Empty state copy: what 360 SaaS empty screens actually say

By Screenrove editorial · 22 October 2026

We read the empty state copy on 360 SaaS screens: 'your first' and 'yet' headlines, search wording on first run, misused filter tips and lines that work.

The most common mistake in empty state copy is not tone, it is tense. A brand-new account opens a blank list and the product talks as if a search just failed: Bolt says "No projects found", Prezi puts a no-results magnifier over "No projects to show", and Clockify says "Try adjusting the filters to get some results." before a single expense exists.

We read the headline and button label recorded for all 360 screens on our empty states wall, counted the formulas, then checked the screenshots. This piece is only about the words. Here is what the headlines say, where copy gets reused in the wrong place, which no-results messages actually help, and the lines that explain a blank screen better than any illustration.

Three headline formulas cover most empty state copy

324 of the 360 screens have a readable headline. Most of them fall into a handful of shapes:

The three formulas do different jobs. "No X" states a fact and stops. "Yet" adds a promise that this will change: Gamma's "No custom themes... yet" sounds encouraging before its body line, "Build a theme or import a PPT to get started.", gives the steps. "Your first …" goes furthest, because it names the object and the verb in one line, so the headline is already the instruction. Checkly uses it on three empty pages (dashboards, heartbeats, status pages), and Amplitude's "Watch your first session replay" promises the reward rather than the chore.

Count the button too and "first" appears on 25 screens from 18 products. PostHog keeps it out of the headline entirely: its Experiments, Feature flags and Surveys pages are headed with the section name and the button carries "Create your first experiment". Dribbble is the one case where button and headline are word for word the same, "Upload your first shot", which is redundant but impossible to misread.

Buttons are far less varied than headlines. Of the 238 screens with a recorded button label, 121 (51%) start with Create, Add or New. The headline is where the copy gets a chance to say something.

First-run screens that talk like a failed search

"Found" and "detected" are search words. They imply the user looked for something and the product came back empty-handed. Six first-use or cleared screens use them anyway: Bolt, Glasp ("No Highlights Found"), Sanity ("No documents found"), Taskade ("No apps found") and two Gamma pages ("No gammas detected").

Most of them repair it in the next line. Bolt follows with "Create your first project to get started!", Sanity with "All documents you can access will appear here", and Glasp lays out 14 import sources from Kindle to CSV Import. The fix is cheap: the second line in each case would have made a better headline than the first.

The same copy in the wrong context

Empty states are usually built as one component and dropped into every list. The words travel with it, even when the situation changes.

Raindrop shows "No bookmarks / Add a link or drop a file here." with the same two buttons, Install browser extension and Import bookmarks, in four views: All bookmarks on a new account, Unsorted, a nested collection, and Unsorted again after we had saved bookmarks.

Three more cases from the wall:

• Prezi uses a magnifier with an x, a no-results glyph, over "No projects to show" on All projects for a brand-new account and on an unfiltered Shared with me.
• Gamma reuses "No gammas detected" on Sites with "Try changing your filters or view all gammas." while only the All tab is selected. The Trash version gets its body copy right: "You haven't deleted any gammas. But if you do, they'll appear here."
• Clockify shows "No results" and filter advice on Expenses in a workspace with no expenses and no visible filter beyond a Teammates dropdown.

In each case the component is fine. What is missing is a branch: first use, filtered to nothing, and cleared are three different states and need three different sentences.

No-results copy that names a cause

The wall has 19 no-results screens. The useful ones do one of two things: repeat the query so you can see your typo, or say why the list is empty.

Grammarly writes "None of your documents contain “synthesis”". Kapwing says "No projects found for "mountain". Try searching for something else." StackBlitz names the fields it searched: "No Projects found with title, slug or description matching django." Taskade goes one step further and offers to widen the search to all projects, comments and workspaces, with a Ctrl Enter shortcut.

Slack's "Nothing turned up" lists three things to try (different keywords, checking for typos, adjusting filters) plus a "Give feedback" link. Mixpanel is the rare one that names a product cause: "This may be due to the sampling rate or the current filters that have been applied," with an "Increase Sampling Rate" button beside View Docs. If your product can be the reason a list is empty, say so.

Copy that does the explaining

The strongest lines on the wall do not describe the emptiness. They describe what the space is for.

Todoist heads its empty Inbox "Capture now, plan later" and explains it in one more line: "Inbox is your go-to spot for quick task entry." Retool uses its body line to define the feature: "Agents combine AI models and tools to take real action across your systems." SurveyMonkey closes its empty survey list with "Everything starts with a guess / The difference is what you do next."

Upstash shows the range within one product. Its billing page answers the worry a payment form raises before anyone asks:

Its empty data browser, by contrast, jokes: "Data on a break" and "Quick, lure it back with some CLI magic!" It is charming, but it does not say which command to run.

Inbox zero lines

The 15 cleared screens are the only empty states that mark a success, and the copy is mostly short and pleased. Medium uses a single grey sentence, "You're all caught up." Toggl says the same and adds "New notifications will appear here." Fibery writes "Your Inbox is empty, enjoy the quiet" and uses the second line to teach its triage tabs: "Manage notifications with Do Today, Later, and Done."

The mistake to avoid is the reverse of the first-run problem: Raindrop's cleared Unsorted view, above, still reads like a setup screen.

An empty state copy checklist

1. Pick the state before the words. First use, no results, no data yet and cleared each need their own headline. If one component serves all four, give it four strings.
2. Keep "found" for searches. On a first run, use "No X yet" or "Create your first X" instead.
3. Only blame filters that exist. If no filter is set, do not tell people to adjust one.
4. Echo the query and, if you can, name what was searched (StackBlitz) or offer a wider search (Taskade).
5. Name your own causes. Sampling, permissions, missing install: say it, and put the fix on the button (Mixpanel).
6. Use the second line to say what the space becomes (Toggl) or what the feature is (Retool), not to restate the headline.
7. Answer the obvious worry on sensitive pages, like Upstash on card storage.
8. Let cleared states celebrate, briefly. "All clear!" plus one line is enough.

How we counted

We captured these screens in desktop browsers with research accounts between September and October 2026. A vision model recorded each screen's headline, main button and attributes, which you can check on each screen's page; the formula counts above are matched against those recorded headline and button fields, so a screen whose real message sits below a page title may be under-counted. We record what we saw, not A/B test results, so nothing here says which wording converts better.

Browse the full first-use set or the empty states with a learn link, or connect the Screenrove MCP server and ask your agent for no-results states that echo the query before you write your own.