Readability & Text Analyzer
Inspect sentences, average word length and approximate reading ease.
Runs locally in your browser
Higher scores generally mean simpler English prose. This heuristic is approximate and can misread abbreviations, non-English words and technical text. Your text stays on this device.
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What is the Readability & Text Analyzer?
Readability describes how easy a text is to read, judged mainly by sentence length and word length. It matters for instructions, help articles, product pages, public information and anything written for a broad audience, where long sentences and dense vocabulary make readers give up or misunderstand. Readability formulas cannot judge accuracy, tone or structure, but they reliably flag passages that deserve a second look.
This checker counts the words and sentences in English text you paste and estimates a Flesch Reading Ease score. A sentence ends at a period, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space or the end of the text. Syllables are estimated by counting vowel groups in each word, ignoring a silent final e, with a minimum of one per word. Words containing digits or non-English letters count toward the word total but are skipped for the syllable estimate. Everything runs in your browser; the text is never uploaded or saved.
How to use it
- 1Paste a passage of English prose.
- 2Review word, sentence and approximate reading-ease counts.
- 3Revise long or unclear passages in your own editor.
How it works
The text remains in your browser. Words and sentences are counted with simple punctuation rules; the score is an approximation based on sentence and syllable estimates.
Example
Paste a draft paragraph to spot unusually long sentences and revise for a clearer reading flow.
Limitations & notes
- The score is an estimate for English prose, not a judgment of quality.
- Abbreviations, code and unusual names can distort counts.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Flesch Reading Ease formula?
It is 206.835 minus 1.015 times the average words per sentence, minus 84.6 times the average syllables per word. Rudolf Flesch published it in 1948. Shorter sentences and shorter words raise the score. For example, text averaging 15 words per sentence and 1.5 syllables per word scores about 65, which counts as plain English. Extremely simple or extremely dense text can score above 100 or below 0.
What is a good reading ease score?
Commonly cited bands are 90 to 100 very easy, readable by an average 11-year-old; 60 to 70 plain English, readable by most 13 to 15 year olds; 30 to 50 difficult, typical of academic writing; and below 30 very difficult. For general web content, 60 or higher is a common target. Technical documentation often scores lower because terms such as configuration are long and unavoidable, which is fine for an expert audience.
How can I make my writing easier to read?
Split sentences longer than about 25 words, especially ones chained together with and, which or because. Replace long words with shorter ones where the meaning holds: use instead of utilize, help instead of facilitate. Prefer active voice, keep one idea per sentence and turn sequences of steps into numbered lists. After revising, paste the new version and compare its sentence count and score with the original.
Why does the score seem wrong for my text?
The counts rely on simple rules. Abbreviations such as e.g. or Dr. followed by a space count as sentence endings, which shortens apparent sentences and raises the score. Bullet lists without periods merge into one long sentence and lower it. The syllable estimate counts vowel groups, so a word like created is counted as two syllables instead of three. Code, URLs and non-English text also distort results.
What is the Flesch-Kincaid grade level?
It is a related formula that turns the same two measures into a US school grade: 0.39 times words per sentence, plus 11.8 times syllables per word, minus 15.59. Text with 15 words per sentence and 1.5 syllables per word comes out near grade 8. This tool reports the reading ease score, where higher means easier; the grade level runs the opposite way, with lower numbers meaning easier text.
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