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Score
5
Filter bait
This is what filters were trained on. Rewrite from the reason you are writing, not from the offer.
88 words in the body
| Phrase | Where | Category | Say instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| “urgent” | subject ×1 | Urgency | Reserve for real emergencies; a cold email is never one. |
| “last chance” | subject ×1 | Urgency | There is no last chance in a cold email; cut it. |
| “10x” | subject ×1 | Overpromise | Give the number from a real case. |
| “100% free” | subject ×1 | Free and offers | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “click here” | body ×1 | Shady | Describe the destination: “the two-page summary is here”. |
| “this isn't spam” | body ×1 | Shady | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “unsubscribe” | body ×1 | Shady | In a cold email a plain sentence does the same legal job: “Tell me if you would rather I did not write again.” |
| “guarantee” | body ×1 | Overpromise | Say what you will do if it fails, in one sentence. |
| “skyrocket” | body ×1 | Overpromise | Give the number from a real case. |
| “revolutionary” | body ×1 | Overpromise | Cut it. |
| “risk-free” | body ×1 | Free and offers | Say what happens if it does not work: “you pay nothing for the setup”. |
| “act now” | body ×1 | Urgency | Say when you will follow up instead: “I’ll write again on Thursday.” |
| “limited time” | body ×1 | Urgency | Name the real date if there is one; otherwise cut it. |
| “offer expires” | body ×1 | Urgency | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “claim your” | body ×1 | Free and offers | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “free trial” | body ×1 | Free and offers | “Try it for 14 days” carries the same fact with less baggage. |
| “no obligation” | body ×1 | Free and offers | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “no strings attached” | body ×1 | Overpromise | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “satisfaction guaranteed” | body ×1 | Free and offers | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “you have been selected” | body ×1 | Free and offers | Cut it, or replace it with the fact behind it. |
| “hi there” | body ×1 | Reader tells | Use the name. |
| “i hope this email finds you well” | body ×1 | Reader tells | Start with the reason you wrote. |
| “my name is” | body ×1 | Reader tells | Your signature says who you are; open with why it matters to them. |
| “i wanted to reach out” | body ×1 | Reader tells | Cut it; you are reaching out by writing. |
| “just checking in” | body ×1 | Reader tells | Say what changed since the last email, or do not send it. |
| “at your earliest convenience” | body ×1 | Reader tells | Give a date. |
Formatting tells
A word in capitals −3
GUARANTEE. One is a habit, three is a pattern.
Exclamation marks −10
5 in total. Cold email needs none.
Doubled punctuation −4
“!!” or “??” reads as a promotion in every filter’s training set.
Fake reply or forward −10
A subject that starts with RE: or FW: on a first email is a known trick, and Gmail treats it as one.
Long subject −3
62 characters; phones show about 40. Say one thing.
Shortened link −8
bit.ly and its cousins hide the destination, which is exactly what filters penalise.
Marked up
RE: URGENT - Last chance to 10x your leads (100% FREE trial!!)
Hi there, I hope this email finds you well. My name is Dan and I wanted to reach out because we GUARANTEE to skyrocket your sales with our revolutionary, risk-free lead generation system. Act now - this limited time offer expires today! Click here to claim your free trial and start making money while you sleep. No obligation, no strings attached, satisfaction guaranteed. This isn't spam - you have been selected. Just checking in, let's hop on a quick call at your earliest convenience!! Unsubscribe: reply STOP. http://bit.ly/3xYz
What it checks
Two things: vocabulary and shape. The vocabulary list has about two hundred phrases in six groups, weighted by how strongly filters and readers react to them. The shape checks are the formatting habits that mark a promotion before a single word is read: capitals, exclamation marks, a fake RE: in the subject, several links, a shortened link, a wall of prices or percentages, emoji, and a body that is too short to be a message or too long to be read on a phone.
Subject-line hits count double, because the subject is the only part of the email that every filter and every reader sees. A phrase found three times in the body counts three times, then stops counting, so one repeated word cannot sink a score on its own.
| Group | Examples | Weight | Who reacts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shady | this is not spam, click here, verify your account, dear friend, bulk email | 3 | Every filter; these phrases appear almost only in spam |
| Urgency | act now, last chance, limited time, expires today, urgent | 2 | Filters and readers; a first email is never urgent to the person receiving it |
| Money | make money, cash, cheap, lowest price, save up to, debt | 2 | Corporate gateways most of all |
| Free and offers | free, free trial, bonus, prize, winner, no obligation, risk-free | 2 | Filters and Gmail's Promotions tab |
| Overpromise | guarantee, 10x, skyrocket, revolutionary, proven, #1 | 2 | Readers first; filters second |
| Reader tells | I hope this email finds you well, just checking in, quick question, reaching out | 1 | Readers only; these do not trip filters, they trip people |
What spam words do and do not do in 2026
The mailbox providers that matter for cold email, Gmail and Microsoft 365, decide placement mostly on things that are not in the text: whether the domain has been sending for weeks or days, whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass, how often recipients open, reply, archive or report, and whether the volume pattern looks like a person or a script. Google publishes the thresholds it cares about, a spam complaint rate under 0.1 percent and never above 0.3 percent, and neither number is about vocabulary.
Words still decide three outcomes. Older secure-email gateways at companies keep keyword weights and will quarantine a message for a pile of promotional phrases. Gmail's Promotions tab is content-driven, and an email that reads like an offer goes there even when it is authenticated and warm. And the reader, who is the only filter that replies, deletes on the first cliché. The score on this page is a proxy for those three, not for the inbox itself.
How to use the score
- 90 to 100, clean. Send it. If it still lands in spam, the problem is the domain, the list or the volume, and the warm-up guide and the infrastructure guide are where to look.
- 70 to 89, a few tells. Fix the listed phrases, remove the exclamation marks, and check the score again. Usually five minutes.
- 40 to 69, reads like a promotion. The email is built around an offer. Rewrite it around the reason you are writing to this person, and keep the offer for the reply.
- Under 40, filter bait. Start again from a blank page. Load the rewrite above the table to see what the same message looks like with the offer taken out.
The rewrite pattern
Every phrase in the list has a plain replacement, and they share one rule: replace the adjective with the fact. “Guaranteed results” becomes what happened for a named customer. “Free trial” becomes fourteen days without an invoice. “Click here” becomes a description of what is on the other side of the link. “I hope this email finds you well” becomes the first sentence of the reason you wrote. Cold email that survives filters and gets replies is not clever; it is specific.
Questions, answered straight
- Do spam words still matter in 2026?
- Less than reputation and far less than people think, but not nothing. Gmail and Outlook decide mostly on your domain's history, authentication, complaint rate and how recipients treat your mail. Words still count in three places: older secure-email gateways at companies, which keep keyword weights; Gmail's Promotions classification, which is content-driven; and the reader, who deletes on the first cliché. A clean score does not put you in the inbox. A bad one keeps you out of it.
- What score should I aim for?
- Ninety or above before you send to a new list, and no single phrase from the Shady category at any score. A first email that reads like a person wrote it usually lands in the eighties or nineties without trying, because it has no offer in it.
- Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
- No. The check runs in your browser with a word list that ships with the page. There is no request to a server, no analytics event with your text in it, and nothing is kept when you leave.
- Why did a normal sentence get flagged?
- Because the phrase list is blunt on purpose. “Free” in “free to disagree” is not a filter problem, and the tool will still mark it. Treat each hit as a question, not a verdict: would a stranger's filter, or a stranger, read this the way you meant it?
- What matters more than words?
- In order: a domain older than a few weeks with SPF, DKIM and DMARC that pass; mailboxes warmed for two to three weeks and held at 8 to 10 cold emails a day; a list where addresses were verified so bounces stay under two percent; a complaint rate under 0.1 percent; and plain text with at most one link. Get those right and the words are a finishing pass.
Published 19 September 2026. Updated 19 September 2026. Written by the team that runs the infrastructure; numbers come from the platform's own provisioning and sending, and from the providers' published documentation at the time of writing.