Most avoidable print-on-demand returns trace to three unanswered questions: how big is it, is the frame included, and is this a printed item or a digital file. Each is one sentence, and each is missing from most listings because the seller knows the answer and forgets the buyer does not. This free checker scores a description on those questions plus readability — paragraph length, reading ease, and whether the opening line says anything before Etsy collapses it behind "read more". The refund questions are weighted most heavily, because a description that reads beautifully and never says whether the buyer gets a parcel or a download is the expensive kind of good. It runs in your browser with no account.
Check your description
The problem this solves
Description advice is all about keywords and tone, and almost none of it is about the sentences that stop a refund. A seller writes something warm and readable, ships forty listings with it, and finds out six weeks later that buyers keep expecting a frame that was never included.
What it does
The four questions that cost money
Checks whether the description states a size, says anything about framing, mentions dispatch or delivery, and makes clear whether the item is physical or digital. Each is recognised across the many ways sellers phrase it, so a listing that does answer the question is not flagged.
Weighted by what the failure costs
Not an even split. A missing physical-or-digital statement ends in a refund and often a bad review; a slightly short opening line does not. Scoring them equally produced comfortable numbers for descriptions about to generate returns.
Wall-of-text detection
Measures your longest paragraph in words. A 300-word block reads fine on a laptop and is scrolled straight past on the phone most of your buyers are using.
Reading ease
A Flesch reading-ease score, reported as a band rather than a decimal. Below about 60 is harder work than a shopper will do, and shorter sentences fix it faster than simpler words.
The first line, shown back to you
Etsy collapses the description after a short preview, so the opening line does almost all the work. The tool shows you roughly what a shopper sees before "read more".
Where it lives in PSDmate
Free and open on this page. Inside PSDmate, descriptions are generated per design from the rendered image and the product's actual size data, so the size and format lines are populated from what you are really selling rather than remembered.
Questions
How long should an Etsy description be?
Long enough to answer the real questions and short enough that they can be found. Roughly 100 to 400 words suits most print listings. What matters far more than the count is the order: size, what is included, and physical-or-digital belong near the top, not after three paragraphs of atmosphere.
Does the Etsy description affect SEO?
Less than the title and tags, but it is not ignored, and the opening lines carry more weight than the rest. The stronger argument for writing it well is conversion and returns — a description that answers the buyer's question turns a browser into a sale and prevents the refund that follows a wrong assumption.
What should every print listing description say?
The size or sizes in real units, whether a frame is included, what paper or material it is on, whether it is posted or downloaded, and when it dispatches. Those five sentences prevent the overwhelming majority of avoidable messages, returns and three-star reviews in wall art.
Why does the checker care about paragraph length?
Because most Etsy traffic is on a phone, where a 300-word paragraph is a grey wall. Information in a wall of text is functionally absent — the buyer does not read it, then asks you the question it answered, or assumes the answer and is disappointed.
Is my description sent anywhere?
No. The scoring runs entirely in your browser and nothing is transmitted or stored, which matters if you are drafting copy for a product you have not released.
Read more
- Returns, Refunds and Damaged Prints
- How to Get More Etsy Reviews Without Breaking the Rules
- Etsy Character Limits 2026
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