Short answer: October 2026
For free paraphrasing, Scribbr’s tool has no sign-up and no stated use limit at 125 words per input, and DeepL Write accepts 1,500 characters at a time without an account. QuillBot is the best-known paraphraser: its free tier allows 100 words with 2 modes, and Premium adds 7 more for USD 8.33 a month billed annually. Grammarly, Wordtune and LanguageTool limit free daily use. No paraphraser here was tested for output quality, so choose by the limits and modes you need and check that the meaning survives.
| Tool | Free access | Account for free use | Modes or styles | Entry paid plan (vendor-listed) | Measured quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool | Up to 125 words per input, use as often as you like | No | Standard, Fluency | None: fully free (powered by QuillBot) | Not measured |
| QuillBot Paraphraser | Up to 100 words, limited usage | Pages conflict | Free: Standard, Fluency; Premium: 9 modes plus custom | Premium: USD 8.33 per month billed annually | Not measured |
| DeepL Write | Up to 1,500 characters at a time without an account | No | Corrections and styles; more tones and styles on Pro | Write Pro add-on: EUR 6.99 per user per month billed annually, on top of a Pro plan | Not measured |
| Grammarly Paraphraser | Free tool page; free accounts get a limited number of agent suggestions a day | No for the page tool | Humanize, Academic, Professional, Streamlined, Creative, Simple | Pro: USD 12 (billing period not shown) | Not measured |
| Wordtune | 10 rewrites and AI suggestions a day | Yes | Rewrite, formal, casual, expand, shorten | Advanced: USD 6.99 monthly or USD 4.89 per month billed annually | Not measured |
| LanguageTool | 3 paraphrases a day | Yes | General, formal, concise, fluent, simple | Premium: price not displayed on the day checked | Not measured |
| Ahrefs Paraphrasing Tool | Free tool; input counter shows 2,048 (unit not stated) | Not stated | Writing tone selector | None listed for this tool | Not measured |
| Walter Writes AI Paraphraser | Free trial with word-credit limits (amount not stated on the tool page) | Yes | Not named on the tool page | Starter: USD 96 billed annually (USD 8 per month), shared with the humanizer | Not measured |
Which tool is best for paraphrasing?
It depends on your limit and language. For students who need short passages reworded for free, Scribbr’s paraphraser is the simplest published option: no account, no stated use limit and two modes, though each input is capped at 125 words. For longer free inputs, DeepL Write takes up to 1,500 characters without an account. If you paraphrase often and want many styles, QuillBot Premium and Grammarly Pro offer the widest choice of modes. Wordtune suits sentence-level rewrites in English, and LanguageTool supports six languages and several English variants. No independent study ranks these tools on output quality, so test two on the same paragraph and compare.
Where can I paraphrase for free?
Scribbr, DeepL Write, Grammarly’s paraphrasing page, QuillBot and Ahrefs all offer free paraphrasing on their own sites. Scribbr and DeepL Write need no account; QuillBot’s pages disagree on whether free use needs one. Free tiers are capped, from 3 uses a day on LanguageTool to 10 on Wordtune, or by length per input on QuillBot (100 words), Scribbr (125 words) and DeepL Write (1,500 characters). For AI-draft rewriting rather than general paraphrasing, see the best free AI humanizer guide.
Is paraphrasing plagiarism?
Not if you cite the source. Purdue OWL defines a paraphrase as “your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form,” and says “a paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source.” Running a source through a paraphrasing tool and submitting it without a citation is still plagiarism, whatever a similarity checker reports. Check your course rules on AI tools as well; some courses allow grammar help but not AI paraphrasing.
Can paraphrasing tools be detected?
Sometimes. Turnitin’s AI Writing Report guide says its English model can flag AI-generated text that was further modified by an AI paraphraser. Research shows results vary widely: in a NeurIPS 2023 paper, a research paraphraser cut one detector’s accuracy from 70.3% to 4.6%, while a retrieval-based defence still caught 80% to 97% of paraphrased text. Detection depends on the detector, so no paraphraser can promise a result.
Paraphraser or AI humanizer?
A paraphraser rewords your text, usually with style modes. An AI humanizer is marketed to make AI-generated drafts read more naturally and often to change detector results. Several products now offer both: QuillBot and Grammarly include humanizer modes, and Walter Writes AI sells a paraphraser alongside its humanizer. Our Walter vs QuillBot guide and the AI humanizer comparison cover the humanizer side.
Methodology and evidence limits
Free limits, modes and prices come from each vendor’s own pages, read on October 15, 2026. Prices are vendor-listed in the currency shown; DeepL displayed euros for the location used and may show other currencies elsewhere. Where a vendor’s pages disagree, the table says so. No paraphrased output was generated or scored for this page, so “Measured quality” is not measured for every tool. This page is published by WalterWritesAI.com as an independent reference guide.