With the increasing importance of digital marketing and content creation, business owners and marketers alike are looking for every bit of help they can get. One of the most significant developments in recent years has been the introduction of AI writing assistant tools such as the one being reviewed here, Article Forge.
While it’s still a very young market, there are already a whole host of different solutions that have been brought to the public. Many of them have specific intended purposes, with some solutions aimed at creating short form copy like adverts, and others at assisting with writing long-form creative copy such as stories and novels.
Article forge is a versatile option that can purportedly tackle a wide range of different functions, from product descriptions to longer blogs, but how good is it at doing its actual job? Let’s take a closer look, to see if it’s the right tool for you.
What are AI copywriting tools?
Before getting into the review of Article Forge itself, it’s important to have a good understanding of what these AI writing tools are meant to actually do. They’re designed to help with the writing process, not to replace writers with a fully technological solution, much like your traditional writing tool or software that is more about increased efficiencies for the writing process as a whole.
Keeping this in mind is essential when considering the utility of an AI writing tool – if you treat them as a complete replacement for writers, then you’ll always end up being disappointed. If you base their utility on how much time they can save in the writing process, then you’ll end up with a more realistic metric to judge them with.
What all AI writing tools have in common is that they use complex artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to maximise the efficiency of the writing process, especially when it comes to creating content with a focus on marketing.
Some AI writing tools are designed to make the editing process faster, while others can paraphrase existing content in a variety of different tones, making it longer or shorter than the original input content. What Article Forge aims to do, like several other options including Jasper AI and Word AI, is actually write the content out for you based on basic prompts.
While Article Forge likes to distinguish itself from options like Jasper and Word, calling them “writing assistants” while branding itself an “article writer”, the validity behind that distinction remains to be seen. If the content output still needs extensive adjusting and amending, then it should still be defined as a writing assistant.
How does Article Forge work?
The version of Article Forge being reviewed here is the third iteration of the tool, Article Forge 3.0. While most AI writing tools use the OpenAI generative text solution GPT-3, Article Forge uses it’s own AI solution that uses both natural language processing and deep learning. Like the other solutions in the niche, it’s constantly evolving, making improvements at a rapid pace.
If you’ve tried out other AI writing tools that use GPT-3 and haven’t gotten along with the kinds of text they give out, it might be worth giving Article Forge a go. Article Forge states that their solution is better at achieving factual accuracy, although the veracity of that claim may differ depending on the subject you ask it to write about.
Article Forge’s main selling point is that it can create a 1,500 word article in under 60 seconds. You simply enter your keyword and lay out the subheadings, and the Article Forge aims to fill in the rest in under a minute. As with all other AI writing tools, Article Forge doesn’t get it right first time, every time – that would be too good to be true. It does, however, provide you with a base on which you can build and edit your way to a final piece of writing.
Article Forge pricing
Along with most of the rest of the competition, Article Forge offers a range of different pricing plans, aimed at a variety of different users who require different things from the tool. Unlike many of the other options available, the only real difference between the different pricing plans is how many words you can write each month. Even with the most affordable plan, you get access to the same features as the most expensive plan.
Basic plan – $13 per month, billed annually
The basic plan gives you 25,000 words per month. While this might sound like a lot, those words quickly get used up when you start carrying out inevitable rewrites to try to get some usable content. It’ll be good for a smaller blog that doesn’t need a lot of content written, but if you’re a marketing professional, it won’t nearly suffice.
Standard plan – $27 per month, billed annually
With the standard plan, your word limit gets a massive increase, up to 250,000 words per month. For business owners who have a single blog, even if you post a lot of content, this will likely be sufficient. For marketing professionals who want to use it on some of their blogs but not all of them, it can also be a good solution.
Unlimited plan – $57 per month, billed annually
The unlimited plan comes with, you guessed it, unlimited words per month. This will be a good solution for bloggers who need to produce a massive amount of reasonably low quality, repetitive content per month.
Pricing verdict
In terms of pricing, Article Forge is one of the most affordable solutions currently on the market. The cheapest plan offers enough words to get by with, for less than you’d pay on a Netflix subscription.
In terms of the value that Article Forge could offer your business, that’s massive. On top of that, each option comes with a free trial, so that you can see if you get along with the content it produces before you make a financial commitment.
While the prices listed above are quite low, the price provied is based on being billed annually, which provides a 51% discount. If you choose to be billed monthly, all of those prices more than double.
Features
While Article Forge does come with some features, it’s not what we’d necessarily call feature rich compared to some of the competitors. That being said, some of the features that it does come with, like the SEO integrations, can be very useful.
Seven languages
For those who are familiar with the competition, this first feature will be a bit of a disappointment. Seven languages is one of the lowest numbers of languages we’ve seen offered by an AI writing tool, with the average being between 25-30. If you’re looking for a tool that’s great for international sites, this likely isn’t the one.
SEO AutoPilot
Now we get to the good stuff – the SEO integrations. Article Forge can be used in combination with SEO AutoPilot to make use of backlinks in authoritative sites, helping to significantly boost your SEO ranking.
WordAi
WordAi and Article forge are owned by the same parent company, and as a result, Article Forge users can use WordAi to help rewrite their content. This makes the process of getting articles ready to post much easier and faster, increasing the real world usability of Article Forge.
WordPress
Article Forge can be integrated into self hosted WordPress blogs, allowing you to schedule when posts are made. This further cuts the time it takes to run a blog or website, cutting out the time you’d otherwise waste copying, pasting and reformatting.
Pros
There are several attractive pros to using Article Forge.
SEO integrations
While one factor that Google likes, quality, will likely be lacking from the articles made by Article Forge, it attempts to make up for that through its multiple SEO integrations. If you’re a knowledgeable marketer who knows how to leverage these tools, it can massively increase the value of Article Forge. Your articles will rank higher, with a lot less faffing around, likely saving you a significant amount of time in the long run.
Affordability
Article Forge is an affordable AI writing tool, especially when compared to some of the competitors. However, that affordability drops massively if you want to pay for the tool monthly, with prices rising to more than double those you pay if you’re billed annually. For those on a budget, paying annually might simply not be an option.
Speed
If you’re writing about a topic that its algorithm can get its computer mind around, then you can end up with workable content in a very short timeframe. For writers who work in these niches, Article Forge can be an excellent solution to their requirements in an AI writing tool.
Intuitive design
Another pro is how intuitive it is to use. The interface isn’t overwhelming, and it’s easy to work out how to get it to write an article – you don’t need a degree in web design to figure out what each box does. This is a big pro, as most people using a tool like this want to save time, not have to spend ages working out how to use the tool in question.
Cons
Unfortunately, Article Forge also has several cons, as you’ll come to expect from all AI writing assistants.
Quality of the output content
The content that Article Forge turns out will simply be unacceptable for some uses. If you’re writing on a complex subject in a technical manner, the amount of editing that you’ll have to do will likely mean that you’d be better off just writing it yourself from scratch. However, if you’re writing content that’s simpler, for a less fussy target audience, this likely won’t matter.
Limited features
Article Forge is also somewhat limited in terms of the features it provides. For example, if you need to write content in a wide variety of languages, you’ll have to look elsewhere. It does, however, have good features surrounding SEO.
Customer support
One area that Article Forge is distinctly lacking in is customer support. They don’t have a chatline or a number that you can call, and you’ll need to fill in a contact form on their website. Compared to a lot of the competitors, this is quite disappointing.
Given how new these tools are and how subject to change they’ll be over the coming years, many users will need a way of getting support with issues and raising concerns about areas that could see improvement. Hopefully, Article Forge will implement a service that facilitates easy communication in the near future.
They do, however, have a blog, which contains answers to a lot of frequently asked questions. If your query falls into one of these categories, then you’re in luck.
Awkward pricing
While it can be an affordable option, it’s only truly affordable when you pay annually. That means that the people who really need an affordable option and can likely only afford to pay a month at a time will be forced in to the much more expensive (but still well priced) pay-monthly bracket.
We get why Article Forge (and indeed any service based business) would want to tie customers in though, but it’s a shame that it might exclude a segment of potential customers.
Interface and usability
While the technologies that drive these tools are infinitely complicated, it’s important that anyone, especially those without a strong technical background, can use them effectively. Article Forge have done a good job in this area. The layout is uncluttered, and the dashboard is clear and comprehensible.
There aren’t a confusing number of boxes and options, and it’s clear that everything is there with a strong, intended purpose. Compared to its competitors, we’d say it scores highly in usability – which is a good thing, given the aforementioned lack of customer service.
How good are the results?
The content that Article Forge puts out is pretty basic. It doesn’t write in a complex manner, and for some subjects it just won’t be able to capture the nuances of the topic. That being said, the content that it does create is impressively intelligible and largely grammatically accurate.
You’ll still need to edit it and do some fact checking (depending on the topic,) but compared to some of the other options, it can definitely provide you with a workable foundation on a lot of topics.
How usable you find the results really does depend on what you need it for. If it’s a basic topic that can be written about in relatively simple language, you may very well find it a highly appropriate tool for your content creation needs. If you’re writing about a complex topic in complex language, it will very likely struggle to give you anything that you can use.
So, is it worth it?
Whether or not Article Forge is worth what you pay for it depends on your business model and your expectations of the quality of the content. If you’re a blogger that writes a small number of high quality articles, this is not the tool for you.
If this type of writer need an AI writing tool at all, it will likely be one that aims at assisting in the editing process. AI powered content writers, this one included, simply can’t produce high enough quality content to be of any use to writers in this sort of niche.
If, however, you’re a marketer who aims to put out as many articles as possible, with less focus on the quality of that content, then Article Forge could be a useful addition to your arsenal of tools. On more basic topics, where you already know the title and roughly what subheadings you’ll use, you can have a long-form article ready in a matter of minutes.
To optimise the process, it’s probably a good idea to use it in combination with other AI writing tools, such as WordAi, that can help you brush up the overall quality of the article in as little amount of time as possible. No matter where you’re posting it, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get something that’s ready to go the first time around, and it’s important to make full use of the editing options available to get it up to scratch.
If you’re in this latter group of marketers, the speed at which you can produce content, combined with the multiple SEO itegrations, might make this a very powerful tool to help you save time and earn more.
