My journey with Jasper AI
I’ve been in the AI writing game for a while now. I first tried Jasper AI (back when it was called Jarvis) in 2021, before the ChatGPT wave hit and transformed how we use AI tools.
At that time, Jasper felt like a magical breakthrough for written content—it helped me with brainstorming, structuring content, adjusting sentences for tone and grammar. It wasn’t perfect, but tbh it felt like I had my own little writing assistant. Big fan.
But that was in 2021, when “AI” wasn’t really a thing.
Fast forward to today, and I’ve been diving back into AI tools again. Curious about new tools and how the old ones (like Jasper) have evolved. There are so many new options for AI writing tools on the market, each promising to speed up content creation, boost productivity, and change the way we write.
Naturally, I was curious about Jasper again—especially since they lowered their pricing. Previously they only had a $99/month license, but have now more approachable pricing tiers starting around $40/month. While still priced higher than some competitors (many are closer to $20/month), it’s at least more reasonable.
I decided to give Jasper another go and test it for one of my main use cases: writing long-form blog posts.
Here’s my take on pros, cons, and recommendations for the best AI writing tool.
✅ Pros – What I liked about Jasper AI
First, let’s start with the positives. Jasper AI is a strong tool in some areas, and it definitely has some useful features. Here’s what stood out to me:
Great for drafting new content.
Jasper’s strongest point is its ability to set up an initial content draft for you. If you’re stuck on how to start a blog post, Jasper can generate a full draft based on a few prompts. It’s good at building a framework that you can then refine further.
Wide range of usable templates.
Jasper AI has tons of helpful templates. Whether you need to write a blog post, a case study, instructional content, or opinion piece, Jasper provides structured templates that help you get started. It can lay down an entire post based on just a few inputs, which can be a huge time-saver.
Integrates multiple LLM models.
According to Jasper’s website, it uses multiple AI models like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Anthropic to determine the best content approach. In theory, this should give it an edge over tools that only use a single model, (however I didn’t find this to be a standout feature in practice).
Editing window: Compared to standard AI tools, Jasper AI has an advantage with its user interface. You can draft and edit your content
Word count tracking.
This is more of a nice-to-have, but it’s helpful if you need to stay within a specific word count. However, most plans don’t include the plagiarism checker, which is a bit of a letdown.
So, Jasper is good at getting the ball rolling and giving you drafted content to start from. But when it comes to creating long-form, polished content, it doesn’t perform better than lower-cost AI tools like ChatGPT.
❌ Cons – Jasper AI pain points
After spending some time with Jasper again, I realized the cons definitely outweighed the pros for me. Here’s what ultimately led me to cancel my subscription:
It’s too expensive.
At $40/month for the basic plan and $60/month if you want access to image generation tools, Jasper is not cheap. Considering that tools like ChatGPT offer similar (if not better) functionality for half the price, it feels difficult to justify the cost.
I did see that Jasper’s new positioning is for “enterprise marketing teams” so they may be targeting teams with big budgets that wouldn’t scoff at a $60/month price point. For individual creators and small teams with tight budgets, Jasper AI may not be the best fit.
The writing outputs are too generic.
One of the biggest selling points I’d read about was that Jasper writes less generic blog posts compared to standard LLMs like ChatGPT. That wasn’t my experience at all.
In fact, I found that ChatGPT allowed for far more customization and nuanced detail. I could guide ChatGPT on tone, style, and specificity.
Jasper’s chatbot was helpful, but doesn’t have the ability to review a set of new inputs (like answers to questions) and re-write the entire article based on those inputs. It can do this, but the AI publishes the new article is published inside the chat..not in the content area. Strange. 🤔
“Brand voice” feature doesn’t work well.
Jasper’s brand voice feature is supposed to mimic your writing style. You can upload a sample of your content or provide a URL, and Jasper will tailor its outputs to match that tone.
Sounds great, right? In theory, yes! But in practice I found it to be inaccurate.
Jasper AI only lets you use one piece of content as a reference. Compare that to ChatGPT or Claude, which allows you to upload multiple PDFs and links for a broader perspective.
Also, Jasper had a weird quirk where every time I used my “brand voice,” it started sentences with “Hey there!” Like, every single time.
It clearly identified my tone as casual and conversational (which is true), but I don’t want every other sentence to sound like a chirpy email. It was a small detail, but it threw off the whole vibe of my content and put a sour taste in my mouth.
Image generation is sub-par.
The challenge I have with image generations baked into a tool like this is it lacks customizations and refinement. In DALL-E or Midjourney, you can get extremely detailed with your image prompts.
You can then give it feedback and have it try again. And those tools combined cost less than Jasper’s $60/month plan that allows for image generation.
I would much rather use a different tool where I can give nuanced feedback to get a better image that fits my needs.
Chrome Extension didn’t work with WordPress & Divi
I was excited to try Jasper’s Chrome extension since many YouTube videos suggest this is one of the tool’s best features.
For those of us using tools like WordPress with Divi themes, this was a dealbreaker. I tried using Jasper’s Chrome extension to help me build blog posts directly in Divi, but it never worked smoothly.
I ended up wasting time troubleshooting instead of focusing on creating content. The extension worked okay with Google Docs and Notion, but still didn’t add enough value to make it worthwhile. The outputs still felt generic and unhelpful.
Outputs feel cold and robotic.
I realize we’re talking about AI writing here, so every AI writing tool tends to come off as overly generic and mundane.
But I think it was the lack of customization that Jasper AI didn’t have for me. With ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude AI, writing feels more nuanced. They seem to get tone suggestions, adapt quickly, and respond to feedback in a way that makes the content flow better.
With Jasper AI, the writing often felt cold and formulaic. Even with the brand voice edits and revisions, it never felt anything close to human (compared to its competitors).
The verdict? I canceled my subscription of Jasper AI.
For me, it came down to price, customization, and human touch.
From my experience, AI content works best when it can take real human experiences and perspectives, and integrate them into the writing. Jasper struggled with that. The tool isn’t set up for that type of content workflow.
I prefer to have the real-time, back-and-forth conversation with the AI so I can provide it feedback and it can learn for next time. I’m used to working with tools that can adjust on the fly—like when I tell ChatGPT that an intro is too generic, and it asks more pointed questions to refine it. Jasper just didn’t offer that level of adaptability, and I felt stuck with what it gave me.
Perhaps Jasper AI could work for marketing teams looking to pump out hundreds of drafts of generic long-form content. But for the steep price, I’d suggest teams just use a standard LLM like Claude or ChatGPT. Way more bang for the buck.
Alternatives to Jasper AI
As sprinkled throughout most of this article, I recommend sticking with a standard LLM: ChatGPT Plus, Google Gemini, or Anthropic Claude.
All of these options are ~$20/month and are far more flexible and responsive to feedback for written content.
You can also create custom GPTs (”gems” on Gemini) where you can feed your agent multiple pdfs (not just one, like Jasper) and URLs so it can learn exactly what you’d like it to learn. These customized GPTs are still in early stages of development, but they give you more flexibility for the AI to learn your writing style.
Final thoughts
If you’re a beginner in the AI writing world, my advice is simple: experiment with different tools and see what works best for your content needs.
Jasper AI didn’t work for my needs, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you! If you’re curious about the tool, I’d recommend starting a free trial and playing around with it.
My personal content workflow is more about integrating human experiences as an input to the early stages of content drafting. That means a standard LLM like ChatGPT is a better fit.
Whichever tool you choose, make sure it helps you write in a way that is still authentic and human. With AI, anyone can write a 2,000 word blog post about ‘dog training.’ But no AI has your unique and personal experiences with dog training that add all the value to your content. Stay human.
About the Author:
Andrew DeBell is a learning experience strategist and content developer on the customer education team at Atlassian. Connect with him on LinkedIn for more.
