diff --git a/src/lib/ai/quality-gates.ts b/src/lib/ai/quality-gates.ts
index fc40354..61bceb9 100644
--- a/src/lib/ai/quality-gates.ts
+++ b/src/lib/ai/quality-gates.ts
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import { BANNED_AI_TELLS } from "./persona-prompts";
 export interface QualityGateResult {
   passed: boolean;
   bannedWordsFound: string[];
+  softWordsFound: string[];
   aiDetectorScore: number;
   reasons: string[];
 }
@@ -30,24 +31,40 @@ export function findBannedAiTells(text: string): string[] {
   return Array.from(new Set(hits));
 }
 
-async function findCustomBannedTerms(text: string): Promise<string[]> {
+interface BannedTermRow {
+  term: string;
+  ban_level: "hard" | "soft";
+}
+
+async function fetchCustomBannedTerms(): Promise<BannedTermRow[]> {
   try {
     const sb = createAdminClient();
-    const { data } = await sb.from("banned_terms").select("term, ban_level, is_active").eq("is_active", true);
-    const hits: string[] = [];
-    const lower = " " + text.toLowerCase() + " ";
-    for (const row of data || []) {
-      const term = String((row as any).term || "").toLowerCase();
-      if (!term) continue;
-      const pattern = new RegExp(`\\b${escapeRegex(term)}\\b`);
-      if (pattern.test(lower)) hits.push((row as any).term);
-    }
-    return hits;
+    const { data } = await sb
+      .from("banned_terms")
+      .select("term, ban_level")
+      .eq("is_active", true);
+    return ((data || []) as any[]).map((r) => ({
+      term: String(r.term || ""),
+      ban_level: r.ban_level === "soft" ? "soft" : "hard",
+    }));
   } catch {
     return [];
   }
 }
 
+function matchTermInText(term: string, text: string): boolean {
+  const t = term.toLowerCase();
+  if (!t) return false;
+  const haystack = " " + text.toLowerCase() + " ";
+  // word boundary for single-word terms; substring for multi-word phrases or
+  // hyphenated terms where \b doesn't bind cleanly across the hyphen
+  const isPhrase = t.includes(" ");
+  const pattern = isPhrase
+    ? new RegExp(escapeRegex(t))
+    : new RegExp(`(^|[^a-z0-9])${escapeRegex(t)}([^a-z0-9]|$)`);
+  return pattern.test(haystack);
+}
+
 export function aiDetectorHeuristic(text: string): number {
   const stripped = stripHtml(text);
   const words = stripped.split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean);
@@ -101,22 +118,41 @@ export async function runQualityGates(
   const all = `${title}\n\n${excerpt}\n\n${body}`;
 
   const aiTells = findBannedAiTells(all);
-  const custom = await findCustomBannedTerms(all);
-  const bannedWords = Array.from(new Set([...aiTells, ...custom]));
 
-  const detectorScore = aiDetectorHeuristic(body);
+  const customTerms = await fetchCustomBannedTerms();
+  const hardHits: string[] = [];
+  const softHits: string[] = [];
+  for (const row of customTerms) {
+    if (!matchTermInText(row.term, all)) continue;
+    if (row.ban_level === "hard") hardHits.push(row.term);
+    else softHits.push(row.term);
+  }
+
+  const bannedWords = Array.from(new Set([...aiTells, ...hardHits]));
+  const softWords = Array.from(new Set(softHits));
+
+  // Base heuristic + soft-term contribution: each soft hit adds 0.05,
+  // capped at +0.30 so it can shove a borderline output over the
+  // threshold without single-handedly failing it.
+  const baseScore = aiDetectorHeuristic(body);
+  const softContribution = Math.min(0.3, softWords.length * 0.05);
+  const detectorScore = Math.min(1, baseScore + softContribution);
 
   const reasons: string[] = [];
   if (bannedWords.length > 0) {
     reasons.push(`banned phrases: ${bannedWords.slice(0, 5).join(", ")}${bannedWords.length > 5 ? " …" : ""}`);
   }
   if (detectorScore > detectorThreshold) {
-    reasons.push(`AI-detector score ${detectorScore.toFixed(2)} > threshold ${detectorThreshold.toFixed(2)}`);
+    reasons.push(
+      `AI-detector score ${detectorScore.toFixed(2)} > threshold ${detectorThreshold.toFixed(2)}` +
+        (softWords.length ? ` (soft hits: ${softWords.slice(0, 5).join(", ")}${softWords.length > 5 ? " …" : ""})` : "")
+    );
   }
 
   return {
     passed: reasons.length === 0,
     bannedWordsFound: bannedWords,
+    softWordsFound: softWords,
     aiDetectorScore: detectorScore,
     reasons,
   };