Readability Score Checker
Score your text with Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch–Kincaid grade, Gunning Fog and SMOG.
What Is the Readability Score Checker?
The Readability Score Checker analyzes your writing and reports the leading readability metrics — Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level, the Gunning Fog Index and the SMOG Index — plus a count of complex words. It tells you how easy your text is to read and roughly what education level it targets, so you can write for the right audience. All analysis runs in your browser.
How It Works
Paste your text. The scores update instantly. The headline Flesch Reading Ease runs from 0 to 100 — higher is easier, and 60+ suits a general audience. The grade-level scores estimate the years of schooling needed to understand the text on a first read. Lower grade numbers mean broader accessibility.
When to Use It
Use it to make marketing copy, blog posts, documentation and emails clearer, to hit a target reading level for a specific audience, to simplify dense writing, or to meet plain-language requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
- Aim for 60–70 for general web content — that's plain English readable by most adults. Scores above 80 are very easy; below 30 is difficult and suited to academic or technical audiences.
- How are syllables counted?
- Syllables are estimated with a vowel-group heuristic, which is accurate for most English text. Unusual words or names may be off by a syllable, which only slightly affects the scores.
- Which metric should I trust?
- Use Flesch Reading Ease for a quick audience read and Flesch–Kincaid Grade for a target school level. Gunning Fog and SMOG are useful cross-checks, especially for longer, formal documents.
Last reviewed: 2026-06-27