8 Writing Tools to Boost Your Productivity
Photo by Startup Stock Photos
If you’ve set a New Year’s resolution or are determined to ditch a bad writing habit in 2026, a new writing tool could be just the thing to help you meet your goals. The tools below can help with a range of writing tasks, including editing, brainstorming, transcribing, summarizing and more.
1. Scrivener
Maybe you’ve heard of Scrivener, but if you haven’t, it’s a software suite for Mac and Windows users that’s developed exclusively for writers. It’s ideal for long-form projects and can help you with every step of the process, including organizing research and notes, building outlines, editing, progress tracking, and exporting files. It’s a favorite of investigative and feature journalists working on in-depth stories.
- Price: A 30-day free trial lets you explore the features. The full version costs $59.99 and the iOS app is $23.99.
2. Lex
This AI assistant is useful for a variety of writing-related tasks. Use the AI for brainstorming ideas, getting feedback on a draft, creating multiple versions, workshopping headlines or publishing a read-only link to share with others. Lex uses models from OpenAI, Anthropic and TogetherAI, but your work is secure and is not used to train the models. As one user says, “While Lex looks like a simple word processor, it’s closer to a writing partner. Its design seamlessly integrates LLMs to amplify your ability without disrupting your flow state. It helps me easily explore ideas from new angles & refine language to communicate them effectively.”
- Price: Lex is $24.99/month or $14.99/month with a full-year purchase. Discounts are available for students, nonprofits and academics.
3. Trint
Trint is a popular tool for transcribing that was founded by a former reporter. It uses AI to transcribe audio into 30+ languages and translates into 70+ with up to 99% accuracy. Users can share a live feed with colleagues to uncover takeaways and quotes in real time. The Story Builder feature allows you to quickly transform the transcription into articles, podcasts and rough cuts.
- Price: After a 7-day free trial, users can choose from individual, team and enterprise plans. The individual option is $100/month or $79/month if billed annually.
4. HyperWrite
This AI writing tool is designed to help you combat writer’s block and speed up your writing process. It can be used to generate content from scratch or edit and refine your existing work. Want to rewrite a section of your article but retain the original meaning (helpful for a social media post or summary, for example)? HyperWrite can help with that. A research tool also allows users to search through millions of scholarly articles and papers to help with their content. Explore the hundreds of tools here.
- Price: Monthly plans come with 250 AI messages and start at $19.99/month. An Ultra plan offers unlimited AI messages for $44.99/month. Free versions of the HyperWrite AI Writer, AI Rewriter and AI Summarizer are also available on the site.
5. Wordcounter
No, this isn’t just a simple wordcount tool. This handy site does count how many words you’ve written, but its real benefit lies in the ability to count the use of individual words to highlight repetition and redundancy. The tool will also show you the top 10 keywords and keyword density of the text, ensuring you’re using the right terms to reach your audience.
- Price: This one is free!
6. Calmly Writer
Get easily distracted while you write? Calmly Writer helps to remove some of the noise so you can concentrate on your work. With Calmly Writer, you don’t have to worry about the fonts, indents, colors and sizes. As you start typing, all the distracting options disappear from the user interface and the “focus mode” option highlights only the paragraph you are editing. It comes with several color themes, including dark mode, and for nostalgia-lovers, there’s an optional typewriter sound. Full-screen mode allows you to tune out all the other apps and tabs open on your computer and devote your attention to the task at hand.
- Price: Download Calmly Writer for free or purchase a license for continued use (less than $20). A pared-down online version is also available for free.
7. Cliché Finder
We’re all guilty of using clichés in our writing from time to time, but replacing them can lead to an article that’s clear and easy to understand. This tool isn’t new (it’s been around since 2007), but it’s one that should be bookmarked. The simple tool analyzes your text and highlights clichés after searching the Associated Press Guide to News Writing.
- Price: It’s another free one!
8. Visualping
This is a web monitoring tool that alerts users when a webpage is updated, ideal for helping journalists catch “the quiet, unannounced updates that others miss, giving you the evidence to hold sources accountable and break the story first.” Common use cases include monitoring government websites, court decisions, executive team pages, and social media profiles for key company or industry figures.
- Price: A free journalist plan includes lifetime access to Visualping’s Starter plan (worth $120 per year), which includes 1,000 monthly checks on webpages, and monitoring of up to 25 webpages at a time, checked every 15 minutes.
We hope one or more of these tools can help you write faster, clearer and more effectively in 2026. Have another tool you’d like to recommend? Share it with the team in the comments!
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Rocky Parker is the Manager of Audience and Journalist Engagement at Cision PR Newswire. She's been with the company since 2010 and has worked with journalists and bloggers as well as PR and comms professionals. Outside of work, she can be found trying a new recipe, binging a new show, or cuddling with her pitbull, Hudson.
