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By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from Novelcrafter's own pages and hands-on tests published by others, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 20, 2026.

Novelcrafter review: pricing, features and what testers found

Novelcrafter is a browser-based writing app for novelists: it plans a book in acts, chapters and scenes, keeps a Codex of characters, places and lore that it can share across a series, and drafts, rewrites and discusses scenes with AI models you connect and pay for yourself (bring your own key). Scribe costs $4 a month without AI; AI features start on Hobbyist at $8 a month, or $80 a year, and no plan includes any AI usage.

Our take

Novelcrafter is a planning and writing app for novelists more than an AI writer: its Codex, plan views and series sharing keep a long book consistent, and its AI runs on models you connect and pay for yourself. Tom's Guide's Amanda Caswell, comparing it with Sudowrite in an article of January 2026, found it built for structure rather than prose, disliked the setup but says it kept her more organized than ever, and recommends it for long or complex novels and series; XDA's Saeed Wazir (May 2025) found its story templates and character tools made it easier for a beginner to start a novel, though he calls it not the most user-friendly app. Plans cost $4 to $20 a month ($40 to $200 a year): Scribe ($4) has no AI, AI features start on Hobbyist ($8, or $6.67 a month billed yearly) and Chat on Artisan ($14). No plan includes AI usage, so you also pay an AI provider (per request on OpenRouter, OpenAI or Anthropic, or a monthly fee on Featherless and similar services) or run a local model; Novelcrafter's own example, at November 2024 prices, puts one scene-beat generation of 400 words at about 2 cents on Claude 3.5 Sonnet. There is no free plan, only a 21-day trial of Specialist without a card, it works only online, and Trustpilot lists just two reviews. This verdict rests on those two published tests, Novelcrafter's own pages and Trustpilot; neither tester says what plan they used or what their AI use cost.

Based on Novelcrafter's published plans and the hands-on tests linked below, not on a test of our own.

Good for

  • Plotters, worldbuilders and series writers who want a Codex, outline views and continuity tracking shared across books, with AI that writes inside that structure
  • Writers who want to pick their own AI model (Claude, GPT, Gemini, open-source or less moderated models, or one running on their own computer) and pay only for what they use, rather than a bundle of credits
  • Writers who want an organized place to write without AI: Scribe ($4 a month, or $40 a year) has unlimited books, the Codex and series
  • Co-authors and editors revising the same book: Specialist ($20 a month, or $200 a year) invites others and creates teams

Watch out for

  • No plan includes AI usage. Every request is paid to the provider you connect, at its own rates, or runs on a local model; Novelcrafter's help center says costs climb with expensive models, many words of prose or many Codex entries in the context, long chats and long outputs. Its own example, at November 2024 prices, puts one scene-beat generation (about 4,200 tokens in, 400 words out) at about 2 cents on Claude 3.5 Sonnet and 10 cents on Claude Opus. ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Google AI Pro and Poe subscriptions cannot be used.
  • Features are split by plan: Scribe ($4) has no AI at all, Hobbyist ($8) has scene beats, text replacement, summaries and character detection but no Chat, and Chat starts on Artisan ($14); on Scribe and Hobbyist past chats stay readable but cannot be continued. Inviting others to your novels or series and creating teams needs Specialist ($20). The 21-day trial unlocks Specialist, so any cheaper plan has fewer features than the trial.
  • Setup takes effort: Tom's Guide's Amanda Caswell disliked the setup, XDA's Saeed Wazir calls it not the most user-friendly app, and no AI feature works until you connect an account with an AI provider or set up a local model. AI connections are kept only in your browser, so you set them up again on each new device or browser, and private browsing or clearing the cache removes them.
  • Your manuscript text goes to whichever AI provider you connect, under that provider's terms. OpenRouter's free models often require you to allow training or logging in OpenRouter's privacy settings, and are limited to 50 requests a day unless you have bought at least $10 of credits (as Novelcrafter's help center quotes OpenRouter). Novelcrafter's NSFW guide says many models refuse or soften explicit, violent or self-harm scenes and providers change their filters regularly, and it warns that trying to get around a provider's restrictions can get your account there suspended or banned.
  • It works only online, with no offline mode or date for one, and runs in the browser, which Chrome, Edge or Safari can install as a web app; the iPhone app called Novel Crafter on the US App Store comes from another developer, Love Power Up, LLC. There is no formatting for publication (export to Word or Markdown and format elsewhere), and the editor does not support right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu.
  • No free plan and no deals: after the trial or a cancellation your work stays readable and exportable, with no time limit, but cannot be edited. There are no sales, no student, educator, non-profit or purchasing-power discounts, no team pricing (each user pays for their own account) and no lifetime option; yearly billing gives two months free (about 17% less). Refunds are at Novelcrafter's discretion within a short period (its terms, last updated September 29, 2023, give 14 days as an example), cancelling gives no refund for the rest of the period, and a pause starts only when the current billing period ends.
  • Outside the US the pricing page converts prices into your local currency with local tax included (to a reader in Canada on October 20, 2026, Scribe showed as about CA$5.90 a month with 5% tax included, an amount that moves with the exchange rate); support can send a payment link in another currency. Payments run through Paddle, which appears on card statements as NOVELCRFTR and blocks purchases from some sanctioned countries and regions. Users must be 18 or older.
  • Reviews are thin: Trustpilot lists only two, on an unclaimed profile that has not invited reviews; one (March 2026) praises the Codex and the organization despite a steep learning curve for the advanced features, and one (November 2025) says the AI wrote only a few lines per chapter and ignored the outline.

What Novelcrafter does

Price

Free plan: None. A 21-day free trial unlocks every feature of the top plan, Specialist, with no credit card; afterwards your novels stay readable and exportable but cannot be edited. A free account can view novels others share with you. The cheapest paid plan, Scribe ($4), has no AI; AI features start on Hobbyist ($8), and no plan includes any AI usage: AI always runs on your own AI provider account or a local model, so it costs whatever that provider charges (some OpenRouter models and local models cost nothing).

PlanBilled monthlyBilled yearly, per monthIncludes
Scribe $4 $3.33 No AI. Unlimited books, the Codex, series (universes marked planned) and basic review tools; you can join other people's novels, series and teams as a viewer or editor; Discord and email support; $40 a year billed yearly
Hobbyist $8 $6.67 Everything in Scribe plus AI with your own key (no AI usage included; you pay your AI provider or run a local model): scene beats, text replacement, scene summarization, character extraction and custom prompts; live chat support; no Chat; $80 a year billed yearly
Artisan $14 $11.67 Everything in Hobbyist plus Chat (Workshop Chat) and advanced review tools (marked planned); the page's 'Most popular' plan; $140 a year billed yearly
Specialist $20 $16.67 Everything in Artisan plus inviting other users to your novels and series, creating and managing teams, and priority support; the plan the 21-day free trial unlocks; $200 a year billed yearly

Prices last checked: 2026-10-30 on Novelcrafter's pricing page. Full breakdown: Novelcrafter pricing.

Price history

No price change since we first recorded these prices on October 20, 2026. We re-check them every week and list each change here.

What hands-on testers found

We have not tested Novelcrafter ourselves. These are the published tests we found that used it hands-on, newest first; follow the links for the full reviews.

Tom's Guide · Amanda Caswell · January 2, 2026

What they tested: Novelcrafter against Sudowrite for long-form fiction, after finding that general chatbots lose track of a novel: she describes Novelcrafter having you build a book's framework first (characters, relationships, worldbuilding, plot beats and timelines) for the AI to work within, and her own experience of setting it up. The article names no plan, AI model or project length, does not link to Novelcrafter, and its price line puts both tools at around $20 a month without saying that Novelcrafter's AI use is paid separately to the provider you connect.

  • Novelcrafter puts a story's coherence ahead of fine prose; she rates it best at the logic and shape of a plot, character profiles that carry over from chapter to chapter, keeping motives, relationships and continuity straight, and planning long novels and series.
  • To her it worked more as an organizer than as a co-writer, a 'creative spreadsheet'; the extra setup could deter writers keen to start at once, but she found that with the groundwork laid the AI stayed consistent and dependable.
  • Setting it all up was not to her liking, yet she says she has never been so organized while writing a novel; she recommends it for long or complex novels and planned series where continuity matters, Sudowrite for help writing scenes, and notes that some writers draft in Sudowrite and then move to Novelcrafter.

XDA Developers · Saeed Wazir · May 21, 2025

What they tested: Novelcrafter as a beginner planning and starting a novel, chosen after he looked at Scrivener and Apostrophe: the Plan menu's story templates, Review's statistics, Codex entries for characters, locations, lore and objects, and the AI features linked to OpenAI and OpenRouter (he names GPT-4o, Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Gemini 1.5), including Chat. Written in May 2025, so it predates the models offered today; no plan is named. Its one link to Novelcrafter, to the pricing page, carries no tracking code but is marked rel='sponsored'.

  • The Plan menu's templates (Three-Act Structure, Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, or his own) made it easy for a beginner to start, and he uses Review's word counts (in total and by scene) and the distribution of characters by scene to track progress and set goals.
  • Character entries hold details, backstory, research and relations in one layout, and Mentions shows how often and where a character or location appears in the manuscript, with the surrounding text.
  • AI is optional, from the second plan up, and works only once linked to an outside model; he likes its feedback on pacing, dialogue and structure, and enjoys asking Chat to answer as one of his characters, in their voice.
  • His verdict: not the most user-friendly app, but a comprehensive set of tools for planning and writing a novel, with AI as a paid extra.

What users say

Test result

toolist.ai has not run its own test of Novelcrafter; the findings above come from the published tests linked. See how we research and test.

Best writing tools · Novelcrafter pricing

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Sources