Free online readability checker
Use our free online readability checker to learn more about your text. It instantly shows the grade level of your writing and highlights sentences that are hard to read.
Why you need Hemingway Editor's readability checker
Readability is an essential metric for any writer. Our tool automatically calculates the average level of education needed for an adult to understand your text. This ensures your readers will understand your message in a single read-through. If your average grade level is too high, it can cause mental strain for readers, causing them to struggle with the text or even give up midway through.
It might surprise you to learn that the average reading level for adults in the United States is only an 8th-grade level. That means your writing must be at or below that level to reach the largest possible audience. If your readability level falls above it, your results can suffer.
Hemingway Editor's readability checker is unique because it goes far beyond other tools. It provides both an overall readability score for your text as well as highlights individual sentences that are hard to read. This gives you a fuller understanding of your text since it only takes one complicated sentence to confuse your readers.
Hemingway Editor is the best readability checker
Instant readability scoring and feedback
The majority of readability tools require a significant delay to calculate your scores. In tools like Microsoft Word, you might have to click a button and wait several seconds to see how your writing scores. Our free online tool is different because it updates in real time. This makes editing much easier because you can see how every update changes your readability. This allows you to get into a flow state instead of getting sidetracked by constant delays.
Unlimited word count
Our free online readability checker allows you to scan an unlimited amount of text at once. Without those pesky word limits found in other tools, you can scan an entire document or even a whole novel to see how it scores.
Highlighting complicated sentences
An overall readability score is a great metric to analyze your writing, but it doesn't tell the full story. Imagine a piece of text where most of it is clear and straightforward, but one section gets very complicated. It might get a great readability score, but readers will struggle.
Hemingway solves this issue by highlighting individual hard-to-read sentences in yellow. These sentences score four or more grade levels above the average reading level of an adult in the United States. Red sentences are even harder to read and score six or more grade levels higher.
These simple highlights make a big difference in your editing process. With Hemingway, you can skim your writing and quickly find the places where readers might get tripped up. This is essential for improving your article's SEO performance and driving better business results.
Readability scores you can easily understand
The most common readability metrics can be counterintuitive. To improve the readability of your writing, you conversely want to lower the grade level of your text. This fact trips up many writers. They assume that if their work scores a low grade level, it must be written for children. This couldn't be further from the truth. Many novels written by authors, including Ernest Hemingway, are written at a 5th-grade level but intended for adults.
Another common mistake is overestimating the average reading level of your audience. To help with both of these issues, Hemingway provides both the grade level score and clear written feedback. If your text is too complicated, Hemingway will let you know that your readability score is poor and suggest a different target grade level.
Improve readability automatically with Hemingway Editor Plus
Hemingway Editor Plus uses cutting-edge AI to rewrite your text for you. It maintains the humanity in your writing but rewrites your work to be simpler and easier to read. You can either choose to rewrite an individual highlighted sentence or select a larger section of text, like a full document, and correct it at once.
Powerful use cases for Hemingway's readability checker app
Use Hemingway's readability checker to elevate your writing. Here are just a few of the ways it can help.
Supercharge your marketing materials
Imagine spending hours writing the perfect marketing email or blog post. Then, after hours of research, planning, drafting, and editing, you find out that only half of your target audience can understand it. It would be devastating. However, if the readability of your writing is low (i.e., it scores a higher grade level), that could already be happening.
As we've said before, the average reading level of adults in the United States has historically been an 8th-grade level. After the effects of COVID and our growing culture of short attention spans, it could be even lower today. That's why it's essential to make your text as simple to read and understand as possible. While an 8th-grade level is a great target, we've heard from marketers who have doubled performance by getting their text as low as a 3rd-grade level. Try experimenting to find the best-performing grade level for your audience.
Improve SEO performance
Readability is one of the most important factors for writing great SEO content. If readers struggle to understand your text, your bounce rates can skyrocket and destroy SEO performance. Poor readability also affects the accessibility of your writing. Search engines are designed to find the best content for the most people. If your writing only appeals to a smaller subset due to its complexity, your page rank is bound to suffer.
Write better essays and get better grades
Think you need to write your homework at a high grade level to get an A? Think again. Poor readability, which is shown by a higher average grade level, is a great predictor of weak writing. That's because run-ons and long, confusing sentences are the most common reasons that readability suffers. Your teachers or professors are just like anyone else examining your work. If they struggle to understand what you're saying, you're likely to receive poor marks for it.
Non-native English speakers
If you are an ESL writer, readability can be especially difficult. Hemingway Editor Plus is a great way to check your text and ensure it sounds natural.
Humanize AI writing
AI tools like ChatGPT produce writing that sounds stiff and robotic. One of the biggest reasons they sound so unnatural is that their writing has poor readability. After drafting text with an AI tool, try running it through Hemingway's readability checker for a final polishing step.
How to use this free online readability checker in your writing
Step 1
Type or paste text into the input field. You can also import files directly from your computer.
Step 2
Hemingway automatically analyzes your document and provides an overall readability score.
Step 3
Examine the highlighted sentences and simplify them if needed. Yellow sentences are hard to read, and red sentences are very hard to read.
Step 4
Copy your finished text or click to export it as a Word doc, Markdown file, or text file.