Read this article if...
you're stuck wondering if Scribbr Plagiarism Checker is really worth your time or just another overrated tool. I’ve actually used it myself and got A LOT to spill in this Scribbr Plagiarism Checker review.
I’ll walk you through the 3 things Scribbr Plagiarism Checker does well, plus the 5 big mistakes most people never talk about.
Wondering about how much it costs? I’ll lay out every detail so you’re not caught by surprise.
Thinking Scribbr is the only option out there? Don’t worry, I’ll show you some great alternatives.
And if you're unsure whether Scribbr is legit—yeah, I’m getting into that too.
Most reviews just scratch the surface, but in this Scribbr Plagiarism Checker review, I’m breaking it all down, so you don’t waste your time or money.
If you skip this, you might miss some deal-breakers or surprising wins that could totally change your decision.
Your coffee’s probably ready, so let’s dive in!
Here’s what you’ll find in this blog:
- Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Review Summary
- 3 Things Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Does Well
- 5 Big Mistakes Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Makes
- What Does Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Cost?
- What are Some Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Alternatives?
- Is Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Legit? - The Real Verdict

Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Review Summary

If you're in a rush, here's a quick 2-minute summary of this blog:
3 Things Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Does Well
- Easy APA Formatting: If you have to do APA 7 format, this tool kind of takes away the headache and helps you set it up, but it doesn’t mean you can ignore your teacher’s instructions.
- Grammar and Proofreading Help: The tool points out grammar problems and gives feedback so your writing sounds better, but it probably won’t catch the really tricky stuff every single time.
- Saving and Organizing References: It lets you save your citations so you don’t lose them for other assignments, which is handy, but you’ll need to organize everything in your own way for bigger projects.
- More on what Scribbr does well below.
5 Worst Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Features
- Poor Customer Service with Refund Hassles: If you want your money back or to cancel, good luck! They make it super hard to get refunds and often ignore requests. It’s honestly really frustrating, especially when you feel tricked in the first place.
- Locked-In Expensive Subscription: You end up getting trapped in pricey plans where your unused credits vanish every month. If you don’t use them all, well, tough luck—your money just disappears and you have to pay again next month.
- False Alarms to Get You to Pay: They love scaring you by saying there’s a “high risk” of plagiarism for free, but after you pay, you realize there’s barely anything suspicious. It really just feels like a trick to make you buy their service.
- Super Inaccurate Results: Sometimes the checker says your whole work is copied when it’s really not, or it flags your references and quotes as plagiarism. Makes you doubt if the thing actually works, right?
- Your Data Stays with Them: After you upload your writing, it sticks around on their servers. You don’t really know what happens to your private stuff, and it could even be used for who knows what later on.
What Does Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Cost?

- Small Document Plan – If your paper is up to 7,500 words, you're looking at $19.95 for one check. This isn’t exactly cheap, and you don’t get any monthly deal, but it’s handy if you only have a short essay to scan once.
- Normal Document Plan – For stuff that’s between 7,500 and 50,000 words, it jumps to $29.95 per document. It’s a bit pricey if you have to check a bunch of school assignments, but the limit is good for dissertations or big reports.
- Large Document Plan – For anything above 50,000 words (like a huge thesis or full book), it costs $39.95 per single check. I feel like this is for folks who really need to check long things, but honestly, it can get expensive fast if you have multiple big docs.
- Scribbr’s pay-per-use thing means you pay each time, so it doesn’t work out well if you have to check a lot of drafts. Would I buy Scribbr? Honestly, no – credits don’t roll over, and it gets pricey if you need multiple scans.
So, that’s my quick take on Scribbr's pricing. If you just need a one-off check, it might work, but I wouldn’t use it for every assignment because of the cost.
Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Review - What Does it Get Right?

Most users talk about three main things they find handy:
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Easy APA Formatting:
- You don’t have to stress over APA 7 anymore—the tool just sorts most of it out for you.
- People mention it works great for both quick essays or bigger research papers if you need APA citations.
- You still gotta double-check the results since teachers may ask for small tweaks, so don’t skip the final check.
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Grammar and Proofreading Help:
- It shows you grammar mistakes and helps your sentences sound more clear, which is awesome if you worry about your writing.
- Some people like the extra feedback on their papers, but it won’t catch every single tricky mistake.
- It’s great for a quick check, especially before you turn something in, but you might still want to do a quick self-review.
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Saving and Organizing References:
- You can save all your citations for future assignments, which a lot of students say makes life less stressful.
- It’s especially helpful if you’re working on many classes at once, since everything’s in one place.
- But if you have a big project, you’ll probably need your own system to keep stuff extra organized.
Here's a user talking about how Scribbr's plagiarism checker helped them:
“I really like their scribbr plagiarism checker. It's wholesome. You can be rest assured that you will be submitting a good paper with the help of the checker.”
5 Worst Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Features
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Poor Customer Service with Refund Hassles
- If you ever want your money back, you’re probably not getting it. Even if Scribbr totally messes up, they make getting refunds a nightmare—you send emails and they just ignore you or go in circles, never actually helping out.
- Lots of people keep complaining online and it matches what I saw—once they’ve got your cash, they just stop answering. It’s really upsetting, especially if you paid for something and got nothing out of it.
- I’ve asked for a refund, and honestly, it feels like shouting into the wind—nothing comes back. It makes you question why they act so dodgy if their tool is so great.
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Locked-In Expensive Subscription
- Scribbr charges a lot for just a single check—£31.95 is crazy expensive, especially when you don’t get much value. And if you buy a plan, those unused credits don’t carry over, so your money just vanishes every month.
- Even if you forget to use your credits, that’s your problem—they don’t help or remind you, and you’ll just lose out. It feels like they’re trying to trap you in paying again and again.
- I noticed that compared to tools that let you keep unused credits, Scribbr’s way feels unfair. You pay, use nothing, and get nothing back for it—kind of a rip-off, honestly.
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False Alarms to Get You to Pay
- Scribbr scares you with big red “high plagiarism” signs in their free checker, but once you pay, it’s usually just tiny, harmless stuff like common words or even your references. It feels like a trick just so you cough up the money.
- This happened to me—Scribbr warned me that my text was risky for free, but after paying, it just said 2% plagiarism and all of it was from super common phrases. Seems like they make it look worse just so you’ll pay.
- Loads of reviews show the same problem: everyone sees a “moderate” or “high” warning upfront, but after paying, it turns out to be nothing. This makes you lose trust pretty quick.
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Super Inaccurate Results
- Scribbr flags stuff that isn’t even close to plagiarism—lots of people say their personal work gets marked as copied, and even references and quotes get flagged, which makes zero sense and just stresses you out.
- Sometimes, the free version shows a “94% match,” but after you pay, it drops to 7% or something small—all because it’s counting things like your bibliography or things everyone has to write.
- I tried checking my own paper, and just like others, it found “errors” in stuff like my reference list or in regular academic phrases. Makes you doubt the whole service actually works.
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Your Data Stays with Them
- After uploading your writing, it just sits on their servers. You have no idea if they delete it, save it forever, or even use it to feed their AI. That freaks me out and it should freak you out, too.
- I had to sign up just to see my fake report, but that means they’ve got my email and my entire document. That’s a lot of personal info to hand over for nothing helpful in return.
- It’s not clear at all what happens to your stuff, and trust me, when it comes to your academic work, you deserve better protection and honesty about where your data goes next.
Here's a review by an anonymous user discussing their experience:
“Scribbr showed my similarity score to be 94% before I purchased and so I purchased it to see what that was all about, only to have it reduced to 7% after purchase, and the only thing it showed as plagiarism was in my reference section where I listed my references for my paper. Would steer clear of this website. And they would not give me a refund when I confronted them about this issue. So I would save my money here.”
Here's a review by Amanda Matthes discussing the free tier:
“I am ok with good features being behind a paywall, but the free tier is completely pointless. I uploaded my thesis hoping for some interesting insights. All it tells me is that there is a 'high risk' of plagiarism. Scribbr advertises that you can view the 'top 5 matching sources'. In my case that was just five times the same website of a very large journal, but no further details. Is it just my own papers? Who knows! I feel upset that my document is now on their servers, presumably being used to train more useless LLMs. It also made me create an account after uploading before I could view the results. Waste of time and private data.”
By the way, if you’re interested in a service that doesn’t require a subscription and allows your credits to remain valid forever, check out AIDetectPlus. You can also take advantage of their free trial (covers up to 1000 words!) right here.
That wraps up this in-depth overview. Curious about some alternatives to Scribbr Plagiarism Checker? First, let’s go over the pricing details!
What Does Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Cost?

Okay, so let me break down Scribbr Plagiarism Checker’s pricing for you real quick, since I actually used it and, wow, these prices are wild. You don’t get any monthly subscription, it’s pay-per-use. So every single time you want to check for plagiarism, you gotta shell out fresh cash. I’ll lay it all out for you, one by one:
Small Document (up to 7,500 words) – $19.95 per use
- This is for smaller stuff, max 7,500 words. But even that’s nearly $20 for one-time use. That’s like paying $20 just to check a short paper – only once. Every time you want to run a new document, it’s another $20 gone.
- And get this, if you run two different essays? That’s $40, even if both are only 2,000 words each. So those costs stack up fast, especially if you’re a student with lots of assignments.
- I’ve used it for short essays, and honestly, at this price I started second-guessing if it was even worth it. It’s not friendly on your wallet at all.
Normal Document (7,500 to 50,000 words) – $29.95 per use
- The middle plan covers essays and documents up to 50,000 words. But that’s almost $30. Every. Single. Time. You want to check another document of this length, you pay another $30. No discounts, no bundles, nothing.
- You don’t get any add-ons or perks. You’re just paying for a single scan, and then if you need it again, you start all over again at the checkout screen.
- If you mess up and upload the wrong version by accident, you have to pay again. And seriously, speaking from experience, that gets so annoying and expensive.
Large Document (50,000+ words) – $39.95 per use
- This one’s for massive documents like theses and dissertations, but it’s almost $40 just for one check. Yup, forty bucks. And that’s not for unlimited checks—just one file, one time.
- There’s no cap on how much you spend in a semester. Have three chapters you want to check as you write? That could be $120, easy. You’ll blow your budget in no time.
- And don’t expect any deals or refunds if you mess up. Once you pay, that money’s gone, period. No take-backs, not even if you thought you were buying a subscription.
Important: Refund Policy & No Subscription
- Let me be clear: Scribbr doesn’t offer monthly plans. Every time you use it, you have to pay again. And credits never roll over because, well, you don’t even get credits.
- If you think it’s a subscription when you buy—that’s on you. Scribbr won’t give you a refund. It even says so right at checkout. I learned this the hard way, so trust me, don’t expect your money back.
- Basically, you’re always stuck paying full price—over and over. In the end, it gets way too expensive, especially if you need to check lots of documents over time.
So, here’s what I’m getting at…
- Scribbr Plagiarism Checker is honestly just *too* expensive if you need to check more than one thing. There’s no way to save money with a subscription, and no refunds if you mess up.
- You keep paying every single time you want to check something new—there’s no monthly plan, no rollover, no nothing. That adds up really fast and you’ll end up spending way more than you wanted.
Why I Recommend AIDetectPlus Instead
- AIDetectPlus gives you plagiarism and AI detection (plus humanization, if you care about that), and you can get in for as little as $5, one-time payment. That’s miles cheaper than Scribbr’s $20+ per single check.
- You’re not locked into paying again and again—your credits never expire, so you can use them whenever. No pressure to use up your words by the end of the month like some other tools.
- You can check *tons* of documents and only pay more if you actually need more. That’s way better than Scribbr’s “pay for every single file, every single time” approach.
- I found the reports on AIDetectPlus work really well, and it’s honestly saved me a ton of cash—so if you want to compare, check out the details down below.
What are Some Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Alternatives?
#1 - Scribbr Plagiarism Checker vs AIDetectPlus
- Both Scribbr and AIDetectPlus are used to check your work for plagiarism, but they work pretty differently.
- Scribbr is focused on school papers, helping you with APA formatting, organizing references, and catching grammar mistakes. It’s mostly made for students writing essays or big reports.
- AIDetectPlus is for anyone who wants to spot both AI and copied content—not just schoolwork, but blog posts, freelance jobs, and marketing stuff too. Plus, you get extra tools for making your text sound more human and even removing plagiarism in one click.
- Where is Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Better?
- Scribbr is helpful if you just want an easy way to double-check APA citations and do a one-time scan—simple stuff for school basics.
- Where is AIDetectPlus Better?
- You get way more for your money with AIDetectPlus: there's AI detection, a deep plagiarism checker, and a humanizer tool that fixes both copied and AI content for you.
- The free trial is actually free (no credit card needed), and the credits never expire—so you’re not stuck in monthly plans like Scribbr’s. You just pay for what you use.
- If you’re a student, marketer, or teacher, you’ll find exactly what you need—no need to go hunting for more tools.
- You get unlimited words, clean grammar, and super quick help if you get stuck. I’ve found it way more straightforward and you don’t get hit with surprise charges.
#2 - Scribbr Plagiarism Checker vs Turnitin
- Both Scribbr and Turnitin check your work for plagiarism, but they’re kinda made for different folks.
- Scribbr Plagiarism Checker is great if you just want to check your own essay or paper before you hand it in – especially if you care about APA formatting or easy grammar fixes.
- Turnitin is the big deal for teachers, professors, and schools. It’s meant for classroom assignments and gives super-detailed reports.
- Where is Turnitin Better?
- Turnitin is the go-to for schools and teachers who want really deep plagiarism checks, AI writing detection, and tools that are built right into classroom systems.
- It’s awesome for managing big classes and lots of students’ work all in one place.
- Where is Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Better? Honestly, if you just need to check your own paper once in a while and want a quick grammar check or help with APA references, Scribbr is easier to use. But, it’s not super cheap, so I wouldn’t pick it for tons of papers.
#3 - Scribbr Plagiarism Checker vs Duplichecker
- Both Scribbr Plagiarism Checker and Duplichecker help you find copied stuff, but they don’t really work the same way.
- Duplichecker is super straightforward and totally free for basic checking—no signup or fancy accounts needed. It’s awesome if you just need to copy-paste a small bit of text and check it right away.
- Scribbr Plagiarism Checker is more for folks who are working on school papers, essays, or big projects and want a deeper look for hidden plagiarism, plus some help with citations and grammar.
- Where is Duplichecker Better?
- Duplichecker is free and super quick—you just paste your stuff and you’re done. If you don’t want to pay or sign up for anything, it’s a good pick, especially if you’re just checking blog posts, emails, or homework once in a while.
- It’s fast and not fancy, so you don’t feel lost with tons of options. Super handy for normal, everyday writing.
- Where is Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Better? If you need to check a school essay or a big research project and want to spot sneaky plagiarism or fix citations, Scribbr Plagiarism Checker gives you a more detailed scan and extra help with referencing.
Is Scribbr Plagiarism Checker Legit?

Short answer – Nope, not really!
Here’s my take on it:
- Reason #1: Customer Service Is Super Frustrating: I’ve tried reaching out to get help with my subscription, but most of the time they just ignore you or make it a nightmare to get your money back. It's like talking to a brick wall if you need a refund or want to cancel.
- Reason #2: You’ll Lose Money on Locked Credits: The credits you buy each month just disappear if you don’t use them up. No rollover at all, so you end up paying again for something you never even used. Trust me, that stings if you forget about them.
- Reason #3: Fake Scares and Untrustworthy Results: They hit you with scary “high plagiarism” alerts for free, but once you pay, there’s barely any real issue. And half the time, the checker gets it wrong — it’ll flag stuff that’s yours, count references as plagiarism, or just plain mess things up. From my experience, you can’t actually rely on it.
Here's a review by Ra Possagno about their experience with Scribbr:
“DO NOT PURCHASE: My experience using Scribbr I uploaded my coursework essay in the free version of scribbr and received a review in which the review gave me a score of 52/100 and claimed to have found 7 situations of plagiarism and 131 word and grammar errors. Seeing all these problems with my essay i decided to pay the £15 price to see my errors so that i could change it and make it better. First problem: The 7 pieces of plagiarism that it flagged were all quotations that i had reference (therefore not plagiarism) and the program also flagged the citations themselves!?!? How is this possible. Second Problem: When I try to use the AI Proofreader (which was one of the functions i payed for) I get directed to a page telling me: 'Oops, we could not find the requested page'. Already unacceptable... However after finally managing to download the 'Downloadable Word document with all your writing issues corrected using Track Changes' the 131 errors it showed before suddenly became 6. My guess is that all those made up errors were simply to make me pay the £15 but this is clearly false advertising and straight dishonesty. I hope this is not the case but I fear that i have completely wasted my money. I would love to hear back from the company to try to fix the issue or help me understand why the 131 errors that it showed me before suddenly disappeared.”
So, what should you use instead?
Honestly, AIDetectPlus fixes every big headache I just talked about with Scribbr Plagiarism Checker. Wanna know how?

You can actually get a free trial for 1000 words — no tricks. But even better:
- #1 Accurate, Honest Plagiarism Checks: It searches billions of sources and shows you the exact spots that match, so you really know what’s up. You can even rewrite the flagged parts in seconds.
- #2 Your Credits Never Disappear: Buy credits once, and they stay on your account. Use them when you want — you don’t lose anything if you skip a month.
- #3 Friendly, Real Customer Support: I've gotten quick answers from real people, not just robots. Every question I had was answered fast — usually within half a day.
- #4 Tools for Everyone: Whether you’re a student, teacher, or blogger, AIDetectPlus has a plagiarism solution built for you! Check the menu above for what fits you best.
That’s everything! Hope this helps you see why Scribbr Plagiarism Checker ain’t worth it — and why you might want to give AIDetectPlus a shot. You can head over to their website or start your 1000-word free trial. No credit card or phone number needed, just punch in your email and you’re good to go!