What Does An Audit Cost?
What drives the price of an accessibility audit, what each package includes and how to compare quotes before you buy.
Read the audit cost guideAccessibility Glossary: 200 Web Accessibility Terms Explained In Plain English
Clear definitions of the WCAG, ARIA, ADA, Section 508 and European Accessibility Act terms you will meet in audits, VPATs and legal letters. Reviewed by our founder, an IAAP CPACC, WAS and CPWA certified specialist with 10+ years of hands-on accessibility testing.
Start Here
Turn These Terms Into A Plan
Looked up a term? These guides answer the questions people ask next. New here and not sure what you need? Book a free 30-minute call: a first conversation to understand where you stand and scope your project. Already have scan results or audit findings to go through with your developer? The $100 one-hour technical consultation is built for that.
Got An ADA Demand Letter?
What to do in the first days after a demand letter or lawsuit, and how an audit and documented fixes support your response.
Read the ADA lawsuit guideHow Remediation Works
How audit findings become code, content and design fixes, and how each fix is retested so you can show it is resolved.
Read the remediation guideAutomated Scans Vs Manual Testing
What automated accessibility testing catches, where it stops, and why a manual review with a screen reader still matters.
Read the testing guideSelling In The EU?
What the European Accessibility Act requires, who it covers and how EN 301 549 and WCAG fit together.
Read the EAA guideDo Overlays Make A Site Compliant?
Why accessibility widgets do not fix the underlying code, and what courts and the FTC have said about them.
Read the overlays guideget in touch
Know where you stand. Know what to work on next.
Tell us what you’re working on and where you need support. Our accessibility specialists can help with audits, remediation, VPAT/ACR, accessible development, and ongoing compliance.
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From Definition To Fix
Accessibility Glossary Terms Buyers Ask About Most
This accessibility glossary explains 200 terms in plain English. If you are buying an audit or answering a procurement request, start with accessibility audit, WCAG, success criterion, conformance level, VPAT, ACR, accessibility remediation, tagged PDF and accessibility roadmap. For the laws behind them, see ADA Title II, ADA Title III, Section 508, the European Accessibility Act and EN 301 549. Technical definitions follow the W3C’s WCAG 2.2 text.
Accessibility Audit
A structured review of your site against WCAG 2.2 Level AA using screen readers, the keyboard and automated scans. Our Quick Audit is $500 and a complete audit is $2,000.
Accessibility Audit ServicesVPAT And ACR
A VPAT is the ITI reporting template. Once it is filled in from real testing it becomes an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), which buyers and Section 508 reviewers ask for.
VPAT And ACR DocumentationAccessibility Remediation
Fixing the issues an audit finds in your code, content or CMS settings, then retesting each fix so you can show it is resolved.
Accessibility RemediationADA Demand Letter
A letter claiming your website breaks the ADA, often sent before a lawsuit. An expert audit and documented fixes are the usual first response.
ADA Lawsuit RemediationTagged PDF
A PDF with a tag tree that gives screen readers its headings, reading order, tables and alt text. PDF/UA (ISO 14289) is the standard for accessible PDFs.
Document Accessibility TestingAccessibility Roadmap
A prioritised plan for fixing issues and keeping them fixed, with owners, dates and scheduled retests after each release.
Accessibility MonitoringAll Accessibility Glossary Terms From A To Z
200 definitions covering WCAG success criteria, ARIA, assistive technology, testing tools and accessibility laws around the world. Select a term to read the full definition.
Accessibility Audit
An accessibility audit is a structured evaluation of a website or app against a standard like WCAG, combining automated scanning, manual testing, and real assistive technology use to find and document barriers.
Accessibility Center of Excellence
A centralized internal team or function responsible for setting accessibility standards, providing expertise, and coordinating accessibility practice across an organization's various product and content teams.
Accessibility Certification Program
A structured internal or third-party program that trains staff and validates their accessibility knowledge and skills, often as part of building organization-wide accessibility capability.
Accessibility Champion
A designated individual within a design, product, or engineering team who advocates for accessibility, answers questions, and helps embed accessible practice into that team's daily work.
Accessibility Checklist
An accessibility checklist is a condensed, actionable list of common requirements, usually drawn from WCAG, used by designers and developers as a practical reference during day-to-day work.
Accessibility Conformance Testing
Accessibility conformance testing is the formal process of verifying, criterion by criterion, whether a product meets a named standard, typically to produce a VPAT or ACR for procurement purposes.
Accessibility Debt
The accumulated backlog of unresolved accessibility issues in a product, analogous to technical debt, that grows more expensive and disruptive to fix the longer it is left unaddressed.
Accessibility Gap Analysis
An accessibility gap analysis compares an organization's current state against a target standard or maturity level, identifying specifically where the gaps are, in technical conformance, process, and team skill, before a remediation or roadmap plan is built.
Accessibility Insights
A free accessibility testing tool suite from Microsoft, offering both a guided manual-testing workflow and an automated scanner for web and Windows applications.
Accessibility Linting
Running automated accessibility rules directly inside a code editor or build process, flagging likely WCAG violations, like a missing alt attribute, as code is written rather than after deployment.
Accessibility Maturity Model
An accessibility maturity model is a framework describing stages an organization moves through, from no formal accessibility practice to reactive fixing to proactive, embedded accessibility built into every stage of the product lifecycle.
Accessibility Monitoring
Accessibility monitoring is the ongoing practice of regularly checking a site for new accessibility issues after an initial audit and remediation, since new content and features can reintroduce problems over time.
Accessibility Overlay
An accessibility overlay is a third-party script added to a website that claims to automatically detect and fix accessibility issues, typically through a small on-page widget.
Accessibility Remediation
Accessibility remediation is the process of actually fixing the barriers an audit identifies, from code-level changes like adding missing labels to broader work like restructuring page semantics or rebuilding a custom component.
Accessibility Roadmap
An accessibility roadmap is a prioritized, time-bound plan for fixing an organization's accessibility issues and building lasting accessibility practices, typically built from an initial audit's findings.
Accessibility ROI (Return on Investment)
Accessibility ROI refers to the measurable business value of accessibility work, spanning avoided legal costs, expanded market reach, improved SEO, and better usability for all users, not disabled users alone.
Accessibility Scanner
An accessibility scanner is a specific automated tool, such as axe DevTools, WAVE, Lighthouse, or a full-site crawler, that checks a page's underlying code against a rule set derived from WCAG and reports what it finds.
Accessibility Statement
An accessibility statement is a public page describing an organization's accessibility commitment, the standard it targets, known limitations, and how to report a barrier or request an accommodation.
Accessibility Training
Accessibility training teaches designers, developers, content writers, and QA staff how to build and check for accessibility as part of their normal workflow, rather than leaving it to a single specialist or an outside audit alone.
Accessibility Tree
The accessibility tree is the browser's internal representation of a page built specifically for assistive technology, containing each element's role, accessible name, state, and value, derived from the DOM and any ARIA attributes present.
Put The Terms To Work
Not Sure Which Of These Terms Apply To Your Site?
New here? Start with a free 30-minute call to understand where you stand and scope your project. Already have scan results or audit findings to work through with your developer? Book the $100 one-hour technical consultation. Ready for findings? Start with a $500 Quick Audit or a $2,000 complete audit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an accessibility glossary?
An accessibility glossary is a list of the terms used in digital accessibility, from standards such as WCAG and EN 301 549 to laws, assistive technologies and testing methods, each explained in plain language. Ours has 200 terms, written and reviewed by the web accessibility experts who run our audits.
What is the difference between WCAG, the ADA and Section 508?
WCAG is the W3C’s technical standard for accessible web content. The ADA is a US civil rights law: the Department of Justice’s Title II web rule requires state and local governments to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027 (populations of 50,000 or more) or April 26, 2028 (smaller entities and special districts). Section 508 covers US federal agencies, and its standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level AA. See ADA Title II, ADA Title III and Section 508 in the glossary.
What is the difference between a VPAT and an ACR?
A VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is the blank reporting template published by the Information Technology Industry Council. When it is completed from real testing, the result is an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). We write ACRs from hands-on testing through our VPAT and ACR documentation service.
What does WCAG 2.2 Level AA mean?
WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023. It adds nine success criteria to WCAG 2.1, such as Target Size (Minimum) and Accessible Authentication, and removes 4.1.1 Parsing (W3C: What’s New in WCAG 2.2). Level AA means a page meets every Level A and Level AA success criterion. It is the level most laws and contracts ask for.
How much does an accessibility audit cost?
Our packages are fixed prices: a one-hour technical consultation (audit walkthrough, developer Q&A or live issue review) is $100, a Quick Accessibility Audit is $500, and a complete audit is $2,000, including the Shopify Accessibility Audit. Remediation and VPATs are quoted after we see the findings. See accessibility audit pricing for what each package includes.
Can an automated scanner or overlay make my website compliant?
No. Automated tools cannot check every WCAG requirement, which is why the W3C’s guidance on evaluation tools says to combine them with manual review. An accessibility overlay does not fix the underlying code either; read why in accessibility overlays and ADA lawsuits. Our audits pair scans with manual testing in NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and the keyboard.
Who writes and reviews these glossary definitions?
Our web accessibility experts. Reviews are led by founder Mohammad Shadab Saifi, who has 10+ years in digital accessibility and holds the IAAP CPACC, WAS and CPWA certifications. If a term on your audit report is unclear, book a $100 consultation and we will walk you through it.
I am new to accessibility. Where should I start?
Read WCAG and accessibility audit first, then the guide that fits your situation: audit cost, an ADA demand letter or the European Accessibility Act. When you want to talk it through, book a free 30-minute call. It is a first conversation to understand where you stand and scope a project. If you already have scan results or audit findings to go through with your developer, the $100 one-hour technical consultation is the better fit.