Accessibility Audits & Code-Level Remediation
Most small business websites have accessibility violations that plaintiff attorneys can find from their desk, without ever visiting your physical location. In 2025, over 5,100 lawsuits were filed over website accessibility alone. The question isn't whether your site has issues. It almost certainly does. The question is who finds them first.
I audit your website against WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the standard the DOJ and courts reference — identify every violation, and fix them in your actual source code. You get a written report documenting the work, which becomes your evidence of good-faith compliance effort.
5,100+
ADA related lawsuits filed in 2025 (22% YoY increase)
95%
Of the top one million websites have accessibility violations
$1M
FTC fine against AccessiBe in 2025 for misleading overlay compliance claims
Sources: UsableNet, EcomBack, FTC
Why Your Website Falls Under Federal Law
Two federal laws drive virtually all website accessibility risk for small and mid-sized organizations: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The first applies broadly to any business open to the public. The second targets healthcare and any organization receiving federal funds, with active compliance deadlines now in force. If your business serves the public — or accepts federal funding — one or both apply to you.
ADA Title III
ADA Title III prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in places of "public accommodation." The Department of Justice has explicitly confirmed — most recently in formal guidance in March 2022 and reinforced in updated rulemaking since — that websites tied to public-accommodation businesses are subject to the same accessibility requirements as the physical locations themselves. That means inaccessible websites can be the basis for federal lawsuits, and they are: over 5,100 such suits were filed in 2025 alone.
Lodging — hotels, motels, inns
Food & drink establishments — restaurants, bars, cafes
Places of entertainment — theaters, concert halls, stadiums
Public gathering places — auditoriums, convention centers
Sales & rental establishments — retail stores, shopping centers, grocery stores
Public transportation stations — bus, train, and airport terminals
Public display or collection — museums, libraries, galleries
Recreation — parks, zoos, amusement parks
Education — private schools at all levels (nursery through graduate)
Social service centers — day cares, senior centers, shelters, food banks, adoption agencies
Exercise & recreation — gyms, health spas, bowling alleys, golf courses
Service establishments — banks, salons, dry cleaners, healthcare providers, dental practices, law offices, accounting offices, insurance offices, pharmacies, hospitals, gas stations, funeral homes, travel agencies
If your business is in any of these categories — and most small businesses are — your website is subject to ADA Title III.
HHS Section 504
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibits disability discrimination by any organization receiving federal funding. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule explicitly requiring that websites and mobile applications operated by these organizations conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The rule applies to any healthcare provider that accepts Medicare, Medicaid, or other federal funding — which is the overwhelming majority of dental practices, medical practices, behavioral health clinics, hospitals, and related providers in the United States. The penalty for non-compliance is loss of federal funding, not a fine.
May 11, 2026
Recipients with 15 or more employees
WCAG 2.1 AA conformance now required.
May 11, 2027
Recipients with fewer than 15 employees
One year remaining to come into conformance.
Not sure whether your practice falls under these rules? The free site scan is the easiest way to find out where you stand — no commitment, no obligation.
How It Works
Free Site Scan (5 minutes)
I run automated tooling — Axe, WAVE, and Lighthouse — against your live site and walk you through what the scan found. No commitment, no obligation. You see real numbers from your real site.
Comprehensive Audit (Flat Fee)
If you want to go deeper, I run a full audit: automated scans plus manual keyboard navigation, screen reader testing (NVDA and VoiceOver), form labeling review, heading hierarchy, color contrast, and PDF accessibility. You receive a written report you can share with an attorney.
Remediation Quote (After Audit)
With the audit findings in hand, I quote remediation as a fixed-fee project — never blind. You see the exact scope, the estimated hours, and a price cap. If I finish faster, you pay less.
Code-Level Fixes
I work in your actual source code. Semantic HTML, proper ARIA, keyboard focus management, accessible forms, and screen reader compatibility. No widgets, no plugins claiming to fix it for you.
Documentation & Accessibility Statement
You receive a before/after report showing WCAG 2.1 AA conformance, an accessibility statement page for your site, and written evidence of the remediation effort. This is your legal defense if you're ever contacted.
Ongoing Monitoring (Optional)
Every plugin update or new page can introduce new violations. My monthly monitoring retainer catches regressions before they become a problem — and continuous documented compliance is the strongest legal posture you can have.
Automated Testing
Axe DevTools full-site scan
WAVE violation analysis
Lighthouse accessibility audit
Color contrast verification
Manual Testing
Keyboard navigation walkthrough
NVDA + Firefox screen reader test
VoiceOver + Safari screen reader test
Form labeling and error handling
Documentation
Written findings report (PDF)
Severity ranking by violation
Remediation recommendations
Before/after conformance evidence
Why Overlay Widgets Make It Worse
A lot of businesses think they're covered because they installed an AccessiBe or UserWay widget — that little floating accessibility button. They don't actually achieve compliance. Over 1,000 lawsuits in 2024 were filed against businesses that already had one running, and in the first half of 2025, 22.6% of accessibility lawsuits targeted sites with widgets installed.
Worse: courts have started treating an installed widget as evidence the business knew about the obligation and chose a $49/month shortcut instead of fixing the real problem. The FTC's $1 million settlement with AccessiBe in 2025 confirmed what accessibility practitioners have been saying for years — widgets are a liability, not a solution.
Why This Matters
Why You Need an Audit
- Plaintiff attorneys are already scanning your site. Automated tools like Axe and WAVE are exactly what their firms use to find targets. Better that you find the issues first.
- Documentation is your legal defense. A written audit report dated before any complaint becomes evidence of good-faith compliance effort — courts treat that very differently than silence.
- You can't scope remediation blind. Without an audit, any quote to "fix accessibility" is either a wild guess or padded heavily for risk. Audits replace guessing with numbers.
- Healthcare practices accepting Medicare/Medicaid have a hard deadline. HHS Section 1557 requires WCAG 2.1 AA conformance by May 11, 2026, with loss of federal funding as the penalty.
- Your overlay widget isn't protecting you. If you have one installed, an audit tells you exactly what it's leaving exposed — and gives you the report you need to prove the underlying issues were addressed.
- Insurance carriers increasingly ask. Cyber and general liability policies are starting to ask whether websites have been audited for accessibility. A dated report is the easy answer.
Why Ongoing Monitoring Matters
- Every plugin update can introduce new violations. WordPress, in particular, breaks accessibility silently when third-party plugins push updates. Without monitoring, you don't find out until someone complains.
- New content rarely follows accessibility rules. Every blog post, image upload, embedded video, or page edit by a non-developer is a chance to introduce violations. Scans catch them early.
- Continuous documented effort is the strongest legal defense. Courts have consistently treated ongoing remediation more favorably than one-time fixes. Sweetgreen was sued in 2016, fixed it once, and was sued again in 2024 for the same issues — exactly the pattern monitoring prevents.
- WCAG itself evolves. WCAG 2.2 is now the current standard, and 3.0 is in draft. Your site has to keep moving as the goalposts move.
- Regression catches are cheap. Lawsuits aren't. A monthly scan plus a quick fix costs $150–$400. The average ADA demand letter settlement is $5,000. The average lawsuit settles for $30,000+.
- One accountable person watching the whole thing. No agency, no ticketing system, no waiting weeks for a response. You hear from me when something needs attention.
Service Tiers
Audit Report
A flat-fee comprehensive audit of your site against WCAG 2.1 AA. You receive a written report documenting every violation, severity ranking, and recommended fixes. Use it to scope remediation, share with your attorney, or both. Small site / Medium site / Large or e-commerce
$500 – $1,500+
Remediation
The full engagement. Full audit of your site, fix the violations in source code, and deliver before/after conformance documentation plus an accessibility statement page. Quoted from audit findings as a fixed-fee project with a price cap. The cap is your guarantee against surprises, not the price.
Price determined after audit findings
Ongoing Monitoring
Monthly automated scans, quarterly manual spot-checks, and regression fixes as content or plugins change. Continuous documented effort is the strongest available legal defense.
$150 – $400+ / month
Remediation work is billed at hourly rate. All audits are flat-fee — never open-ended.
Why Work With a Specialist Developer, Not an Agency
Direct Access
You work directly with the developer doing the work. No account managers, no handoff chain, no agency overhead. When you have a question, you ask the person writing the code.
Real Engineering
I fix accessibility in source code — semantic HTML, ARIA, keyboard handling, focus management. No overlay widgets, no plugins claiming to fix it for you, no marketing-language "compliance solutions."
A Note on Compliance
I'm a web developer, not an attorney, and no engagement guarantees you won't receive a demand letter or lawsuit. What I can tell you is that source-code remediation to WCAG 2.1 AA is the only approach courts, the DOJ, and accessibility experts recognize as genuine compliance — and documented remediation work is your strongest possible defense if you're ever contacted. If you want legal advice specific to your situation, I'm happy to refer you to an ADA attorney.