Is There a Website That Analyzes Text Messages for Coercive Control?
Reviewed by Jacob Reed, founder of Verity ·
Short answer
Yes. Carlton Research's free “Is This Coercive Control?” page, DARVO.app, Tether and Verity's free text check name the tactics in a message you paste in. Dispute Buddy and Verity read a whole conversation. Coercive control is a pattern over time, so one message rarely shows it; a tool that reads months of messages and keeps their dates shows more. Verity does that in your browser, without uploading the conversation. No website can tell you whether what happened meets your state's legal definition.
Coercive control rarely looks like one terrible message. It looks like hundreds of ordinary-seeming ones: where are you, who was that, why didn't you answer. That is why people look for help seeing it.
What does coercive control look like in texts?
- Monitoring. Demands to know where you are, with whom, and proof of it: photos, location sharing, call logs.
- Isolation. Pressure to drop friends or family, or anger when you see them.
- Rules and punishment. Rules about money, clothes, phone use or replying, and a cold or angry reaction when one is broken.
- Threats. To leave, to take the children, to tell others things, to hurt themselves or you.
- Control of money. Withholding money, checking every purchase, or debts run up in your name.
- Demands for instant replies. Message after message until you answer, and anger about any gap.
More in proving coercive control with text messages and our state-by-state guide to how family courts treat it.
Why one message is not enough
“Where are you?” is an ordinary question once. Forty times a day, with anger when it goes unanswered, it is something else. A checker that reads one pasted message can name the tactic in it, but only the whole conversation shows how often, how long, and what happened when you said no. That is also what a lawyer or court will want to see.
Which websites analyze texts for coercive control?
1.Carlton Research: Is This Coercive Control?
A free page where you paste a message and an AI names the coercive control tactics its words may show, such as monitoring, threats or isolation, with a short reason for each. The page does not say how pasted text is stored.
2.DARVO.app and Tether
Paste-in checkers for manipulation more broadly. DARVO.app has a free tier and a $14.99 a month plan, and its security page says pasted text is read by Anthropic’s Claude. Tether is free and anonymous, and says messages are not stored and the analysis runs through Hugging Face. See Tether vs. Verity.
3.Dispute Buddy
A desktop app that reads years of messages, from an iPhone by cable or from OurFamilyWizard, AppClose and TalkingParents PDFs, and reports patterns including coercive control. It says processing stays on your computer except for its full behaviour analysis, which sends selected messages to its cloud. See Dispute Buddy vs. Verity.
4.Verity
Reads a whole exported conversation, or screenshots, in your browser, so the messages are not uploaded. Coercive control is one of the patterns it checks, alongside threats, isolation tactics, financial control, demands for replies and message flooding, with every flagged message kept with its date. Its free text check reads a few pasted messages, also in your browser. See the free text check.
Keep yourself safe while you check
Someone who controls you may also check your phone, computer or accounts. Use a private window, check your browsing history afterwards, and think twice before installing an app whose icon they could see. Verity runs in the browser with nothing to install, and has a quick-exit button on every page. If you are in danger, call 911. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788) can help you make a safety plan.
What can't these websites do?
They read words and timing, not intent. A tool can miss control that is worded kindly and flag an ordinary argument. None can say whether the behavior meets your state's legal definition; only a lawyer and a court can. Our methodology page sets out what Verity measured and where it falls short.
Where does Verity fit?
You export the conversation, or pick screenshots, and Verity reads it in your browser. The free preview shows the patterns it found across the whole conversation, with one flagged message in full, and lets you read every message on screen. Paid options are one-time: every message numbered in date order ($19), or a report quoting the flagged messages with their dates, grouped by pattern, which comes with the numbered list ($99 Standard, $149 Detailed).
This is general information, not legal advice, and Verity is not a law firm. We make Verity, so weigh what we say about it accordingly. Other tools' features and prices are as their own sites described them on October 20 and 22, 2026, and can change.
See the pattern across the whole conversation
Try the sample, or check your own export free. It is read in your browser and is not uploaded.