What Is a Good Readability Score? Flesch Score Chart & Targets

What is a good readability score?

For most web content, a Flesch Reading Ease of 60 or higher, or a grade level of 7–9, is good. Type any score below to see what it means.

Your Flesch Reading Ease score

Don’t have a score yet? Check your text; it takes a paste.

Is 60 a good readability score?

Plain English

8th–9th grade level. A good target for blogs, news and most business writing.

Flesch Reading Ease score chart

Flesch Reading Ease score chart
Score	Difficulty	School level	Notes
90–100	Very easy	5th grade	Understood by an average 11-year-old.
80–89	Easy	6th grade	Conversational English.
70–79	Fairly easy	7th grade	Most consumer web copy aims here.
60–69	Plain English	8th–9th grade	Easily understood by 13–15 year olds.
50–59	Fairly difficult	10th–12th grade	Fine for specialist readers.
30–49	Difficult	College	Academic and technical prose.
0–29	Very difficult	College graduate	Legal and scientific papers.

Bands from Rudolf Flesch (1948), “A New Readability Yardstick”, Journal of Applied Psychology.

Readability targets by audience

Recommended readability targets by audience
Audience	Flesch Reading Ease	Grade level	Basis
General web content	60–70+	7–9	Flesch (1948) “plain English” band; Yoast SEO flags Flesch scores under 60
Patient health information	70+	6–8 or lower	NIH Clear Communication guidance suggests grade 7–8; the American Medical Association recommends grade 6 or below
Government plain-language writing	60+	≈8	plainlanguage.gov (Federal Plain Language Guidelines) emphasise short sentences and common words
Life insurance policies (Florida)	45 or higher	—	Florida Statutes §627.4145, which sets a minimum Flesch score for policy forms
Academic and legal writing	30–50	13+	Flesch (1948) bands for “difficult” text; typical of journals

Higher or lower: which direction is better?

Flesch Reading Ease runs the opposite way to everything else. A higher Flesch score means easier text. Grade-level formulas (Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau, ARI) output a US school grade, so a lower number is easier. A Flesch score of 65 and a Flesch-Kincaid grade of 8 describe roughly the same text.

Why “good” depends on the reader

A score is a measure of sentence and word length, not of quality. A pharmacology paper with a Flesch score of 35 may be perfectly pitched for pharmacologists. The same score on a product page means many visitors will give up. Decide who the reader is first, pick the matching row in the table above, then edit towards it. The reading level chart lines up grades, ages and scores side by side.

How to raise a low score quickly

Paste the draft into the readability checker and fix the brightest highlighted sentences first.
Split any sentence over 25 words at its “and”, “which” or “because”.
Swap long words for short ones where the meaning holds, and turn passive sentences active.
Re-check. Most drafts gain 10–15 points from those three steps alone, but read it aloud: the score is a guide, not the goal.

Readability scores: common questions

What is a good readability score?

On the Flesch Reading Ease scale, 60–70 is plain English that most adults read easily, and 70+ is easier still. On grade-level scales (Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG), grade 7–9 suits a general audience. Lower ease scores are normal for academic, legal or technical readers.

Is a 37 readability score good?

A Flesch Reading Ease of 37 falls in the “difficult” band (30–49), typical of college-level text. It is fine for an academic or specialist audience, but too hard for general web readers. Shorter sentences and shorter words will raise it.

Is a 42 readability score good?

A Flesch score of 42 is still “difficult” (college level). Most marketing and blog content aims for 60 or more, so a 42 suggests long sentences or many multi-syllable words.

Is a 59 readability score good?

A 59 sits at the top of the “fairly difficult” band (50–59), one point below plain English. Splitting one or two long sentences usually pushes it over 60.

Is a higher or lower readability score better?

It depends on the scale. On Flesch Reading Ease, higher is easier. On grade-level scales such as Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau and ARI, lower is easier, because the number is a school grade.

Is there a free tool that can check my readability score?

Yes. The ReadabilityPro checker is free, needs no account and runs entirely in your browser. It reports seven formulas and highlights the sentences dragging the score down.