Readability Score
Score any passage with the Flesch Reading Ease formula and see the grade band it lands in — driven by sentence length and syllables.
Flesch Reading Ease
| Words | 31 |
|---|---|
| Sentences | 3 |
| Words per sentence | 10.3 |
| Syllables per word | 1.5 |
A higher score reads more easily; roughly 60–70 is plain English. Sentence and syllable counts are estimates, so treat the grade as a guide rather than a verdict.
What Flesch Reading Ease measures
The Flesch Reading Ease score turns two things about a piece of writing into a single number: how long its sentences are, and how long its words are. Long sentences ask a reader to hold more in mind at once, and long, many-syllable words are harder to process, so the formula lowers the score as either climbs.
It’s a useful gauge for matching writing to an audience — marketing copy, help articles, and public-facing text usually aim for plain English in the 60–70 range. But the score only sees length, not sense: it can’t tell whether your writing is correct, logical, or engaging. Those still take a human editor.
Frequently Asked Questions
What formula does the readability score use?
It uses the Flesch Reading Ease formula: 206.835 − 1.015 × (words ÷ sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables ÷ words). In plain terms, longer sentences and longer words both push the score down.
What does the score mean?
Higher is easier to read. Roughly, 90–100 is very easy (about 5th-grade reading), 60–70 is plain English (around 8th–9th grade), 30–50 is difficult (college level), and below 30 is very hard. The tool shows the band and an approximate grade level alongside the number.
Why might my score be above 100 or below 0?
The formula isn't capped. Very short sentences made of one-syllable words can score above 100, and very long sentences packed with long words can go negative. Both are valid outputs — they just mark the extremes of easy and hard.
How are words, sentences, and syllables measured?
Words and sentences come from the same whitespace and terminal-punctuation rules as the word counter; syllables come from the vowel-group heuristic used by the syllable counter. Because those are estimates, the score is an estimate too.
Should I write to hit a target score?
Use it as a guide, not a goal. A readability score rewards short sentences and short words, which often helps clarity, but it can't judge whether your meaning is accurate, well organized, or right for your audience. Edit for the reader first, then check the score.
Estimates and heuristics — the score is built on approximate sentence and syllable counts and is a helper for editing, not an authority on quality.