This free readability and plain-English scorer grades any text with the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch–Kincaid grade-level formulas, then flags the things that make writing hard to read and hard for AI to quote: long sentences, passive voice, and heavy jargon. Paste your draft and get an instant, actionable score. No signup, nothing leaves your browser.
Flags
How to use the readability scorer
- Paste a paragraph, a section, or a whole article and press Score it.
- Read the big Flesch Reading Ease number — higher is easier, and 60+ is a good target for a broad audience.
- Check the grade level and average words per sentence; aim for grade 7–9 and sentences under about 20 words on average.
- Work through the flags — long sentences, passive voice, jargon and filler — and edit until they clear.
Plain writing ranks better and gets quoted more
Clear, plain writing is not just kinder to readers — it is easier for AI engines to extract and quote, and it aligns with Google’s helpful-content guidance. Dense, passive, jargon-heavy prose forces both people and models to work harder, and models tend to skip past sentences they cannot lift cleanly. The Flesch Reading Ease score, developed for exactly this kind of assessment, gives you an objective read; the flags tell you what to fix. Clarity is the whole point of the Plain Intelligence approach. Pair this with the AEO Readiness Analyzer for structure, and see writing for AI search for the craft behind it.
Related tools and guides
- AEO Readiness Analyzer — score structure and extractability.
- Keyword & Entity Extractor — check topic focus.
- SERP & AI Snippet Preview — see the answer chunk an engine would lift.
- Writing for AI Search — how to write for citation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
For a general web audience, aim for 60 or above — that maps to roughly an 8th–9th grade reading level, which most adults read comfortably. Technical or academic writing naturally scores lower; the goal is not to dumb content down but to remove needless difficulty so your meaning lands on the first read.
How is the score calculated?
It uses the standard Flesch Reading Ease formula, which weighs average sentence length and average syllables per word, plus the Flesch–Kincaid grade-level formula. Syllable counting is estimated with a well-known heuristic, so treat the number as a reliable guide rather than a decimal-perfect measurement.
Why does passive voice matter?
Passive constructions (“the page is cited by the model”) are longer, vaguer, and harder to quote than active ones (“the model cites the page”). Some passive voice is fine, but a high count usually signals prose that AI engines and readers both find harder to follow. The tool flags likely passives so you can decide which to rewrite.
Does readability really affect AI citations?
Indirectly but meaningfully. AI engines favour passages they can extract and present as a clean answer. Short sentences, plain words and a direct structure make a passage liftable; dense, hedge-filled prose does not. Improving readability tends to improve both human engagement and the odds of being quoted.
Is this tool free and private?
Yes — completely free, no account, and everything runs in your browser, so nothing you paste is sent to a server. It is part of the free Plain Intelligence resource hub.
Want your content rewritten for clarity and citation at scale? See our content strategy service, or browse all free tools in the resource hub.