ZeroGPT Review:
based on real mystery shopping

Quick Overview

Zero GPT is a free AI text detection software for students, educators, and other professionals that allows users to upload files or paste text to check for artificially created content. While the website is easy to navigate and provides immediate results, the service’s accuracy has been found to be inconsistent, often mislabeling human-written text as AI-generated and struggling with certain types of generated text, raising questions about whether it can truly be considered the best AI text detector.

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With this whole AI advancement going around, it seems like it’s easy to get accused of using such tools even when you don’t. The best way to avoid getting into a “Law & Order” kinda situation where you need to justify your essay writing before the board of professors, is to go for preventive methods. 

What you can do is use an AI detection tool to make sure you won’t be falsely accused. Such a service will help you find whether your writing has any trace of AI in it. And, if anything, adjust it to make it better. Many websites offer to do this work for you and ZeroGPT is amongst the most popular ones. Our A*Help team, therefore, took on the responsibility of testing this service and evaluating how well it could help in the AI detection battle. 

ZeroGPT Mystery Shopping Experience

Most AI detectors are being bashed because of their high rate of false positives. This means that most platforms tend to mark even those texts that weren’t made with the help of AI as generated. For this reason, our A*Help team organized a special project to find the service that could provide the most accurate results. 

We took 3 different texts: 

1. One 100% human-written
2. Another – 100% AI-generated, 
3. The third one was human-written and then paraphrased with the help of AI. 

We then compared the results given by the AI detector to the factual indexes and included these results under the Detection Accuracy criteria.

Aside from that, we also took into account two more criteria: Value for money and Overall experience. When looking at the first one, we considered the variety of features offered, what kind of writing it could detect (GPT-3.5, GPT-4, Bard, human, etc.), whether it could analyze text files, code, or links, and how much it cost. When evaluating the overall experience, we noted how simple the website experience was, as well as the support and payment systems.

The three criteria put together form an A*Help score which reflects the quality of received service. ZeroGPT has now its rank so let’s see how it earned it.

ZeroGPT’s Value for Money — 16/25

The choice of the AI Detector will, of course, mainly depend on its accuracy. However, it doesn’t mean that all other criteria don’t matter. After all, if you decide to stick to one platform, it’s better if it has an extensive toolkit at a reasonable price rate. 

ZeroGPT didn’t show the versatility we would expect, but it had its benefits to offer. The platform, for example, could detect the use of various AI chatbots and models. The list of detection possibilities started with GPT-3.5 all up to Bard and a mixture of both human and AI efforts. We also noted that the service claimed to have an error rate of just 2% So we were intrigued to see how our testing would go (disclaimer: didn’t get far). 

As to the available features, like a browser and Word extensions, or additional on-site tools, there were hardly any. We found just two things: an option for API integration and a Word Counter.

Another important thing is in what form the service can accept your paper. ZeroGPT offered an option for copy-pasting plain text, however, it also provided an opportunity to upload both Word and PDF files, even in batches. This could make the work process much quicker and easier, especially if you had a few papers that needed to be checked. 

What was the most pleasant was that we used the service completely for free. The limit was only 15k characters per detection. There were paid offers, like a Pro plan for $6.99/month or $83.88 /year or a Zero Compromise subscription for $8.49/month or $101.88/year. These would give you more opportunities and bigger detection limits.

So, what can we say? ZeroGPT definitely has its perks, especially thanks to the free-to-use option and the varied range of AI services and models it can detect. However, the toolkit could be extended a little bit more for that top-ties value-for-money rate.

ZeroGPT’s Overall Experience — 15/25

Your interaction with an online service is very important. Everything needs to be organized simply and smoothly, so you won’t waste your time waiting hours for your document to be uploaded to the website and the detection process to be complete.

Luckily, ZeroGPT was mostly pleasant to work with. The first thing that we liked was that we weren’t required to register or create a profile. This was a plus since creating an account on every platform you decide to use is just tiring. The service was also both pleasant to work with and look at thanks to a simple and handy interface. There were a few ads on the platform though which could be a bit distracting during the work process. The major thing that was missing was an opportunity to print out the final AI-detection report which would be useful in case you needed proof of your human-written work.

The customer service system, nonetheless, could have been much better. For online services, it’s important to be able to report bugs or discuss any other issues occurring on the website. Here, unfortunately, that couldn’t be done since the only support materials available were FAQs, a guide, and a blog. There was not an instant chat or even a report form in sight. So keep in mind that dealing with technical issues here would lie on you.

ZeroGPT didn’t offer the level of convenience we would expect from an online service, but it still was easily usable and quick. If you don’t mind the absence of a customer support system, then you will be able to work on the platform with almost no inconveniences, aside from a few ad banners popping up on the site.

ZeroGPT’s Detection Accuracy —15/50

The most interesting part of our mystery shopping was, of course, the testing of AI detection. To remind you, we had three texts: human-written, AI-generated, and a paraphrased version of the human-written essay. Let’s see how well ZeroGPT handled their evaluation.

Let’s start with the human-written piece. It was a personal essay written by our writer Johannes Helmold on the topic of gratitude. Even though Johannes wrote every word himself, ZeroGPT still marked the piece as AI-generated by 66.64%. Not something we would expect an AI detector to tell us, honestly.

The next text, which was in fact created by artificial intelligence, was, on the contrary, flagged as human-made. It was the same personal narrative essay but fully created with GPT-4. Still, the percentage of AI content detected in this instance was just 16.18%. That might be a great result for someone trying to overcome AI detection, but certainly not for those trying to get rid of generated content.

As to the writing that was a paraphrased version of the human-written essay, it was marked as AI-created by 82.36%. This result mainly shows that if you use the help of a paraphrasing tool to assist you in improving your paper, it’s unlikely that ZeroGPT will still recognize your own writing efforts.

AI Detection Results: 9/30

	Human-written	AI-Generated	Paraphrased
Score	⭐️⭐️(4)	⭐️(1.6)	⭐️⭐️⭐️(3.4)
Detection feedback	Your Text is Most Likely AI/GPT generated – 66.64% AI	Your Text is Human written – 16.18% AI	Most of Your Text is AI/GPT Generated – 82.36%

In general, the results show that ZeroGPT is not the most trustful AI detection service out there. It does have a high false positive rate which may mislead both you and your professor during the assessment of your paper. 

The Final Word

If you were thinking of using ZeroGPT to make sure your work wouldn’t be marked as “AI-written” during grading, maybe think twice. Sure, it’s a popular service that during our evaluation showed to have a great variety of features. The fact that it was also both free and simple to use made it an even more lucrative solution. Nonetheless, we didn’t see it provide us with the level of accuracy we wanted. Of course, the situation may be different in your case. Still, we would look around for some other solutions before sticking to this one. Especially if you don’t want to see those false accusations coming your way.

ZeroGPT’s Specs

> TECH DETECTION
GPT-3.5	✅
GPT-4	✅
ChatGPT	✅
Bard	✅
Human	✅
Human + AI	✅
Trusted in education	✅
> TOOLS
API integration	✅
Browser extension (Chrome)	❌
MS Word	❌
Addit. on-board tools	❌
> DETECTION OPTIONS
files (pdf, word)	✅
simple text (copy-paste)	✅
URL	❌
Code files	❌
Batch files upload	❌
> PRICING PLANS & LIMITS
Free	✅
Free trial	❌
Discounts	✅ Yearly, you save up to 20%, meaning you get 2 months for free
Limits	15 000 Characters per detection
Loyalty	❌
> REGISTRATION
Required	❌
Third-party sign in options	❌
Needs phone number	❌
Personal account	❌
> WEBSITE EXPERIENCE
Aesthetic Interface	✅
Easy-to-use	✅
Quick process	✅
Multi-language detection	✅
Printable report	❌
Clear results	✅
> SUPPORT
Leave a message	❌
Instant chat	❌
Phone	❌
Social media channels	❌
Blog	✅
FAQ and guides	✅

FAQ

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