{
    "title": "NovelAI Alternatives 2027: 9 Paid, Free & Open-Source",
    "url": "https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/novelai/",
    "summary": "The best NovelAI alternatives in 2027 are Sudowrite (best overall, $10/mo), Inkfluence AI (best free plan: 5 chapters a month) and KoboldCpp (best open source, AGPL-3.0). NovelAI itself starts at $10/mo. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 11 Nov 2026; 6 more are compared below, including 3 with a free plan and 2 open source.",
    "tool": {
        "name": "NovelAI",
        "starting_price": "$10/mo",
        "free_plan": "No",
        "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
        "pricing_url": "https://docs.novelai.net/en/subscription/"
    },
    "task": "AI book and story writer",
    "prices_checked": "2026-11-11",
    "date_modified": "2026-11-11",
    "alternatives": [
        {
            "name": "Sudowrite",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "$10/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "Fiction drafting with story-aware Write and Rewrite",
            "difference": "Plans meter AI use in credits (225,000 on the $10 plan), include Muse and Ballad models plus 30+ others, and top plans add developmental edits and beta reads.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
            "pricing_url": "https://www.sudowrite.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://www.sudowrite.com",
            "zekai_score": 7.5,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/sudowrite/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Novelcrafter",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "$8/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "Novels planned in a story codex",
            "difference": "Hobbyist adds scene summarisation and scene-beat generation with a bring-your-own API key; NovelAI includes its own GLM 4.6 text model and image models.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
            "pricing_url": "https://www.novelcrafter.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://www.novelcrafter.com",
            "zekai_score": 8.3,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/novelcrafter/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Inkfluence AI",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$9.99/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "5 chapters, then 5 more each month",
            "best_for": "Whole books from one prompt",
            "difference": "Creator generates up to 35 chapters a month with audiobook chapters, picture-book images and translations; NovelAI has no ebook export or chapter pipeline.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
            "pricing_url": "https://www.inkfluenceai.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://www.inkfluenceai.com",
            "zekai_score": 5.2,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/inkfluence-ai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Type.ai",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$8/mo billed yearly",
            "free_plan_limit": "Limited credits that do not reset",
            "best_for": "Editor for novelists and screenwriters",
            "difference": "Basic has 500,000 credits that cover chat plus image, audio and video creation; NovelAI instead gives unlimited text and a separate Anlas balance for images.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
            "pricing_url": "https://type.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://type.ai",
            "zekai_score": 6.7,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/type-ai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Claude",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$20/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "Limited usage per 5 hours, 5 projects",
            "best_for": "General chat for drafting and editing",
            "difference": "Pro lifts usage limits on a general assistant; it has no image generator or story-specific memory features, so context lives in project files.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
            "pricing_url": "https://claude.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://claude.ai",
            "zekai_score": 9.4,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/claude/"
        },
        {
            "name": "ChatGPT",
            "type": "Free",
            "starting_price": "Free plan; paid price not published",
            "free_plan_limit": "Unlimited text chats, limited uploads and images",
            "best_for": "General chat for drafting and editing",
            "difference": "Free plan allows unlimited text chats under abuse guardrails, with limited uploads, image creation and memory, and no story-specific lorebook tools.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-11",
            "pricing_url": "https://chatgpt.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://chatgpt.com",
            "zekai_score": 9.3,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/chatgpt/"
        },
        {
            "name": "KoboldCpp",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "AGPL-3.0",
            "best_for": "Local story writing on your own hardware",
            "difference": "Runs GGUF models locally through KoboldAI Lite with memory, world info and author's notes for stories, and bundles optional image and TTS generation.",
            "repository": "https://github.com/LostRuins/koboldcpp",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/koboldcpp/",
            "zekai_score": 7.5,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/koboldcpp/"
        },
        {
            "name": "StoryCraftr",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "MIT",
            "best_for": "Command-line book drafting with your own model",
            "difference": "A command-line tool that builds worldbuilding notes, outlines and chapter summaries, then drafts chapters via Ollama, OpenRouter or OpenAI.",
            "repository": "https://github.com/raestrada/storycraftr",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/storycraftr/",
            "zekai_score": 5.4,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/storycraftr/"
        },
        {
            "name": "AIStoryWriter",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "AGPL-3.0",
            "best_for": "Full-length stories generated from one prompt",
            "difference": "Generates a medium-to-full-length novel from one prompt file, using separate models for outline, chapters and revisions, and can translate the output.",
            "repository": "https://github.com/datacrystals/AIStoryWriter",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/aistorywriter/",
            "zekai_score": 4.9,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/aistorywriter/"
        }
    ],
    "faq": [
        {
            "q": "What is the best alternative to NovelAI in 2027?",
            "a": "Sudowrite is the best overall NovelAI alternative on this page ($10/mo). For no cost, Inkfluence AI has a free plan (5 chapters, then 5 more each month). To self-host, KoboldCpp is open source (AGPL-3.0)."
        },
        {
            "q": "Is there a free version of NovelAI?",
            "a": "No. NovelAI has no free plan; paid plans start at $10/mo, checked on 11 Nov 2026."
        },
        {
            "q": "Is there a 100% free alternative to NovelAI?",
            "a": "Yes. KoboldCpp, StoryCraftr, AIStoryWriter are open source and free to self-host. Inkfluence AI, Type.ai, Claude, ChatGPT have a free plan with limits, shown in the table."
        },
        {
            "q": "What is cheaper than NovelAI?",
            "a": "Type.ai starts at $8/mo billed yearly, against $10/mo for NovelAI, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 11 Nov 2026."
        },
        {
            "q": "How much do NovelAI alternatives cost for a team of 5?",
            "a": "If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 11 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is Novelcrafter $40/mo, Type.ai $40/mo, Inkfluence AI $49.95/mo, against NovelAI $50/mo for NovelAI. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size."
        },
        {
            "q": "Which is better, Sudowrite or NovelAI?",
            "a": "Plans meter AI use in credits (225,000 on the $10 plan), include Muse and Ballad models plus 30+ others, and top plans add developmental edits and beta reads. Choose Sudowrite if you want a fiction editor with Story Bible, Rewrite and manuscript feedback rather than a story generator. Stay with NovelAI if you want unlimited text generation at a flat price and an anime-style image generator in the same subscription."
        },
        {
            "q": "Why are people leaving NovelAI?",
            "a": "The documented reasons are: NovelAI converted all existing Subscription Anlas to non-expiring paid Anlas, and Subscription Anlas are no longer usable after a subscription expires (22 Sep 2026); Unused Subscription Anlas reset to zero when the subscription ends, and usage limits apply to image models above V4.5 (11 Nov 2026). Each is sourced in the section above."
        },
        {
            "q": "What is better than NovelAI?",
            "a": "For manuscript-style fiction editing, Sudowrite and Novelcrafter are the usual picks. For free whole-book drafting, Inkfluence AI has a free plan."
        }
    ],
    "publisher": "Zekai (zekaiwork.com) — independently reviewed; prices read on vendor pages on the dates shown.",
    "licence": "Free to quote with a link to https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/novelai/. Bulk copying or republishing the dataset is not permitted."
}