[How-to] Sudowrite free vs paid: What Can You Actually Do Before You Pay?

Sudowrite is an AI writing tool built for novelists and fiction writers. It helps you brainstorm, draft and expand scenes. If you are new to it, the first question is simple: can I use it for free, and when do I have to pay?

Here is our angle. We are not reviewing the prose. We are showing you how to start without wasting your trial, and how to pick a paid plan without being fooled by a big headline number. Prices vary by country; we checked from Taiwan.

Is there a free plan?

No. Sudowrite has no permanent free tier.

What you get is a one-time free trial. You get 10,000 credits when you sign up, and you do not need to enter a credit card. Credits are the tool’s usage currency. Every AI action you run spends some of them, and when they are gone, you stop.

“One-time” is the part to remember. It does not refill each month. Treat it as a single test drive, not a free plan you can live on.

Figure: sudowrite.com official pricing page, captured 2026-10-30.

How to use your trial well

You have 10,000 credits and nothing else. Spend them on a decision, not on play. Here is a simple routine.

1. Sign up at sudowrite.com. No card is needed, so there is nothing to cancel later.
2. Pick one real project. Use a scene you are stuck on or a chapter you already wrote. Do not test with throwaway text. You want to judge the tool on your own material.
3. Run the same task a few times. For example, ask it to expand one scene. Compare the results. This tells you whether the style fits your voice.
4. Watch your credit balance as you go. Note how much one action costs you. We could not verify a credits-per-word rate, so the only honest number is the one you see on your own screen.
5. Stop and decide. If the output saved you time, move to a paid plan. If you kept rewriting everything, skip it.

The goal is to answer one question: does this tool fit how I write? You do not need to use all 10,000 credits to know.

The three paid plans

All three are subscriptions, billed monthly at list price. Here is what the data shows.

The annual-billing figures are monthly equivalents as shown on the pricing page. We found no yearly total, so we are not giving one.

Hobby & Student is aimed at hobbyists and short-story writers. It is the cheapest entry.

Professional is marked as the most popular. It is built for long novels, chapter expansion and a Story Bible. A Story Bible is a reference file where you store characters, settings and plot facts so the AI keeps them consistent.

Max adds a rare perk: unused credits are kept on a rolling 12-month basis. Most credit systems wipe your balance each month. This one does not.

Figure: compiled by AMPM from its verified data (last verified 2026-10-29).

Common blockers and fixes

“I can’t find the free plan.” It does not exist. Use the 10,000-credit trial instead.

“My trial ran out too fast.” Long expansions and repeated retries eat credits quickly. Next time, test with shorter passages and fewer retries.

“Which plan do I pick?” Start with Hobby & Student if you write short fiction or write casually. Go to Professional only if you are drafting a novel and need the Story Bible.

“The 1,000,000 number looks huge.” Read the next section.

🔍 AMPM exclusive check

Our check differs from the headline in one place: the Professional plan’s credit count.

The pricing page shows 1,000,000 credits per month for Professional. Our data splits that figure. The base allowance is 450,000 credits. The rest is a promotional boost. Promotions can end. The base cannot be assumed to grow back.

So if you are budgeting a whole book, plan around 450,000 credits, not 1,000,000. If the boost stays, you have spare room. If it ends, your plan still holds.

Two more things we could not confirm. First, the data does not say whether Max’s 2,000,000 includes any promotional portion. Second, this tool has been checked in one round only. It has not yet been cross-checked by hand across three sources. The price and credit numbers matched the official page on each daily check from 2026-10-26 to 2026-10-29. But free-trial terms and commercial-use terms should be read on the official page before you commit.

☀️ AMO, the budget-minded cat

Is free enough? Not really. There is no free plan, only a single trial of 10,000 credits. That is enough to find out whether you like the tool. It is not enough to write anything serious.

So the real question is whether paying is worth it. Start at the bottom. Hobby & Student costs US$19 per month and gives 225,000 credits. If you pay on the annual schedule, the page shows about US$10 per month. That is the cheapest way in, and for short stories it is probably enough.

Professional costs US$29 per month. That is US$10 more than Hobby & Student at monthly billing. In return, the base allowance is 450,000 credits, which is exactly double Hobby’s 225,000. The advertised 1,000,000 would be more than four times Hobby’s, but part of it is promotional. Judge the plan on its base. At that base, you pay US$10 more for twice the credits and the long-form features. That is a fair deal if you are writing a novel.

Max at US$59 per month makes sense only if you burn credits fast, or if you want the 12-month rollover so unused credits are not wasted. If you write in bursts, that rollover could save you real money.

My advice: use the trial, then buy one month of the smallest plan that fits. Do not prepay for a year until you know your own usage.

🌙 PIMI, the performance-minded cat

Does it work well? That depends on what you need, and the data does not give us speed or quality benchmarks. I will not invent any. What I can say is what each plan is designed to do.

The tool is built specifically for fiction. That focus shows in the plan list. Professional lists long-novel planning, chapter expansion and a Story Bible. Those are the features that matter once your manuscript passes a few chapters. Without a way to keep character and plot facts straight, any AI drifts.

On capacity, Hobby & Student gives 225,000 credits. Professional’s base is 450,000. Max is 2,000,000. If you rewrite and retry a lot, which most working writers do, the higher tiers keep you from hitting a wall mid-chapter.

My test plan is simple. Take the 10,000 trial credits and run one hard scene through the tool several times. Check three things: does it keep your voice, does it follow your plot, and does it save you time over writing it yourself? If two of three are a yes, upgrade. If not, no price is a bargain.

Performance is personal. The trial exists so you can test yours.

Verdict: who should use it, who should skip it

Use it if you write fiction and want help expanding scenes or keeping a long story consistent. Start with the free trial, then choose Hobby & Student for short work or Professional for a novel. Budget Professional on its 450,000 base.

Consider Max if you use credits heavily or want unused ones to roll over for 12 months.

Skip it if you need a permanent free plan, or you write mostly non-fiction. The trial is one-time, and the tool is built for stories.

Before paying, read the terms on the official page, especially on commercial use. We have not confirmed those yet.

Written: 2026-10-30 Price last verified: 2026-10-29 Tool last health-checked: 2026-10-30

🔗 Related on AMPM

• Sudowrite pricing & free tier

📎 Sources

All prices and quotas in this article come from AMPM’s verified dataset for Sudowrite (last verified 2026-10-29); primary sources:

• https://sudowrite.com/pricing
• https://sudowrite.com

🐾 Meet the cats: AMO and PIMI

AMPM is a Taiwan-based AI-tool pricing watchdog. Our motto: ask before you subscribe. Two cats argue every tool from two sides:

• ☀️ AMO — the budget-minded cat. Always asks: is the free tier enough, and is paying actually worth it?
• 🌙 PIMI — the performance-minded cat. Cares about whether it works well, fast, and gets your job done.

When they are done arguing, you know whether to pay. Every number is checked by us, with the verification date at the end.

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