Compared
EssayGuard vs Turnitin Clarity
Two tools that record the writing process instead of scoring the finished prose. Here is where they differ, and who each one is for.
In short
Turnitin Clarity and EssayGuard both record a student's writing session and let the instructor replay it. Clarity is a quote-priced add-on to Turnitin Feedback Studio, bought by the institution and rolled out through pilots. EssayGuard is bought by an individual instructor or a department, is free for the rest of this semester, and runs from one shared link with nothing for students to install.
The two in one paragraph
Turnitin Clarity launched at SXSW EDU in March 2025 and reached general availability in July 2025. Students compose inside Turnitin’s own online editor, with an optional AI assistant, and the instructor receives a Writing Report with playback of how the draft came together. It is sold as a paid add-on to Feedback Studio, priced by quote, and it reaches a classroom through an institutional contract and, so far, through pilots: San Jose State, UCLA and CU Boulder have documented Clarity pilots for spring and fall 2026. EssayGuard records the same kind of session, every keystroke, revision, pause and paste with server-side timestamps, in a hosted browser editor that a teacher shares as one link. There is no contract, no pilot committee and nothing for students to install. A single instructor can run it free for the rest of this semester and then pay $99 a year; departments start at $495 a year and campuses at $2,950.
Source: turnitin.com Clarity product page and sjsu.edu Clarity pilot page, checked 2026-09-08; EssayGuard pricing at essayguard.io/pricing.
Side by side
| Turnitin Clarity | EssayGuard | |
|---|---|---|
| Who installs what | Nothing on the student’s device. The institution enables Clarity inside its Feedback Studio license. | Nothing. The instructor creates an assignment and shares a link; students open it in any browser. |
| Where students write | Turnitin’s online editor. Turnitin’s student FAQ describes it as online-only and warns of lost work when switching devices mid-session. | EssayGuard’s hosted editor, in any browser, including inside a Canvas, Blackboard or Moodle frame. |
| What is recorded | The composition session, presented to the instructor as a Writing Report with playback. | Every keystroke, revision, pause and paste, with server-side timestamps, plus periodic document snapshots. |
| Who owns the record | The institution, inside its Turnitin account. | The instructor’s course, under a retention window set per assignment. Department and campus plans add a chair view and integrity office access scoped to open cases. |
| Can a history be faked | Recording happens inside Turnitin’s editor rather than in a document history, so the auto-typer route documented for Google Docs does not apply. We have not seen Turnitin publish how Clarity treats a replayed session, so we make no claim either way. | Snapshots cross-check the event stream. A replayed or fabricated history reads as unrecorded rather than as writing. |
| Price | Quote-only add-on to Feedback Studio. Feedback Studio itself has been reported at roughly $3 to $6.70 per FTE. | Free for the rest of this semester (every course you teach, unlimited students, once per teacher). $99 a year for an instructor, from $495 a year for a department, from $2,950 a year for a campus. |
| Contract needed | Yes, an institutional Turnitin contract. There is no individual-teacher purchase path. | No. An instructor signs up alone. Department and campus plans come with a published DPA and can be invoiced against a PO. |
Source: turnitin.com product page and guides.turnitin.com student FAQ for Clarity, checked 2026-09-08; Feedback Studio per-FTE range as reported by phrasly.ai, checked 2026-09-08; EssayGuard facts from essayguard.io.
Choose Turnitin Clarity if
- Your institution already licenses Feedback Studio and the integrity office runs its process through Turnitin. Adding Clarity keeps the writing record next to the similarity report and the case workflow people already know.
- You want the record to live inside the Turnitin integration your campus has already wired into its LMS, and you have an IT team ready to run a pilot first, as SJSU, UCLA and CU Boulder have done.
- Institutional trust matters more than speed. Turnitin is the name most deans and general counsel already know, and that carries weight in a hearing.
- You want the optional AI assistant inside the editor, so students can use AI in a controlled and recorded way.
Choose EssayGuard if
- You are one instructor, or one department, and you do not have a Turnitin contract or a seat on the committee that would add Clarity to one.
- You want to start this week. Creating an assignment takes about three minutes, and the rest of this semester is free for every course you teach.
- Your students write on more than one device or on unreliable wifi, and you would rather not explain a lost-work warning to a class.
- You need a printable evidence report that a chair, a hearing panel or a parent can read without a Turnitin login.
- You want a retention window per assignment and a published DPA, not a permanent archive.
- You want a tool that never issues a verdict. EssayGuard does no stylistic analysis and reports no AI percentage. The finding stays with you.
What a keystroke record shows
Both products exist because a finished document cannot answer the question an instructor actually has. A version history shows states. A session record shows how the text entered the editor. Typed text arrives at a human rhythm, with pauses where the writer stopped to think. Pasted text arrives in a block, and in EssayGuard it stays marked for the rest of the session. A sentence abandoned and rebuilt, a paragraph moved after the conclusion was written, a thesis that only appears in the last ten minutes: these are the things a replay makes visible, and they are what a conversation with a student is built on.
What neither does
Neither Turnitin Clarity nor EssayGuard can tell you whether the ideas in a paper were the student’s own. A record shows how text entered the editor: typed or pasted, in what order, over how long. It does not show what was on a second screen, what a tutor said, or whether an outline was generated elsewhere and retyped by hand. Treat the record as evidence for a conversation, not as a verdict. That is also why EssayGuard issues no finding: the replay and the report go to the instructor, and the judgment stays with a person.
Clarity ships alongside Turnitin’s AI writing detection, which reports a percentage of a submission likely to be AI-written. EssayGuard is not an AI detector and does not score prose at all. If a percentage is what you want, EssayGuard is the wrong tool. If a record you can defend is what you want, either product gives you more than a score.
Questions people ask
Can I buy Turnitin Clarity as an individual instructor?
No. Clarity is sold as a paid add-on to Turnitin Feedback Studio, which is licensed per institution, and there is no individual-teacher purchase path (turnitin.com, checked 2026-09-08). EssayGuard is the reverse: an instructor signs up alone, runs a first semester free across every course you teach, and pays $99 a year after that.
Do students have to install anything for either tool?
Neither requires an install. Clarity students write in Turnitin's own online editor, which Turnitin's student FAQ describes as online-only, with a warning that work can be lost if a student switches devices mid-session. EssayGuard students open a link in any browser and write, and the session records to the server as they go.
Is recording keystrokes a form of surveillance?
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece in August 2026 titled "To Catch AI Cheating, Turnitin Wants to Monitor Students' Keystrokes," and Turnitin published a rebuttal letter. Both products record inside their own editor and nothing else. EssayGuard uses no camera, no microphone and no tab monitoring, tells students the recorder is running, and deletes sessions at the end of a retention window you set per assignment.
Does EssayGuard replace Turnitin's similarity report or AI detection?
No. Those score a finished document. EssayGuard records how the document was written and reports no percentage of any kind. It is not an AI detector. Many instructors use a similarity report for citation problems and a session record for questions about authorship, because the two answer different questions.
What does EssayGuard cost after the free semester?
Educator is $99 a year for every course you teach. Department starts at $495 a year and includes up to eight instructors. Campus starts at $2,950 a year and is priced on total students. Every price is published at essayguard.io/pricing.
Try it with one assignment
The rest of this semester costs nothing. Setup takes three minutes.
Every course you teach, unlimited students. Students install nothing.