Content Readability Checker

Analyze web page readability with Flesch-Kincaid, Coleman-Liau, and other readability scores. Get grade level, word count, and estimated reading time.

What does Content Readability Checker do?

This actor fetches web pages and analyzes their text content for readability. It calculates Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Coleman-Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index. It also provides word count, sentence count, syllable count, reading level classification, and estimated reading time. Process a single page or hundreds of URLs in one run to audit your entire site's content readability at scale.

Use cases

• Content marketers -- ensure blog posts and landing pages match your target audience reading level
• SEO specialists -- audit readability across hundreds of pages to improve dwell time and engagement
• Academic writers -- verify research papers and educational content meet readability guidelines
• UX copywriters -- validate that interface copy and help docs are easy for all users to understand
• Competitive analysts -- benchmark your content readability against competitor pages

Why use Content Readability Checker?

• Multiple readability formulas -- get Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Coleman-Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index in a single run
• Batch processing -- analyze hundreds of URLs at once instead of pasting text one page at a time
• Structured JSON output -- every result includes numeric scores, grade levels, and reading time for easy filtering and reporting
• API and integration ready -- trigger runs programmatically or connect to Google Sheets, Zapier, and other tools
• Pay-per-event pricing -- only pay for the pages you actually analyze, starting at fractions of a cent per URL
• Fast and lightweight -- uses HTTP requests without a browser, so results come back quickly

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
urls	string[]	Yes	--	List of web page URLs to check readability for

Example input

{
    "urls": [
        "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping",
        "https://blog.apify.com",
        "https://example.com"
    ]
}

Output example

{
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping",
    "title": "Web scraping - Wikipedia",
    "wordCount": 3450,
    "sentenceCount": 185,
    "syllableCount": 5200,
    "paragraphCount": 42,
    "avgWordsPerSentence": 18.6,
    "avgSyllablesPerWord": 1.51,
    "fleschReadingEase": 42.3,
    "fleschKincaidGrade": 11.2,
    "colemanLiauIndex": 12.8,
    "automatedReadabilityIndex": 13.1,
    "readingLevel": "10th-12th grade (fairly difficult)",
    "estimatedReadingTimeMinutes": 17.3,
    "error": null,
    "checkedAt": "2026-03-01T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
url	string	The analyzed page URL
title	string	The page title
wordCount	number	Total words in the page content
sentenceCount	number	Total sentences detected
syllableCount	number	Total syllables counted
paragraphCount	number	Total paragraphs detected
avgWordsPerSentence	number	Average words per sentence
avgSyllablesPerWord	number	Average syllables per word
fleschReadingEase	number	Flesch Reading Ease score (0-100, higher is easier)
fleschKincaidGrade	number	Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (US school grade)
colemanLiauIndex	number	Coleman-Liau Index grade level
automatedReadabilityIndex	number	Automated Readability Index grade level
readingLevel	string	Human-readable reading level classification
estimatedReadingTimeMinutes	number	Estimated reading time in minutes
error	string	Error message if analysis failed, null otherwise
checkedAt	string	ISO timestamp of the analysis

How much does it cost to check content readability?

Content Readability Checker uses Apify's pay-per-event pricing model. You only pay for what you use.

Event	Price	Description
Start	$0.035	One-time per run
URL analyzed	$0.001	Per page analyzed

Example costs:

• 10 pages: $0.035 + 10 x $0.001 = $0.045
• 100 pages: $0.035 + 100 x $0.001 = $0.135
• 1,000 pages: $0.035 + 1,000 x $0.001 = $1.035

How to check content readability for web pages

1. Go to the Content Readability Checker page on Apify Store.
2. Click Try for free to open the actor in Apify Console.
3. Enter the URLs you want to analyze in the urls input field.
4. Click Start to begin the readability analysis.
5. Once the run finishes, download your results as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab.

Using the Apify API

You can start Content Readability Checker programmatically from your own applications using the Apify API. The following examples show how to run the actor and retrieve results in both Node.js and Python.

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/content-readability-checker').call({
    urls: ['https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping'],
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/content-readability-checker').call(run_input={
    'urls': ['https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping'],
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~content-readability-checker/runs" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping"]}'

Use with AI agents via MCP

Content Readability Checker is available as a tool for AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/content-readability-checker"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/content-readability-checker"
        }
    }
}

Example prompts

• "Analyze reading level of this blog post"
• "Check content readability for our landing pages"

Learn more in the Apify MCP documentation.

Integrations

Content Readability Checker works with all major automation platforms available on Apify. Connect it to Google Sheets to build a live readability dashboard. Use Zapier or Make to trigger readability checks whenever new content is published. Send alerts to Slack when a page's readability score drops below a threshold. Pipe results into n8n workflows for custom processing, or set up webhooks to get notified as soon as a run finishes. You can also chain it with other Apify actors to build end-to-end content audit pipelines.

Tips and best practices

• Analyze full articles, not homepages -- readability scores are most useful on long-form content pages, not navigation-heavy homepages
• Aim for a Flesch Reading Ease of 60+ for general audience content; scores below 30 indicate very difficult academic text
• Batch your URLs into a single run rather than running one URL at a time to minimize the per-run start cost
• Export to Google Sheets and sort by Flesch-Kincaid Grade to quickly find your hardest-to-read pages
• Combine with Word Counter to get both readability scores and detailed word/character statistics in your content audit

Legality

This tool analyzes publicly accessible web content. Automated analysis of public web resources is standard practice in SEO and web development. Always respect robots.txt directives and rate limits when analyzing third-party websites. For personal data processing, ensure compliance with applicable privacy regulations.

FAQ

What readability formulas does this actor use? It calculates four scores: Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Coleman-Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index. Each uses a different formula based on word length, sentence length, and syllable count.

Can I analyze pages that require login? No. The actor uses plain HTTP requests and cannot handle authentication or JavaScript-rendered pages. It works best on publicly accessible content pages.

What happens if a URL fails to load? The result for that URL will include an error field with a description of the problem. All other URLs in the batch will still be processed normally.

The readability scores seem inaccurate for my page. Why? Readability formulas work best on long-form prose content. Pages with lots of navigation text, code snippets, lists, or boilerplate (headers, footers) can skew the scores because the actor analyzes all visible text on the page, not just the main article body. For best results, test pages with substantial body content.

The word count is much higher (or lower) than expected. What causes this? The actor extracts all visible text from the HTML, which includes navigation menus, sidebars, footers, and other non-article content. If your page has heavy navigation or widget areas, the word count may be inflated. Conversely, pages that load content via JavaScript may show lower counts since the actor uses plain HTTP requests.

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