Writing is the IELTS section candidates misjudge most. Reading and Listening give you a raw score out of 40 you can convert yourself; Writing gives you nothing until an examiner - or a tool trained on what examiners do - reads your essay.
The good news: checking your Writing band online now takes minutes, and done properly it is accurate enough to plan a test date around.
Short answer: to check your IELTS Writing band online, write a timed Task 2 essay, submit it to an AI checker that scores all four official criteria, and read the per-criterion report. The IELTSbiz Writing Checker does this free to start, with accuracy validated against human examiners in a published study.
This guide walks through the exact steps, what the four criteria actually measure, how much to trust the number, and what to do with it afterwards.
Step 1: Write the essay under real conditions
The check is only as honest as the input. Set a timer for 40 minutes for Task 2 (20 for Task 1), use a real past-style question, and type without a dictionary, a thesaurus or a grammar plugin - none of them will be at your desk on test day.
Hit the word count: at least 250 words for Task 2 and 150 for Task 1, since shorter answers take an automatic Task Response penalty before content is even judged. Our guide to the 150/250 word rules explains where the safe range sits.
If you write on paper for the paper-based test, type your essay up exactly as written - including the errors. Fixing mistakes while transcribing is the most common way candidates quietly cheat their own diagnosis.
Step 2: Submit it to a checker that scores all four criteria
IELTS Writing is marked on four descriptors of equal weight, and each fails for a different reason. Any online check worth your time reports all four separately.
| Criterion | What it measures | Typical Band 6 problem |
|---|---|---|
| Task Response | Did you answer every part of the question with a clear, developed position? | Position unclear or parts of the question ignored |
| Coherence and Cohesion | Paragraph logic, progression, and natural linking | Paragraphs without one central idea; mechanical linkers |
| Lexical Resource | Range and precision of vocabulary, collocation, register | Repetition and imprecise word choice |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | Variety of structures and density of errors | Frequent errors, or only simple sentences attempted |
The IELTSbiz Writing Checker returns a band per criterion, an overall estimate, and sentence-level notes quoting your own text as evidence. The free tier includes monthly checks with the full report and needs no card; unlimited checking is $6.99/month or $29 lifetime (pricing).
Other options exist and we compare them honestly in our writing checker roundup: Engnovate offers fast free estimates with daily limits, Writing9 highlights corrections in your text on a subscription, and human marking services return teacher comments in a few days at a higher price per essay.
Whatever you choose, apply the four-criteria test above.
Step 3: Read the report in the right order
Start with the lowest criterion, not the overall. The overall band is just the average of the four criterion scores - the lowest one is your actual problem, and the four problems have completely different fixes.
Low Task Response means your planning failed: re-read the question against your essay and find the part you underdeveloped. Low Coherence means paragraph logic: check that each paragraph defends one topic sentence. Low Lexical Resource usually means repetition: count how often your three favourite words appear.
Low Grammar means error density: identify your two most frequent error types rather than mourning all of them at once.
Then read the sentence-level evidence. Feedback that quotes your own sentences is the part you can act on; a number alone changes nothing about Thursday's essay.
How accurate is an online Writing band check?
Measured, in the best case. IELTSbiz's study of 1,200 essays found AI band scores matched human examiners within ±0.5 bands in 94.2% of cases - comparable to the variation between two human examiners marking the same script.
Two caveats keep the number honest. First, that accuracy holds for tools grading all four criteria; a tool that only counts grammar errors is measuring a quarter of the construct and extrapolating the rest.
Second, every estimate - human or AI - carries noise, so treat any single score as a range of ±0.5 and let three essays establish your level.
The practical rule: if three timed essays on different topics all score 6.5, you are a 6.5. If they score 6.0, 7.0 and 6.5, you are still probably a 6.5 - but with a consistency problem worth investigating.
How often should you check, and what should you track?
Once per essay, one or two essays a week, across your whole preparation. The pattern to watch is per-criterion trend: overall bands move slowly, but a criterion score responding to focused work is visible within two or three essays.
Keep it simple: a note of date, question type, and the four criterion scores. After a month you will know things most candidates never learn - that your Task Response drops on two-part questions, or your grammar score falls specifically on discussion essays where you attempt more complex hedging.
Every two weeks, rewrite an old essay with its feedback open and resubmit it. The same prompt scored twice is the cleanest measure of whether feedback is changing your writing or washing over you.
Common mistakes when checking your band online
Checking untimed essays - covered above, and worth repeating because it is the most common way candidates arrive at test day a band below their "practice level".
Averaging across tools. Submitting one essay to three checkers and averaging the numbers tells you nothing, because the tools disagree systematically, not randomly. Pick one consistent instrument and measure trend on it.
Chasing the overall. A 6.5 overall built from 7-7-6.5-5.5 and one built from 6.5 across the board are different diagnoses needing different plans. Always plan from the criterion profile.
Stopping at the score. The single highest-value hour in Writing preparation is rewriting a scored essay with the feedback beside it. A checked essay you never rewrote is a diagnosis you never treated.
From band check to band plan
Once you have a stable Writing estimate, put it in context. Enter it with your other three section estimates into the free Band Score Calculator to see your projected overall, and compare it against the requirement for your university or visa - our guide to how band scores work covers the rounding rules.
If Writing is your gap section, the criterion report has already named the specific gap. Pair the check loop with input on that criterion - structure guides, linking words, collocation lists - and give it two weeks of focused essays before re-measuring.
And if Writing is fine, believe the data and move your hours to the weakest section instead. The point of checking online is not reassurance; it is spending your remaining preparation where it buys the most band.