The scale, in plain terms
- 90–100 (Very Easy): Readable by an average 11-year-old. Think children's books and very simple instructions.
- 70–90 (Easy to Fairly Easy): Conversational writing most adults find effortless — think popular fiction, magazine articles.
- 60–70 (Standard): The commonly cited target for general web content and plain-language writing.
- 30–50 (Fairly Difficult to Difficult): College-level material — textbooks, in-depth articles.
- 0–30 (Very Confusing): Dense academic, legal, or scientific writing.
So what's actually "good"?
There's no single correct answer — a good score is one that matches your audience and purpose, not the highest number possible. A few practical benchmarks:
- General blog posts and marketing copy: aim for 60–70. This is easy enough to skim on a phone without feeling condescending.
- Instructions and how-to guides: aim higher, 70–80, since clarity matters more than style here.
- Academic or technical writing: a lower score (30–50) is normal and expected — forcing dense technical material into a high Flesch score often means oversimplifying and losing precision.
- Legal or compliance text: naturally scores very low; that's a known limitation of the format, not something to chase a high score for.
What actually moves the score
Two things dominate the formula: how long your sentences are, and how many syllables your words have. This means the two fastest ways to raise a low score are to break long sentences into shorter ones, and to swap a few multi-syllable words for simpler synonyms where the meaning doesn't suffer.
A word of caution
Flesch Reading Ease measures sentence and word length — it says nothing about whether your writing is logically clear, well-organized, or accurate. A short, choppy paragraph can score "easy" while still being confusing to actually read, and a longer sentence can be perfectly clear if it's well-constructed. Treat the score as one useful signal, not a complete judgment of your writing quality.
Check your own writing
Paste any text into the WordlyCounter Readability Score tool to get your Flesch Reading Ease score, an estimated grade level, and a breakdown of sentence length and word complexity, instantly and for free.