NovelAI vs Sudowrite for Fiction: Prices, Memory and a Third Way

NovelAI and Sudowrite both help you write fiction with AI, but they're built around different ideas. NovelAI is a text-generation tool with a lot of manual control, and it also makes images. Sudowrite is a guided writing app with a menu of editing and drafting tools. Both are subscriptions, and in both the story's memory is a set of cards you fill in and keep current. If you're weighing NovelAI vs Sudowrite for a long novel, there's a third option worth knowing about before you subscribe to either: KudoNovel, where the story bible updates itself as you write and you buy credits only when you write.

Prices checked October 2026 on each company's own page, linked below. Both services change plans and models, so verify before you subscribe.

At a glance

The core trade between the two rivals: NovelAI charges you for access and lets you generate without counting. Sudowrite charges you per use through monthly credits. KudoNovel charges you per use too, but there's no month: a pack lasts until you've written it.

Pricing in detail

NovelAI

From NovelAI's own subscription docs, checked October 2026:

• Paper (free trial): 50 text generations on an email-verified account, plus 30 free images.
• Tablet, $10 a month: unlimited text generation at the base context size, and 1,000 Anlas a month for images.
• Scroll, $15 a month: unlimited text, a larger context than Tablet, 1,000 Anlas.
• Opus, $25 a month: unlimited text, the largest context (the docs say up to 28,672 tokens), 10,000 Anlas, and access to extra text models: Xialong, plus the older Krake and Llama 3 Erato.

For a fiction writer who only cares about text, "unlimited" is the attractive word. You can regenerate a paragraph twenty times and it costs the same. If you ignore the images, the Anlas allowance is irrelevant to you.

The catch is the context window. It's the amount of text the model can see at once, and for a novel it's the amount of your book the model is working from while it writes. Opus is the only tier the docs put a figure on, 28,672 tokens, which is the last few chapters rather than the book.

Sudowrite

From Sudowrite's pricing page, checked October 2026 (the headline prices are the annual rate):

• Hobby & Student, $10 a month ($19 monthly): 225,000 credits, plus the core writing tools, style matching, series continuity, AI chat and what the page calls "+30 industry-leading models".
• Professional, $22 a month ($29 monthly): adds developmental edits, line edits and beta reads. The pricing page shows two different credit figures for this plan; Sudowrite's credits help page says 1,000,000.
• Max, $44 a month ($59 monthly): 2,000,000 credits, and unused credits roll over for 12 months. On the two cheaper plans they expire at each monthly refresh.

You can see the shape: credits are the meter, and on the cheaper plans the meter resets whether you used it or not. Steady writers use them up; stop-start writers pay for quiet months.

KudoNovel

KudoNovel has no subscription. One-off packs: $3.50 for 100 credits, about a short novel; $7.50 for 500, about a full book; $12.50 for 1,000, about a polished, well-revised book. A beat (a paragraph Expanded, with the bible keeping up) is roughly one credit, a simple Expand about a fifth of one, and the balance draws down only when you write. The AI is built in, with no key to set up.

How each one actually works

NovelAI: you drive

NovelAI is built around a document you write and a model that continues it. You control what the model sees, and you shape its behaviour by editing what's in front of it. That's powerful and it has a learning curve. Writers who like tinkering tend to enjoy this; writers who want the app to guide them tend to bounce off.

NovelAI's homepage currently says its story generation is "powered by GLM 4.6", while its docs list older named models on the top tier, so models change; check what you would actually be writing with. On the privacy side, the same homepage says your prompts are encrypted, and the FAQ says stories are encrypted in your browser. That's its claim, so read its privacy policy if it matters to you, and see which online editors keep a draft safe for how other tools store it.

Sudowrite: the tool guides you

Sudowrite is organised around actions. Highlight a passage and rewrite it, expand it, describe it; chat with the AI about your plot; run an edit pass on a finished chapter. It positions itself as a tool that helps you write rather than one that writes for you, and its pricing FAQ says it claims no rights over anything you put into it. The help for a stuck scene is right there in the interface.

KudoNovel: the book drives

KudoNovel is organised around the chapter, not a scroll or a menu of actions. The unit is the beat: you put down a line or a paragraph, the AI writes it out at the Expand level you choose (Stick, Balanced or Novel, each keeping your words and events and adding around them), and you correct it with a one-line steer. What the AI reads before it writes comes from the book itself: the bible, the story so far and the beats either side, with your steer outranking the lot. The page is the manuscript, and any text stays editable by hand.

Memory and long projects

Any AI writing tool has the same enemy: it forgets. By chapter fifteen it needs reminding who's alive, who's angry and what was in the box.

• NovelAI relies on you managing what's in the model's view, within the context size of your tier, through the Memory box, the Author's Note and a keyword-triggered Lorebook. That's flexible but manual.
• Sudowrite keeps a Story Bible, and its Saliency Engine decides which of those details the AI sees for each request; you can hide a card or a single trait from it. Filling the cards in, and keeping them current, is still your job.
• KudoNovel writes the cards for you. The story bible (characters, places, items and events, each with aliases) and a running summary of the whole book update themselves from what you write. The bible is in the sidebar, readable and editable, so you correct it rather than compile it.

Content rules

If you write dark, violent or explicit fiction, check each service's current terms and model rules yourself before you pay. Policies can change, and a model's own behaviour can differ from a company's stated rules. NovelAI's marketing leans toward freedom for its image tool, and its FAQ describes moderation for images only. Sudowrite's models page lists the only mode it ever called "Unfiltered" as retired, and the top-voted request on its feedback board this month is for an uncensored model. Don't build a project on marketing language. Read the terms of service.

KudoNovel's rule is short: no filter of its own. Romance, horror, dark and explicit themes are the writer's call within the law. The model's own behaviour still applies, and the built-in model is chosen partly because it rarely refuses.

Who should pick which

NovelAI fits you if:

• You regenerate a lot and hate the feeling of a meter running.
• You like controlling what the model sees and don't mind a learning curve.
• You also want image generation in the same subscription.

Sudowrite fits you if:

• You want editing tools (rewrite, expand, developmental and line edits) built around your draft.
• You prefer a guided interface and a chat to brainstorm in.
• You write steadily enough to spend your credits every month.

The third way: KudoNovel for the long novel

Both rivals ask for a monthly payment and a set of cards you keep. KudoNovel asks for neither. The Lorebook or Story Bible you'd maintain is produced by the writing: it updates as you write, and your part is fixing an entry when it's wrong. And you pay for what you write, not for the month: a pack sits untouched through a quiet spell, while NovelAI's fee bills anyway and the credits on Sudowrite's two cheaper plans lapse at the monthly refresh.

If your draft is already in one of them, it moves. Sudowrite's Import Novel takes .txt, .doc, .docx, .rtf and .odt files and a Scrivener backup, and NovelAI's docs cover its own .story and .scenario formats. KudoNovel (My Books → Import) takes .docx, .odt, .epub, .html, Markdown, .rtf, a Scrivener zip, a Novelcrafter zip and a NovelAI .story, and a Sudowrite Story Bible CSV or a NovelAI lorebook comes in as bible entries.

How to choose without regret

Run the same test in all three. Take a scene you've already written, with two characters and a setting that matters. Ask each tool to continue it.

1. Does it remember the details you gave it, or invent new ones?
2. Does the prose sound like your book or like a generic one?
3. How much steering did you have to do, and did you enjoy it?
4. What would a month of your real writing pace cost?

NovelAI's free trial is limited to 50 text generations, which is enough for a scene or two. Sudowrite's pricing page offers a free trial with no card, but doesn't say how long it lasts or how many credits it holds; we worked out how many words the Sudowrite free trial covers from Sudowrite's own credit rates. KudoNovel's trial is one free credit, after email confirmation, with no card.

Pick the tool whose steering style matches yours. Then judge it on the second week, not the first hour: that's when the Lorebook and the Story Bible start asking for your time, and when a bible that keeps itself starts paying for its credits.

For a longer look at each side, there's a guide to a Sudowrite alternative and one covering a NovelAI alternative.

One last practical point: whichever you try, export your work regularly. Tools change plans, models and prices, and a manuscript you can open in a plain file is a manuscript you can move. In KudoNovel it's a download away, in any of five formats. As a fallback, the free novel writing software still updated is listed with the formats each one exports.