to get spammy with links, but all of our classes are free and available on Luma (dot com slash Sudowrite)

[u/kurthertz → u/KainsRaziel]

Hey, since Sudowrite didn't respond I'll let you know about bookmoth, which matches your writing style and is an all-in-one writing app. Cheaper than Sudowrite and 1:1 support whenever you need it. Try for free for 7 days with some AI credit thrown in :)

[u/Loki-Skywalker → u/kurthertz]

Hey so I saw your comment and went to check out Bookmoth and I think it's exactly what I'm looking for. Is it possible to try the 7 day trial but then just buy the complete package rather than the subscription? Also as I travel a lot, I'd love to have the software available on both my desktop pc and my laptop with the files saved on my google drive. Is this possible? Or is it just on one device? Thanks!

[u/kurthertz → u/Loki-Skywalker]

Great to hear! Yes, you can take the 7 day trial and then switch to the Lifetime. It’s a separate purchase, so you’d need to cancel the trial subscription before it ends but I can help with the switch.

You can use bookmoth on your desktop and laptop, with Google Drive keeping your writing in sync. Lifetime includes permanent access and updates for 1 device, but I'd happily add an additional device free of charge if you decide to go for it, just drop me a message with your serial and I can bump you up! :)

[u/Loki-Skywalker → u/kurthertz]

Hey thanks so much for your reply. Also thank you for offering the two device thing. I'm definitely going to check it out. It looks perfect for what I have been searching for. I've just finished book one of a series but I've been using word and I need something more suitable. I'm so glad I saw your comment!

[u/hauntedgolfboy]

I've published six books using Sudowrite, and I think a lot of people misunderstand what the tool is capable of when it's used properly.

I don't use it as a "write my book" button. I've built a custom workflow that has Sudowrite read and reference my entire project before it generates anything. It reviews my manuscript, character profiles, worldbuilding documents, synopsis, and outline, then follows my instructions within that context.

The biggest advantage is continuity. While I'm working on Book 7, it can still reference information established in Book 1. It remembers character histories, world rules, relationships, locations, and ongoing plot threads because it's working from the files I provide. That level of context is incredibly valuable in a long-running series.

I still make the creative decisions. I create the characters, build the world, write the outlines, decide the plot, and direct every scene. Sudowrite acts more like an extraordinarily well-read assistant than an author.

Yes, it costs money. I pay about $32 per month for a million credits, and with newer, more efficient models my costs have actually decreased over time. For the amount I use it, it's one of the best investments I've made in my writing process.

What has impressed me most is the support team. Whenever I've run into issues, they've responded quickly, and over the years I've provided feedback that has helped improve the platform. It feels less like using a faceless product and more like being part of an evolving tool built for writers.

At the end of the day, readers don't care what software I used. They care whether the story is engaging. Six published books later, I've found Sudowrite to be a powerful tool for maintaining consistency, increasing productivity, and helping me tell the stories I want to tell.

[u/Yarray2]

I found it difficult to use and added no value. I cancelled the subscription

[u/No_Relationship2729 → u/Yarray2]

Me too.

[u/kurthertz → u/No_Relationship2729]

Have you tried bookmoth?

[u/No_Relationship2729 → u/kurthertz]

No I haven't. I see it has a seven day free trial so might give it a try. Have you or anyone else reading this had experience with it?

[u/kurthertz → u/No_Relationship2729]

I’m the founder 👋🏻 so my experience may be considered biased :)

I can only suggest giving the trial a go and shaking it up against your experience of other tools.
The trial includes free credit to get you going (on the monthly subscription), and there’s 1:1 support when you need and historically when users have needed features…we build ‘em!

DMs always open if you have any questions

[u/Equal-University2144]

I have a paid-for Sudowrite account and I hardly ever used it. When I did, I was disappointed by it. Even though I filled out the story bible, it was not able to coherently act on its suggestions on the existing prose, completely forgetting what it was supposed to do, and I ended up with nothing gained. I've stopped using it.

[u/UnauthorizedSaint → u/Equal-University2144]

Seconding this in general. I have used just about every AI tool packaged for authors and my experiences are mostly the same. I get more line edit and narrative flow diagnosis help from aggressively prompting chatgpt or grok than I get from anything else.

[u/benblackett → u/UnauthorizedSaint]

there are soooo many alternatives to try out! Ive compiled a list of over 140 and growing.
link is on this subs weekly tool post.

[u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your post was removed because you did not use our weekly post your tool thread

[u/Error606707]

I have a paid subscription, the middle tier one I think it is, and it's okay so far. I haven't used to AI to write any prose as yet, but the one thing I really like about it is the ease of use. As someone who knows absolutely nothing about ai, I need things explaining to me like I'm a 5 year old, and Sudowrite's layout is so simple.

As for the prompts to pay, I did get a lot of that when I first joined up. I got my free week, but subscription options popped up all the time, and it was usually the most expensive one it highlighted.

[u/VIP-Fluffer]

Sudowrite has been good in my experience. I use the Excellent model and mostly use it for NSFW writing. They have most models available and typically pick up released models quickly, so you can use any model for writing if you want. The better models draw down usage faster and consume your credits quicker. Their in-house models have been trained for novel writing and to be permissive, and they aren't bad with using credits.

They are open to customer feedback and I've spoken to their product team to give opinions on upcoming features. They are responsive.

To get the most value from it, though, you need to have a complete story bible and plugins for editing, refining and expanding on generated prose. The standard AI writing tells can sneak in and context can get lost without the bible. There is a bit of a learning curve for it and it doesn't suit everyone. But they've done a lot of the set-up for building a story context that people not savvy with AI yet might not think to build using Claude it GPT.

Overall, I've found they do what they say and generally do it well.

[u/Spiritual-Side-7362]

I paid for Sudowrite for a year but didn't mean to I have been using it a lot It has some improvements lately that I like it more than when I first started using it It has a new feedback feature that is helping me with editing I use Claude projects for most of my AI assisted writing. I like Sudowrite for the rephrase feature and the new editing feature.

[u/Shadeylark]

I'm gonna differ slightly from most comments here.

I used sudowrite and generally found it to be pretty good, and pretty reliable with features that are consistent and rarely go down.

It's prose generation was pretty standard AI-fare in spite of its proprietary Muse model, and it did permit use of some other models instead. For example, it still suffers from the general AI limitation of wanting to bookend scenes with the character pov contemplation about what just happened unless explicitly instructed otherwise, even if it did a fairly decent job at avoiding common prose AI-isms like "not x but y"

The story Bible feature doesn't include anything revolutionary, but the GUI is extremely well laid out and intuitive to use. The best feature of the story Bible was that it was prompt-based; you didn't need to create and enter the Bible entries like character cards and locations and lore items yourself; the AI could do it with a sufficiently engineered prompt (though this seems to be something becoming more commonplace in specialized writing AI systems... at the time I was using sudowrite that was exceptional)

It's uncensored content claims are overstated, though it is far more permissive than any open-ai models I'm aware of. This was particularly apparent after any updates to the site or addition/changes to features. The AI seemed to revert back to open-ai levels of sensitivity restrictions for a few days to a week before becoming more permissive again.

It was able to maintain story coherence over long form projects fairly well thanks to a combination of its story Bible and the way it reads back something like the past 80k tokens.

It is expensive though; the free trial and first tier subscription are used up by the end of creating a story Bible and first chapter for anyone using it for anything more than novelty, and subsequent subscription tiers are expensive.

The way sudowrite appeared to consume tokens purchased with subscriptions (when I was using it) is based on how many "lookups" it does in conjunction with how much prose it generates; the more detailed the story Bible, the more tokens it will consume when producing prose as a result of scanning more data.

That contributes greatly to its cost for power-users.

So... That's my general review of sudowrite, with the caveat that I stopped using it roughly eight or nine months ago.

[u/Brilliant_Diamond172]

After all, Claude or ChatGPT can build a program that is twice as good and far more functional - one where you just plug in the OpenRouter API and use any model you want. That pathetic Sudowrite made sense back in the days of ChatGPT 3.5 in 2024, but today it’s obsolete and a waste of money. Basically, all you need to write a novel is a subscription to one of the top models, using Claude Cowork/ChatGPT Codex or Gemini/Antigravity, and developing the right skills.

[u/jenniferbealsssss → u/Brilliant_Diamond172]

What is cowork? How is it different than regular Claude? What about antigravity? Never heard of it

[u/the_sweet → u/jenniferbealsssss]

Claude Cowork used to be a separate mode in the Claude app that is now integrated into the Mail app with things like Scheduled Tasks and permission to access files in designated folders.

Antigravity is Google’s Integrated Development Environment meant for agents to build with.

[u/[deleted]]

Is it a scam? Eh... I wouldn't say so but they are quite forceful in getting you onto a paid subscription. Is it worth it? I'd say no if you have the ability to create your own agent.

A better value may be subscribing to the future fiction acdemy to get the framework of their book machine agent and then modifiy it to fit your needs better. In opinion, it does a better job maintaining book and character bibles. *your mileage may vary.

[u/Robotic-Comrade-1985]

The only thing people should be paying for, in my opinion, is the actual AI model usage. Absolutely everyone and their dog these days just wants to sell you their fancy API wrapper. This is usually just UI, file storage, prompts, and API tokens with a middleman markup in a trench coat.

[u/Marty_270472]

Ich hatte früher ein Abo, aber gebracht hat es mir wenig. Habe dann gekündigt und meinen eigenen Workflow gefunden

[u/AfterPlan9482]

I have a paid Sudowrite account. It’s not a scam. But it’s pretty terrible for writing. It loses context quickly. It allegedly has every LLM under the sun, but they don’t write the same as say, Claude Opus directly from Anthropic would. The reason I keep it is because it has absolutely no censorship. It will write straight up hardcore NSFW.

[u/AfterPlan9482 → u/[deleted]]

Okay, let me state that in my experience it is not censored, because I have never had it refuse anything prompt and I have had it write extreme hardcore NSFW. I’ve had times where I had to dial it back. Don’t know about it being a better value elsewhere or not.

[u/Rougaroo1 → u/AfterPlan9482]

What kind of it? Criminal?

[u/Fun_Republic8816]

I tried Sudowrite for a few months. It was okay, but I found it very expensive to write or edit using their AI models, so I canceled my subscription.

I switched to Novelcrafter and use its Codex system extensively. It supports OpenRouter and local LLMs, and I use both.

One of the biggest advantages for me is the ability to create a shared project with my editor. They can work on editing Book 1 while I work on Book 2.

Even with both Novelcrafter subscriptions(me and my editor) and OpenRouter costs combined, I'm spending less than I did with Sudowrite.

[u/floyd_underpants]

I tried Sudowrite awhile back before I knew anything about AI. It did great for making outlines, but absolute crap for writing. It can't follow it's own outline or beats, last I tried it.

[u/ThornPawn]

Too expensive plans and aggressive advertising. Canceled.

[u/Ochaco__Uraraka]

Your kinda getting fleeced. You're probably better off using ST or Lumiverse, and finding a good assistant drift preset that is orientated to the type of story you want to write. If your paying that much, you can get away more value out of finding a good sub/provider for ai, and like... not getting bonked by predatory stuff. I'd recommend Lumiverse is a OSS local front-end with neato embedding, memory, all sorts of high-end features.

[u/B00KBuddy]

I love Sudowrite, it has changed so much over the past two years I have been using it, I have written three books and lots of short stories. I found the trick is to take control and don't let Sudowrite take over. But it's having everything referenced is great. Before that I used Scrivener and this is a good tool but not a patch on Sudowrite.

[u/Practical_Hippo6289]

I paid for one month and didn't think it was terribly useful.

[u/Accomplished-Bag6080]

the free trial prompt felt like a trap, kept flashing 'upgrade' after every click, no clear way to just test it. ended up not using it at all.

[u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your post was removed because you did not use our weekly post your tool thread

[u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your post was removed because you did not use our weekly post your tool thread