Free tool
Cold email spam test
Send your real cold email to a test address and see what a receiving server actually sees: authentication verdicts, content quality, formatting — scored out of 10, with a fix for everything weak.
Your test address
… Send your cold email to this address — from the exact account and tool you normally send with. Results appear here automatically.
The test analyzes the real message you send: SPF/DKIM/DMARC verification by the receiving edge, content structure, and formatting. Results are stored for 7 days under a random ID and are visible only via this page.
Why test the message, not just the domain
DNS records tell you what a domain claims. The received message tells you what actually happened: whether the sending IP was authorized (SPF), whether the signature survived and aligns with your From domain (DKIM + DMARC), and whether the message itself reads like a personal note or a bulk blast. Most "we're in spam" mysteries live in that gap. Our DNS deliverability checker covers the claims side — this test covers reality.
What the score weighs
The scoring mirrors how modern filters actually work: authentication carries the most weight, then structural content quality — link density, image use, HTML weight, broken personalization tokens, subject formatting. Word choice is a minor signal, because most "spam trigger words" are a myth in 2026 — we only flag phrase patterns that still correlate with low-quality senders.
How to run a test that tells you something
Send from the account you actually use for outreach, not from a personal mailbox — the point is to test the sending path, and a different account has different authentication, reputation and warm-up history. Send a real message from a real campaign rather than a test line: the content checks only mean something if the content is what you would send.
Run the test again after any change to sending infrastructure — a new sending domain, a platform migration, a DNS edit, or the end of a warm-up cycle. Authentication that passed last month can quietly break when a selector rotates or an SPF include is added.
What the verdicts mean in practice
Authentication failures are the ones to fix first and the only ones that fail categorically — there is no partial credit for a broken DKIM. If SPF passes but DMARC fails, the usual cause is alignment: the domain in your From header is not the one that authenticated. That distinction is invisible in most sending tools and is exactly what this test surfaces.
Content flags are advisory. A short message with one link and no images will score well; a heavy HTML template with tracking pixels and five links will not. Neither result is a guarantee, because content is a smaller signal than reputation — but content is the part you control on the day you send.
Broken personalization tokens deserve special mention: a literal placeholder that survives into a sent message is the single most damaging content error, because it tells every recipient at once that they are on a list.
When the test looks fine and mail still lands in spam
This is the common and frustrating case, and it usually means the problem is reputation rather than configuration. A domain that sent too much too early, or collected complaints, keeps failing placement while every technical check passes. Nothing in a single message can reveal that — you need the domain reputation recovery path, which is slower and mostly consists of sending less to people more likely to reply.
The other frequent cause is volume ramped faster than warm-up allows. What warm-up actually does covers the schedule that receivers expect to see.
Frequently asked questions
How does the spam test work?
You get a unique test address and send your cold email to it from your normal sending account. Our receiving server analyzes the actual message — whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC verified on arrival, plus content structure and formatting — and scores it out of 10 with a fix for every weak spot.
How is this different from a DNS deliverability check?
A DNS check reads your domain records from the outside. This test verifies the real email you send: a domain can have perfect DNS and still send mail that fails DKIM alignment or looks like a marketing blast. Run both — they catch different problems.
Is it free? What happens to my email?
Free, no signup. The message is analyzed automatically, the report is stored for 7 days under a random ID visible only on your results page, then deleted.
Does word choice still matter for spam filters?
Far less than folklore says. Modern filters weigh sender reputation, authentication and engagement much more than any "trigger word". The test flags only the phrase patterns that still correlate with low-quality senders — and ignores the myths.