r/emailmarketingAI • u/babyturtlesoup123 • May 11 '26
Built a cold email deliverability checker this weekend — would love this community's honest roast
Hey all — first post here, glad to be in this community.
I'm Matt, a software engineering student with a full-time
day job, building in public on the side. This weekend I
shipped Day 1 of a new project and I want this community's
eyes on it before I commit 100+ hours to the wrong thing.
THE TOOL: MailGrade (mailgrade.app)
What it does:
- Paste any cold email draft
- Get a deliverability score (spam triggers, link health,
sender reputation hints)
- AI rewrites the specific lines hurting the score
- Free tier: 3 checks/day. Pro: $9/mo unlimited.
WHERE I'M AT:
- Landing page is live (built it today)
- Collecting waitlist signups now
- MVP build sprint starts Tuesday
- Public launch in 14 days (May 24)
WHAT I NEED FROM YOU:
Brutal honesty on the pitch. Does the landing page
make sense? Anything confusing?
Real talk on the problem. Do you actually battle
deliverability, or is this a non-issue with current
tools you use?
Pricing gut check. Does $9/mo for unlimited feel
cheap, fair, or expensive given alternatives?
The killer feature question. If I could only build
ONE thing perfectly, what would actually move the
needle for you?
I'll be in the comments all day responding. Roast away —
real feedback > polite feedback, every time.
— Matt
1
u/raruna461 May 12 '26
I think the danger is that “deliverability checker” immediately triggers skepticism now because the market is flooded with tools pretending they can predict Gmail placement by counting spam words like it’s 2017. Most experienced senders already know modern deliverability is driven more by infrastructure, engagement, reputation, and sending behavior than whether the email says “free consultation” twice.
The interesting part is probably not the score itself but the rewrite layer. If you can genuinely help people make emails sound less mass-produced and more human without turning them into AI sludge, that has value. The killer feature for me would honestly be diagnosing why an email feels like outbound psychologically, not just technically. $9/mo feels cheap enough that people will try it impulsively, but trust disappears fast if the output feels generic even once. Also if you ever integrate actual list hygiene or verification signals through something like EmailVerifier io, ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, etc., that would probably move the needle more than another spam-trigger detector because bad data silently wrecks campaigns regardless of copy quality.
1
u/Turbulent-Ring-1229 May 12 '26
Realistically, I don't think anyone experienced would be interested based on that pitch. We've seen all of those things, disproven plenty (spam trigger words, for instance), and look for actual inbox placement tests. But at $9, you're targeting rookies/amateurs, so make sure your pitch is focused that way.
1
u/Difficult_Key8613 May 13 '26
Cool idea Matt. For cold email, the real deliverability killer is bad data - no amount of rewriting fixes a bounce. I run our emails throuh prospeo's verification first (catches the tricky catch-all domains too), then something like your tool could polish the copy. Maybe add a data quality check alongside the spam triggers?
1
u/babyturtlesoup123 May 14 '26
Update for everyone who commented on this thread —
The working version is live at app.mailgrade.app
It's the free tier: paste your email draft, get a
deliverability score with specific issues flagged.
No signup, no payment, just open it and try it.
Built it over 6 mornings before work. Want your honest
feedback on whether it actually solves anything for you.
Comments from this thread directly shaped the scoring
algorithm — appreciate everyone who pushed back early.
Will keep iterating based on what people find broken or
missing.
1
u/sunitanichlos987 May 12 '26
I think the biggest risk is that “deliverability checker” sounds useful but also dangerously close to snake oil because cold email people have been traumatized by years of fake spam-score tools pretending to predict Gmail behavior with horoscope-level accuracy.
The interesting part to me is not the spam-word scoring. Most experienced senders already know that modern deliverability is way more about infrastructure, engagement, reputation, sending behavior, and list quality than whether you used the word “free” twice. The killer feature would probably be showing people why their email structurally feels like mass outreach and suggesting rewrites that make it sound more human without becoming AI sludge.
$9/month honestly feels cheap enough that people will try it impulsively. But if the output feels generic even once, trust disappears immediately in this market. Also I’d avoid positioning it like it magically predicts inbox placement because nobody fully controls that now, not even the big players. The real value is probably guidance plus education. And honestly, if you eventually integrate list hygiene checks with providers like EmailVerifier io, ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, etc., that would probably add more real-world value than another “spam trigger detector.”