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Words — Text Analysis Calculator

Word count, character count, reading & speaking time, Flesch readability score, syllable counter, and keyword density — all calculated instantly as you type.

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About the Words Text Analysis Tool

This free word counter and readability calculator analyzes any block of text instantly in your browser — no upload, no account, no data leaving your device. It's built for writers, editors, students, bloggers, and SEO content creators who need a character count tool, an online readability score checker, or a quick keyword density analyzer before publishing.

How the Flesch Reading Ease score works

The Flesch Reading Ease formula — 206.835 − 1.015 × (words/sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables/words) — was developed by Rudolf Flesch in 1948 and remains one of the most widely used readability metrics in publishing, journalism, and government plain-language guidelines. Scores range from 0 (very difficult, graduate reading level) to 100 (very easy, 5th-grade level). Most general-audience web content targets a score of 60–70.

Grade-level formulas included

Alongside Flesch Reading Ease, this tool calculates the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (Kincaid et al., 1975 — used by the U.S. Department of Defense and Microsoft Word), the Coleman-Liau Index (Coleman & Liau, 1975 — based on characters rather than syllables, useful for OCR'd or noisy text), and the Automated Readability Index (Senter & Smith, 1967 — originally developed for real-time readability scoring on typewriters). Each estimates the U.S. school grade level needed to understand your text on a first read.

Reading & speaking time

Reading time uses 238 words per minute — the average adult silent-reading speed from Marc Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of over 190,000 participants (Journal of Memory and Language). Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a standard conversational presentation pace, useful for scripting videos, podcasts, or speeches.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score for a blog post?▼

Most successful blog and web content scores 60-70 (8th-9th grade, "Standard" difficulty) — plain, conversational English readable by most adults. Technical or academic content commonly scores 30-50, while children's content or very simple instructions score 80+.

How is the syllable count calculated?▼

This tool uses a heuristic vowel-group counting algorithm (the same approach used by most readability calculators) rather than a dictionary lookup, since it runs entirely client-side. It handles common English patterns like silent trailing "e" and "-le" endings (e.g. "table"), and is accurate for the vast majority of English words, though unusual proper nouns or loanwords may be off by one syllable.

What is the difference between Flesch-Kincaid Grade and Flesch Reading Ease?▼

Both use the same underlying word-length and sentence-length inputs, but Flesch Reading Ease outputs a 0-100 score (higher = easier), while Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level outputs a U.S. school grade number (e.g. "8.2" means an eighth-grader could read it). Flesch-Kincaid Grade is the metric built into Microsoft Word's readability statistics.

Does this tool store or upload my text?▼

No. All analysis — word counting, syllable counting, readability scoring, and keyword density — runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is sent to a server or stored, so you can safely paste confidential drafts.

Why are common words like "the" and "and" excluded from keyword density?▼

Stop words (the, and, is, of, etc.) appear in nearly all English text regardless of topic, so including them would just show the same words for every document. Excluding them surfaces the topic-specific keywords that actually characterize your content — useful for on-page SEO checks.

Sources & References

Flesch R. “A new readability yardstick.” Journal of Applied Psychology 32(3):221-233 (1948).
Kincaid JP, Fishburne RP, Rogers RL, Chissom BS. “Derivation of new readability formulas.” Research Branch Report 8-75, Naval Air Station Memphis (1975).
Coleman M, Liau TL. “A computer readability formula designed for machine scoring.” Journal of Applied Psychology 60(2):283 (1975).
Senter RJ, Smith EA. “Automated readability index.” AMRL-TR-6620, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (1967).
Brysbaert M. “How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis.” Journal of Memory and Language 109 (2019).