Frase vs Copy.ai: The Best AI for Content Marketing and Copywriting
Frase and Copy.ai can generate AI content within seconds. But is that enough?
If you’ve ever used an AI writing tool, you know the hassle. It spits out words, but you’re still stuck researching, editing, and figuring out if your content will actually work. Some tools promise speed, others focus on automation—but what about content that actually moves the needle?
That’s what we’re here to find out.
In this post, we’re comparing two AI platforms that take very different approaches to content creation. One prioritizes funnel automation, the other focuses on research-driven results.
We’ll also test sample content to see which AI is the most effective to rank, engage, and convert. Let’s dive in!
TABLE OF CONTENTS 👇
Copywriting Tools for Impactful Content: Frase vs Copy.ai
Frase is a content marketing AI. Copy AI is a “Go-To-Market” (GTM) automation platform. Both are widely different approaches designed for different types of teams.
That’s why we’re not just doing a general feature comparison. We’ll compare specifically how AI platforms help full-stack marketers get results:
- Bring in new leads with your content, not just traffic
- Climb faster in the SERPs based on AI research, not just keywords
- Increase conversions for your copywriting based on time-tested strategies, not just A/B testing
And ideally, we want to achieve this in as few steps as possible, with almost zero research and zero revisions. No need to be an SEO expert or learn complex AI sequences. Just input basic brand context and, within minutes, generate copy and content designed to perform based on data.
Is it possible?
Well, if you don’t want to wait through the comparison to find out, we recommend you start with Frase (no-credit-card free trial).
Why? Because it does all of the above and none of what you don’t need. It generates SERP-based research, instructions, keywords to include, and the content itself in a few clicks. That’s why Frase outperforms both in long and short-form content as you’ll find out later.
Why such a big difference? Keep reading to find out.
Frase Overview
Frase is an AI content marketing platform designed to generate impactful content based on multi-source research. Not only does it aim to maximize results with your content but also solve one of the biggest bottlenecks: content research.
- “Is my content relevant enough to bring in traffic?”
- “Is it valuable enough to outperform top competitors?”
- “Will it be compelling enough to generate leads and sales down the line?”
This is what separates generic AI generators from Frase. It’s the difference between tweaking dozens of mediocre versions and getting it right the first time. So how do you achieve this?
Let’s say you’re writing about “what is SEO.” Instead of scanning dozens of pages to see what’s relevant, let the AI scan the SERPs for you:
From this research, Frase can generate outlines and even write its own prompts to enrich the content:
From here, it takes one click to generate full-length posts with the Frase AI Article Wizard.
Want more control over your content? You can turn Frase into your copilot with in-line prompts, SERP-research toggles, and SEO insights on the right:
That’s how you generate content with minimal research. Content that you know will be relevant and cover more topic gaps, giving more value than the top pages.
And that’s just one of many uses cases:
As for short-form copy, there are various approaches:
- Use an AI tool like the above or create your own prompts.
- Use a keyword like “cold email best practices” to generate an email based on recent knowledge from the SERPs. More on this later.
And what about Copy.ai?
Copy.ai Overview
Copy.ai rebranded itself to a Go-To-Market (GTM) platform designed for marketing automation at scale. It comes loaded with “workflows” for email outreach, sales call transcripts, company data scraping, product translation, support ticket repurposing, and a bunch of random utilities typical for B2B sales funnels.
The name suggests that copywriting is the focus. But once you dive in, it starts to feel more like coding your own AI assistant. With complex workflows, visual flowcharts, and customization layers, it’s built for teams optimizing entire sales operations—which is a bit overkill if you just want content that drives sign-ups.
It does offer pre-built templates and an Infobase to keep brand guidelines consistent. Chat Mode also allows you to upload files and fine-tune AI-generated content:
But SERP-based research isn’t a core feature (if it’s even supported), meaning no built-in competitor insights or real-time keyword optimization.
It works for enterprises looking to automate workflows, but if you need ready-to-rank content, you might spend more time tweaking AI settings than writing.
So, how do Copy.ai and Frase compare in action? Let’s find out.
Frase vs. Copy.ai: AI Writing Use Cases Put to the Test
Before looking into features, let’s test both platforms across common marketing use cases.
As an example, let’s say you’re a marketing agency director and want to get more traffic and potential clients, using Frase or Copy.ai. But how?
One approach could be this:
- Research: Discover content that’s relevant for readers (e.g. “lead generation strategies”)
- Content: Write long-form content that engages and converts for a call-to-action (e.g. “book free strategy call”)
- SEO: Optimize the content to gain SERP positions and attract organic traffic
- Website copy: Create an opt-in page and repurpose the post as a free resource in exchange for emails (AKA lead generation)
- Email copy: If you do direct outreach, use the article as free value for your email copy to warm up cold leads.
Three use cases for AI content, two for copywriting. Can these tools speed up all five? Let’s find out.
Content Research
Normally, content research involves going through the top competitor pages to find what works and what’s missing or could be improved. Even with AI, most platforms skip this step and only focus on the writing.
Is that the case of Copy.ai?
For this example we used a template called SEO Content Brief, which generated just that with the main keyword “(lead generation strategies).” It includes keywords, headlines with instructions, and title ideas.
However, Copy.ai doesn’t specify where this data came from. It might be from the top 3 results, or it could be made up. As for Frase:
It analyzed over 10 top results to identify relevant content and structure.
Once researched, you can scan through each article outline to build your own on the right (or generate it with AI in one click, instructions included).
And unlike Copy.ai, it generates briefs based on pages that are already ranking and getting results. That’s why Frase is more recommended: it plans for content with proven demand.
Content Generation
What happens when you paste all your research into an AI content generator? Can it still match the quality of top competitors, if not outperform?
Well, here’s the article that ranked 1st for “lead generation strategies:”
And if we generate content with the earlier brief from Copy.ai, it creates this:
And when using the Frase SERP research, it generated this:
You can read both articles here for Copy.ai and Frase.
Our observations? Copy.ai has a higher topic score than Frase due to having twice as much length. According to HemmingwayApp, their version is also more complex than Frase:
Copy.ai is an example of content that might get high traffic but still not convert. The search algorithm may like all this data, but if your post reads like a textbook, readers won’t be as receptive to your call-to-actions.
And what if you wanted to upgrade parts of the content? On Copy.ai you would need a new generation every time. On Frase, there’s an in-line AI editor:
Not only has Frase generated effective content in the first generation but is easier to fine-tune than Copy.ai. It’s also more scannable, using tables and lists that help you get more featured snippets for SEO.
SEO Optimization
How to do SEO with AI? Neither Copy.ai nor Frase are traditional keyword tools like Ahrefs. Can they still perform on search?
As mentioned in the first test, it’s unclear where Copy.ai gathers data. Keywords might be AI-generated rather than researched. There are ways to code workflows and scrape, say, the first 10 SERP results, but it’s not straightforward.
As for Frase, not only does it gather keywords from competitors but also identifies their topic gaps. This guarantees that your content has the same keywords as the top results, plus others they missed. Even without monthly search volumes (MSV), it gets you 90% there—and you can integrate it with Google Search Console.
How do you boost your score? You click keywords on the sidebar to make a list in the editor, and then Frase to include them in the sections:
Copy.ai has limited SEO tools and lots of guesswork. But Frase?
You will know in real time if your content is good enough, based on your topic score and your competitors’.
Copywriting for Lead Generation
Now for copywriting, let’s say we want to repurpose it as a lead magnet. You enter your email to download the “10 Proven Lead Generation Strategies for Immediate Impact”. To promote it, we just need an opt-in page like this:
Copy.ai doesn’t have any templates for website copywriting, so we used the chat tool. And the results weren’t that bad:
It generated all the elements with compelling language, from the benefits to testimonials. But will it convert?
Here’s a trick we used to redo it on Frase:
The website copy seems similar, except it’s based on proven copywriting principles:
- We made an SEO document with the query “opt-in page best practices”
- Frase scanned strategies from the Top 10 results
- Then, it turned that research into a data-backed copywriting example
Instead of A/B testing with Copy.ai for weeks, Frase can convert more from the start.
Copywriting for Outreach
Ignore the previous opt-in example for this one. Instead, let’s say you already found emails directly and want to turn strangers into leads. For example, we reuse the lead generation resource we made as free value to offer in cold emails.
Prospecting is a specialty of Copy.ai, yet the generation steps are complex:
You need all the data or it won’t start writing. But once you do the research?
The writing actually sounds like a human-written cold email: conversational, brief, jargon-free.
Again, Frase goes the extra mile with SERP-backed copywriting:
Copy.ai’s version is concise but also more salesy. Frase sounds more conversational, among other reasons, because it follows all expert tips researched on the right.
Frase vs Copy.ai: Side-By-Side Comparison
Now that you’ve seen both with examples, here’s a quick overview of the feature versatility, learning curve, pricing options, branding tools, and other key details.
Versatility
How competent are both platforms at crafting different forms of content?
Copy.ai has diverse use cases, but are they relevant?
You will only find one template for long-form content and a few for short form. The rest are random tools to scrape data, translate, transcribe… many of which you may not need but still add up to the price.
Instead, Frase is focused on content marketing:
This includes short-form copy such as landing page sections, social media posts, cold emails, and ads. All of them leverage SERP-based research just like with the articles—unlike Copy.ai and other AI writers.
Brand Alignment
How easy is it to stand out and match your existing brand voice with AI content?
Starting with default AI rules, Copy.ai will NOT help you differentiate according to ZeroGPT:
(Copy.ai and Frase scored 95% and 21% on AI content detection for the earlier lead-generation posts)That’s why Copy.ai needs brand recognition tools, which it has:
You can add sample text to recognize and generate the prompt. While Frase doesn’t have this directly, it’s easy to achieve the same result with in-line prompts:
Both Copy.ai and Frase allow unlimited custom brand tones:
For more brand customization, Frase includes custom tools, tones of voice, and AI templates to load from the in-line editor:
Once you have these presets customized and tested, you can pass them to your content team to effortlessly create on-brand content at scale.
Also if you have a highly ranked article—AI-written or not—you can paste the URL for better results.
Both platforms support branding features, but if you want more control over the content AI, that’s where Frase excels.
Ease Of Use
If you haven’t noticed yet, Copy.ai isn’t really about copywriting:
It’s an enterprise-level AI toolkit that specializes in B2B marketing operations. Is it worth the learning curve? Maybe if you’re looking for funnel hyper-efficiency. For full-stack marketers, there are simpler solutions.
Meanwhile, Frase takes a few minutes to generate impactful content, even if you don’t do any topic research or don’t know SEO:
You can start with a blank page, an SEO workflow (keyword-based), or the AI Wizard, which auto-writes most of the steps:
And if you find it easier to use AI as your writing copilot, editing content is a breeze:
Overall, Frase does a better job of simplifying AI content research and writing.
Accessibility
Copy.ai promotes itself as an all-in-one GMT platform that needs no extra AI tools. But is it?
It’s true if your team leans more towards sales/outreach/short-form copywriting. But as a content marketing toolkit?
- Copy.ai has little to no SEO features
- No integrations for keyword tools, Google Docs, content management systems, or such.
- Very limited utilities for long-form content
What about Frase?
- SERP-based research
- Real-time SEO optimization
- Works everywhere with its browser extension
This makes Frase more convenient overall.
Pricing & Best Value
Frase starts at $45/mo. Copy.ai starts at $49. For yearly plans, both go as low as $38 (Frase Basic) and $36 (Copy.ai Starter). But what are we really getting?
Starter is good enough for testing but useless for content at scale. You get 500 credits per month (which are required to use the workflow library) and unlimited chat words (older versions of ChatGPT and Claude).
For reference, our test article took 100-150 credits to generate, including research. Assuming you want to test more article versions, you might need 200-400 for each. However the next lowest plan only has 2,000 credits at $249/mo.
In Frase, $38-$45/mo gets you 30 SEO documents per month with unlimited content in the AI editor:
And if you want the fastest, most hands-off approach to writing full posts in one go, there’s the AI Article Wizard:
To get this on Copy.ai, you would need 3,000-4,000 credits, twice as much as the highest plan at $249.
While $49 on Copy.ai gets you the bare minimum, Frase Basic + Pro Add-On gives you everything you’ll need to create impactful content at scale.
The Verdict: Which One Is the Best AI for Content and Copywriting, Frase or Copy.ai?
Both Frase and Copy.ai offer AI-powered content shortcuts, but their strengths lie in different areas. Copy.ai focuses on efficiency, offering workflows and templates for teams optimizing B2B funnels. However it lacks SERP-based research and real-time SEO insights, which means content performance depends more on automation than actual ranking potential.
Instead, Frase bridges the gap between AI writing and research. By pulling data from top-ranking content, marketers create AI content that doesn’t just read well but actually ranks and performs. From SEO research to in-line AI editing, it’s designed for teams who need impactful, mass content fast—without the guesswork, which makes Frase the better choice.
