Essayist User Reviews

Customer Experience

Positive experience60.5% of reviews
Neutral9.3% of reviews
Negative experience30.2% of reviews

~ Based on 172 written reviews from the US App Store.

What users say

Is Essayist Safe?

Essayist: Academic Writing App appears safe based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for Essayist is 89/100.

This assessment is based on 378 user ratings, with an App Store average of 4.5/5.

Safety Analysis

87.3% of ratings point to a safe experience
2.6% of ratings suggest some concerns
10.1% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 378 App Store ratings for Essayist.

Is Essayist Legit?

Essayist: Academic Writing App appears legitimate, with a few gaps. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Essayist is 78/100.

Based on 78 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Test 12 June 2026

Jim

Unable to action

Can you help? I’m paying for this app and unable to load content.

Terrible app Expensive & doesn’t work with college website

Learn from my mistake and Save your money

Amazing for University Essay Writing

I am a student with AuDHD. I have loved using this piece of software. It has helped me create and maintain a pool of references I can use when the need arises. It sets out every thing perfectly, although it does lack a lot of common Australian referencing styles which I strongly suggest the makers add.

Also the subscription is wildly to expensive for students. For paid academics I can see the price as being reasonable, but for students who do not work and are on social security payments this amount seriously affects their budgets. Not cool.
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How do you delete the title pages??

I do not need a title page for many assignments but need to use this formatting and program. There seems to be no way to delete the title page. Frustrating.

A lifesaver for college classes

It seems like every professor wants a different writing style for every course, and this program has saved me many a time! (MLA will always be the superior writing style IMO)

great for academic writing!

i got essayist not too long ago with the hope that i would be able to use it for AP lang essay practice formatting and time-control wise — and i was not disappointed! though, obviously, i will not be able to use this for the test itself, its extremely convenient for control of the little, irrelevant details that i would not need for the essay itself. however, i would love if i could change the template itself or add another as the "works cited" section title on the MLA template is bolded and therefore does not fulfill my requirements. also, i would love if there was a completion log in order to prove against AI as it becomes a leading cause of suspicion especially among those of my age. all in all though, i greatly appreciate this app (i use an ipad pro with bluetooth keyboard) and believe that with these features, it would elevate the app to significantly more worth the money :)
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Export equations to word is unusable

If your work is highly equation based, the convert to Word is basically unusable because you have to manually copy and paste all your equations to Word.

I really wanted to like this

For context, I’m attempting to use this primarily as a reference manager replacement for Zotero (Whom I imagine have to be on their list of direct competitors).

in that context, this app is neat packaging on a practically unfuncitonal tool. Other than putting a word processor in a reference manger theres nothing new. And Zotero’s word plugin effetely does the same thing. While Essayist does insert and manage references better. It’s just not better enough to overlook all the other deficiencies.

Deficiencies like the inability to simply drag and drop a PDF into the reference manger. Instead it makes you go to add first. A minor inconvenience magnified by the inability to import multiple references from Zotero at once (BibTEX Import just doesnt work when trying to import more tax 1 reference, and doesn’t import the PDF file as well).

This makes it practically impossible to use this tool as a replacement for Zotero (unless you have hours to manually import hundreds or thousands of references, THEN import their PDFs 1 by 1 without being able to drag and drop).

I love the idea of this app and desperately want it to be useful (for my context) but even if it were free I would never be able to use it as is let along paying a monthly (or yearly) subscription. I could never recommend this to anyone that already has a functional reference manager even though on paper this app sounds great.
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Missing In-Text Citation

Great app. 1. Consider implementing a feature in reference manager where user can toggle on/off for in text citing, e.g. [1] in article that reference to full citation in reference list. In-text citation appears in the article reference list and reference manager. 2. Implement feature where user can use touch on iPad/ click and drag on macOS to move references around like blocks of text like Reminders or Notion apps. 3. User can toggle the running index numbers in square brackets to be dynamic or static similar to Excel (range referencing) app.
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Hmmm…

Something weird going on. App of the year with less than 50 reviews on Apple and no independent user reviews online. ‘Try for free’ means subscribe and you get a free week, not actually try it for free - not sold enough to do that.

Cool

I like the way the citations go in with the references, its a little jumbled in the works cited, also my last name is hyphonated and I cannot have in correct MLA format, kind of annoying

Don’t get it

Default black text on a black background is just poor UI plain and simple to the have to pay so it’s visible is insidious. Don’t waste your money on this sup par app that is clearly a cash grab.

Not intuitive

I thought that it would be more automated in things like formating citations, endnotes vs footnotes, works cited or bibliography, hanging indentions and stuff like that

Great Idea, Lots of Bugs

I was really excited when I saw this app and thought it would be great for my doctoral work. However, I quickly got fed up with all of the bugs. Great idea in concept, but so many bugs.

Helpful but Need More

I would like to Zotero integration, which would make things easier. There also needs to be more templates to make it work the price.

Citation Maker is Clunky and Inconsistent

Just tested out the free trial. For me, the killer feature would be the citation generator. However, implementation is not there yet. First, several journal articles that I tested could not be found in the search (by author, title, DOI), and also didn’t work properly with manual entry. Second, the reference page is not editable, so you are totally reliant on the citations being generated correctly. Frankly, without this feature working, there’s no reason to use this app.

Incidentally, this is the second App of the Year this year that I tested out, and found to be quite clunky and unpolished.
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Good, but not for me

I really want to love this app. It handles citations and a reference library wonderfully. But being $80 a year and limiting me to Times New Roman and Arial, possibly my two least favorite typefaces, is a deal breaker. Allow me to write my own documents in whatever typeface I want to.

Solid app for academic writing

The user interface is minimal and intuitive. The citations are formatted fairly accurately and easy to build with the reference manager. It does a lot of the formatting for those pesky technical details required according to the most updated editions of Style guides. This app helped me write my English essay with confidence, and the layout made it feel natural and tidy but still had all the tools I needed to finish the assignment.

Only problem is that the cost of a subscription was way outside my budget as a student.

kinda wish I was rich, because i would definitely reccommend Essayist to any other post-secondary students out there
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Not a serious app

It's like a very expensive, digital monocle. Makes you look like you're doing real work, but all you're really doing is squinting at a 130 dollar minimalist screen, wondering where you went wrong in life.

For this price you could just buy the Chicago Manual of Style and used it to prop open a window. You'd get a breeze and better formatting.
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