Novelcrafter is a novel writing platform with a Codex story bible, planning tools, and optional AI. Plans start at $4/month with a 21-day free trial.
Researched and fact-checked by Bartu Cavusoglu · Updated October 26, 2026
Novelcrafter is a writing platform built for novelists and other long-form writers. It brings planning, drafting, world building, and optional AI assistance into one place, so authors do not need to copy information between separate tools. The site describes it as suitable for all genres, forms, and styles, from first-time writers to published authors.
The company started in 2023 as a one-person project and has grown into a bootstrapped team that works fully remote. It states that it has no venture funding. Its stated aim is to help writers go from a first idea to a finished story, and it presents AI as an aid to the writer instead of a one-click replacement.
Novelcrafter is organized around separate areas for planning, writing, and chatting. In the planning area, authors arrange acts, chapters, and scenes using a matrix or an outline view, and can create scene structure from an outline. The writing area holds the manuscript, where text is formatted and, if the author chooses, drafted or revised with AI prompts.
The Codex ties these areas together. Characters, places, and objects are stored as entries, and the system indexes their names, aliases, and nicknames inside the text as you type. Authors can jump from a scene to an entry and see every appearance across the manuscript, chats, and snippets. The site says no software needs to be installed.
The Codex is the main feature. It supports custom categories, rich text details, quick facts, tags and dropdowns, and references between entries. Progressions let authors record how a character or relationship changes at different points in the story, and entries can be shared across all books in a series.
Smart Highlighting flags overused words, crutch phrases, repetitive metaphors, and common AI-generated patterns, and helps track dialogue tags. On the AI side, Novelcrafter offers scene summarization, character extraction, generation from scene beats, and a Workshop Chat for brainstorming. A customizable prompt system with personas, presets, inputs, and components lets authors build their own shortcuts. Files can be imported from Word, Markdown, and Apple Pages, and exported to Scrivener and Atticus.
Novelcrafter is a writing platform for novelists and other writers. It combines a Codex story bible, planning tools, a writing editor, and optional AI features that connect to the model provider you choose.
Plans are Scribe at $4, Hobbyist at $8, Artisan at $14, and Specialist at $20 per month in USD. Annual billing gives 2 months off, and prices are localized to your region.
There is a 21-day free trial with access to all features and no credit card required. There is no permanent free plan. After the trial you are charged the monthly or yearly price of the plan you chose.
It connects to OpenAI, Anthropic's Claude, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Mistral AI, and OpenRouter, which offers 300+ models. It can also run local models through LM Studio and Ollama.
No. The site says you control how much AI you use, and the Scribe plan has no AI integration at all. AI features such as bring-your-own-key access start on the Hobbyist plan.
Yes. Every plan can be invited to a novel as a viewer or editor. Inviting other users to your own novels or series and creating teams requires the Specialist plan.
You keep read-only access to your data. You can view and export it, but you cannot add or edit anything until you subscribe again.
It suits novelists, series authors, and other writers who want a structured story bible and planning tools. It also fits writers who want to use AI on their own terms with the models they prefer.