Answer the questions.
Tell the checker what you are seeing, when it started and how you send. Seven quick questions, no account, nothing uploaded.
Free tool · runs in your browser
Free Email Deliverability Checker — find out why you’re hitting spam
Answer 7 quick questions and get a plain-English diagnosis of why your email is hitting spam — and the staged fix for your specific cause. Runs entirely in your browser.
Runs in your browser · nothing uploaded · no signupThis is a guided diagnostic — not an inbox-placement test, an SPF/DKIM DNS lookup or a blocklist check. It reasons from your answers to point you at the most likely cause and the fix. Deliverability ultimately lives with your list and your ESP.
The diagnostic
What the Email Deliverability Checker diagnoses
Deliverability failures come down to five causes — a list problem, an engagement problem, an authentication problem, a migration problem or a content problem. These are the six root causes the checker weighs against your answers.
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Poor list quality
Purchased, rented or scraped contacts, stale addresses and spam traps drag your reputation down faster than anything else — and breach most ESPs’ terms.
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Low engagement over time
Sending to people who never open teaches inbox providers your mail is not wanted, and placement decays campaign by campaign.
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Missing or broken authentication
SPF, DKIM and DMARC prove you are allowed to send. Missing or misconfigured, they can send perfectly healthy mail straight to spam.
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Sudden volume spikes
A new domain, or a sharp jump in send volume with no warm-up, reads as a spammer’s pattern to inbox providers.
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Content flagged by spam filters
Bloated HTML, image-only emails, a missing unsubscribe link or dead links trip content filters before a human ever sees the message.
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Spam-trap hits
Recycled or pristine trap addresses on an old or bought list quietly mark you as a sender to distrust.
The one heuristic that matters
List problem or authentication problem? How to tell
Most “why am I in spam” advice never draws this line. One question separates the two causes people confuse most: did placement slip gradually, or drop in a day?
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Gradual decline → list and engagement
If open and click rates have eroded across several campaigns, the cause is almost always your list — dead weight and disengaged contacts pulling reputation down. The fix is hygiene and a staged engagement re-warm, not DNS.
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Sudden drop → authentication
If delivery fell off a cliff right after you changed your domain, from-address or ESP, suspect authentication. SPF, DKIM or DMARC that never got set up can crater a healthy list overnight.
How it works
Answer, diagnose, fix the right thing.
Read your diagnosis.
The checker ranks the likely cause — a list, authentication, migration, engagement or content problem — and names the contributing factors.
Follow the fix.
Each cause comes with a staged playbook. Fix the right thing instead of guessing, and watch placement recover.
Questions
Email deliverability, in plain language.
Why are my emails going to spam?
Usually one of five causes: a low-quality or non-permission list, low engagement decaying your reputation, missing or broken domain authentication, an unwarmed new domain or ESP, or content that trips spam filters. The Email Deliverability Checker asks about each and ranks the most likely one for your situation.
Is it a list problem or a technical authentication problem?
The quickest tell is the timing. A gradual decline across several campaigns points to your list and engagement. A sudden drop right after you changed your sending domain, from-address or ESP points to authentication. The checker leads with exactly this distinction.
What are SPF, DKIM and DMARC?
Three records that prove you are allowed to send for your domain: SPF authorises the sending servers, DKIM signs the message, and DMARC tells receivers what to do when a check fails. You set all three in your ESP’s domain settings — never in the email template itself.
How do I warm up a new sending domain or ESP?
Ramp gradually and lead with your most engaged contacts: campaign one to people active in the last 7 days, campaign two to 14 days, campaign three to 21 days, widening until the metrics hold. Import a suppression list so stale addresses from the old platform are never mailed.
Are my answers uploaded anywhere?
No. The Email Deliverability Checker runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are never sent to a server, logged or stored — you can disconnect from the network after the page loads and it still works.
Can EmailTemple fix my deliverability?
Honestly, only part of it. EmailTemple fixes the content-side automatically on every generation — lean HTML under the clip limit, a visible unsubscribe, live text and alt attributes. Your list, your domain authentication and your sender reputation stay with you and your ESP. The checker is careful to say which is which.
Fix the part you control
Ship email that clears the content bar automatically.
EmailTemple generates templates that already pass the content-side deliverability checks — lean HTML under the clip limit, a visible unsubscribe, live text, alt attributes — from a single sentence. The rest, your list and your domain, stays yours. We make sure the email itself never trips a filter.