I bought a lifetime license for ProWritingAid. It performs about as well as Grammarly, for me. PWA works well for my style of writing, and so did Grammarly but I decided to not renew because it was a considerable cost each year.
Both improve writing a lot and if you write professionally these apps save a lot of time.
I don’t subscribe to anything I don’t like, but it took me a long time to think of anything I could truly say I love. These come closest:
MLB At Bat: I listen to at least some of the Cubs radio broadcast nearly every day of the season.
Apple Music: I resisted streaming for a long time because I didn’t think I needed it. But my already-huge music library has gotten much huger since I signed up. That’s been a pleasant surprise.
Lynda.com: I’ve learned so much, especially when I was paying for it. Now that it’s free through work, I kind of take it for granted.
Steve Dahl podcast: @drdrang is probably the only one here who knows who that is, but I’ve been listening to him for more than 40 years. Still makes me laugh every day. The app is an abomination, but I’m paying for the content.
You may want to try the Hemingway Editor for the Mac. It is highly regarded. They do not have an iOS version but I just downloaded it to try it. It does not require a subscription.
I use it pretty heavily, not as much as I ought to, but a lot. I recently used it to help check my mum’s CV for her and found quite a few places where commas had gone missing and both of us managed to get the wrong spelling for a word! It’s not perfect, but it’s a great way to avoid silly mistakes (like focussed )
Day One ( My nephew died at 17 years old 2 years ago. The app has so many memories for me The On This Day feature is amazing. The book printing feature was great to print out a book with just my memories with Ethan, or the book I printed of my Lab that passed away last year with just entries about her. )
1 Password ( I get this with Eero plus. Still worth the money. Hands down the best password manager)
OmniFocus for the Web ( One of the best Task Managers out there. I only pay for the web subscription.)
Carrot Weather ( I actually find the smack talking hilarious )
Ulysses (Just a great all around writing app. )
Drafts ( In my opinion the best quick note and do something with it app out there. )
The webpage for Building a Second Brain is 7000+ words long. This seems to be the modus operandi for a lot of online courses. Wear them down, then they’ll pay.
This was my experience with Blanc’s Focus Course as well.
Both play on the psychological phenomenon perceived scarcity. The videos and teaching materials are sitting on their webservers at all times, but customers are only admitted to the program in cohorts. If you have easy access to the (perhaps years-old) material, it’s not worth $500 - $1200 or more.
Yeah, he’s been doing a daily podcast for about a dozen years, and for much of that time was also doing a daily radio show. Now it’s podcast only. That’s what I listen to on my drive home from work every day.
Lynda.com is sometimes free at your local library as well. Just search for “Lynda” on your library website’s catalog search box and it’ll take you to a site where you input your library card number and can access the site for free.
+1 for Hemingway as a non creepy way to get good writing guidance. In a former life, I worked for museums and we would always pass our label copy through Hemingway.