What is a passive voice checker and why do you need one?
A passive voice checker is a tool that scans your writing and flags every sentence where the subject receives an action rather than performs one. In a passive sentence, the object of the action becomes the sentence's subject — the grammatical focus shifts away from the person or thing doing something. "The report was written by the team" is passive. "The team wrote the report" is active. The meaning is identical, but the second version is shorter, clearer, and more direct.
Most writers don't notice when they slip into passive voice — it tends to creep in during editing, in technical writing, and whenever you're trying to sound formal or avoid naming the person responsible for something. Our free passive voice detector makes the invisible visible: paste your text, click the button, and every passive construction is highlighted in yellow so you know exactly what to review.
How does passive voice work?
Passive voice is formed by combining a form of the verb "to be" with a past participle. The "to be" verbs are: am, is, are, was, were, be, been, and being. When one of these is followed by a past participle (a verb form typically ending in -ed, or irregular forms like written, known, given, made, seen), the result is a passive construction.
Some common examples that our passive voice finder catches:
- "was written" — passive
- "is known" — passive
- "were given" — passive
- "has been approved" — passive
- "will be sent" — passive
- "is being reviewed" — passive
It's worth noting that not all passive constructions are wrong. "The law was passed in 1995" is perfectly appropriate — the law, not the legislators, is the focus. "Mistakes were made" in a political apology is a well-known example of passive voice used intentionally to avoid assigning blame. The goal isn't to eliminate passive voice entirely — it's to use it consciously and sparingly.
When passive voice hurts your writing
Blog posts and web content
Active voice is almost always better for web content. It's shorter, punchier, and reads more naturally. Passive constructions make blog posts feel academic and distant — readers expect to be spoken to directly, not read a formal report. If your passive rate is above 15–20% on a blog post, it's worth reviewing the highlighted phrases and rewriting as many as you naturally can.
Marketing and sales copy
Passive voice is the enemy of persuasive writing. "Your results are guaranteed by us" is weaker than "We guarantee your results." The active version puts the company on the line. In landing pages, email campaigns, and product descriptions, active voice creates urgency and accountability — both of which drive conversions.
Academic and business writing
Academic writing traditionally favoured passive voice to create an objective, impersonal tone — "the experiment was conducted" rather than "we conducted the experiment." This convention is shifting. Many journals and business writing guides now recommend active voice because it's clearer and easier to read. Even in formal contexts, aim for a passive rate under 20%.
SEO content
From an SEO perspective, passive voice contributes to lower readability scores. Google's quality raters look for content that reads naturally and serves the reader's intent. Content with heavy passive voice tends to score lower on readability tests like the Flesch-Kincaid scale, which can be a signal of lower quality. Keeping your passive rate low is one of the easiest ways to improve readability without changing your content's substance.
How to rewrite passive voice as active
The pattern for converting passive to active is straightforward once you recognise it. Find who or what is performing the action (often after "by"), make that the subject of the sentence, and restructure accordingly.
Here are the steps:
- Identify the passive phrase (the "to be" verb + past participle)
- Find the agent — the person or thing doing the action (look for "by [someone/something]")
- Make the agent the subject of a new sentence
- Use the active form of the verb
- Place the original object after the verb
Example: "The contract was signed by the director last Friday." → "The director signed the contract last Friday." The meaning is exactly the same. The active version is four words shorter and puts the director — the actual actor — front and centre.
When there's no "by" phrase (the agent is unknown or unimportant), you have a choice: either name an agent if you know one, or accept that passive voice is the right call here. "The building was demolished in 2003" is fine passive — we may not know or care who demolished it.
What makes PureTextTools' passive voice checker different?
There are a handful of free online passive voice checkers available, but most have significant limitations. Here's what sets ours apart:
Passive rate percentage
Most tools just count passive phrases. We go further — we show you your passive rate as a percentage of total sentences. This gives you a much more useful number. Finding 5 passive phrases in a 10-sentence paragraph is very different from finding 5 in a 200-sentence article. The percentage tells you whether passive voice is a problem or barely present.
Works entirely in your browser
Your text is never sent to a server. The entire analysis happens in your browser using JavaScript. This means you can safely paste confidential documents, unpublished drafts, client content, and anything else without any privacy concern. Everything stays on your device.
No word limits, no login
Most grammar tools limit how much text you can check for free. We don't. Paste an entire article, a full essay, a long email — the tool handles it all without cutting you off or asking you to create an account.
Real-time highlighting
Passive phrases appear highlighted directly in the output panel, in context. You can read through your text with the highlights visible and decide — sentence by sentence — which ones to rework and which to leave. This is faster and more useful than a list of flagged sentences divorced from their surrounding text.
Frequently asked questions
No. Passive voice is a legitimate grammatical construction with genuine uses — when the agent is unknown, unimportant, or better left unmentioned. "She was born in 1985" is passive and perfectly correct. The problem is overuse, not the construction itself. Aim to use passive voice deliberately, not by default.
For most web content, blog posts, and marketing copy, aim for a passive rate under 10%. For academic and technical writing, under 20% is a reasonable target. Grammarly's threshold for flagging "passive voice misuse" is typically any passive phrase that has a clear active alternative — which is a good rule of thumb regardless of your overall rate.
The tool highlights passive phrases and shows you the passive rate, but it doesn't automatically rewrite your sentences. Automatic rewriting tends to produce awkward or inaccurate results because context matters — the tool shows you what to review, and you make the editorial decision about how to rewrite it.
The tool uses a regex-based approach that catches the most common passive constructions — "to be" verbs followed by common past participles. It's very accurate for standard English passive voice. It may miss some irregular forms or unusual constructions, and it may occasionally flag a non-passive phrase that happens to match the pattern. For most content, it catches the vast majority of passive phrases.
No. All processing happens in your browser. Your text never leaves your device and is not stored, logged, or shared with anyone. You can paste sensitive drafts safely.
Grammarly is a full grammar suite that runs in the cloud — your text is sent to their servers for analysis. Our tool runs locally in your browser with no data transmission. Grammarly also requires an account and has a subscription model for full access. PureTextTools is completely free with no account required and no word limits.