On this page: what the law actually requires (and doesn’t), why overlays fail, what an audit and remediation engagement looks like, and what it costs.
What The Law Actually Requires
This is the part most agency pages get wrong, usually by implying every business faces a deadline. Here’s the accurate version as of September 2026.
If you’re a private business (ADA Title III)
There is no federal regulation setting a technical standard or a deadline for private-sector websites. What exists instead is litigation: plaintiffs sue under the ADA, courts have generally accepted WCAG as the working standard, and the volume is climbing.
- 3,117 federal web accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2025, up 27% from 2,452 in 2024.
- California alone accounted for 787 of them — up 62% year over year.
- New York (1,108), Florida (950), California (787) and Illinois (576) together made up roughly 87% of all filings.
California’s concentration isn’t an accident. The state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act allows statutory damages that federal ADA claims don’t, which makes California-facing sites a disproportionately attractive target. For a California business, “no deadline” is not the same as “no exposure.”
If you’re a state or local government entity (ADA Title II)
You are under a dated federal rule requiring WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The DOJ extended these dates in April 2026:
| Entity | Standard | Compliance date |
|---|---|---|
| Public entities serving a population of 50,000+ | WCAG 2.1 AA | April 26, 2027 |
| Public entities under 50,000, and special districts | WCAG 2.1 AA | April 26, 2028 |
If you receive HHS funding (Section 504)
Community health centers, hospitals, primary care practices, and other HHS funding recipients are under a parallel rule, also extended — in May 2026:
| Recipient | Standard | Compliance date |
|---|---|---|
| 15 or more employees | WCAG 2.1 AA | May 11, 2027 |
| Fewer than 15 employees | WCAG 2.1 AA | May 10, 2028 |
If you sell into the EU
The European Accessibility Act has been in force since June 2025 and applies to businesses selling to EU consumers regardless of where the business is based. If you ship or sell across the Atlantic, it applies to you.
The honest summary: if you’re a private US business, nobody is going to send you a compliance deadline — you’ll find out through a demand letter. If you’re a public entity or an HHS-funded provider, you have a real date, and the extensions bought you one year, not a reprieve.
This page describes the regulatory landscape as we understand it. It isn’t legal advice, and we’re not attorneys — if you’ve received a demand letter, talk to counsel first, then talk to us about the fix.
Why We Don’t Use Accessibility Overlays
You’ve seen the pitch: one line of JavaScript, instant compliance, a little accessibility icon in the corner. It’s the single most common thing we’re asked about, so here’s the direct answer.
Overlays sit on top of your site and attempt to patch accessibility problems in the browser at runtime. They can’t fix what they can’t understand — an image whose alt text needs to convey meaning, a form whose error handling is genuinely confusing, a custom component whose keyboard behavior is wrong at the source. Screen reader users have been vocal that overlays frequently make sites harder to use, not easier. And critically, sites running overlays have still been sued — the widget is not a defense.
The alternative is unglamorous and it works: fix the code. That’s what an audit-and-remediate engagement is.
What An Engagement Looks Like
1. Audit — automated scan plus manual testing.
Automated tools catch only part of what WCAG actually requires; the rest needs a human. We run both: a full-site automated scan for the mechanical failures (contrast, missing labels, structural errors), then manual keyboard and screen reader testing on your critical paths — the pages where a failure actually costs someone something. For most businesses that’s navigation, contact and lead forms, and checkout.
2. A findings report you can act on.
Every issue mapped to its WCAG success criterion, ranked by severity and by how much of your traffic it affects, with the specific fix described. Written so your team can act on it, whether or not we do the work.
3. Remediation in the code.
Templates, components, and content fixed at the source. Where a problem is structural — a theme or page builder that can’t produce accessible markup — we say so plainly rather than papering over it.
4. Verification and documentation.
Re-test after remediation, and document what was fixed and what conformance level was reached. If you need an accessibility statement or a VPAT-style conformance document for procurement, we produce it — accurately, describing what’s actually true of the site.
5. Keeping it fixed.
Accessibility regresses. Every new page, image, and PDF is a chance to reintroduce a violation. That’s a monitoring relationship, not a project — see accessibility monitoring.
Who This Is For
- California businesses — where the litigation concentration is highest and rising fastest
- Nonprofits — where accessibility is often a grant or funder condition before it’s ever a legal one
- Healthcare organizations receiving HHS funding — where the Section 504 dates are real and dated
- Any business selling to state or local government, where accessibility conformance increasingly appears in procurement requirements
- Any business that has received a demand letter — the fastest-moving version of this conversation
What It Costs
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Accessibility audit — standard business site (up to ~25 key pages and templates) | $2,500 fixed |
| Accessibility audit — e-commerce or large site | $4,500 fixed |
| Remediation | Quoted from findings — typically $3,500–$15,000 |
| Hourly remediation or advisory | $195/hour (2-hour minimum) |
| Accessibility statement + conformance documentation | $750 |
| Annual re-audit | $1,500 |
| PDF remediation | $8/page (10-page minimum) |
| Ongoing monitoring | From $199/month — see accessibility monitoring |
Every audit is a fixed fee because the scope is defined. Remediation is quoted from findings, because a 12-page brochure site and a 4,000-SKU store are not the same job, and a range quoted before anyone has looked is a number designed to be revised upward later.
What it costs not to
Published costs of resolving an accessibility claim, for comparison:
| Scenario | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Demand letter, quick settlement | $5,000 – $25,000 |
| Demand letter, contested | $15,000 – $75,000 |
| Federal lawsuit, default judgment | $20,000 – $150,000 |
| Federal lawsuit, contested | $30,000 – $400,000+ |
The cheapest possible outcome of doing nothing costs more than the most expensive audit on this page. That’s the whole argument.
Related Services
- Accessibility Monitoring — ongoing scanning and remediation so conformance doesn’t decay
- Website Maintenance — where accessibility scanning sits inside a broader care plan
- Website Redesign — when the current build can’t be made accessible without structural work
- Web Design — new builds, where accessibility is designed in from the first wireframe
Legal information current as of September 3, 2026.
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