# Brand voice guide template

> A brand voice guide says who you write for, how you sound and which rules and words every piece of copy follows, with examples of each. Copy the example below into your repository or wiki, replace the traits, rules and words with yours, and point every writer and AI tool at the file.

Updated November 8, 2026. Canonical: https://sniptide.com/templates/brand-voice-guide
Open it in the Sniptide editor: https://app.sniptide.com/new?template=brand-voice-guide
Files as JSON: https://sniptide.com/templates/brand-voice-guide.json

## Files

### docs/brand/voice.md

```markdown
# Acme voice

Read this before writing anything a customer will see: the site, emails, the app, the docs and
social posts. It applies to people and to AI tools drafting copy for us.

## Who we write for

Freelancers and small agencies who send invoices between client work. They are busy, they are
not accountants, and they read on their phones.

## How we sound

| We are | So we | We avoid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Plain | Use the words our customers use: invoice, client, paid, late. | Jargon such as "AR", "dunning" and "net terms" outside the docs. |
| Calm | State what happened and what to do next. | Exclamation marks, "Oops!" and urgency we don't mean. |
| Direct | Lead with the answer, then the detail. | Warm-up sentences such as "We're excited to share". |
| Specific | Give numbers, names and dates. | "Faster", "better" or "powerful" without a measure. |

## Rules

1. Write full sentences in the second person: "you" and "your clients".
2. Keep sentences under 25 words, and one idea per sentence.
3. Use sentence case for headings and buttons: "Send invoice", not "Send Invoice".
4. Buttons name the action: "Send invoice", "Export CSV". Never "Submit" or "OK".
5. Errors say what failed and what to do: "The card was declined. Try another card or contact
   your bank."
6. Write numbers as digits, dates as "4 November 2026" and money with the currency: "€1,200".
7. Write Acme with a capital A only. Never ACME or acme.

## Words

| Use | Instead of |
| --- | --- |
| client | customer (for our users' customers) |
| sign in | log in, login (as a verb) |
| paid | settled, remitted |
| team | users, seats (outside billing) |

Never use: revolutionary, seamless, supercharge, game-changing, leverage, unlock.

## Examples

| Situation | Write | Not |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Empty invoice list | No invoices yet. Create your first one to get paid. | Nothing to see here! 🎉 Let's get started on your invoicing journey. |
| Payment received | Northwind paid invoice #1042 (€1,200). | Woohoo! Cha-ching! 💸 |
| Feature announcement | You can now invite your team. Each person gets a role that decides what they can change. | We're thrilled to announce our game-changing new collaboration experience! |
```

## Why keep it as a file [#why-keep-it-as-a-file]

A voice guide in a slide deck gets read once at onboarding. A Markdown file in the repository or the wiki gets read every time, by the people writing copy and by the AI tools drafting it. Claude, ChatGPT and coding agents all follow a short, concrete guide far better than a request to "sound like us", so the same file that keeps your team consistent also keeps the machines consistent.

Keep it to one page. A guide nobody finishes reading doesn't change the copy.

## What each section does [#what-each-section-does]

| Section | What it settles | How to write it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Who we write for | The reader every choice is made for. | One concrete group, with what they know and where they read. |
| How we sound | Three or four traits, each with what it means and what it rules out. | A trait without a "we avoid" column is a wish, not a rule. |
| Rules | Decisions people would otherwise make differently each time. | Numbered, checkable and short. Capitalization, numbers, dates and buttons cover most disagreements. |
| Words | The vocabulary that makes you sound like you. | Pairs of "use" and "instead of", plus a short banned list. |
| Examples | What the rules look like together. | Real situations from your product, with the version you'd reject next to it. |

The examples do the most work. A writer or a model can copy a pattern from three good examples faster than it can apply ten abstract rules.

## Use it with an AI writing tool [#use-it-with-an-ai-writing-tool]

Paste the file into the tool's project instructions, or attach it to the conversation, and ask for a draft that follows it. Then ask the tool to check its own draft against the rules and list any it broke. In a repository, link the guide from your [AGENTS.md](/templates/agents-md) so coding agents follow it when they write interface copy and error messages.

## Variant: a voice section inside AGENTS.md [#variant-a-voice-section-inside-agentsmd]

When the full guide is too long for agent instructions, keep the rules that catch the most mistakes:

```md title="AGENTS.md"
## Interface copy

- Follow docs/brand/voice.md. In short:
- Sentence case for headings and buttons. Buttons name the action ("Send invoice").
- Errors say what failed and what to do next, in full sentences.
- Never use: revolutionary, seamless, supercharge, leverage.
```

For a launch, the [launch announcement template](/templates/launch-announcement) shows the voice applied to a post and its social copy.