What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?

Scores of 60–70 are considered standard (plain English). Scores of 70–80 are fairly easy (conversational). Below 30 is very difficult (academic or legal text). Most web content aims for 60+.

How is the Flesch Reading Ease calculated?

The formula is: 206.835 − (1.015 × average sentence length) − (84.6 × average syllables per word). It was developed by Rudolf Flesch in 1948.

What does the grade level mean?

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level corresponds to a US school grade. A score of 8 means an 8th-grader can understand the text. Most popular writing targets grades 6–8.

Why do readability checkers give different scores for the same text?

The formulas are fixed, but tools count syllables and sentences differently. This checker estimates syllables from vowel groups, drops a silent -e, -ed or -es, and ends a sentence at . ! ? or … followed by a space or the end of the text, so abbreviations such as 'Dr.' can shift the score slightly.

Flesch-Kincaid readability test

Paste your text to get a Flesch Reading Ease score (0–100) and a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. A higher ease score means simpler text. The grade level indicates the US school grade needed to understand the writing.

Paste some text above to see readability stats.

How it works

The tool counts words, sentences, and syllables from your pasted text. Syllables are approximated by counting vowel groups per word, subtracting silent endings (-e, -ed, -es) and adding a syllable for a consonant plus -le. The Flesch formulas use average sentence length (ASL = words ÷ sentences) and average syllables per word (ASW = syllables ÷ words). Reading time divides the word count by the words-per-minute rate. Chinese and Japanese have no spaces between words, so each Chinese or Japanese character counts as one word. All analysis runs in your browser.

Processing runs in your browser

All analysis happens instantly in your browser tab. Our servers are not involved at any point.

Related operations

For checking length while drafting, try the word counter. To generate placeholder copy to test layouts, use lorem ipsum. For normalising title casing, see the case converter.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?: Scores of 60–70 are considered standard (plain English). Scores of 70–80 are fairly easy (conversational). Below 30 is very difficult (academic or legal text). Most web content aims for 60+.
How is the Flesch Reading Ease calculated?: The formula is: 206.835 − (1.015 × average sentence length) − (84.6 × average syllables per word). It was developed by Rudolf Flesch in 1948.
What does the grade level mean?: The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level corresponds to a US school grade. A score of 8 means an 8th-grader can understand the text. Most popular writing targets grades 6–8.
Why do readability checkers give different scores for the same text?: The formulas are fixed, but tools count syllables and sentences differently. This checker estimates syllables from vowel groups, drops a silent -e, -ed or -es, and ends a sentence at . ! ? or … followed by a space or the end of the text, so abbreviations such as 'Dr.' can shift the score slightly.

Last reviewed September 30, 2026

Other pages for this tool

Related tools

Background reading: Complete guide to text tools