NovelAI vs Sudowrite (2026): Continuation Engine vs Fiction Workbench, With Prices and Limits

At a glance

Sources: NovelAI subscription docs, NovelAI FAQ, Sudowrite pricing, Sudowrite docs, retrieved September 2026.

Models and filters

NovelAI runs its own text models: Xialong (a March 2026 finetune of GLM-4.6, exclusive to the $25 Opus tier), Erato (Llama-3-70B finetune, 2024), Kayra (13B in-house, 2023), plus an untuned GLM-4.6 on all tiers. No content filter. Sampler settings, presets and modules give unusual control over generation style. In September 2026 Kayra and Erato were taken offline citing a compute shortage, which is worth knowing if you depend on a specific model (status). The company's 2026 output is overwhelmingly on the image side; text is maintained, not the focus. Our NovelAI review goes deeper.

Sudowrite offers its in-house Muse, marketed as trained on fiction with author consent and without filters, alongside a rotating list of frontier third-party models chosen through Prose Modes. The third-party models follow their vendors' content policies, and an App Store review describes restrictions appearing after purchase without explanation (App Store).

If you want a specific frontier model, Sudowrite. If you want no filter with certainty and heavy control over sampling, NovelAI.

Memory and structure

NovelAI's memory is a Lorebook: entries triggered by keywords or regex, with insertion order and search range settings, plus a Memory field and an Author's Note, within a context window of 8,192 tokens on the lower tiers and 28,672 on Opus. There are no chapters, no outline, no summaries; a story is one continuous text. A 2026 review put it bluntly: the model "never actually 'read' your book; it only sees a sliding window," and the Lorebook is "a keyword lottery, not a memory" (Novel Mage).

Sudowrite's Story Bible has fixed sections (braindump, genre, style, synopsis, characters, worldbuilding, outline, scenes) injected into generations, with Chapter Continuity and Series support. It is a real manuscript structure. It also drifts, as every bible does: Capterra and Reddit complaints about lost track of characters and the eye-colour line are quoted in our drift guide.

For a novel with chapters, Sudowrite is the only one of the two with the structure. For a single long continuous story, or interactive fiction, NovelAI's model is fine and its Lorebook is adequate with discipline.

Pricing

NovelAI: $10 Tablet, $15 Scroll, $25 Opus, monthly only, USD only. Text generation is unlimited on paid tiers. Two 2026 changes: the Opus tier's newest image model got a rechargeable usage limit in August, and from 21 September unused subscription Anlas (the image/currency) resets to zero when a subscription ends (journal). Text is unaffected so far. No refunds unless granted.

Sudowrite: $10 / $22 / $44 a month billed annually, or $19 / $29 / $59 monthly, for 225k / 1M / 2M credits, rollover only on Max. Credit burn varies by model by two orders of magnitude and the docs say it cannot be predicted (credit docs). iOS in-app prices are higher.

For text volume, NovelAI's flat fee is the cheaper and more predictable of the two. For features, Sudowrite's tiers buy a workbench, and the $22 tier's Feedback is a real product. The pricing explainer compares designs across the category.

Privacy

NovelAI is the stronger of the two on paper: stories encrypted at rest, requests not logged, no training on user data, all stated in its FAQ (FAQ). Sudowrite's privacy policy, as of our check, was dated 2020 and named no sub-processors; read it and the current terms before uploading a manuscript. The questions to ask any tool are in the copyright guide.

Editing and revision

NovelAI has Instruct mode, retry and undo. That is the toolset; it is a generator, and revision happens elsewhere.

Sudowrite has Rewrite, Expand, Describe, Brainstorm, First Draft (scene from beats), Quick Edit, a free Chat, and on Professional and above, Feedback: developmental, line, dialogue and copy edits plus three AI beta readers. Plus a plugin library of more than a thousand user-built tools. For a writer who revises with AI, this is not a close contest.

Export

NovelAI exports .story and .scenario JSON (which preserve memory and lorebook), raw text, and images. Getting a novel into DOCX means copying text out. Sudowrite exports DOCX single or merged, a ZIP, and the bible as CSV; no EPUB, PDF, Fountain or FDX. Neither is a publishing pipeline; our export guide covers the formatting step.

Mobile and platform

Sudowrite has native iOS and Android apps with dictation. NovelAI is a PWA; its docs state no native app exists, and the App Store listing bearing its name is a third party's, not the company's. Neither works offline.

Complaints

NovelAI's are about direction and limits: reviews and community posts object to the image-side focus, the new usage limits on the top tier, the Anlas reset, and the September 2026 text-model outage. Sudowrite's are about money and drift: credits "wiped," "zero prose drafted" after 300k credits, an unexpected annual charge, restrictions after purchase, and characters forgotten despite the bible (Trustpilot).

Who each suits

Choose NovelAI if you write continuous stories or interactive fiction rather than chaptered manuscripts, you need no content filter with certainty, you value privacy and a flat predictable fee, and you do your revision elsewhere.

Choose Sudowrite if you are writing a novel with chapters and want the bible, the outline, the revision tools, Feedback and a mobile app in one place, and you will watch the credits.

Consider a third option if you want a bible-based workbench with AI included at a published rate, screenplay or serial formats, and EPUB and Fountain export. SparkLore was built for that combination; it lacks NovelAI's unfiltered in-house models and Sudowrite's mobile apps and plugin library. The NovelAI comparison page and Sudowrite comparison page put the feature tables side by side, and the alternatives hub covers the rest of the field.

Try it in SparkLore

If the memory sections above are your deciding factor, the free AI story continuation tool takes a passage plus character facts and shows what scene-attached bible entries do to a continuation, no account needed. In the Studio, chapters, summaries and the bible are built in, credits convert to words at a published rate on the pricing page, and manuscripts export to DOCX and EPUB. Sign up to start a project.