The Cost of Words: Write

There has been a lot of discussion on the Sudowrite Slack about the cost of progress in words, and it's unfortunately not unusual to see a post from a frustrated new user that's used up all their words in their trial in one day or someone new that's blown through their first month's allotment in just a few days.

Sudowrite gives you the opportunity to use as much—or as little—of the software as fast or as slow as you like, and that's great freedom for writers. But it doesn't have a warning that pops up letting you know that the choices you're making are going to cost you everything you have for the month if you keep slamming that button.

Let's face it.

Buttons are fun.

Buttons also cost words.

Finding the sweet spot is something Sudowrite users get to know instinctively over time—inevitably, through trial and error and experimentation, we find the perfect setting. It hovers there, right below overzealous output and just above cost-effectiveness.

Of course, trial and error? That comes with a word cost.

To help you to find your sweet spot, I thought I'd show you some examples of how much the run of some of the Sudowrite tools costs at different option levels, and document how many times we could run something in a month before we ran out of words at the various account levels.

In this first post, we'll be looking at Write.

Write: Auto

Under Write: Settings, there's a place for you to choose how many cards you want Sudowrite to return, and how many words should be on each card. In my experience, this is one of the top places people can get themselves into a whole lot of trouble very, very fast, so that's where we'll start.

To get real-world example numbers, I've run Write: Auto once for each setting and recorded the calculated cost. The word "cost" is calculated from my profile after each Write run (which tells me how many words are left in my account for the month.)

This is not an exact number, or a guaranteed number of what you'll get—Write can return a little more or a little less than this, up to a maximum of what you asked for. This also only includes output, as that's what you're "charged" for—Sudowrite doesn't charge you for the 1500 or so words Write: Auto reads in order to get ideas for the generated cards.

If we take this as an average, how many times can we run Write: Auto in one month with these settings before we run out of words and either have to buy more or have to wait until the next month?

(* based on the account allotments at the time of this blog post.)

Hobby & Student (30,000* words)

If you find the row with the number of cards, and follow that row to the column with the number of words per card, this table will tell you roughly how many times you expect to run Write: Auto before running out of words on a Hobby & Student account.

You can see that 30,000 words are a lot of words if you use 2 cards and 50-word lengths, but it starts to get a little tight if you run Write: Auto at the maximum every time.

Professional (90,000* words)

Even if you use Write: Auto to its full capacity of 6 cards and 250 words, the Professional account level provides you with a good number of runs to keep you fairly comfortable. However, this isn't the case if you use the feature at maximum frequently, repetitively, or if you write on a daily basis.

If you write each and every day, you will only be able to use Write: Auto with its maximum settings (250 words and 6 cards) approximately twice per day on average—but if you stay smack in the middle of the table with 150 words and 4 cards, though, you can run it 5 times a day.

Max (300,000* words)

Even with this humungous account, if you use every Write: Auto run to its maximum capabilities, you will only be able to use the Write: Auto function 8 times per day over the course of a month that has 31 days.

Which, okay, is a lot.

What about Guided and Tone Shift?

While I used Write: Auto for this example, Write: Guided and Write: Tone Shift is going to come in at similar average numbers. Just remember that Key Details and your Guided instructions are going to add a little bit to the word count.

For more tips on managing word count effectively and keeping your writing both productive and cost‑efficient, check out Storytelling Basics: What Most Authors Get Wrong.

Finding your Sweet Spot

I hope this helps you visualize how much Write tends to "cost" a little bit better. There is, unfortunately, no magic formula that I can give you to tell you what setting is best for you.

If you're one of the folks that landed here because you've run out of words too quickly, the advice you get from other Sudowrite users will inevitably be "dial it down."

Start at the bottom end with a setting of 2 cards and 50 words. If that doesn't work for you, turn one of them up. If that still doesn't work, turn the other up. Walk slowly upwards until you find something that works for you.

Every writer is different, and every sweet spot is different. With a little trial and error, you'll find yours.

Ready to optimize your writing process and find your word sweet spot? Try Sudowrite now!