With an AI text generator, you can skip the blank-page stage of any writing process. These tools help you come up with ideas, save you time on ideation and drafting, and keep your content production pipeline consistent, freeing you up for bigger strategic work, original research, and connecting with your audience.

Jasper and Copy.ai are two of the most popular AI writing tools out there right now, so I jumped into each of them to see how they stacked up.

After spending a lot of time with AI productivity tools, I had a feeling I'd be impressed, but it was exciting to see how each tool employs generative AI from a different angle. 

Copy.ai vs. Jasper at a glance

The short version: if budget isn't an issue, Jasper is a better choice overall. It does almost everything that Copy.ai does; and what it doesn't do, you can use your own prompts to make it happen. Having said that, Copy.ai is a solid tool with a free plan (and is more affordable overall), so it might make sense to try it first and see if it gets the job done.

A note about output quality

Jasper and Copy.ai both use OpenAI, but Jasper has come right out and said it's using GPT-4 (in some cases), where Copy.ai hasn't. Jasper also integrates a few other models: PalM (Google), Anthropic, and Cohere.

Both apps tune the models with their own data and based on their objectives. This means the output you get is slightly different, but I didn't notice significant (or consistent) differences in terms of quality. In both cases, you'll still have to make sure everything is fact-checked and that it fits your target audience's needs. 

That means the major differences are in the productivity features, templates, and workflows that each app has in place to get the job done. (More on that below.)

One other thing: like ChatGPT, both Jasper and Copy.ai offer their own chat features. This is great if you're good at prompting, as you can use these apps more flexibly, not being too tied to templates. In terms of chatbots, Jasper Chat has the edge due to having a Google Search integration (it returns source links so you can fact-check the output), but it's a bit slower to work with since it's using two services at the same time.

Jasper leans content marketing; Copy.ai leans copywriting

Content marketing focuses on creating content to connect with your audience's needs, building a relationship of confidence and loyalty between people and brands. At the same time, it's an opportunity to be found in Google searches and to promote your products or services in a non-intrusive way. To create content, you hire writers who research topics and then write (many) content pieces to help educate, inform, entertain, and inspire readers.

Jasper is a better fit for content marketers because it's wired for this high-volume content production. When you pick a template and enter all the prompts, Jasper gives you a workable base with decent length without you having to tinker with the settings.

Research is one of the most time-consuming tasks of content creation, so mapping out a topic using an AI tool is a great way to save time. Jasper's templates are another time-saver, with lots of content marketing use cases, such as video scripts, blog posts and SEO assists. The entire feature set helps you move your ideas > outlines > drafts pipeline forward.

Copy.ai goes another route. You'll notice that there's always a text editor on the right side of the screen. I was a bit confused at first, but once I picked up a template and started getting outputs, I saw why it's there. Your job in Copy.ai is to scroll through these output snippets and find the ones that you want to bring into your draft. Copy and paste them as needed, ask for more follow-up snippets from a good one, or regenerate another that didn't hit the mark.

This makes it a slower experience. It's more editing-as-you-go, less done-for-you. At the same time, it invites you to think as you put your content together, which is definitely an advantage. But why does Copy.ai lean more toward copywriting, then?

Copywriting studies human decision-making to position products and services using highly-optimized copy. You won't be researching topics here: you'll be researching your target audience and the products or services you're offering. Knowing the unique details about this—audience, product, offer—is what determines your success, and while AI can give you good clues on this, it can't provide a fits-like-a-glove solution. Original data, research, and experimentation will always win here.

This slower pace is better for organizing your research as you build a sales page or a series of punchy product descriptions. And after you finish your control version, you can select a few promising snippets to create A/B tests to optimize conversion rates later on.

Now, this difference isn't absolutely strict. Can you write copy with Jasper? Definitely, and there are a handful of copywriting templates to begin with. Can you write blog posts with Copy.ai? Yes, it has templates for that, and the results are good. But the way the workflows are set up makes Jasper better to tackle content strategies and Copy.ai to find the perfect wording for a CTA.

Jasper has more productivity features and helps you create content faster

I mentioned that Jasper helps you keep your content pipeline moving forward faster, so let's dig into that a bit more.

When you pick a template and enter all the required prompts, it generates a large piece of output that has the right structure, so you can start editing. I asked for a blog post on the benefits of vegetables: Jasper served me with the top five benefits along with three references (courtesy of the Google Search connection), so I could fact-check. It provided a good skeleton of the piece, ready to add some soul to it.

The editing happens in Jasper's Document screen, a place that looks like a classic text editor where you'll be hanging out a lot.

 It has three distinct modes:

1. Focus mode keeps distractions to a minimum, so you can use your human skills to cut, refine, and polish.

2. Chat mode puts your document side-by-side with a smaller Jasper Chat window, so you can get prompts and use the output on the editor right away.

3. Power mode opens a left-side sub menu with all the Jasper Workflows. They work like templates, but the input fields are more structured, some even including multiple steps. These Workflows will let you brainstorm a unique value proposition, help you craft a great LinkedIn personal post, or nail a clear company bio.

You can enrich this document screen with one more feature: when you connect Surfer SEO to Jasper, you get ranking data for the article you're writing, so you can keep search engine visibility in mind. Jasper doesn't provide spell-checking itself, but you can enable Grammarly for that. Another useful integration here is with DeepL, helping turn your content into multiple languages effortlessly. Bellissimo!

While you can start from templates, you can also start a new project by using Jasper Chat. I was impressed by how it handles context: when I asked to write the blog post about vegetables, it also suggested additional prompts to write other posts about the best recipes that include vegetables, among other relevant options. Fun and handy to help develop an entire content strategy by clicking on suggestions and sending each output to a new document you can edit later.

The more I tested, the more I found little productivity details. There's a good range of keyboard shortcuts to keep your hands where the action is. The Chrome extension brings a lot of Jasper's features into your browser, helping you generate content in any app you use. And to increase your productivity, you can set up Recipes, a chain of prompt commands that help make a process out of ideating > writing an outline > writing three paragraphs about each outline topic > all the way to having a completed piece.

Copy.ai is slower here. As mentioned before, the templates give you snippets that you have to pick and choose from to build your own end result. This is alleviated if you start from the Copy.ai Chat window or from the blog post template, but it still can't beat the speed that Jasper brings to the process.

Copy.ai incentivizes you to edit as you generate text and has more AI text transformation tools

Instead of giving you all the goods in one go, Copy.ai lets you pick a template, feed the input fields with your requirements, and then it starts printing out snippets. When you pick the Facebook Headlines template, for example, it will generate just that: one-liners to grab attention. Working on your brand mission? Using that template will generate a list of one-sentence mission statements instead.

You can save or copy these bits of text to the text editor on the right side of the screen. Like one in particular? Click the More like this button to keep exploring that thread. Don't like a few of them? Remove them to keep your writing on track. I used Copy.ai to write a landing page, and I noticed that this kind of work process sparked more ideas and angles, which is great if you're crazy about A/B testing. You can ship the control and already have a few variants to test against it right from the start.

When you're happy with your selection, you can start editing. The text editor is simple, letting you add basic formatting to separate ideas. If you want to develop an idea a bit more, click at the end of a paragraph and press tab: Copy.ai will give you a few options to continue that train of thought. Choose the best one, and click to add.

If you specialize in prompting and hand the output to your team for fact-checking and proofing, this experience will feel slower when compared with Jasper. But if you combine prompting with editing, rewriting, and proofing, this work rhythm is actually fun. You can work in a cycle of writing prompts, selecting your favorite outputs and writing more prompts from new ideas you're getting as you move through this process.

Once you're done with ideation, you may need extra help editing the text. Copy.ai has 19 writing tools to do that. They're a bit hard to notice—they're bundled up with all the other templates—so scroll down the Tools menu to find them. Here, the functionality is different: click Explain Like I'm 5, copy a difficult part of your text, and paste it there. As with other templates, you'll have a few snippets to pick from, so you can find the best variation.

Jasper also has a few AI text transformation tools. They're easier to access than in Copy.ai's: you can find them on the top menu on the document screen, letting you rephrase, fix grammar, or simplify your writing. If you explore the templates section, you'll also find summarization and content improvement. These tools are faster to use, but they don't have the same breadth as Copy.ai's collection.

Jasper has an excellent AI image generator

If you've been playing around with image generation, you may already know that it's (very) entertaining but also difficult to get the exact results you want if you're not experienced with prompts. It's hit-and-miss. Jasper, which uses DALL-E in the background, reduces this variance by adding a few tools:

• You can add your original text prompt and click a button to have Jasper enrich it with AI, so the text input becomes more suggestive for the AI image generation engine.

• You can upload an image to use as a base.

• And then you have a few dropdown menus to control mood, style, and inspiration. Whimsical Pop Art Picasso? Who knew that was even possible?

When you click Generate, you get four images to choose from. After a month of using text-to-image tools, there's still an element of unexpected for me here, something magical. But, more important than the feelings is whether the images are usable—and they are. You can download the images in three different resolutions, the highest one being 2048 x 2048. Yes, they're squares, so you'll have to drop them in a cropping tool if you want a different aspect ratio.

Jasper used to charge for this feature, but now the image generator is included in all Jasper plans, and you can create unlimited images. But as you use the text-to-image app, consider crediting the artists you're drawing inspiration from, as the ethics here are still hard to navigate.

Copy.ai is more affordable (and has a free plan)

Copy.ai will serve you better if you only need sporadic packs of product descriptions or a quick addition to an ad campaign. You can use it for free for up to 2,000 words per month, with access to most of the features (except multi-language content). This makes Copy.ai a good fit for the toolkit of bootstrappers and generalists. If it turns out you can't live without it, you can subscribe to the Pro plan ($49/month) and churn out unlimited words, access all the newest features, and have priority email support.

Jasper is much more expensive by comparison, but it offers more sophisticated features, making the pricing feel competitive for marketing teams producing a high volume of content. For $125/month, you can enable Jasper's Teams plan and get access to three user seats, unlimited words, 10 campaigns, three brand voices, and other major features. As your team grows, you can add additional seats for $62/month. If your marketing needs increase, you can speak to sales and get a custom price for unlimited brand voices, campaigns, and customized templates/workflows.

Jasper integrates with the other apps you use

Jasper has a native integration with Surfer SEO and Grammarly, which makes the process of SEO optimizing and editing that much easier. And on top of that, Jasper integrates with Zapier, which means you can connect it to all the other apps you use in your content production workflows. For example, you automatically create blog posts or product descriptions, run commands, or summarize content in Jasper—all based on the actions you take in other apps.

Learn more about how to automate Jasper with thousands of other apps, or try one of the pre-built workflows below.

Jasper AI vs. Copy.ai: Which should you choose?

Jasper is better if you need a lot of content every month and you're looking for a more hands-off experience during the prompting phase. It solves more problems in the content marketing department—although it can also tackle copywriting if you use the right prompts and templates—and connects with other apps that will also help you leverage SEO features. On top of that, it offers a built-in AI image generator and integrates with the other apps you use in your content production workflow.

Copy.ai is better for editing-as-you-prompt, fitting more snugly in a toolkit of a bootstrapped marketing agency or a generalist that doesn't need a lot of content every month. The slower workflow experience could trigger more ideas, help you find more A/B testing variants, and solve short copy puzzles. And with a more competitive pricing plan, it may help you achieve more while paying less.

Related reading:

• Writesonic vs. Jasper: Which AI writing tools is best?

• How to create an AI writing coach with OpenAI and Zapier

• AI in marketing: How to leverage it

• Here's what happened when I used AI to write a blog post

• How to automate Copy.ai with Zapier

This article was originally published in March 2023. The most recent update, with contributions from Juliet John, was in June 2023.