How to use the Reading Time Estimator
Paste your article or blog post. Reading time and readability stats update as you type. Adjust the reading speed slider for your target audience.
What is it?
The Flesch Reading Ease formula (Flesch, 1948) scores text from 0 to 100 based on average sentence length and average syllables per word. A higher score means easier reading. Scores above 60 are suitable for general audiences; below 30 is academic or technical writing.
Average reading speed for adult English readers is 200–250 WPM silently. Speaking pace for podcasts and presentations is around 130 WPM.
Benefits
Transform large text files without writing a script
Sort, deduplicate, clean, number, split, or reformat thousands of lines instantly in the browser — tasks that would take a Python or bash one-liner, done in one click.
Accurate counts for any writing constraint
Word and character counts that respect real constraints: 280-character tweets, SMS length limits, database column maximums, or API payload size budgets.
Prepare text for downstream systems
Remove trailing whitespace, normalize line endings, strip unwanted characters, or reformat columns before importing into databases, spreadsheets, or data pipelines.
Bulk operations without opening a spreadsheet or IDE
Process entire documents — shuffle lines for randomised testing, repeat patterns for test fixtures, extract specific columns — without switching tools.
Frequently asked questions
Is the syllable count exact?
No — syllable counting in plain text is approximate. The Flesch formula still gives directionally accurate scores for comparing documents and setting readability targets.
What's a good Flesch score for a blog post?
60–70 is ideal for general web content. Marketing copy often targets 70+ for maximum accessibility.