Readability Checker
Paste your text and get a readability score with a plain-language band, plus sentence length, syllables per word and a count of the sentences that run too long.
Your text
Readability is how much effort a reader spends to get your point, and on the web that effort decides whether they stay or leave. This free readability checker scores your text with the Flesch reading ease formula in English and an adapted version in French, turns the number into a plain-language band, and shows the details behind it: words, sentences, average sentence length, syllables per word and how many sentences run long. It is a guide, not a grade, built for writers, SEOs and editors who want content that is easy to read and easy to find.
How to use it
Paste your text
Drop a paragraph, a page or a full draft into the box. The score and the supporting numbers update instantly as you type, with nothing to submit.
Read the score and band
The reading ease score shows large, with a band from very easy to very difficult, so you know at a glance whether the text reads lightly or asks too much.
Fix the long sentences
Use the sentence length and long-sentence count to find the heavy parts, break them up, and watch the score rise as the text gets easier to follow.
Why it's useful
A score you can act on
The reading ease number is backed by the figures that drive it: average sentence length and syllables per word. When the score dips you can see which of the two is the cause, so you know whether to shorten sentences or simpler words.
English and French, each measured right
The checker uses the Flesch reading ease formula for English and an adapted Kandel-Moles version for French, because the two languages weigh sentence length and syllables differently, so the band means the same thing in both.
Nothing leaves your browser
The whole calculation runs client-side. Your text is never uploaded or stored, so you can check unpublished drafts, client work and confidential copy without signing in.
Why readability matters for your content and your SEO
What the score actually measures
The Flesch reading ease score rests on two things a reader feels directly: how long your sentences are and how many syllables your words carry. Long sentences hold more in the air at once, and long words take longer to decode, so the formula rewards short sentences made of short words with a high score, and pushes the number down as either one grows. A score in the 60 to 70 band reads as plain standard English; up near 90 it is very easy, the register of a children's book; down below 30 it is very difficult, the register of a legal contract or a dense academic paper.
The French version uses the adapted Kandel-Moles formula, which keeps the same shape but reweights the syllable term, because French words tend to carry more syllables than English ones and a raw Flesch score would read every French text as harder than it is. The bands are read the same way: higher is easier.
Why easy reading wins on the web
People do not read web pages so much as scan them, and they leave the moment a page feels like work. A readable page lowers that cost: the reader gets your point without rereading, stays longer, and is more likely to act. Those are the same behaviours search engines watch as signals of a useful result, so readability does not rank a page by itself, but it feeds the engagement that does. Clear, easy prose is read to the end, and content read to the end is content that gets found.
Readability also widens your audience. A large share of any readership skims on a phone, between tasks, sometimes in a second language. Writing that scores well is writing that still lands for a distracted reader, which is most of them, rather than only for the ones giving you their full attention.
Shorten before you simplify
When a score comes back low, sentence length is usually the bigger lever. Splitting one long sentence into two does more for readability than hunting for shorter synonyms, and it keeps your meaning intact. Reach for simpler words second, once the sentences themselves breathe.
Read the number as a guide, not a grade
A readability score is a useful signal, not a target to chase. Writing purely to maximise the number produces choppy, oversimplified prose that reads as badly as the dense kind, just in the other direction. Some topics are genuinely technical and will never score as very easy, and that is fine; the goal is to be as clear as the subject allows, not to hit a magic figure. Use the score to catch text that is harder than it needs to be, then trust your judgement on the wording.
Scoring one page is a quick, manual check. Keeping a whole site clear and consistent, in every language you publish in, is a far larger job, and that is where Otorank picks up: it researches, writes, publishes and tracks content built to be found across 150+ languages, so the clarity you tune here by hand becomes the default once you move from editing one page to running the whole channel.
They use Otorank
Questions
What the score measures, how the English and French formulas differ, and how to read the bands.
For general web content, a Flesch reading ease score in the 60 to 70 band reads as plain, standard English that most people follow easily. Technical topics will score lower and that is acceptable; aim to be as clear as the subject allows rather than chasing a fixed number.
English uses the Flesch reading ease formula, which combines your average sentence length and your average syllables per word. French uses an adapted Kandel-Moles version that reweights the syllable term, because French words tend to carry more syllables. Higher scores mean easier reading in both.
The tool counts vowel groups in each word as a fast approximation, trimming a silent trailing e in English. It is a heuristic, so the syllable figure is close rather than exact, which is enough to make the score a reliable guide.
Not as a direct ranking factor. But readable pages keep readers engaged, and engagement signals like time on page and scroll depth are tied to how useful search engines judge a page. Easier reading helps your content get found by helping it get read.
No. The score is computed entirely in your browser; nothing is uploaded or stored, so you can check unpublished and confidential drafts safely.