KoalaWriter Review

I was going to keep March “mailing-list-only” but this review – and promotion – were too valuable to miss.

If you are an email subscriber, you already know that I’m switching over from using writers to using AI content. We named this AHA! content.

AHA stands for AI Human-Assisted.

The exclamation mark is there because it’s a pretty big move for us.

In other words, we don’t automate AI articles but instead use AI to do the heavy lifting while under human supervision and guidance.

I’ve covered why and how in the email and won’t repeat it here. Today, I want to share my review of the AI article generation tool that we currently use: KoalaWriter.

This review is published here on the blog and will also be sent to Yeys subscribers. In a couple of days, I’ll send out an additional email – exclusively to subscribers – with a few published examples of KoalaWriter content on two of my sites.

If you want to see KoalaWriter in action on my sites – subscribe to the newsletter.

But, first things first –

Exclusive discount coupon!

Connor from KoalaWriter has introduced LifeTime Deals today. He generously offered Yeys readers 30% off on all plans from Professional and above!

Click here for the LifeTime Deal and use coupon code YEYS to get the discount

Update: Lifetime deals and discounts are no longer available, but you can still buy a subscription for Koala using this link

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of KoalaWriter. If you’re reading this post, you should have figured that out by now, or you might be in the wrong business. Just saying.

I approached Connor from KoalaWriter, asking to become an affiliate after I bought my plan and loved the service. The following is my review and is based on my experience.

As always, I only share what I do and how it’s working out for me. Your mileage – and opinions – may vary. And that’s ok.

KoalaWriter Review

Before we get into KoalaWriter, the Koala site actually includes two services: KoalaWriter and KoalaChat. Both are based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

KoalaChat is a ChatGPT-like interface with access to real-time data (aka internet access). Pretty cool if you want to get referenced answers with links that actually work.

While it doesn’t accept visual input – yet – you can actually use it to generate image descriptions!

As far as I know, ChatGPT isn’t really “seeing” the image, but KoalaChat uses a workaround to get that description. It’s worth mentioning because there can be some hallucinations in the description.

But generally speaking, by using real-time data, I found that KoalaChat is less likely to hallucinate.

I can’t say that I’ve used it extensively, though. Just because I was too busy using KoalaWriter.

KoalaWriter and how I use it

I chatted with KoalaChat and drilled down on a specific topic to find the common questions people ask about it. I didn’t even use Google auto-complete or check for competition to decide on the topic.

Who cares when the cost to produce the article is so low? If the topic sounds good, I might as well give it a try.

Once I had my question, I headed over to KoalaWriter and used the form. I like to fill in the various parameters, but it would actually create a decent article even if you didn’t.

If you want to know what the topic was and what the full additional prompts were, I’ll be sharing those in my next email to subscribers.

Next, I clicked on Create Outline.

The full screenshot will be shared in my next email – I prefer not to have it out here on the blog, sorry!

I decided to adjust that last heading. I don’t like the generic “Conclusion” heading. I changed it to something that re-focuses on the question with a recap.

And then I hit that blue magic button that says “Write Article.”

And voila! KoalaWriter delivered what I consider to be a high-quality article. The kind of article I would have paid a human writer around $80-$100 to deliver. And it would have taken them several days to fully research and write.

Fact-checking KoalaWriter

I tend to trust GPT4 because it was built to excel in conciseness. KoalaWriter also uses online information, so there are links in the article to reference the claims.

And just to be sure, I broke the article down into a few sections and asked Bing to check them for me. Bing fact-checked and was happy with all of the sections (not surprising, I guess, considering this is also a GPT4 manifestation).

I should mention here that I have had KoalaWriter texts fact-checked by two experts so far.

Checking for Plagiarism

I ran the text through a plagiarism checker too. Just to be on the safe thing. It came out as original. Again, not surprising.

What about an AI Detector?

I did not run the text through an AI detector. If anyone wants to do that, they can. I’ll share the URLs of a few of these posts in my email.

But guess what? I even added an acknowledgment in the article stating that the article was written with ChatGPT’s help. I see nothing wrong with that. Credit where credit’s due. And I believe that’s actually in line with OpenAI’s TOS.

What I love about KoalaWriter

It boils down to a single line –

KoalaWriter generates better content than our average writer – at a fraction of the cost.

I could use ChatGPT to create an article, but then I would need to use a few more prompts and possibly clean up the text a little bit more. KoalaWriter is easier and more suited for scaling.

Connor – the developer behind the Koala – is a member of the FatStacks forums (members only). He understands content websites (aka niche sites) and created a tool that’s tailored for publishing blog articles.

At the same time, it’s not fully automated. Or at least, I don’t use it that way. I still adjust prompts to better fit my preferences and needs.

That’s why I call this AHA – AI Human Assisted content.

The Koala keeps evolving

Connor keeps adding features. What’s more, he is open to feedback. I was discussing the importance of outlines with him just last week, and here it is now.

I like that. Both the fact that there’s constant improvement and the speed and efficiency with which he implements them.

The price is fantastic

Actually, it’s more than that. I think it’s dirt cheap for what you’re getting here.

If you grab the lifetime professional plan, even if you’re only using this for a month, you’re only paying half a cent per word.

The rest is free. For life. You get 60+ articles a month for free, forever.

And if you apply the YEYS coupon, you’re getting a 30% off on that price (applies to the Professional plan and above).

My only reservation

AI moves forward incredibly fast.

Right now, KoalaWriter is my tool of choice. What happens next? I don’t know.

That’s why I calculated the deal’s worth based on a month’s usage. For me, getting this quality of articles so conveniently and at that price is unbeatable. The rest is gravy (and there’s lots of it!)

BTW my hunch is that Koala will remain the best tool for my needs for months to come. Based on how good Connor is with constantly updating and improving it.

Wrapping this up with my CTA’s

Click here to grab your Lifetime Deal of KoalaWriter. Use coupon code YEYS for a 30% discount.

And if you want to view the results on two of my sites, including the full prompts I used, hurry up and subscribe to my mailing list. That email is coming out in a couple of days.

62 Comments

  1. Nice sharing Anne, the tool sounds awesome, and “too good to be true”, for the monthly price, worth trying. My only reservation is: is the tool actually really brand new, as of today I haven’t found any other review of the tool anywhere else online. Thank you!

    • Hi Renzo, I believe it’s relatively new. The developer, Connor, has shared it on the FatStacks forums a few weeks ago and has been improving it since.

  2. Hi Anne,

    Thank you for your good post.
    It’s very helpful.

    I find the words on Koala page – “The amount of words for each plan is based on GPT-3.5. If you enable GPT-4 then that article’s word count will be counted at 5x.”

    e.g. Essentials LTD – KoalaWriter: 15,000 words per month

    It mens I can get 15,000 x 5 = 75,000 words per month if I choose GPT-4?

    Thank you,

    Michael

    • Hi Michael,

      Yes, I think it comes to around a cent per word with GPT4? That’s with the discount. Assuming you only use it for one month. I plan on using it for a few good months, so I think it’s a great price for my needs.

      • That is incorrect. GPT4 is more expensive to run so you would get 5x less words per month. If you get the 15k/mo plan, you would only get 3,000 words per month if you use GPT4.

      • Michael I interpret it the other way around i.e. if you use GPT-4 you would get 15,000/5 = 3,000 words per month. I could be wrong though!

        Great post Anne, looking forward to reading your detailed email on how you’re using Koala writer and also interested to see where you are putting the “written with ChatGPT” disclaimer on your articles?

    • It means I can get 15,000 x 5 = 75,000 words per month if I choose GPT-4? – No, you’ll actually only get 3000 words per month, 15,000/5.

    • I read it to be the opposite way round – so if you use GPT4, you get less words – so 15,000/5…
      I don’t find the sales page very clear sadly.

    • Hi, I might be totally wrong, but I interpreted it to say that when using version 4 that it counts each word used at 5x, meaning that a 15000 word a month account will only allow you to generate 3000 words of version 4.

    • The GPT4 version is definitely the more expensive one. X5 times more expensive. I think the confusion about the final numbers comes down to which plan you’re looking at? I’m still debating whether to buy Elite or Scale. Using GPT4 it’s going to be around a cent per word. After applying the discount.
      I’ll let ChatGPT do this step by step –
      Calculate the original cost per word:
      Total cost = $3,499
      Number of words per month = 1,000,000
      Cost per word = Total cost / Number of words per month
      Cost per word = $3,499 / 1,000,000
      Cost per word = $0.003499

      Calculate the cost per word when using GPT-4 (5 times the original cost):
      Original cost per word = $0.003499
      Multiplier = 5
      New cost per word = Original cost per word * Multiplier
      New cost per word = $0.003499 * 5
      New cost per word = $0.017495

      Apply the 30% discount to the cost per word with GPT-4:
      New cost per word (with GPT-4) = $0.017495
      Discount rate = 30% = 0.30
      Discounted cost per word = New cost per word * (1 – discount rate)
      Discounted cost per word = $0.017495 * (1 – 0.30)
      Discounted cost per word = $0.017495 * 0.70
      Discounted cost per word = $0.0122465

      The final discounted cost per word when using GPT-4 with the Elite LTD plan and the discount is approximately $0.0122.
      And the nice thing is that after that first month, it’s free forever.

  3. Fascinating…!!

    What does it take and how much time does it take for you to prune, polish and fix up an AI generated article?

    Do you edit the content yourself?

    • Hi Ash,
      It takes me about 15 minutes in total to publish a post. That includes downloading and adding photos. So far, I only had to spend around 10 minutes per article, editing and polishing it. You could spend a shorter – or a longer – amount of times, depending on how well you know the nice, and how much of a perfectionist you are.
      For now, I edit the content because I’m experimenting with additional prompts and trying to create a workflow. A couple of our management-level team members are doing the same. By next week, we plan on having VA’s in the role of AI Wranglers.

      • Incredible!!!

        At the rate we are going, and how easy it is to generate content, aren’t we facing a flood of competition and a highly oversaturated market (as is, niche topics are already somewhat saturated)?

        • Hi Ash,
          I think the flood of competition has already arrived. I blogged about it a while ago here: The problem with the longtail keyword strategy. Yes, AI content would make it even worse but it’s already much worse than what it used to be a couple of years ago.
          IMHO, the key is not to rely on longtail content anymore and develop additional sources of traffic. That’s what we’re currently doing. Working hard on developing social traffic channels and mailing lists. Great AI-generated Human-Assisted content help us accelerate that as well.

          • Thanx Anne!

            Social Traffic – Mailing List:
            Can u expand on this a bit;
            • What social platforms are you building up?
            •. How are you capturing leads or building up social traffic?
            • Are you having social platforms and mailing lists for each of your niche sites??
            • How are u monetizing social and mailing?

            AI:
            What AI tool do u suggest for generating text for regular content, such as a letter etc, not an entire blog post?

            Thanks again for all your help and sharing your experiences!

          • Hi Ash,
            I discussed some of these issues in previous posts this year as well as emails to the list. It’s too long to go into right now, so kindly check out previous posts (and subscribe to the list – I’ll be covering more of these topics in the future as well).
            ChatGPT – or KoalaChat – is my go-to tool for writing things other than blog posts. I hope this helps!

  4. Hi Anne,

    This is amazing, I just ran a free test with Koala and I am very impressed. I’ve been using Jasper for the past year and a half and while it does a great job, I find myself editing quite a bit. Koala, published an amazing article without me doing a whole lot, other than hitting the blue button. I could literally publish it as is, but will spend time editing it a little.

    I feel like Koala will help me save money, as it does a better job, so I’ll be able to cancel my yearly subscription for Jasper.

    I don’t feel great publishing AI content on some of my older sites, unless I edit it quite a bit and add some personality to it. I’d rather be cautious with AI content than risk getting penalized.

    My question is which LTD plan do you recommend? I have 6 sites and outsource and publish (which I plan on using Koala for when I purchase) 30-40 articles per month.

    I know you publish a lot more content than I do monthly, but your suggestion will help me decide which plan makes the most sense for my business. I’m leaning towards the Boost, but want to know what you think and hear which plan you purchased.

    Thanks

    • Hi Susan,
      I’m glad you had a positive experience with Koala! Which plan to choose is a great question. I still need to decide which plan to upgrade to. I am already on the Professional subscription which is what we use now. We’ll need a higher tier once we have everything in place.

      Torn between Elite and Scale, and will probably go for the latter. 40 articles a month should come to around 80,000 words? If you’re using GPT3.5 then Professional should be enough. If you want to go with GPT4, you’d need to X5 the number, so 400,000 words and that would put you under the Growth plan. That would be quite expensive for the first month (at $45 per article) but then you’re getting free GPT4 content moving forward. Or you could go with Boost, and then mix GPT4 and GPT3.5? Difficult choice, I know. I’m still running the numbers myself. You can always go with the more conservative choice of “Professional” and if your articles rank and you’re happy with everything, invest in an additional monthly subscription down the road?

  5. Hi Anne,

    Thanks for this review, I was actually waiting for it. I’ve just purchased the Professional package using your link, but I’d love to confirm something.

    Do I also need ChatGPT-4 to use this tool or it works on its own without any integration to ChatGTP-4?

    In my account, after making payment, I’m seeing this message: “You are not currently subscribed to a plan. Please check out our pricing page to get started.”

    What does that mean?

    Thank you.

    • Hi Theodore, thanks for using my affiliate link. You don’t need anything on top of Koala. It uses its own ChatGPT API. I’m not sure why you’re getting this error message. Have you tried reaching out to their support?

  6. Hey Anne, I just played with Koala and really like it. It took me about 30 minutes to edit it because I like to add my voice, but was really impressed with how great of a job it did.

    I’m considering an LTD plan, but not sure which plan would benefit me best. I currently publish 40-50 articles per month on 8 different websites. I know you have several websites, can I ask which plan you chose?

    I’m considering the Boost LTD plan to make sure that I have enough credits for the month, but am confused on which plan makes the most sense. I currently outsource content on Passion Posts, but that costs me over $4,000 for each order.

    Since I’ll be using Koala, I plan on using it to do my own writing and save money by not having to outsource. Can’t wait to hear which plan you got and what you recommend.

    Thanks

    • Hi Karen,
      I’m glad you liked Koala! I also sometimes mix ChatGPT introductions with it so that I can prompt manually for an even more engaging style. I actually use KoalaChat for that. What I’ve found is that you can give it a sample of the text that you have in the same style, and then ask it to mimic that. It can be your own style, and it will try to imitate that.
      We’re trying to figure out which LTD plan to buy ourselves. Currently on the Professional plan subscription, I want to upgrade either to Boost or Scale. Still running some numbers here.
      If you’re already spending $4000 a month on outsourcing, then maybe Growth would work for you. It would cover more than 50 articles a month at GPT4 level. If you’re happy with GPT3.5 level, or even a mix, you could go with Boost. The way I see it, if I can offset the cost in a month, I’m happy. Who knows what’s going to be 2-3 months from now with AI changing so fast. I hope this helps!

  7. Anne, Do I need separate ChatGPT and Koalawriter subscriptions to use this workflow? Ahrefs is out of reach (any suggestions/alternatives)I use Writerszen AI keyword finder. There may be an obvious answer, but I’ve found it’s better to ask before you buy, which saves redundancies and expenses. P.S. I bought The Bulk Publishing System by Arielle Phoenix. Thanks for the great info.

    • Hi Brian,
      You don’t need a separate ChatGPT subscription. The Koala plan includes that. When I need to do some quick keyword research, I gravitate towards LowFruits. Easy to use and quite affordable if you handpick the queries you want it to check for you. And generating the ideas is free. I hope this helps!

  8. If you mention “credit to gpt for the content” Then why doesnt average user chatgpt instead instead of ladning on your site and seeing all those ads?
    Just curious.

    • Hi Shantanu,
      I think that eventually, they will. That’s going to happen whether we give ChatGPT credit or not. It’s an inherent problem with the longtail or even just the informational sites business model. How long would it take for most people to switch over to using AI directly? We’ll see. I don’t think most people would ever use ChatGPT itself, but GPT4 operates Bing. Google has launched Bard yesterday. In other words, AI assistants are coming to search and could very well be a game changer.
      But I don’t think that has anything to do with the credit we give or don’t give the AI. To my surprise, when I asked our users, they appreciated the fact that there was AI involved in creating the articles. Go figure.

  9. Hey Anne, have you experimented with Jasper since it’s been using GPT 4? How does this compare? I’ve spent a good amount of time testing both tools and am torn on what I prefer.

    • Hi Zack,
      I have a Jasper account. Currently, we allocate most of the seats to our Pinterest VA’s and they use it for pin descriptions. I haven’t tried it with GPT4 and I’ll definitely give it a whirl. For us, I don’t think it can Koala for two reasons. First, the Koala interface is easier to operate and secondly, Koala allows for more users on our account. But I’ll definitely look again and see what we can do with that, since we already have the account.

  10. Hi Ann,

    I love your posts.

    Do you use the GPT 3.5 or 4 to get the level of articles you are talking about in this article?

    Thanks,
    Greg

    • Hi Greg and thanks!
      I shared a couple of examples in today’s email. They were both generated using the 3.5 level and I think they turned out really well (including 5 minutes of required editing).

    • lol Tom, you say it like it’s a terrible thing. But now, I don’t think I’m a niche site guru. Firstly, I don’t do niche sites. My sites are just websites. Content sites, if you have to classify them, with one that’s a forum-content hybrid. I don’t like the term niche sites. Also, I’m not a guru – just a web publisher sharing her journey. The one thing I keep telling people is that I don’t advocate anything. Your mileage will vary so do your own thing.

      As for AHA, it’s an acronym that we developed for internal use within our team. People respond better to acronyms and shorter terms, and we liked it. We went through a bunch of suggestions from ChatGPT (including HUSKIE and even FART) and decided on AHA. I shared it here. If you don’t like it, ignore it. That’s fine. Same goes for ignoring this blog if you don’t like it. That is also perfectly ok.

  11. thanks for sharing this Anne. I’m new to niche sites and have just built a keyword and content plan for my first site and was about to use jasper for research. If you just started with writing content and have spent little time with chatgpt or AI, would you advise learning how to use Koalawriter instead of jasper? How steep is the learning curve to reach a point of creating good content?

    • Hi James, I addressed Jasper as an option in my last newsletter email. In case you didn’t get it, I made an exception and posted it on the site (too many Koala questions that people were asking about).
      IF you already have Jasper, it’s not a bad alternative to Koala using 3.5. Koala using GPT4 is superior IMO (but also more expensive). KoalaWriter is very easy to use, but of course, the quality of the result can depend on your additional prompts. Give it a spin and see for yourself with the free trial.

  12. few questions.
    1) whats the difference between gpt 3 and 4. ? As in content wise? WHen do you know which one to use.
    2) There was always a huge barrier of entry niche site business where you need spend 10-20k$ to build site from scratch. But since content cost will be so low. We will be already see floods of content every niche possible since high quality content is now relatively easy to make and also cost way lesser. What do you think about future of this business?

    3) Whats the difference between koala and chat gpt. Stupid question i know. Chat gpt same exact thing that koala writer when i prompt “write an article ” on certain keyword.

    I plan to buy 100k words ltd. Seems like a steal deal.

    • Hi Shantanu,
      Good questions, all of them. I answered them in the last email. Just posted a version of that email on the site too. Check it out. Don’t forget to use my affiliate link with the coupon code for the additional discount!

  13. So the professional plan is $449, and you said adding your coupon code would give me 30% off right? I can’t see where to add the coupon code or its already discounted.

    Also, do you think getting a lifetime plan would be great now because other AI tools can come up. Or you trust Koala writer to scale up and stay relevant.

    Then ahead of the AI boom, what advise would you give so bloggers can stay ahead and ensures they still make money.

    • Hi Collins,
      The discount is just for the Lifetime Deals (everything in Professional and above). If you can’t see where to add the coupon code there, please contact Koala directly. I addressed your other question in the last email (posted today to the blog). As for advice on how to survive the AI revolution as a blogger, I can only offer my opinion FWIW and share my own journey. I try not to offer advice to others because I don’t think I’m in a position to do that. You may want to read my previous posts here about how I’m adjusting my business. I hope this helps.

  14. Have you been able to check the accuracy of the content? How current is the database from which it draws its information? Does it provide sources for attribution and external links etc.?

    • Hi Nachum,
      I addressed this question in the last email (also posted to the blog today). I hope this clarifies things.

  15. Hi Anne,

    In part about your; KoalaWriter and how I use it, I can see the whole sentence you typed into the extra content prompt and extra introduction prompt. Could you please share these? Thank you!

    • Hi LB, I shared them in the email to the list (as I promised in that post) and then in the post today. I don’t think it matters all that much, tbh. There are no magic prompts – just play around with it and prompt the AI the way you want your posts to be. Good luck!

  16. Hi Anne,
    The review looks great. Do you know where is the roadmap to check it? I searched everywhere on the Koala site and couldn’t find it. Maybe can be accessed on Discord but I couldn’t join the Discord list, perhaps is only for paying subscribers. In any case, if can´t be accessed, could you please summarize or copypaste the main points of the roadmap?
    Thanks in advance!
    Fernando

    • Hi Fernando,
      I do believe Discord is for paying customers. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to get into that right now, nor do I think it’s my place to take things out of Discord and put them here without the developer’s permission. I suggest you contact Connor via their contact form and ask for the roadmap. Thanks!

    • Oh, I was just replying to the other comment. Not sure if there was supposed to be a written roadmap, but I’m sure Connor (the developer) will be able to help more than I could.

    • Hi Alan,
      Good question. I don’t think anyone knows for sure. My hunch is that Google wants to see consistency. Not necessarily 100% consistency day to day, but similar scopes of article numbers per month. But that’s just a hunch.

  17. I want to buy Koalawriter LTD from any reseller. Tell me about the quality of Koalawriter, is it’s quality the same as other ai writers or not? is it worth it to buy its LTD from reseller

    • Hi Usman,
      Why not create an account and check it out for yourself? That would be the easiest way to assess quality and compare to other services that you’ve used. A trial account is free, for exactly that purpose.
      As far as I know, LTD are no longer available but if you like Koala, just buy a subscription. It’s a good way to lock in the current price (which may go up in the future).

  18. Hi Anne,

    I tried using your affiliate link for the professional plan. Also, the LTD is not available anymore. Does that mean I won’t get the 30% discount for the monthly rate if I use your link? I can’t see a place to enter the code either way.

    Thanks for clarifying!

    • Hi Shrot, this was a limited-time special that Koala had. Lifetime deals are no longer available, and neither is the discount. I just updated the post to make this more clear. Sorry about the confusion. You can still get regular subscriptions, of course. And you’re welcome to sign up for my mailing list, where I’ll be sure to share future coupons if they come out.

  19. I want to make money with my website.
    could you recommend any course to me?
    I’ve already subscribed your letter.
    thanks!

    p.s still working right?

    • Hi Jay, you can try the resources page here. You’ll find recommendations for courses on that page. Good luck!

  20. Hi Anne thanks for sharing such a good information at the right. I was thinking maybe I could still your prompts to use for my Ai content creation if you do not mind?

    I will be happy to have it.

    • You can use the information in this post, if you like. I honestly don’t think there’s anything special about my prompts. There’s no silver bullet in prompting AI – you have to learn how to talk to it and find the best prompts that work for your needs.

  21. Hi Anne,

    Thanks for writing this review! Found you on Koala’s testimonial page. I’m writing a Koala review myself and I was wondering if you had an update on how Koala is working for you. How is the AHA! plan going? Did you end up upgrading to a higher paid plan?

    Thanks in advance!
    Best,
    Zulie

    • Hi Zulie,
      We still use Koala to produce the bulk of our “response” or longtail content. We also use it for some content that’s intended for social media, depending on the topic. Some topics are inspirational listicles and we work on these manually, using ChatGPT. Instead of a single higher paid plan, we opted for multiple smaller plans, so we can divide logins between team members for better control over our teams. I hope this helps!

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