Use please as your default in professional English. Kindly is not more polite; it is more formal, more marked, and in many contexts reads as stiff or commanding. The difference between the two is not about politeness level but about how your reader perceives your tone.
Most advice online treats this as a binary: one is polite, the other is rude. The reality depends on register, region, and who is reading. This guide covers where each word fits, where kindly can backfire, and what to write instead when please feels too plain.
Key takeaways
- Please is the neutral professional default in both American and British English.
- Kindly carries an old-fashioned and formal label; Cambridge Dictionary notes it can imply the speaker is annoyed but still being polite.
- Please kindly is grammatically possible but almost always redundant. Cut one.
- "More formal" does not mean "more polite." Kindly can sound commanding or bureaucratic depending on context.
- In Indian English and some other varieties, kindly is a normal business request marker, not a tone problem.
- When please feels too plain, better options exist: Could you please..., Would you mind..., I'd appreciate it if....
Why "kindly" feels different from "please"
Please is the unmarked politeness word in modern English. It fits almost anywhere without drawing attention to itself. Kindly draws attention. Cambridge labels it "old-fashioned and formal" when used in requests, and adds that it often appears "when you are annoyed with them but still want to be polite." Merriam-Webster traces kindly to before the 12th century, while please as a politeness marker arrived later. That historical residue explains the ceremonial feel.
The distinction matters because please is not automatically soft either. Please send the report by Friday with please at the front can sound like an order, especially in American English. Sentence-final please tends to soften more: Could you send the report by Friday, please? Position changes the effect.
Kindly has a narrower safe zone. In formal notices (You are kindly requested to...) it sounds natural. In a peer-to-peer email (Kindly revert by EOD), it can land as condescending or irritated. The gap between intent and reception is the real problem, not the word itself.
When each word sounds natural
Please works in nearly every professional context. Internal emails, client messages, Slack threads, formal proposals. That range is exactly why it is the default. It carries politeness without signaling a particular register.
Kindly belongs to a specific set of contexts. Formal institutional notices, official government correspondence, ceremonial requests. If the document would normally use phrases like You are hereby notified or Please be advised, kindly belongs there.
The confusion comes from equating formality with professionalism. A message can be professional without being formal. Please let me know your availability is professional. Kindly furnish your availability at the earliest is formal, but in many workplaces it reads as stiff or outdated rather than professional. Purdue OWL recommends business tone that is "confident, courteous, and sincere," and warns that politeness without sincerity can come across as condescending.
If you are unsure whether kindly fits, replace it with please and see if anything is lost. Usually nothing is.
Regional differences: US, UK, India, and global English
How please and kindly land depends on where your reader works.
Murphy and De Felice's study of workplace emails found that please appears about twice as often in British English emails as in American English. In their data, 65% of low-imposition British requests used please versus 30% in American English. This does not mean British writers are more polite. It means please is more routinized in British English, while in American English it can carry more weight or signal a power dynamic.
Kindly has a different distribution. In Indian English, it is a standard business request marker, often paired with do the needful. Cambridge defines do the needful as "do what is necessary" and labels it "UK old-fashioned or Indian English." This is not incorrect English. It is a recognized variety-linked expression. The mismatch arises when a reader unfamiliar with this variety interprets kindly as stiff or passive-aggressive rather than as a routine politeness marker.
For Southeast Asian English, evidence is thinner. Forum discussions on Reddit and WordReference suggest kindly is common in Singaporean and Malaysian office email, but this is anecdotal rather than corpus-backed.
The practical rule: match your reader. If you are writing to a US or UK colleague, please is almost always the safer choice. If your workplace uses kindly as a normal part of business English, there is no reason to avoid it.
Better alternatives when "please" feels too plain
The real question behind "kindly vs please" is often "how do I sound polite enough without sounding stiff?" Here is a gradient from direct to deferential:
| Request line | How it reads |
|---|---|
| Send the report by Friday. | Direct, no softener |
| Please send the report by Friday. | Neutral professional default |
| Could you please send the report by Friday? | Collaborative, slightly softer |
| Would you mind sending the report by Friday? | Deferential, good for first contact |
| I'd appreciate it if you could send the report by Friday. | Grateful framing, strong for senior contacts |
| Kindly send the report by Friday. | Formal/official; may sound commanding outside formal contexts |
The alternatives in the middle of that table do more work than either please or kindly alone. Could you please... and Would you mind... signal collaboration rather than instruction. I'd appreciate it if... works when writing to someone senior because it frames the request as a favor rather than a task.
When you are weighing which phrasing fits, selecting a short phrase and comparing a few context-aware alternatives can speed up the decision. Inki's Rephrase does this: select a phrase like kindly send and compare several rewrites before choosing one.
Email examples
Same request, different phrasings. Each pair shows where kindly works and where a rewrite reads more naturally.
Colleague, routine request:
Kindly send me the slide deck before the meeting.
Could you please send me the slide deck before the meeting?
Kindly between peers adds unnecessary formality. Could you please keeps the politeness without the stiffness.
Client follow-up:
Kindly revert with the signed contract at the earliest.
Please send the signed contract by [date]. Let me know if you need anything before then.
Kindly revert at the earliest stacks two formal phrases that can read as impatient. A specific deadline with please is clearer and more courteous.
Reminder after no response:
Kindly be reminded that the deadline is tomorrow.
A quick reminder: the deadline is tomorrow. Please let me know if you need more time.
Kindly be reminded sounds like a notice from an institution, not a colleague. The rewrite is direct without being cold.
Formal notice (where kindly fits):
Please make sure to vacate the premises before 6 PM.
You are kindly requested to vacate the premises before 6 PM.
In a building notice or official announcement, kindly requested matches the register. This is one of the few contexts where kindly sounds more natural than casual alternatives.
Please kindly rewrite:
Please kindly let me know your thoughts on the proposal.
Please let me know your thoughts on the proposal.
Please kindly doubles the softener without adding meaning. Drop one. In almost every case, dropping kindly is the right call.
For a full draft, Inki's Review can surface tone issues across the email in a sidebar so you can decide what to adjust before sending. This works well when you have written several paragraphs and want to check whether the overall tone is consistent, not just one phrase. See also our guide on how to ask for an update politely for more on calibrating request tone, or "Sounds Good" casual or professional? for another common email tone question.