You have just finished a Task 2 essay. Two questions matter: what band would it get, and what is holding it back?
Search for an IELTS writing checker and the same names keep coming up: Cambridge’s Write & Improve, the British Council’s IELTS Ready, Writing9 and Engnovate, and many people simply paste their essay into ChatGPT. All of them promise feedback. Use them for a week and the differences are hard to miss. One will not take the question you are practising, another gives a single score for Task 1 and Task 2 together, and a third marks about a band and a half below the official band on average.
In October 2026 we compared them side by side, together with IELTSWritingChecker.org and our own IELTS Writing Practice. The short version: if you want to paste in your own question and essay and get a band close to an examiner’s, plus specific fixes, IELTS Writing Practice came out best. In our August 2026 test against 97 officially scored responses it had the smallest average error, 0.53 of a band, and about three in four of its scores were within half a band of the official one. Write & Improve and IELTS Ready are well-known names, but neither can mark a single essay of your own: the first needs both tasks together and returns one score, and the second accepts only its own questions. ChatGPT explains patiently but tends to mark low. The details follow.
What a good checker should do
First, it should mark any question. You will practise Cambridge tests, recent exam questions and questions from your teacher, so a checker should accept whatever you paste in, not just the questions in its own bank.
Second, it should see the chart in Academic Task 1. Much of a Task 1 score depends on getting the figures and trends right. A tool that cannot see the chart can only check your grammar; it cannot tell you that a number is wrong.
Third, it should score each task separately. Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1, and the two essays usually have different problems. One combined score does not tell you which essay pulled you down.
Fourth, it should give all four criterion bands and explain them. Examiners mark Task Achievement (Task 1) or Task Response (Task 2), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. A bare 6.5 is not much use; knowing which criterion is holding you at 6.5, and which sentence to fix, is.
Fifth, its bands should be close to an examiner’s. Bands that are too high make you relax too early, and bands that are too low cause needless worry. Marketing cannot tell you this; only testing on essays with official bands can.
7 checkers compared
On 10 October 2026 we checked each tool: whether you can paste in your own question, whether you can upload a Task 1 chart, how it scores, whether it gives criterion bands and edits, and what you get for free.
| Tool | Any question | Chart upload | Band per essay | Criterion bands | Line edits | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
IELTS Writing Practice (this site) | 1/month | $14.99 | |||||
IELTSWritingChecker.org | 1/month | $14.99 | |||||
Writing9 | $14.99 | ||||||
Engnovate | 2/month | $16.99 | |||||
ChatGPT | $20 | ||||||
Cambridge Write & Improve | £4.50 | ||||||
British Council IELTS Ready | $12.99 |
✓ yes · ✗ no · — not applicable. “Chart upload” means you can upload the Academic Task 1 chart; “Band per essay” means Task 1 and Task 2 are scored separately; “Criterion bands” means all four criteria are scored; “Line edits” means line-by-line edits, where specific sentences are flagged with a suggested fix; “Free” means IELTS feedback you can get without paying. Prices are monthly (for IELTS Ready, AI marking of one mock test); annual and other plans are in the notes below.
The main differences are in the first five columns. Write & Improve lets you set your own task and upload a chart, but however the two essays turn out, it gives one score for the pair, with no criterion bands and no written comments. IELTS Ready has 25 Writing mock tests, but you can only answer its own questions, and AI marking costs extra per test or per credit. Writing9 marks any question, but its submission page has no way to upload a chart, so it never sees the Task 1 chart, and free accounts can write but get no feedback.
Notes on each tool
- IELTS Writing Practice (this site) Marks Task 1 and Task 2 for Academic and General Training, with chart upload for Academic Task 1. Every essay gets an overall band, four criterion bands and line-by-line edits. A free account gets one feedback preview a month, showing the overall comment, a comment on each criterion and the first edit; bands unlock when you upgrade. $14.99 a month or $39.99 a year.
- IELTSWritingChecker.org Gives each essay an overall band, four criterion bands and line-by-line edits, and accepts chart uploads. A free account gets one feedback preview a month, showing the overall comment, a comment on each criterion and the first edit; bands unlock when you upgrade. $14.99 a month or $39.99 a year. View page
- Writing9 Takes any question you paste in; the report gives an overall band and four criterion bands and highlights mistakes with suggested corrections. The submission page has only two text boxes, one for the question and one for the essay, so there is nowhere to upload a chart. Free accounts can write and edit but get no feedback; the report needs a paid plan: $7.99 a week, $14.99 a month, or $29.99 a year (the yearly plan was on promotion when we checked; normally $37.49). View page
- Engnovate Accepts chart uploads. Reports give an overall band and four criterion bands with comments, and flag grammar mistakes in your text with a suggested correction. Free accounts get two writing evaluations a month; Premium is $16.99 a month ($11.97 with a time-limited discount on the day we checked). View page
- ChatGPT The free version is enough, and it is the version we used for this October check. Paste in an essay and ask for marking against the IELTS criteria, and by default it returns a band for that essay, four criterion bands and line-by-line edits; it also reads images and answers follow-up questions. ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month. The weak point is the score: ask in a different way, or simply regenerate the answer, and the band can change. In our test it was also 0.85 of a band below the official band on average. View page
- Cambridge Write & Improve The free version gives CEFR levels such as B2 or C1, not IELTS bands. With +Test Zone (£4.50 a month) you can set your own IELTS task and get a band, but Task 1 and Task 2 must be submitted together and you get one combined score, with no criterion bands and no written comments. Its feedback shades sentences by quality and flags suspicious words but never shows how to rewrite a sentence, so line-by-line edits are marked ✗. View page
- British Council IELTS Ready The Writing section offers only its own 25 mock tests, so you cannot enter your own question, and the other feature columns, which assume your own question and essay, do not apply. The free mode shows model answers at different bands with explanations; AI marking (FlexCheck) costs extra: $12.99 for a new mock test or $19.99 for 10 AI credits. View page
All details checked on 10 October 2026. Prices change; check each site for current pricing.
How accurate are the scores?
Features can be checked one by one; accuracy can only be measured against essays with official bands. In August 2026 we published a test in which five tools scored 97 responses from Cambridge IELTS books and official practice materials, each with an official band. The full method and data are in our IELTS Writing scoring accuracy benchmark.
The ranking matters less than the direction. On average, all five tools scored below the official band, though by very different amounts. ChatGPT and Engnovate were about 0.85 of a band low, and Writing9 was 1.58 bands low, with 63 of its 97 scores more than a band off. Part of Writing9’s gap may come from Academic Task 1: its submission flow cannot take the chart, so it marked those responses without seeing it. A low score can feel like strict marking, but for a learner it is as misleading as a high one: an essay worth 7 that is marked 6 sends you to fix things that are not broken.
Write & Improve and IELTS Ready are not in the chart because neither can mark a single essay of your own. Write & Improve needs both tasks submitted together and returns one combined score, and IELTS Ready accepts only its own 25 mock tests, so your own questions and essays cannot be submitted at all.
Why does one combined score matter? Take a pair of official sample answers from Cambridge IELTS 21 General Training Test 2. The Task 1 letter to a local newspaper covers all three bullet points and received Band 7.5. The Task 2 essay is 183 words long, deals with only one of the two views the question asks about, and has frequent spelling and grammar errors; it received Band 5. With Task 2 counting twice, the pair works out at about Band 6.
Told only “6”, you would probably assume both essays were at a similar level and split your effort evenly. In fact the letter is already strong, and the essay is where the work is. If a tool cannot mark each essay and explain each criterion, even an accurate score will not help you much.
How to use them together
For everyday practice, choose a checker that takes any question, sees the Task 1 chart, scores each task separately and explains all four criteria. Write an essay, get it marked, fix it using the feedback, then write the next one. That loop is where most of the progress comes from.
In the last two or three weeks before the test, write under timed conditions (40 minutes for Task 2, 20 for Task 1) and get each essay marked straight away. Timed essays are the best guide to your level on exam day.
When a comment is unclear, paste the sentence into ChatGPT and ask why the present perfect is needed there, or how else it could be said. It explains well, but do not judge your level by its score; in our test it averaged almost a band low.
If you would rather have a person mark your work, IELTS Advantage offers feedback from former IELTS examiners, and E2 Language includes teacher-marked writing assessments in its paid packages. Some official test centres also run the free IELTS Trial Test, in which an official examiner marks your Listening, Reading and Writing and gives feedback, though the result is not an official score. Human marking usually costs more per essay than an AI checker, and none of these options is instant, so they work best as an occasional check before test day.
To try IELTS Writing Practice now, write a Task 1 or Task 2 response in the simulator below. You get an overall band, four criterion bands and line-by-line edits. A free account gets one feedback preview a month, showing the overall comment, a comment on each criterion and the first edit; bands and the remaining edits unlock when you upgrade.
Common questions
Are AI IELTS writing checkers accurate?
It depends on the tool. In our test on 97 officially scored responses, the most accurate tool was about half a band off on average, with about three in four scores within half a band of the official band; the least accurate averaged 1.7 bands off. All five tools tested tended to score low.
Is there a free IELTS writing checker?
Yes, with limits. ChatGPT is free, but its bands vary from one attempt to the next and tend to be low. Engnovate gives two free evaluations a month. IELTS Writing Practice and IELTSWritingChecker.org give one free feedback preview a month, with comments and one edit but no bands. Writing9’s free accounts get no feedback, Write & Improve’s free version gives CEFR levels rather than IELTS bands, and IELTS Ready’s free mode shows model answers only.
Does Cambridge Write & Improve give IELTS bands?
Yes, with a +Test Zone subscription. You can set your own IELTS task, but Task 1 and Task 2 must be submitted together and you get one combined score, with no criterion bands or written comments.
Can I use ChatGPT to mark IELTS essays?
It is useful for explanations and for rewriting sentences, but not for judging your level. In our test it averaged 0.85 of a band below the official band, and 23 of its 97 scores were more than a band off.
Can British Council IELTS Ready mark my own essays?
No. It marks only its own mock tests, and AI marking costs extra.
Method and limitations
We compared features on 10 October 2026 and took the accuracy figures from our August 2026 test; we will retest as the tools change.