Catch the wordssending you to spam.
The best email in the world earns nothing if it lands in the junk folder. Paste your subject line and this checker flags the trigger words, shouting caps, and hype punctuation that filters and readers treat as spam, grouped by category, with a plain risk score and the exact words to fix.
Your subject line
Trigger words hurt most in the subject line — it's the first thing both filters and readers judge.
Spam check
Trigger words
5
Categories hit
3
In your copy
FREE money — act now!!! 100% guaranteed, limited time offer
Free / offers
"free", "free money"
Urgency / pressure
"act now", "limited time"
Guarantee / hype
"guaranteed"
1 ALL-CAPS word
Shouting in the subject is one of the oldest spam signals.
3 exclamation marks
Stacked !!! reads as hype to both readers and filters.
Your move
Reaching the inbox is half of it. Earning the open is the other half.
High spam risk — 5 trigger words flagged.
A clean subject line gets delivered; a great one gets opened and clicked. I write email that does both, and the offer underneath that makes opening worth it. Send me a campaign that's underperforming and I'll show you, free, what I'd change.
Plain English
Deliverability is the silent killer of email.
Spam words are terms and patterns that filters, and trained human eyes, associate with junk: 'free money,' 'act now,' '100% guaranteed,' rows of exclamation marks, ALL CAPS, stacked currency symbols. No single one will doom an email, but they accumulate, and the subject line is where they do the most damage because it's the first thing scanned.
Modern spam filtering is mostly about sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and engagement, not a banned words list. But trigger words still matter at the margin, and they matter a lot for Gmail's Promotions tab, where over salesy subjects quietly get sorted away from the inbox your reader actually checks.
This tool scans your subject for known trigger phrases across five categories (get rich, free/offers, urgency, hype, marketing speak), plus structural red flags like all caps and repeated punctuation. It returns a low/medium/high risk verdict and highlights every hit in your own text, so you can rewrite the few words pulling you toward the junk folder without gutting the message.
The formula
Spam risk = trigger phrases + categories hit + structural flags
"FREE money, act now!!!" trips three categories (free/offers, get rich, urgency), adds ALL CAPS and triple exclamation structural flags, and lands at high risk. "The 4 second fix your landing page needs" trips nothing, clean. Same length, opposite fate.
The five categories of trigger words
The phrase families filters and readers treat as promotional. You don't have to avoid every one, but stacking them, especially in the subject, raises your risk fast:
| Category | Example triggers |
|---|---|
| Get-rich / money | "make money", "earn money", "extra cash", "extra income", "fast cash" |
| Free / offers | "free", "100% free", "free gift", "free trial", "free access" |
| Urgency / pressure | "act now", "urgent", "limited time", "limited offer", "expires" |
| Guarantee / hype | "100% satisfied", "guaranteed", "risk-free", "no risk", "no obligation" |
| Marketing-speak | "click here", "click below", "click to", "subscribe", "unsubscribe" |
Source: Mailchimp / ActiveCampaign deliverability guides · 2025
Your subject flagged. Here's the fix.
Multiple 'free / offer' words.
'Free,' 'buy now,' 'lowest price' together scream promotion. Keep at most one, and pair it with genuine specificity so it reads as a real offer, not bait.
Urgency words stacked.
'Act now,' 'urgent,' 'limited time,' 'last chance' in one line is the oldest spam tell. Use a single, true deadline instead of manufactured panic.
ALL CAPS words.
Caps don't add emphasis, they add risk. Use sentence case and let a strong, specific word carry the weight.
Two or more exclamation marks.
Stacked '!!!' reads as hype to filters and people. One mark, at most. Often zero is stronger.
Money symbols and '% off'.
Currency and discount symbols in the subject raise Promotions tab risk. Move the number into the body or phrase the value in words.
How to stay out of the junk folder
01Write like a person, not a billboard
The single best spam defense is a subject that sounds like one human emailing another. Conversational beats promotional almost every time.
02Authenticate your domain
Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This matters more than any word choice, unauthenticated mail gets filtered no matter how clean the copy.
03Earn engagement
Opens and replies teach inbox providers you're wanted. Prune dead subscribers; a list that ignores you drags every send toward spam.
04Limit one promo signal
If you must use a sale word, use exactly one and make it specific. It's the stacking that triggers filters, not a single honest offer.
05Test before you blast
Send to a seed inbox across Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail and check where it lands. Real placement beats any word list guess.
06Watch the preheader too
Filters and readers see the preview text right after the subject. Keep it clean and curiosity driven, not a second sales pitch.
The vocabulary
- Spam trigger word
- A word or phrase associated with junk mail (e.g. 'free money,' 'act now') that nudges filters and readers toward distrust.
- Promotions tab
- Gmail's folder for marketing mail. Over salesy subjects get sorted here, away from the primary inbox.
- Sender reputation
- Inbox providers' running score of your domain and IP based on engagement and complaints, the biggest factor in deliverability.
- SPF / DKIM / DMARC
- Email authentication standards that prove you are who you say you are. Missing them is a fast track to spam.
- Preheader
- The preview text shown after the subject line. Filters and readers both see it, so keep it clean.
Spam questions, straight answers
Less than they used to, but yes, at the margin. Filtering today is driven mostly by authentication, sender reputation, and engagement. But trigger words still hurt your odds, especially in the subject line and for Gmail's Promotions tab. Clean copy is a cheap, easy win on top of the technical fundamentals.
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.