Will this email land in spam?
Paste your cold email. Trigger words light up by category as you type, and the report grades the structural signals filters weigh: links, images, capitals, punctuation and subject length. Runs entirely in your browser, nothing is uploaded, no signup.
Updated 25 September 2026 // by Mark Glazer, ReplyLead
The short answer: this checker scans your subject and body against 1,130 listed phrases in five categories, and checks links, images, capitals, punctuation and subject length. It returns editorial flags, not an inbox-placement prediction: Google's sender guidelines require authentication and a spam rate below 0.3% (and advise staying below 0.10%); they ask for accurate subjects and display names, and give no list of words to avoid in the body. Use it to clean copy, then check the domain.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent or stored.
Clean copy is the easy half.
Placement is decided by authentication, domain reputation and how you ramp volume. We build and run all of it, and get paid on the revenue we help you close.
How we run deliverability Apply to work with us- 1,130phrases in the checker's list, in 5 categories
- 549of them in the largest category, Salesy phrasing
- 192phrases carry the heaviest weight
- 0.3%the spam-rate ceiling Google and Yahoo require; Google advises under 0.10%
What this spam checker does
This checker scans your draft against 1,130 spam trigger phrases in five categories and checks the structural signals filters weigh - link count, image references, ALL CAPS, exclamation marks and subject length. It grades wording only, runs in your browser, and does not send your email anywhere.
What does the spam checker scan?
Vocabulary across urgency, overpromise, money, shady and unnatural language, each term weighted by severity, plus the structural signals above. The full 1,130-term list is published by category so you can see exactly what it matched and why.
What does a clean result mean?
A clean result means your wording is unlikely to be the reason an email is filtered. It is not a prediction of inbox placement, because wording is the smaller half of the decision.
What if it flags your copy?
Remove the flagged phrases and cut the link count, then stop editing copy. If placement is still poor, the cause is authentication, domain reputation or sending behaviour, and the next step is a SPF, DKIM and DMARC check rather than another rewrite.
Questions about spam filtering
What does this spam checker actually look for?
It scans your copy against 1130 trigger phrases grouped into urgency, overpromise, money, shady and unnatural language, then separately checks the structural signals filters weigh: link count, image references, ALL CAPS, exclamation marks, and subject-line length.
Why do my emails still go to spam with no trigger words?
A text check cannot inspect authentication, provider reputation, recipient engagement or sending history. Those factors and the message content can affect filtering. A clean result here is not evidence that a message reached the inbox.
Do trigger words alone get an email filtered?
Rarely on their own. Modern filters weigh many signals together, so one instance of a flagged word in an otherwise normal message is usually harmless. Density is what hurts: several urgency and money phrases in a short email is a recognisable pattern. That is why this tool weights hard spam phrases heavily and everyday words lightly.
What are the Gmail and Yahoo bulk sender rules?
Google counts roughly 5,000 messages in 24 hours to personal Gmail accounts, aggregated by primary domain; assigned bulk status persists. Yahoo does not publish a fixed volume threshold. Both have requirements for smaller senders as well. Google scope and classification; Yahoo classification. Read the provider requirements and delivery checklist for scope and diagnosis.
How many links should a cold email contain?
One at most. Every extra link divides attention and adds filtering risk, and messages with several links look like marketing rather than a note from a person.
Should cold emails include images or tracking pixels?
Prefer neither. Images raise suspicion and make a one-to-one message read like a campaign, and open-tracking pixels are increasingly blocked or pre-loaded, so they distort your metrics while adding a signal you do not need.
Does this tool send or store my email?
No. The check runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, logged or retained, and there is no signup.
Will passing this check guarantee inbox placement?
No, and be wary of any tool that claims it will. This grades the content signals you control. Placement also depends on authentication, domain reputation, list quality and recipient behaviour, which no content checker can see.
Does a bad score mean I should rewrite from scratch?
Usually not. Trigger vocabulary is normally concentrated in a few phrases rather than spread through the draft, so removing the flagged ones and cutting the link count generally clears it. If the copy is clean and placement is still bad, the problem is authentication or domain reputation, and rewriting the email again will not move it.
The 1,130 phrases it checks, by category
The checker is only as useful as its list, so here is the list, counted. Salesy phrasing is by far the largest category, and most phrases carry the middle weight. A heavier phrase moves the score more, but no single phrase takes more than 6 of the 100 points.
How the score is calculated
Read from the checker's own script: every check starts from 100 and subtracts points; the result is rounded and kept between 0 and 100. Bands: 90 and above "Few text flags", 75 to 89 "Some text flags", 50 to 74 "Many text flags", below 50 "Extensive text flags".
| What it finds | Effect on the score | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Each trigger phrase found | minus its weight: 1, 4 or 6 | capped at 45 points in total |
| More than one link | minus 12 | one link is not flagged |
| Any image tag or image file reference | minus 8 | |
| ALL CAPS words | minus 3 per word, up to 12 | common acronyms such as SPF, DKIM, CEO and B2B are exempt |
| Exclamation marks after the first | minus 3 each, up to 9 | |
| Any em dash | minus 4 | a style preference, not an AI or filter signal |
| Subject over 7 words | minus 4 | |
| No subject | minus 5 | |
| Body under 15 words with a link | minus 6 | |
| Body over 250 words | minus 4 |
What this spam checker actually grades
Filters do not read a single word and reject a message. They score signals in combination, which is why a cold email can contain one flagged term and land fine, while another with four in the same sentence does not. This checker grades the content signals you control, in two parts.
What it cannot tell you
Content is one input among several. This checker cannot inspect authentication, domain reputation, recipient preferences, delivery responses or folder placement. Its rules are editorial heuristics, not a reproduction of Gmail's or Yahoo's filtering model.
If the copy grades well and mail still lands in spam, the cause is almost always upstream. Check authentication with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC checker, then work through why cold emails go to spam and the thresholds in cold email deliverability. Gateway blocks and list decay are covered in why verified lists still bounce.
How to use the result
Treat a flagged term as a prompt to reread the sentence, not an instruction to delete the word. A high-severity term in a sentence that also carries urgency, capitals and a link is a real problem; the same word used plainly in a normal sentence usually is not. Rewrite the clustered sentence, then re-check. The cold email grader scores structure and clarity, which is the other half of whether the message earns a reply, and the full 1,130-word list shows every term with its category and tier.
Want the raw data? The full 1,130-word trigger list is published by category and severity.
Spam words versus real deliverability problems
Removing spam words does not, on its own, fix deliverability. Filters weigh authentication, sending-domain reputation, volume ramp and recipient engagement far more heavily than vocabulary, and a perfectly worded email from an unauthenticated new domain will still land in spam.
The clearest evidence for that is who the recipient is, not what you wrote. We resolved the MX records of every distinct email domain in a 188 million lead database: across 9,058,780 domains, 6.45% sit behind a security gateway such as Proofpoint, Mimecast or Barracuda, and 52.89% are Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. The current population and full method are on who actually receives B2B email. A gateway is a product bought specifically to stop unsolicited mail, and it makes that decision largely before your wording is weighed.
On one campaign we traced every bounce: gateway-protected recipients were 9.5% of the list but 38.2% of the bounces, bouncing at roughly 13% against about 2.2% for everyone else. No amount of trigger-word editing changes that number, because the rejection is a policy about unknown senders rather than a judgement about language.
Why do my emails go to spam when the copy is clean?
Check authentication and alignment, reputation, recent volume changes, recipient expectations, address quality and the actual message. The cause cannot be ranked from the text alone. Use the SPF and DMARC generator to prepare records and the DNS checker to inspect configuration; then verify results in real message headers and delivery diagnostics.
Content problems versus infrastructure problems
- Content, and this tool can see it: trigger vocabulary, shouting, excess links, image-heavy first touches, misleading subject lines.
- Infrastructure, and this tool cannot see it: SPF, DKIM and DMARC alignment, domain age and reputation, warmup, per-mailbox volume, recipient engagement history, and whether the address was ever real.
The practical rule: fix content once, because it is cheap and permanent, then spend the rest of your effort on the second list, because that is where placement is actually decided.
What this checker flags most often
Most drafts that fail here fail on the same few things, and none of them are exotic. In descending order of how often they appear:
- Urgency stacking. "Act now", "limited time" and "don't miss out" in the same short email. Any one of them is survivable; together they read as a template.
- Money language without a mechanism. Phrases about revenue, savings or ROI that are not attached to anything concrete the reader can check.
- Overpromise vocabulary. Guarantees and superlatives that the rest of the email cannot support.
- Too many links. Link count is a structural signal filters weigh directly, and a first touch rarely needs more than one.
- Shouting. ALL CAPS runs and stacked exclamation marks, most often in the subject line.
- Images and tracking pixels in a first touch. They add weight and a reason to be filtered without adding anything the recipient wants.
A clean wording score is not a delivery result. Check the provider response and actual placement evidence separately. This tool does not send a test email or reproduce a receiving provider's decision.
When this page does not apply
- You need to know where an email will land. No copy check can tell you that; placement depends on the sender's reputation, authentication and recipients' responses.
- Your problem is authentication or reputation. Clean copy will not fix a failing SPF, DKIM or DMARC setup; use the deliverability checker.
- You write in a language other than English. The list is English phrases; other languages are not scanned.
- You want a list to write around. Avoiding listed words is not the goal; a relevant, honest email to the right person is.
How this page was built and checked
The checker runs in your browser against the list shown in the chart: 1,130 phrases, each tagged with one of five categories and a weight of 1, 4 or 6, counted from the page's own script on 25 September 2026. It also checks links, image references, capitals, exclamation marks, em dashes, subject length and body length; the scoring table lists every rule. The sender requirements are taken from Google's and Yahoo's own pages, linked below. ReplyLead runs cold email and LinkedIn outbound.
Sources and check dates
ReplyLead's own pages behind this one:
- Cold email grader: eleven checks for a draft, beyond trigger words.
- Deliverability checker: SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your domain.
- Spam trigger words: the phrase lists explained.
- Plain text email: why the format matters.
Outside primary sources, each read on the date shown:
- Google: Email sender guidelines: authentication requirements, a spam rate below 0.3% and the advice to stay below 0.10%. checked 25 September 2026.
- Google: Email sender guidelines FAQ: how Gmail classifies bulk senders. checked 25 September 2026.
- Yahoo Sender Hub: best practices: Yahoo's sender requirements. checked 25 September 2026.
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for business: no deceptive subject lines or headers. checked 25 September 2026.
- RFC 7208, Sender Policy Framework (IETF): how SPF authorizes sending hosts. checked 25 September 2026.
- RFC 9989, DMARC (IETF; obsoletes RFC 7489): how DMARC aligns the From domain with SPF and DKIM. checked 25 September 2026.