Novelcrafter

What it is

Novelcrafter is a browser-based novel-writing platform built around the Codex, a personal wiki for your story's characters, locations, objects and lore. The Codex detects where each entry is mentioned in the manuscript, tracks how entries change over the book (progressions), and feeds the relevant entries to the AI as context when you brainstorm, draft or review. AI is optional and bring-your-own-key: you connect your own account with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, Featherless and others, or run local models through LM Studio or Ollama, and you pay the model provider directly. There is nothing to install, and the team describes itself as independent and without venture funding.

Key features

• Codex story bible: entries with thumbnails, custom details, aliases, tags, relations, a mention timeline and progressions, shareable across every book in a series.
• Planning views: drag-and-drop Grid, a spreadsheet-like Matrix and a single-page Outline for acts, chapters and scenes, with scene labels, POV tracking and a scene archive.
• Scene beats and text replacement: tell the AI what should happen next and have it draft prose, or run a prompt on a selected passage; scenes can be summarised in one click and characters detected into the Codex.
• Custom prompts: a prompt system with reusable components, a preview of the exact prompt sent, adjustable model parameters, and per-scene "exclude from AI".
• Workshop chat: chat with a scene, the outline or the whole novel, switch model mid-conversation and extract beats or Codex entries from the reply.
• Review and collaboration: an appearance heatmap, characters-per-scene and word statistics; invite viewers or editors and share books with teams.
• Writing basics: rich-text editor, focus mode, revision history, snippets, pen names, Word/Markdown/HTML import and export.

Who it's for

Novelists and series writers, including discovery writers and plotters, who want a manuscript tool with a structured story bible and full control over which AI model they use and how much. It also suits writers who want to keep AI to a minimum: AI features are only on the Hobbyist plan and up.

Pricing

Subscription only, with a 21-day free trial that unlocks every feature and needs no credit card; there is no free plan. Prices as listed in October 2026, in USD (localised by region), billed monthly; annual billing gives two months free:

• Scribe: $4/month. Unlimited books, series and the Codex, basic review tools; no AI.
• Hobbyist: $8/month. Adds AI via your own keys: scene beats, summarisation, character extraction, custom prompts.
• Artisan: $14/month. Adds the Workshop chat and advanced review features.
• Specialist: $20/month. Adds collaborative writing and creating and managing teams.

AI usage is billed by your chosen provider, or free with local models.