Readability Checker
Flesch reading ease, grade level and the sentences doing the most damage.
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How the score is worked out, and where it lies
Flesch Reading Ease is 206.835 − 1.015 × (words per sentence) − 84.6 × (syllables per word). Higher is easier. 60–70 is plain English; below 30 reads like a contract.
Syllable counting in English is guesswork. This uses the standard vowel-group heuristic with adjustments for silent e and common endings. It is close on ordinary prose and wrong on names, acronyms and technical terms — so treat the score as a direction, not a measurement.
- The formula only counts length. Short words in short sentences score well even if the writing says nothing.
- Sentence length is the lever you control. Splitting the longest sentences moves the score more than swapping vocabulary.
- Readability is not a ranking factor. Google has said so. It affects whether people keep reading, which matters for different reasons.
Questions people ask
Will making my writing simpler help it rank?
No. Readability is not a ranking factor and Google has said so directly. The indirect case is the honest one: a page a busy person can skim is a page they finish, quote and occasionally link to, and that last part is the only bit search engines ever see.
What score should I be aiming for?
Whatever your reader can carry. Consumer copy wants 60 or above. Technical B2B writing sits comfortably in the 40s because the vocabulary is genuinely long, and forcing it to 70 means replacing precise words with vague ones. A falling score across drafts matters more than the absolute number.
Does Flesch work on Russian or other languages?
No. The constants in the formula were fitted to English syllable and sentence patterns, and running Russian or German through it produces a number with no meaning — both languages build longer words for ordinary reasons. Each has its own adapted formula; this is not it.
Yoast tells me the same text is hard to read. Which one is right?
Neither, exactly. Yoast blends its own thresholds with passive-voice and transition-word checks, so it is measuring something different and calling it the same thing. Use one of them consistently to compare your own drafts, and do not try to satisfy both.
Should I paste the whole page including headings and bullets?
Paste the prose. The formula assumes running sentences, so a page of three-word headings and bullet fragments produces an artificially easy score — lots of very short "sentences" that nobody actually reads as sentences. Run the body copy and judge the rest by eye.
Guides for this tool
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