Readability Score Checker — Flesch-Kincaid & Grade Level
Check your text readability score online free — Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog Index and more. Paste your text for an instant readability analysis. No sign-up required.
Last updated: June 2026
Enter at least a few sentences to see your readability scores.
Flesch Reading Ease
0/ 100
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Suggestions
Highlighted text
yellow = long sentence · orange = very long · underline = complex wordAbout this tool
How to check and improve readability
Clear writing reaches more people. A readability score checker measures how easy your text is to read and tells you, concretely, what's making it hard. Paste your text and this tool computes the Flesch Reading Ease score, the Flesch–Kincaid grade level and the Gunning Fog index, all live.
Beyond the numbers, it shows its working. Your long sentences are highlighted in yellow, very long ones in orange, and complex (three-plus-syllable) words are underlined — so you can see at a glance where to break a sentence or swap in a simpler word. The suggestions panel turns that into plain advice, like how many sentences to split.
For most web content, aim for a Reading Ease of 60 or above (around an 8th-grade level). The analysis runs entirely in your browser, so your text stays private. Once you've tightened it up, the AI text humanizer can smooth stiff phrasing, and the word counter helps you hit a length target.
How it works
Three quick steps — no account, nothing uploaded to a server.
Paste your text
Type or paste your text into the box.
Check readability
Get Flesch-Kincaid scores and a grade level.
Use your results
Copy the output or download it.
Readability guidance on this page follows the US government plain language guidelines. Last checked July 2026.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is a readability score?
A readability score estimates how easy text is to read, based on factors like sentence length and word complexity. The most common is Flesch Reading Ease, scored 0–100 — higher is easier. A grade-level score expresses the same idea as years of US schooling needed to understand the text. Aiming for clear, lower-grade writing usually means more people can read and act on what you write.
How is the Flesch Reading Ease score calculated?
It uses average sentence length (words per sentence) and average word length (syllables per word): 206.835 − 1.015 × (words/sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables/words). Shorter sentences and shorter words push the score higher (easier). A score of 60–70 is plain English; below 30 is very difficult and typically academic or professional.
What's a good readability score?
For general web content, marketing and email, aim for a Flesch Reading Ease of 60–70 or higher — roughly an 8th-grade level — which most adults can read comfortably. Technical or academic writing naturally scores lower. The right target depends on your audience, but clearer is almost always better for engagement.
What is the Gunning Fog index?
The Gunning Fog index estimates the years of formal education a reader needs to understand a passage on the first read. It's calculated from sentence length and the percentage of complex words (three or more syllables). A Fog index of 8–10 is ideal for a wide audience; 12 is the reading level of a high-school senior; 17+ is graduate level.
Is my text private?
Yes. All the analysis — syllable counting, sentence parsing and scoring — happens in your browser with JavaScript. Your text is never uploaded or stored anywhere, so you can safely check private drafts, reports or confidential writing.
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