Is Your Website ADA Compliant? How to Check in 60 Seconds

Why ADA compliance matters in 2026

ADA website lawsuits grew more than 300% between 2022 and 2025, and the filing pace hasn’t slowed in 2026. The median settlement for a small business is $25,000. The plaintiff doesn’t need to prove damages; they need to prove the site failed to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. That’s a technical standard, not a legal opinion.

The firms filing these suits scan websites automatically. They find violations in seconds. Then they send a demand letter. By the time you notice, you’re already weighing $25,000 against the cost of fighting it.

The violations that actually get businesses sued

Don’t panic about every WCAG checkpoint. The lawsuits cluster around the same seven failures:

1. Missing alt text on images that convey meaning (product photos, info graphics).
2. Poor color contrast — text on the page must meet a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text, 3:1 for large text.
3. Keyboard navigation broken — if you can’t tab through every interactive element and see a focus ring, you’re exposed.
4. Form inputs without labels — every <input> needs a <label for="..."> or an aria-label.
5. Auto-playing video or audio without a pause control.
6. Missing skip-to-content link at the top of the page so screen readers can bypass the nav.
7. No visible accessibility statement in the footer linking to your policy.

How to check in 60 seconds

Run our free ADA compliance checker. Paste your URL. You get a list of specific violations with line numbers, ranked by severity. No email required.

If you prefer manual:

• Open Chrome DevTools → Lighthouse → Accessibility. Run it. Aim for a score over 90.
• Tab through your homepage with the keyboard only. Can you reach every button and link? Does the focus ring show where you are?
• View the page with CSS disabled. Does the content still make sense in order?
• Check color contrast at webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ for your main text/background combo.

What to do when you find violations

Most violations are cheap to fix once you know they’re there. Typical remediation cost for a 20-page local business site is $500–$2,000 if you’re paying someone to do it, $0 in software if your developer understands WCAG.

The expensive path is an overlay widget (the floating accessibility button you’ve seen on hotel sites). Those don’t protect you. Courts have ruled they don’t bring a site into compliance, and plaintiff firms specifically target sites using them because they’re an easy tell that the business hasn’t done the actual work.

Documentation that protects you

Even with a compliant site, you want three documents on file:

1. Accessibility statement on your website (footer link), declaring your commitment to WCAG 2.1 AA and listing known limitations.
2. VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) — useful if you sell to government or enterprise, and looks great in court.
3. Remediation plan — signed and dated. Shows intent to comply, which matters when defending a lawsuit.

We package all three for $47 in our ADA Website Compliance Kit. The full documentation version with a detailed remediation plan, VPAT, testing procedures, and vendor evaluation criteria is $147.

Sites that get targeted most

• Restaurants (online menus, reservation forms)
• Hotels (booking flows)
• Retail e-commerce
• Medical and dental practices
• Law firms (intake forms)

If you’re in one of these and haven’t run an accessibility scan, the odds you have at least one actionable violation are well over 80%.

Next step

Run the free scan first. It takes less time than reading this article. If you want help interpreting the results or need the full compliance documentation package, our ADA kits cover both. If the answer is “you’re already compliant,” keep it that way — re-run the check every quarter.