The Story of CopyLint
Last updated: March 2026
CopyLint started with a familiar problem.
In 2024, marketing leader Hayley Spooner was spending hours reviewing copy across campaigns, websites and social channels. Not just her own work, but her team’s too - checking tone, terminology and formatting to make sure everything stayed on brand.
It’s the work that keeps a brand consistent. But when dozens of people are creating content across dozens of channels, manual review quickly becomes a full-time job.
Brand guidelines may exist. Getting everyone to actually follow them is another matter.
Her husband Ben Spooner, a developer, asked a simple question:
If the brand rules already exist, why can’t software check them?
So he built a prototype.
From Guidelines to Governance
The first version of CopyLint could scan copy against brand rules and flag issues before content went live.
It worked - but like many early tools, it had its quirks. While it caught plenty of mistakes, it occasionally introduced a few of its own.
Over the following year the system was refined. Rules became smarter, the checks more reliable, and the results far more useful.
By early 2026, CopyLint was identifying brand issues with over 90% accuracy.
Hayley began using it across her marketing communications. Hours of manual reviews were replaced by automated checks that surfaced issues instantly.
Soon others began using it too. Teams at Neat adopted it internally, and early external users including Endian and Higher started testing it within their own workflows. With Alex joining the project, CopyLint began to grow beyond its original purpose.
What started as a mission to help his stressed out wife, became a farther reaching venture: turning brand guidelines into a system for governing copy across an organisation.
What CopyLint Is (and Isn’t)
CopyLint isn’t designed to replace writers. Writers tend to be quite good at writing.
And it definitely isn’t here to automate creativity.
Instead, it removes the tedious parts of reviewing copy - checking tone, terminology, formatting and brand rules - so writers and marketers can focus on the work that actually matters.
It’s also not an AI writing tool. CopyLint doesn’t generate content.
What it does is make sure the content you already have - whether written by people or AI - stays consistent with your brand.
A Single Source of Truth for Brand Copy
Brand guidelines often live in documents.
Documents get copied, versioned, forgotten and occasionally interpreted… creatively.
CopyLint turns those guidelines into structured rules stored in one place - a single source of truth for how your organisation communicates.
As organisations grow, more people create content across more channels. Without a system to enforce brand rules, consistency slowly erodes.
Those rules can evolve over time and can be tailored by department, team or channel, allowing organisations to maintain consistency while still adapting to different contexts.
Most organisations have brand guidelines. Fewer have systems that ensure they’re actually followed. And almost none enjoy reviewing copy at 10pm to check whether “eBook” should really be “ebook”.
CopyLint started as a simple tool to help one marketing team move faster.
Today it’s becoming a platform for copy governance - helping organisations keep every piece of content confidently on brand.