Readability Score Checker
Estimate how easy a piece of text is to read.
Flesch Reading Ease score
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About this tool
Scores how hard a piece of text is to read using the Flesch Reading Ease formula, from 0 (very difficult) to 100 (very easy). Paste a paragraph or a whole article to check whether the writing matches its intended audience. Everything is analysed in your browser.
The formula. Flesch Reading Ease is 206.835 − 1.015 × (words ÷ sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables ÷ words). In plain terms: longer sentences and longer words both push the score down. The two averages — words per sentence and syllables per word — are the only inputs, which is why it's fast and language-mechanical rather than a judgement of style.
Reading the score.
| Score | Reads like | Audience |
|---|---|---|
| 90–100 | Very easy | ~5th grade |
| 70–90 | Easy to fairly easy | ~6th–7th grade |
| 60–70 | Plain English | ~8th–9th grade; the target for most web and business writing |
| 50–60 | Fairly difficult | ~10th–12th grade |
| 30–50 | Difficult | College |
| 0–30 | Very difficult | Graduate; dense academic or legal prose |
The related Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level rescales the same inputs to a US school grade number directly.
What it measures and what it doesn't. It captures sentence and word length only. It says nothing about jargon, logical flow, paragraph structure, ambiguous pronouns, or whether the content is actually clear — a nonsense sentence of short words scores well. Use it as a rough gauge and a nudge to break up long sentences, not as a target to game.
Syllable counting. Syllables are estimated by counting vowel groups per word (with a few adjustments for silent trailing "e" and common endings), not by dictionary lookup. That's accurate for most English words but can be off by one on irregular spellings, so the score is a close estimate. Very short samples (a sentence or two) are unreliable — paste at least a few paragraphs.
Lowering a score that's too high (too difficult): split long sentences, cut filler, prefer the shorter of two synonyms, and read it aloud — the places you run out of breath are the sentences to break.
For raw counts, use the word counter; to see which terms you repeat, the word frequency counter or keyword density checker. For platform character limits, the social character counter.
Frequently asked questions
- What do the score ranges mean?
- 90–100 is very easy (about 5th grade), 60–70 is plain everyday English, 30–50 is difficult (college), and below 30 is very difficult, like dense legal or academic text.
- Why does sentence length matter so much?
- Long, multi-clause sentences are harder to hold in working memory, so the formula weights average sentence length heavily alongside word complexity.
- Is the syllable count exact?
- No. It's a vowel-group heuristic, accurate for most words but occasionally off by one on irregular spellings. Treat the score as an estimate.
- What score should I aim for?
- For general web, news, and business writing, 60–70 (plain English) is a good target. Technical documentation for experts can sit lower; content for a broad or younger audience should sit higher.
- Can I make the score better without improving the writing?
- Yes — that's its weakness. Short words and short sentences score well even if the meaning is muddled. Use it as a prompt to simplify, not as the goal itself.
- Does it work on very short text?
- Not reliably. One or two sentences give a noisy result. Paste at least a few paragraphs for a meaningful score.