Draftback

Fantastic tool for an English teacher! Highly recommend using draftback to monitor student writing. It is safe for students, reliable, and well worth the money!

This is a fantastic extension that our English department uses not only to hold students accountable, but also to see where they need additional help (e.g., rewriting an intro over and over shows that student needs help with an intro). We used the free version and the money spent on the paid version is well worth it. Our IT team vets these products very thoroughly for privacy and applicability, and the fact that it passed muster speaks volumes to its quality. Draftback is an incredibly useful... Show more

Honestly, I’m frustrated this extension was made paid. While it was an incredible tool, I have seen several free alternatives, revision history, writing process, all offer alternatives. GPTZero for Google Docs is my new favorite with the ability to switch between multiple writers and run ai detection on copy pastes. I’ll be using a combination next semester, whichever tool stays free.

James Somers Developer Aug 14, 2025

GPTZero is a venture-backed company whose goal is to acquire the largest number of users possible and upsell them to a suite of "AI detection" products that cost at least $12.99/mo. Their privacy policy (https://gptzero.me/privacy-policy.html) is very long and says that the extension may collect "content for ai detection." One should think about such things before giving a company your email address and access to your Google Docs. Revision History, meanwhile, isn't free. I created Draftback ten years ago because I was personally interested in the writing process. I made it a Chrome extension because that was the only way to ensure the privacy of users' data, which remains on their own computers. You can read my privacy policy at draftback.com/#privacy. It's simple. I kept the extension free for about nine years, supporting over half a million users. I like free software too and was happy to do that for as long as it made sense. But maintaining software requires time and attention. Charging for a product that people find useful helps ensure it will continue to be supported.

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This is a great product that I use regularly as a college professor to keep my students honest. Sometimes documents don't seem to render properly, so that is the only reason I am giving it 4 stars. It's very useful. Kind of annoying to see a bunch of whiners on here complaining about paying (gasp!) for a product. I've interacted with the developer before and he ran it free for years. It takes a fair bit of his time. And he's not allowed to charge for it? There's no other free program out ther... Show more

Great extension. I used it for a whole month! Then, I had to subscribe which made me want to crash out and cry. It was good until it wasn't.

Yet another case of a developer adding absolutely nothing to their product then randomly making it paid. I have been using this for free, no improvements were made, and now ya wanna charge 100 bucks for...what? Looks like I am making the jump to Process Feedback. Twas good while it lasted. I wish you the best of luck, James Somers!

teachers are rats

This is the sad tale of a fellow who seemed like a good guy, nay, a thoroughly decent chap, who went and developed a handy, free extension. Then, said extension hit it big, and so he figured, why not fleece his user base with outrageous prices? The mask slipped, and he revealed himself to be just another "do no evil" Techbro, cut from the same cloth as the rest. Next thing you know, we'll hear he's sold out to some Big Tech behemoth, retired, and is funneling millions to Trump. The only si... Show more

its all good but $100 for this!? its just not it

James Somers Developer Aug 18, 2025

If you're a teacher, there is a significant discount and the price is $40/yr, or a little more than $3 per month.

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ur not getting my money