--- title: "Free Readability Score Calculator" description: "Check how easy your content is to read. Paste any text to get its Flesch Reading Ease score, Flesch-Kincaid grade level, and the sentence and syllable averages behind both." url: "https://skribra.com/tools/readability-score" type: "tool" --- # Free Readability Score Calculator Check how easy your content is to read. Paste any text to get its Flesch Reading Ease score, Flesch-Kincaid grade level, and the sentence and syllable averages behind both. Free, no sign-up. The tool itself runs on the HTML page — this representation carries everything around it. ## How Readability Scores Work: Formulas, Score Bands and Examples [Readability](https://skribra.com/glossary/readability) formulas estimate how hard a text is to read from two things a computer can count: how long the sentences are and how long the words are. This calculator runs the two most widely used ones, Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, in your browser as you type, and shows the averages that feed them so you can see which of the two is pulling your score down. Flesch Reading Ease = 206.835 − 1.015 × (words ÷ sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables ÷ words). Rudolf Flesch published it in 1948 in the Journal of Applied Psychology ("A New Readability Yardstick"). Higher is easier. The raw formula can run past 100 or below zero, so this tool reports it on a 0–100 scale. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level = 0.39 × (words ÷ sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables ÷ words) − 15.59. J. Peter Kincaid and colleagues derived it in 1975 for the US Navy (Research Branch Report 8-75), recalibrating Flesch's inputs to a US school grade. A result of 8.0 means a typical eighth grader should follow the text. It has no upper limit, and this tool shows nothing below 0. Reading Ease score bands, with the label this tool shows and the approximate US school level from Flesch's original table: 90–100 Very Easy (5th grade); 80–89 Easy (6th grade); 70–79 Fairly Easy (7th grade); 60–69 Standard, or plain English (8th–9th grade); 50–59 Fairly Hard (10th–12th grade); 30–49 Difficult (college); 0–29 Very Difficult (college graduate). The label turns green from 70, amber from 50 to 69 and red below 50. The Grade Level card adds its own label: Kindergarten below grade 1, Elementary up to grade 5, Middle School up to 8, High School up to 12, College up to 16 and Graduate above that. How the counts work: a sentence ends at a period, question mark or exclamation point; a word is anything separated by spaces; syllables are estimated from groups of vowels, with a silent final e and endings such as -ed and -es dropped, and every word of three letters or fewer counted as one syllable. That estimate is right for most everyday words and off by one on some ("searches" counts as one syllable). This is also why two readability checkers rarely agree to the decimal, since each counts syllables and sentence breaks a little differently. Worked example. "When you are planning a content calendar for the next quarter, it is important to consider which topics your audience actually searches for and how each article will support the products you sell." That is one sentence of 33 words and 50 syllables, or 1.52 syllables per word: Reading Ease 45.2 (Difficult) and Grade Level 15.2 (College). Rewritten as "Plan next quarter's content around what your audience searches for. Then check that each article supports a product you sell." it becomes 2 sentences, 20 words and 28 syllables: Reading Ease 78.2 (Fairly Easy) and Grade Level 4.8 (Elementary). Most of the gain came from splitting the sentence, which is usually the fastest fix. Cutting filler such as "it is important to" handles most of the rest. Common mistakes that skew the score. Headings and bullet points without a closing period merge into the next sentence, which inflates words per sentence, so paste body copy only or end each item with punctuation. Decimals, abbreviations such as "e.g." and URLs add false sentence breaks and make text look easier than it is. Very short samples swing wildly, because a single sentence break moves the averages a lot, so test at least a few paragraphs. Finally, chasing a number by chopping every sentence into fragments produces text that scores well and reads badly. Vary the rhythm, and use a [passive voice detector](https://skribra.com/tools/passive-voice-detector) and a [transition word checker](https://skribra.com/tools/transition-word-checker) to fix what the formula can't see. What these formulas don't measure: whether the reader knows the topic, whether the argument is in a sensible order, or how the page is laid out. Flesch and Kincaid built them for general prose and training manuals, and a short, familiar technical term like "API" scores as easy while a long common word like "information" scores as hard. Google doesn't publish a readability score it wants. Its guide to creating helpful, people-first content asks whether content has spelling or stylistic issues and whether it looks well produced or hastily done, and clear writing helps on both. Want articles that read cleanly without the editing pass? Skribra researches, writes and publishes long-form articles to your CMS every day, in a [natural, plain-spoken voice](https://skribra.com/features/humanized-content) tuned to your audience rather than to a formula. ## Who Benefits From a Readability Score Calculator? Writers who want to reach and engage their audience will find this tool essential. - **Content Marketers** — Optimize blog posts for maximum engagement by matching reading level to your audience. - **SEO Specialists** — Check that pages written for a broad search audience don't read like a textbook. - **Technical Writers** — Ensure documentation is accessible to users of all technical backgrounds. - **Healthcare Communicators** — Write patient materials that meet health literacy guidelines. - **Educators** — Match lesson content to appropriate grade levels for student comprehension. - **UX Writers** — Craft interface copy that users understand instantly without confusion. - **Legal Writers** — Make contracts and terms of service more accessible to non-lawyers. - **Government Agencies** — Meet plain language requirements for public communications. ## FAQ ### What is a readability score? A readability score estimates how easy a text is to read from sentence length and word length. The two most common are Flesch Reading Ease, a 0–100 scale where higher is easier, and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, which maps the same inputs to a US school grade. This calculator shows both, along with the average words per sentence and syllables per word they are built from. ### What grade level is my writing? Paste a few paragraphs into the box and read the Grade Level card. A result of 8.3 means a typical eighth grader should be able to follow the text; the label under it groups the number into Elementary (up to grade 5), Middle School (up to 8), High School (up to 12), College (up to 16) or Graduate. Use body copy rather than headings and lists, which have no closing punctuation and push the grade up. ### What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score? For general web content, 60 or higher is a sensible target: 60–69 is what Flesch called plain English, around an 8th–9th grade level, and 70–79 is fairly easy. Specialist audiences can handle 50–59. Below 30 is very difficult and typical of academic and legal writing. Treat the number as a check on your sentences, not a goal in itself; a precise 55 can serve an expert reader better than a vague 75. ### How is the Flesch-Kincaid grade level calculated? Grade Level = 0.39 × (words ÷ sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables ÷ words) − 15.59, from Kincaid and colleagues' 1975 US Navy report. For a text with 20 words per sentence and 1.5 syllables per word: 0.39 × 20 + 11.8 × 1.5 − 15.59 = 9.9, so roughly a 10th-grade level. Shorter sentences and shorter words both lower it. ### What is the difference between Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid? They use the same two inputs, words per sentence and syllables per word, but weight them differently and run in opposite directions: a higher Reading Ease means easier text, while a higher Grade Level means harder text. Reading Ease reacts more to long words, so the two can't be converted into each other exactly. Check both, since a text can pass on one and not the other. ### Why is my score different in Microsoft Word or another readability checker? Every tool counts syllables and sentence breaks slightly differently, and both formulas are sensitive to those counts. This calculator estimates syllables from vowel groups and ends sentences at periods, question marks and exclamation points. Differences of a few points between tools are normal. For tracking changes, compare scores from the same tool. ### Does readability affect SEO? Not as a score. Google publishes no readability threshold and doesn't say it uses Flesch formulas. Its guidance on helpful, people-first content does ask whether content has stylistic issues and whether it is well produced, and text that is easy to follow is more likely to satisfy the person who searched. Use readability to serve the reader, not to hit a number for Google. ### How do I improve my readability score? Split long sentences first; it is usually the biggest single change. Then replace long words with shorter ones where the meaning holds ("use" for "utilize"), cut filler phrases such as "it is important to note that", and prefer active voice. Keep technical terms your readers expect, even if they cost a few points. ## Related tools - [Sentence Counter](https://skribra.com/tools/sentence-counter): Analyze sentence structure and improve readability. - [Paragraph Length Analyzer](https://skribra.com/tools/paragraph-length-analyzer): Optimize paragraph lengths for better readability. - [Adverb Density Checker](https://skribra.com/tools/adverb-density-checker): Reduce adverb overuse for tighter writing. - [Cliche Finder](https://skribra.com/tools/cliche-finder): Find and replace overused phrases. ## Machine-readable index - HTML version of this page: https://skribra.com/tools/readability-score - Site index for agents: https://skribra.com/llms.txt - Sitemap: https://skribra.com/sitemap.xml - Public REST API: https://skribra.com/api/v1 - OpenAPI specification: https://skribra.com/openapi.json