About readability scores
Readability formulas estimate how much education a reader needs to understand your text on first reading. This tool computes six of the most widely used measures at once: Flesch Reading Ease (0–100, higher is easier), Flesch-Kincaid Grade, Gunning Fog, SMOG, ARI and Coleman-Liau — the same family of formulas used by editors, government plain-language programs and SEO tools.
How to check your writing
- Paste at least 100 words of English text (the formulas are calibrated for English).
- Press Check readability and read the Flesch gauge first — 60+ is the usual target for web writing.
- Review the grade-level scores; they estimate the school grade needed to follow the text comfortably.
- Rewrite the flagged "hardest sentences" — usually the quickest single fix is splitting long sentences in two.
What score should you aim for?
- General web content and blogs: Flesch 60–70 (grade 7–9)
- Marketing and product pages: Flesch 65+
- News writing: grade 9–12
- Academic or technical material: lower scores are normal — judge against your actual audience
Scores are guides, not judges of quality: clear structure, concrete examples and good headings matter just as much as sentence length.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
For general web content, 60–70 is the sweet spot — plain English that an 8th-9th grader follows comfortably. Marketing copy often aims a little higher; technical material naturally scores lower.
Which readability formula should I trust?
They usually agree within a grade or two. Flesch-Kincaid is the most widely cited; Gunning Fog is sensitive to long words; SMOG is popular in health communication. Looking at all six together, as this tool shows, is more reliable than any single number.
Does it work for languages other than English?
The formulas are calibrated for English syllable patterns, so scores for other languages aren't meaningful. Word and sentence counts still work for any language.