Novelcrafter
Novel-writing app built around the Codex story bible, with planning views and bring-your-own-key AI.
Novelcrafter is a novel-writing app built around the Codex, a story bible that tracks your characters, places and lore, with planning views and AI tools that run on your own AI provider or a local model. Billed monthly, plans cost $4 to $20 a month after a 21-day free trial that needs no credit card; there is no free plan.
About Novelcrafter
Novelcrafter calls itself a writing platform for all genres, forms and styles. Its core is the Codex, a wiki of your characters, places and lore that indexes every mention of them in your text automatically; Progressions record how characters, relationships and world politics change over the story, and one Codex can be shared across the books in a series. Planning views include a Grid for dragging acts, chapters and scenes into order, a Matrix spreadsheet view and a single-page Outline.
AI is optional and starts on the Hobbyist plan; Scribe has none. A subscription includes no AI credits, so you connect a vendor such as OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, or run local models through LM Studio or Ollama. Hobbyist adds scene summaries, character detection that fills the Codex, prose generated from scene beats you write, and prompts built from reusable components; Artisan adds Workshop Chat for brainstorming and feedback on your scenes.
Billed monthly, Scribe costs $4, Hobbyist $8, Artisan $14 and Specialist $20 a month in USD, and annual billing takes two months off. Every plan has unlimited books, the Codex and series. The pricing FAQ rules out discounts for students, educators and non-profits.
Users on any plan can be invited to a novel as viewers or editors, but inviting others to your own novels or series and creating teams require Specialist; a collaborator needs a paid plan to edit and only a free account to view. Work imports from Word, Markdown or HTML files, the docs cover export to Scrivener and Atticus, and revision history restores earlier versions.
Sources: novelcrafter.com, /pricing, /features, /help, /features/codex, /help/docs and /help/faq, read 2026-10-26
Novelcrafter pros and cons
Pros
- You choose the AI: a hosted vendor, OpenRouter's 300+ models, or models running on your own machine.
- You can tailor the prompt behind any AI feature, and Prompt Preview shows the exact prompt sent to the AI.
- Without an active subscription you keep read-only access, so you can still view and export your work.
- Prices stay the same all year: the pricing page rules out sales, discounts and holiday promotions.
Cons
- There is no free plan; the 21-day trial is the only free option.
- Plans include no AI usage: AI runs on your own key with an external vendor or on a local model, and Scribe has no AI features.
- Inviting others to your novels or series and creating teams require Specialist, and there is no team pricing: each user needs their own account and subscription.
- Support comes from a very small team working Monday to Friday in European time zones, and a request may take a couple of business days.
Tagged
- Bring Your Own Key
- Supports Claude
- Supports GPT
- Web-based
Novelcrafter alternatives
The closest alternatives to Novelcrafter.
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</a>Frequently asked questions
- What is Novelcrafter?
- Novelcrafter — Novel-writing app built around the Codex story bible, with planning views and bring-your-own-key AI.
- Is Novelcrafter free?
- Novelcrafter is a paid product. Pricing details are on the official site.
- What platforms does Novelcrafter support?
- Novelcrafter's own site lists it for Web.
- What are the alternatives to Novelcrafter?
- The closest alternatives to Novelcrafter are Sudowrite, Lex.
- What are the downsides of Novelcrafter?
- There is no free plan; the 21-day trial is the only free option. Plans include no AI usage: AI runs on your own key with an external vendor or on a local model, and Scribe has no AI features. Inviting others to your novels or series and creating teams require Specialist, and there is no team pricing: each user needs their own account and subscription. Support comes from a very small team working Monday to Friday in European time zones, and a request may take a couple of business days.
- Does Novelcrafter include AI, or do I need my own key?
- A subscription includes no AI credits or usage. You connect an external vendor such as OpenRouter, OpenAI or Anthropic with your own key, or run a local model through LM Studio or Ollama. AI features need the Hobbyist plan or higher.
- How do I use OpenRouter with Novelcrafter?
- OpenRouter is one of the AI connections in Novelcrafter's docs, and the help center says most users connect to it for access to models like OpenAI's GPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google Gemini. You buy OpenRouter credits on the OpenRouter website; a Novelcrafter plan includes none.
- Is Novelcrafter free?
- There is no free plan, only a 21-day free trial with all features unlocked and no credit card. Billed monthly, plans then cost $4 to $20 a month in USD, and annual billing takes two months off.
- What happens to my novels if I cancel?
- Your plan runs until the end of the billing cycle. After that you keep read-only access: you can view and export your data, but not add or edit it. You can also pause a subscription instead of cancelling.
- Is Novelcrafter a web app or a download?
- The homepage says there is no software to install, and the help FAQ has an entry on using Novelcrafter as a web app. The features page lists it as mobile compatible for jotting down ideas on the go; the homepage and features page mention no desktop app or download.