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Readability Score

How hard is your writing to read?

Paste your text and this tool scores it with Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid grade, Gunning Fog, SMOG, and Coleman-Liau. Shorter sentences and simpler words read easier, so the scores move toward clearer as you cut length. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, saved, or sent anywhere, so you can paste anything.

How it works

Every formula reads the same three signals from your text and weighs them differently. Sentence length is the average number of words per sentence: long sentences are harder. Word length is measured in syllables or letters per word: big words are harder. Syllables per word feeds the Flesch and SMOG scores, while Coleman-Liau counts letters instead. Cut a long sentence in two, or swap a three-syllable word for a plain one, and every score improves.

Flesch Reading Ease scale

Score band Meaning
90 to 100 Very easy, around 5th grade.
70 to 89 Easy, 6th to 7th grade.
60 to 69 Plain English, 8th to 9th grade.
50 to 59 Fairly hard, 10th to 12th grade.
30 to 49 Hard, college level.
0 to 29 Very hard, graduate level.

By formula

Flesch Reading Ease - Paste text to score it
- Flesch-Kincaid grade
- Gunning Fog
- SMOG
- Coleman-Liau
0 Words
0 Sentences

Questions people ask

What is a good readability score?

It depends on the formula and the audience. For a general audience aim for a Flesch Reading Ease of 60 or higher, which reads at about an 8th to 9th grade level, and a grade score (Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau) of 7 to 9. Marketing and web copy often targets easier still. Technical or academic writing sits lower on the ease scale and higher on the grade scales, which is fine for a specialist reader.

Which readability formula should I use?

No single formula is correct, so read a few together. Flesch Reading Ease gives a quick 0 to 100 feel where higher is easier. Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, and Coleman-Liau return a US school grade. SMOG is popular for health writing but needs 30 or more sentences to be reliable. When the scores broadly agree you can trust the direction. Syllable counting is a heuristic, so numbers differ slightly between tools; use them as a direction, not an exact grade.

Is my text uploaded?

No. Everything runs in your browser with JavaScript. Your text is never uploaded, logged, or sent to a server, so you can safely paste drafts, private notes, or client work. Close the tab and the text is gone.