Message Pressure Check

Updated October 23, 2026.

How it works

The tool makes four plain passes over the text. Each is a count or a match, so you can repeat any of them by hand.

1. Words, sentences and questions. A word is a run of letters or digits, so “risk-free” and “don’t” each count once. A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or line break. Abbreviations such as “e.g.” can split a sentence early, so read the sentence figures as approximate. Questions are the number of question marks.
2. Sentence length. The average is words divided by sentences. The longest is the word count of the single longest sentence. If it passes 35 words the note says so, because a reader may need two passes.
3. “You” against “I” and “we”. One side counts you, your, yours, yourself and their contractions. The other counts I, me, my, mine, myself, we, us, our, ours, ourselves and their contractions. The two numbers are shown side by side with no target ratio, because no research-backed ideal is reported.
4. Phrase matches. Matching ignores capital letters and reads curly apostrophes as straight ones. A phrase has to appear as whole words, so “hurry” does not match inside a longer word. Every occurrence counts. Wording that offers a way to say no is counted from a second short list (“up to you”, “your call”, “feel free to say no”, “fine to say no”, “okay to say no”, “if you'd rather not”, “if it doesn't fit”, “if it does not fit”, “no worries if”, “if now isn't a good time”).

How the verdict is worded. It reports a count of listed phrases, for example “3 listed pressure phrases found” or “no listed pressure phrases found”. It never says a message is good, bad or persuasive.

The full phrase list (55 phrases in 7 groups)

• False-urgency wording (17): “act now”, “act fast”, “hurry”, “last chance”, “only today”, “today only”, “limited time”, “ends tonight”, “ends soon”, “final call”, “before it's too late”, “time is running out”, “running out of time”, “don't wait”, “don't delay”, “while you still can”, “this won't last”.
• Scarcity wording (8): “limited spots”, “limited availability”, “only a few left”, “almost gone”, “selling fast”, “while supplies last”, “spots are filling up”, “once it's gone”.
• Demand wording (6): “you must”, “you have to”, “you need to”, “you can't afford to”, “no excuses”, “don't you want”.
• Fear-of-missing-out wording (5): “don't miss out”, “everyone else is”, “you'll regret”, “you will regret”, “don't be left behind”.
• Assertion in place of evidence (8): “everyone knows”, “everybody knows”, “obviously”, “any reasonable person”, “trust me”, “believe me”, “i promise you”, “no one will tell you”.
• Certainty and risk-free claims (7): “guaranteed”, “no risk”, “risk-free”, “zero risk”, “can't lose”, “can't fail”, “100%”.
• Guilt and obligation wording (4): “if you really cared”, “if you cared”, “after everything i've done”, “don't let me down”.

The rewrite pattern for each group

• False-urgency wording. State the real deadline and the reason for it, or remove the deadline wording. If you cannot name who set the deadline and why, leave it out.
• Scarcity wording. Give the actual number or limit and where it comes from, or drop the claim.
• Demand wording. Say what you are asking for as a request, and name what they can do instead: "I would like X. If that does not suit you, tell me what would."
• Fear-of-missing-out wording. Say what is on offer and what waiting really costs, in plain words, and leave a clear way to say no.
• Assertion in place of evidence. Replace the assertion with what it stands in for: the source, the fact or your own reasoning, and mark which is which.
• Certainty and risk-free claims. Say what you know and how you know it, include what could go wrong, and describe outcomes as possible rather than promised.
• Guilt and obligation wording. Say what you want and how you feel in your own words, and leave the decision with them.

Where the list comes from. The list is this tool’s own, written for personal and professional messages. It borrows the idea of urgency and scarcity wording from published work on interface design. Mathur and colleagues (2019) crawled about 11,000 shopping websites and catalogued countdown timers, limited-time messages and low-stock messages, and in their data some timers reset while the offer was still available. The Federal Trade Commission’s staff report (September 2022) names countdown timers on offers that are not actually time-limited and claims that an item is almost sold out when supply is ample. Both studied web interfaces. Neither tested this phrase list, and neither reports that any phrase in it changes how a reader responds. Effect of these phrases on readers: Not reported.

Limits. A listed phrase can be honest. “Last chance” is accurate when registration really closes tonight, and the pattern then is to say the date and the reason. A message with no listed phrase can still pressure through tone, timing or the relationship between you and the reader. The thresholds and the list are this tool’s own rules of thumb, not research findings or benchmarks.

Worked example

The box above starts with an illustrative message written for this page, not a real one. It has 51 words in 6 sentences, an average of 8.5 words per sentence and a longest sentence of 15 words. It asks 1 question. It has 3 “you” words and 1 “I” or “we” word (the “me” in “trust me”), and no listed wording that offers a way to say no.

It matches 8 listed pressure phrases: “last chance”, “spots are filling up” and “ends tonight” (urgency and scarcity wording), “you have to” (demand wording), “everyone knows” and “trust me” (assertions in place of evidence), “guaranteed” (a certainty claim) and “don’t miss out” (fear-of-missing-out wording).

The rewrite states the real deadline and its reason, names the cause of the price change, and leaves a way to say no. Run through the tool, it shows no listed pressure phrases and one piece of wording that offers a way to say no. The dates are invented for this example.