Read Easy.ai
Read Easy.ai rewrites complex text so that people with low literacy skills can follow it. Word and Outlook add-ins help editors, a Chrome extension helps readers, and a developer API brings the same simplification into your own product.
What is Read Easy.ai?
Read Easy.ai is a text simplification service built around one specific problem: a great deal of published writing is pitched well above the reading level of the people it is meant to reach. The homepage puts numbers on that gap, citing 54% of adults in the United States reading below a sixth-grader's level and 20 to 25% of Europeans considered functionally illiterate. The tool rewrites text so that it lands between A1 and B2 proficiency, combining the OpenAI API with techniques the vendor developed itself.
It reaches people through three doors rather than one web app. Editors install add-ins for Microsoft Word and Outlook, which give real-time feedback and suggestions while they write, flagging difficult words and sentences and explaining what makes them hard. Readers install a Chrome extension that simplifies the text of any website in a single click. Developers work against a documented REST API, published as a Swagger reference, which brings the same readability analysis, multilingual support and dyslexia-focused optimisation into their own products. Compatibility is advertised with React, React Native, Swift, Vue.js, WordPress and Shopify, alongside custom development.
The company behind it, Digitaal Toegankelijk BV, sits in Utrecht and trades under the Accessibility Desk and Digitaal Toegankelijk names. The origin story is unusually concrete: the team ran accessibility audits for large government organisations, found that writing at B1 level was so laborious that some clients dropped the requirement from their budgets outright, and built a tool to make it affordable. That heritage shows in the product, which behaves like an accessibility instrument first and a writing assistant second.
Beyond simplification, the support pages list synonyms graded by reading level, fact extraction from a passage, and a dyslexia checker. Language coverage is stated twice and inconsistently, the FAQ naming ten languages and the homepage five, so only the two lists read together give the full picture. The vendor is candid about the ceiling: its own terms warn that the selected reading level cannot always be guaranteed, and recommend checking the result with the audience it is written for.
What it does
- Simplify a text down to a chosen reading level, from A1 to B2
- Flag the words and sentences that are too difficult, and explain why
- Suggest synonyms graded by reading level
- Simplify the text of any web page in a single click
- Check a text for dyslexia-friendly readability
- Extract the facts from a passage
- Call the same simplification from your own application through a REST API
When to use Read Easy.ai / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Read Easy.ai is the right fit.
When to use Read Easy.ai
- Public-sector editors who are required to publish at B1 reading level
- Communications and content teams simplifying web copy that already exists
- Developers embedding readability analysis into a site or an app through the API
- Readers with low literacy or dyslexia who need web pages made plainer as they browse
- Teams writing across several European languages who want one consistent simplification tool
When not to use Read Easy.ai
- Anyone who needs a guaranteed reading level, which the vendor explicitly declines to promise
- Heavy daily users, since the cheapest paid plan stops at sixty requests a month
- Mobile-first users, because there is no iOS or Android application
- People working outside Chrome, as the reader extension ships for that browser only
- Buyers who need a signed DPA, a trust page or a stated hosting jurisdiction before rollout
How to use Read Easy.ai
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account on the customer portal, or sign in if you already have one
- Choose your entry point: the Word or Outlook add-in if you write, the Chrome extension if you read, the API if you build
- Editors: install the add-in from Microsoft AppSource, for Word or for Outlook
- Readers: install the extension from the Chrome Web Store, then simplify any page with one click
- Developers: read the Swagger documentation, then request access through the Get API Access form and wait for the team to answer
- Write or paste your text and read the real-time feedback on the words and sentences that are too difficult
- Apply the suggested rewrites or the graded synonyms until the passage reaches the level you need
- Keep an eye on your monthly request count, since every plan is metered from five requests upward
- Upgrade, downgrade or cancel from the subscription page of the customer portal
- Book a demo through the request form if you would rather have the team walk you through it first
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Three genuinely distinct entry points, for editors, readers and developers, rather than a single web app
- A permanent free plan, and a paid entry point at 2.99 US dollars a month that is hard to beat
- European vendor, established in the Netherlands, with GDPR compliance claimed in explicit terms
- Third-party processors named in plain sight: Firebase for account data, OpenAI for text processing
- A clear position on model training, since OpenAI does not train on API data unless the customer opts to share it
- A narrow, well-understood problem, with credible origins in public-sector accessibility auditing
- Publicly documented API and a bilingual English and Dutch site
Cons
- Request quotas are severe: five a month on the free plan, sixty on the 2.99 dollar Personal tier
- No support email is published anywhere, leaving a web form as the only channel
- No DPA, no trust or security page, and no stated hosting country
- Every paid price carries an asterisk with no footnote to explain what it means
- The legal documents are visibly unmaintained, including an undated privacy policy that still contains an unfilled placeholder
- The site contradicts itself on details, with two postcodes, two names for the same plan and two different language lists
- No mobile application, and the reader extension exists for Chrome only
Pricing & Plans
Read Easy.ai operates on a freemium basis. A permanent free plan is available at no cost, limited to five requests per month. The lowest paid entry point is the Personal plan at 2.99 US dollars per month, which raises the allowance to sixty requests per month. All paid prices shown on the pricing page carry an asterisk for which no explanatory footnote is published.
- $0 - up to 5 requests per month
- with the Word plugin
- the Outlook plugin and the Chrome extension
- $2.99 per month* - up to 60 requests per month
- adding priority email support
- $19.99 per month* - up to 1
- 000 requests per month
- adding priority phone support
- $199 per month* - up to 10
- 000 requests per month
- with the same priority email and phone support
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Read Easy.ai handles your data.
GDPR overview
Compliance is claimed in plain terms: as a company based in the Netherlands, the vendor states that it complies with Dutch and EU data protection law, including the GDPR. Residents of the EEA are told they may access, correct, update or request deletion of their personal information, and the cookie policy sets out seven rights, including rectification, withdrawal of consent, portability, objection and the right to complain to the supervisory authority. Rights are exercised through the contact form. Two gaps deserve mention. No data protection officer is named anywhere on the site, and no Article 27 representative is designated, the latter being expected since the company is itself established in the European Union. The privacy policy carries no effective date, so there is no way to tell when these commitments were last reviewed.
Who owns the data?
Digitaal Toegankelijk BV, based in Utrecht, operates the service and acts as controller for the personal data it collects. Account and user records are stored in Google's Firebase, and the text you submit is processed through the OpenAI API. The EULA reserves all title and intellectual property in the Service itself to the vendor and its licensors, while the terms of use state that content and materials made available through the service are the property of OpenAI and/or Read Easy.ai. What no document addresses is ownership of the text a customer submits for simplification, or of the simplified version that comes back: neither the terms nor the EULA assigns it either way.
Reuse rights
The EULA grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the service for personal or internal business purposes, and nothing beyond that: you may not sublicense, sell, lease or otherwise transfer it. Content and materials made available through the service are said to belong to OpenAI and/or Read Easy.ai, and may not be used, reproduced, distributed or displayed without prior written consent. On the simplified text a customer receives back, the documents say nothing at all, so no permission to reuse the output is expressly granted and none is expressly withheld. Customers remain responsible for ensuring that the text they submit breaks no law and infringes no third-party right.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The published picture is thin. Account and user data is stored in Firebase, a Google service, and the vendor states that nothing else is kept there. Text submitted for simplification is processed through the OpenAI API and falls under OpenAI's own data usage policies. Beyond those two named processors, no hosting country and no region are given anywhere on the site. Jurisdiction is clearer than location. Digitaal Toegankelijk BV is established in Utrecht, in the Netherlands; the privacy policy states that as a Dutch company it complies with Dutch and EU data protection law, and the EULA places the agreement under Dutch law with exclusive jurisdiction in the courts of the Netherlands. What is missing is the material a procurement review normally asks for: no trust or security page, no certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, no subprocessor list in the formal sense, and no statement of where the data physically sits. Firebase and OpenAI both operate in several regions, so naming them does not answer the question. Anyone with a data residency requirement should ask the vendor directly rather than infer an answer from the Dutch address.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Read Easy.ai.
- The vendor does not guarantee the reading level you select, so treat every output as a draft and test it with the audience it is written for
- Your text is sent to the OpenAI API and kept there for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring, so avoid pasting anything you would not hand to a third-party processor
- With no DPA, no trust page and no stated hosting jurisdiction, an organisation processing personal data should obtain contractual answers in writing before rollout
- Letting the tool do the thinking is the real trap: simplified prose that nobody reread can end up simpler and wronger at the same time
- The unexplained asterisk on every paid price means the amount displayed may not be the amount charged, so check tax and commitment terms before subscribing
- Metered plans encourage rationing, and five requests a month makes the free tier a demonstration rather than a workflow
- The site contradicts itself on postcodes, plan names and supported languages, which is a fair warning about how closely the published detail is maintained
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low for most people, moderate for developers. Editors and readers install an add-in from Microsoft AppSource or an extension from the Chrome Web Store and create an account on the customer portal: no technical skill is involved and there is nothing to configure. Developers face one extra step, because the REST API is documented as a Swagger reference but access is not self-service, so you submit a request form and wait for the team. No SDK or client library is mentioned, so the HTTP calls are written by hand against the published reference.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Read Easy.ai
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What does Read Easy.ai actually do?
Is there a free version?
What do the paid plans cost?
Which languages are supported?
Is there an API, and how do I get access?
Will my text be used to train AI models?
Is the reading level guaranteed?
How do I manage or cancel my subscription?
Who is behind Read Easy.ai, and is there a mobile app?
Should you pick Read Easy.ai?
Read Easy.ai does one thing, and it does it from an unusually credible starting point. The team behind it audits accessibility for large Dutch public bodies, watched clients abandon the B1 writing requirement because meeting it cost too much, and built a tool to close that gap. That lineage explains the product's shape: it behaves like an accessibility instrument that happens to look like a writing assistant, and it meets three different audiences, editors in Word and Outlook, readers in Chrome, developers through a documented API, instead of herding everyone into one web app.
For a small public-sector communications team, a content editor working under plain-language rules, or a product team that needs readability analysis inside its own application, the entry cost is close to trivial. A permanent free tier exists, the first paid plan is 2.99 US dollars a month, the vendor is established in the Netherlands, and it names its third-party processors and its position on model training without being asked.
The reservations are real, and they concern upkeep and volume more than capability. Request quotas are tight enough that a working editor will exhaust the Personal plan quickly. No support email is published, so a web form is the only channel. Nothing resembling a DPA, a trust page or a stated hosting jurisdiction exists, which will stop a procurement review in its tracks. And the legal documents show their age, from an undated privacy policy still carrying an unfilled placeholder to two different postcodes for the same office.
Treat it as a capable, inexpensive tool for a narrow and genuinely useful job, and settle the contractual questions directly with the vendor before putting personal data through it.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.