You paste in a website URL. We crawl the pages, read the content, and score it against the same plain language criteria the federal government uses to grade its own agencies. You get a letter grade, a breakdown of where the writing is unclear, and specific examples of sentences that should be rewritten. The goal isn't a report card for its own sake - it's to show you which pages are generating phone calls because residents can't understand what they're reading.
The text on the web pages you submit is already public - anyone can visit those URLs. When you run an audit, that public text is sent to Google's Gemini API for analysis. We use paid API tiers where Google's terms explicitly state that your input is not used to train their models. We never send your personal account information, login credentials, or payment details to the AI provider. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.
In a few words, we score the way the Center for Plain Language scores: holistically, with evidence. Plain language experts have said since the 1980s that readability scores alone are inadequate. Readability formulas like Flesch-Kincaid measure one thing: sentence length and syllable count. Our scoring evaluates the six federally material dimensions that formulas can't touch. These tell the full story - whether the document actually tells the reader what to do next, whether jargon is defined, whether the structure helps someone scan for what they need, and whether the tone matches the audience.
We are not here to offer you legal advice, just auditing. Please consult with your legal regarding the Plain Writing Act of 2010. It requires every federal agency (and, by extension, many recipients of federal funds) to write clearly. Beyond that, there are at least 193 state-level laws mandating plain language in government documents - covering everything from ballot summaries to insurance notices to environmental reports. Plain language expectations often come built into grant conditions. The regulatory footprint is broad and growing. We align our scoring with the Federal Plain Language Guidelines so your results map directly to what the law actually asks for.
Your free audit includes an overall score, a letter grade, and a look at how you rank against others. You can also ask our "Chat With Your Audit" tool three questions for instant answers. This provides enough to know whether you have a problem and how you compare. The Pro plan unlocks the full details that tell you what to do about it: which specific pages are your worst performers, per-dimension evidence with quotes from your actual content, a 4-week action plan, resident impact estimates, and exportable reports. Most users who see their score want to see the page-level breakdown - that's where the Pro plan picks up.