Readability checker
If a fourteen-year-old cannot follow it, most of your customers will not either.
Your text
Paste at least a few sentences. Short samples give unreliable scores.
How it reads
Sentences to shorten
How to use this readability checker
- Paste your text into the box.
- Read the Flesch score and grade level.
- Shorten long sentences and swap hard words, then check again.
Who it is for
For marketers, writers and business owners writing web pages or ads for a broad audience, including readers whose first language is not English.
What the score means
| Score | Reads like | Who follows it easily |
|---|---|---|
| 90–100 | A children’s book | Age 10 |
| 70–89 | A popular magazine | Age 12–13 |
| 60–69 | A good news site | Age 14–15 |
| 50–59 | A broadsheet newspaper | Age 16–18 |
| 30–49 | An academic paper | University |
| 0–29 | A legal contract | Almost nobody, willingly |
Aim for 60 or above on anything meant to sell. That is not dumbing down. Your reader is on a phone, half distracted, and deciding in seconds whether to keep going.
The two levers
The formula only uses two things: how long your sentences are, and how long your words are.
Sentence length is the bigger and easier lever. Cutting an average sentence from 25 words to 15 lifts the score by about 10 points on its own — without changing a single word choice.
Words to swap
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| utilise | use |
| approximately | about |
| in order to | to |
| at this moment in time | now |
| facilitate | help |
| subsequently | then |
| endeavour | try |
| commence | start |
None of these make you sound less expert. They make you sound like someone worth reading.
Where the score misleads
It counts syllables, not sense. A page of short nonsense scores well. Use it as a check on your sentence length, then read the thing aloud — that catches what no formula can.
Common questions
What is a good Flesch reading ease score?
A score of 60 to 70 is plain English that most adults read easily. Sales pages and ads usually benefit from a higher score. Technical documents can score lower and still suit their readers.
What score should I aim for?
Sixty or above for marketing pages, blog posts and emails. Technical documentation can sit lower. If you are writing for a general audience and score under 45, most readers are working harder than they should.
Which formula is this?
Flesch Reading Ease for the score and Flesch-Kincaid for the grade level. They are the two most widely used, and the ones most SEO tools report.
Does readability affect SEO?
Not directly as a ranking factor. Indirectly it matters a lot: easier pages hold readers longer, get shared more and earn more links, and all three do affect rankings.
Is my text uploaded?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser and nothing is stored.
Need more customers as well?
This tool is free and always will be. If you also want ads, search and follow-up that bring in customers, I offer a free 45-minute consultation for businesses in the USA, UK, UAE, Australia and India.
Book a free consultationBuilt and maintained by Premkumar Ragav, an independent performance marketing specialist. Updated November 2026.