This readability checker scores how easy your writing is to read. Check a live page by URL or paste your text, and you get the Flesch reading ease score from 0 to 100, the Flesch-Kincaid grade level, your average sentence length, an estimate of passive voice, and a list of every sentence over 20 words, longest first. It is free and needs no signup.
How to use the readability checker
- 1Pick Check a URL to score a live page, or Paste text to score a draft.
- 2For a URL, type the page address and press Check. The tool reads the page's main text and skips menus and the footer.
- 3For a draft, paste it into the box. The scores update as you type, and nothing is sent to our server.
- 4Read Flesch reading ease and Grade level first, then Avg sentence and Passive voice.
- 5Work down the Long sentences list. Split the longest ones, then check again.
When to use it
- You wrote a service page or a blog post and it feels heavy, but you can't say why.
- A client or a teacher asked for writing at a set grade level.
- You are writing for customers who read on a phone, in a second language or in a hurry.
- You want to find the one or two sentences in a long draft that lose people.
Worked examples
A live homepage
We checked our own homepage. Its long sentences come from the sample articles it displays, written for example businesses such as an EV charger installer.
- What to check
- Check a URL
- URL to check
- https://searchblueprint.io
- Flesch reading ease
- 70.5, Fairly easy
- Grade level
- 5.7, Flesch-Kincaid
- Avg sentence
- 9.1 words
- Passive voice
- 1%, About 7 of 510 sentences
- Long sentences (38 over 20 words)
- Showing the 10 longest.
- 37 words
- A typical install runs like this: the electrician confirms the circuit plan, kills power at the panel, lands the new breaker, runs the wire, mounts and wires the charger, restores power and load-tests it with your car.
Across the page the average sentence is 9.1 words, which is why it scores Fairly easy. The sample copy still has 38 sentences that run past 20 words. The 37-word one is a list of steps, and it would read better as a numbered list. A good average can hide a few long sentences, which is why the list matters more than the score.
Three sentences of pasted text
We pasted a short test paragraph.
- What to check
- Paste text
- Content to analyze
- The report was written by the team. It is short. Search engines reward pages that answer the question a person typed quickly and clearly, without making them scroll past long introductions first.
- Flesch reading ease
- 74.4, Fairly easy
- Grade level
- 5.5, Flesch-Kincaid
- Avg sentence
- 10.7 words
- Passive voice
- 33%, About 1 of 3 sentences
- Long sentences (1 over 20 words)
- 22 words: Search engines reward pages that answer the question a person typed quickly and clearly, without making them scroll past long introductions first.
"Was written by the team" is the passive sentence; "The team wrote the report" says it in fewer words. The third sentence is the long one at 22 words. On a text this short, one sentence moves every figure a lot, so score a whole draft before you act on the numbers.
How to read the Flesch reading ease score
| Score | Label the tool shows |
|---|---|
| 90 to 100 | Very easy |
| 80 to 89 | Easy |
| 70 to 79 | Fairly easy |
| 60 to 69 | Plain English |
| 50 to 59 | Fairly difficult |
| 30 to 49 | Difficult |
| 0 to 29 | Very difficult |
The scale comes from Rudolf Flesch's 1948 paper "A new readability yardstick". The grade level uses the Flesch-Kincaid formula, published by J. Peter Kincaid and colleagues for the US Navy in 1975. Both count only words per sentence and syllables per word. A short sentence full of jargon can still score well, so read the text as well as the number.
Made by SearchBlueprint
This checker is free with no signup. SearchBlueprint, who make it, sell SEO planning: a plan that shows the searches each page should answer, so you know what a page has to say before you polish how it reads.
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