Free cold email spam word checker.

The checker scans your subject line and body against a curated list of phrases known to trigger spam filters and Gmail/Outlook's promotions classifier, things like "act now", "100% free", and "click here", plus subject-line formatting issues like ALL CAPS or repeated punctuation. Each phrase carries its own weight, so "make money fast" or "this is not spam" adds far more than "amazing" or "guarantee". A subject that is mostly capital letters adds to the score, as does stacked punctuation like !! or ??. The total is a 0-100 risk score: under 15 is low, 15 to 39 moderate, 40 and over high.

Honest caveat: modern Gmail and Outlook filters are ML-based and mostly don't care about individual words like "free" anymore. See chapter 7 of our deliverability guide for which content patterns are real signals and which are 2008-era myths. Authentication and reputation matter far more, so check them with the free deliverability checker and the email HTML checker. For the whole cold outbound setup, see the cold email setup guide.

Flagged wording falls into four kinds. Knowing which one a match belongs to tells you whether it's worth rewriting or safe to ignore in a one-to-one cold email:

• Urgency: "act now", "limited time", "don't miss out", "expires soon". These read as mass-blast pressure tactics, the opposite of a genuine one-to-one note, so worth cutting regardless of filter risk.
• Money / free: "100% free", "guaranteed", "make money", "no cost". Low filter risk on their own in 2026 (see the FAQ below), but they still make a first-touch email read as promotional.
• Exaggerated claims: "best in the world", "risk-free", "instant results", "once in a lifetime". These hurt reply rate more than deliverability, recipients skim past superlatives.
• Formatting: ALL CAPS subject lines, repeated punctuation ("!!!", "???"), excessive emoji, or a subject line that's mostly a link. These are the patterns legacy keyword filters still weight most heavily, so they're the highest-value fixes if your score comes back high.

Early spam filters worked from a blocklist of words. Modern filters are statistical and machine-learned. They weigh many weak signals together, and no public source publishes the exact weights. What is well understood is the shape of the approach: a single word like "free" carries little weight, while a combination of an urgent subject, several links, a tracking pixel and an unknown sender adds up.

That is why the same sentence can reach the inbox from one sender and spam from another. The score here measures how promotional your copy looks, not a pass or fail from Gmail.

The list below shows what tends to read as mass marketing. It is a guide to wording, not a ban list. Use any of these when they are true and relevant to one specific person.

Copy is one input among several, and usually not the biggest. Google's and Yahoo's sender rules for bulk senders ask for SPF, DKIM and DMARC, one-click unsubscribe, and a spam complaint rate below 0.1% that never reaches 0.3% (Google's email sender guidelines). A message with spotless wording can still be filtered if:

• the sending domain has no DMARC record or fails alignment,
• the mailbox is brand new and has never exchanged real mail,
• earlier campaigns drew complaints or bounced heavily,
• the domain or sending IP is on a blocklist.

Check the first and last of those with the DMARC checker and the blacklist checker. A new mailbox needs a gradual ramp-up, which is what email warmup does.

The rewrite drops the capitals, the stacked punctuation and every trigger phrase. More important, it names one person and one observation, has no link, and asks a question that is easy to answer. A reply is the strongest positive signal a sender can earn.

• Links. One link, or none, in a first message. Shortened URLs and links to a domain unrelated to your sender domain look suspicious. Many cold senders leave links out of the first email entirely.
• Images. Avoid image-only emails and large banners. Text-heavy plain messages look like personal mail, which is what you are trying to send.
• HTML. Keep markup minimal. Broken or bloated HTML is easy to catch with the email HTML checker.
• Tracking. Open-tracking pixels and wrapped click links add third-party domains to your message. Turn them off while you are building reputation.
• Length. Under about 120 words is a common rule of thumb, not a rule from any mailbox provider.

Use the checker as a first pass, then test with the real thing. Send the email to a few seed mailboxes you control at Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo and see where it lands. Open the message in Gmail and choose "Show original" to confirm SPF, DKIM and DMARC all say PASS. The deliverability checker reads the domain side of the same question.

Expect false positives. A phrase can be flagged when it is perfectly accurate, such as "free trial" for a product that has one. If the claim is true and relevant, keeping it is reasonable. Rewrite when the phrase is vague, exaggerated or not something you would say to a colleague. If your emails still reach spam with clean copy, the cause is usually the sender, and the guide to fixing the Gmail spam folder walks through it. Warmerly plans start at $19/month with a 7-day trial; see pricing. It improves the sender side, and it cannot guarantee placement.