ADA Section 508 Accessibility Audit Services

The ADA statute does not name WCAG. For state and local governments, the DOJ’s 2024 Title II rule adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA (see the ADA.gov Title II fact sheet), and a 2026 interim final rule set the compliance dates at April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 or more residents and April 26, 2028 for smaller governments and special districts. For private businesses under Title III there is no WCAG regulation; the DOJ’s web accessibility guidance points to WCAG as helpful guidance, and settlements and court orders commonly use WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

Governments serving 50,000 or more residents must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027. Smaller governments and special districts have until April 26, 2028. Both deadlines were extended by the DOJ in 2026.

Section 508 applies to US federal agencies and companies that sell technology or digital services to the federal government. If you are a federal contractor or vendor, your product likely needs a VPAT documenting Section 508 conformance. The Revised Section 508 Standards, maintained by the U.S. Access Board, incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level AA (see Section508.gov). Hospitals and clinics that receive HHS funding are covered by HHS Section 504 (WCAG 2.1 AA) rather than Section 508 alone — see our healthcare accessibility services. We can pair the audit with VPAT and ACR documentation (see our WCAG compliance verification and VPAT case study) and PDF document remediation for documents in scope.

Talk to your attorney first; we do not give legal advice. A demand letter usually cites specific barriers on your site, so the next step is a manual audit that checks which claims are valid and documents what you fix. Our ADA lawsuit remediation service tests, fixes and documents the issues a letter names, and the $500 Quick Audit is a fast way to see your biggest problems.

The legal minimums differ: ADA Title II requires WCAG 2.1 AA, the Revised Section 508 Standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 AA, and ADA Title III settlements commonly reference WCAG 2.1 AA. WCAG 2.2 AA builds on both, adding newer criteria such as focus not obscured and target size (it also retires the obsolete 4.1.1 Parsing criterion), so testing to 2.2 AA covers today’s requirements and reduces future rework. Every audit includes hands-on keyboard testing like the process in our manual keyboard accessibility testing guide.

Our prices are fixed and published: a $500 Quick Audit for up to 5 page templates and a $2,000 Complete Audit for up to 25 templates or key user flows, with a re-test of fixed issues. Larger platforms get a custom Enterprise Program quote after a free needs assessment. A 1-hour technical accessibility consultation (audit walkthrough, developer Q&A or live issue review) is $100; first conversations are a free 30-minute call. See our pricing page for details.

Manual auditors. Automated scans are only our starting point: the W3C says evaluation tools cannot determine accessibility on their own. Our testers, led by founder Mohammad Shadab Saifi (IAAP CPACC, WAS and CPWA), test every template and flow with a keyboard and with screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS and VoiceOver, then confirm each issue by hand before it goes in your report. See how we do screen reader accessibility testing.

Section 508 testing checks conformance with the Revised Section 508 Standards, which incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA. Federal agencies use the ICT Testing Baseline (Baseline for Web version 3.1) as the minimum set of tests, and some only accept results from DHS Trusted Testers. Our audits are led by founder Mohammad Shadab Saifi, a DHS Section 508 Trusted Tester. We test to WCAG 2.2 AA, which covers the WCAG 2.0 AA criteria Section 508 uses, and report Section 508 results separately. Tell us your agency’s testing requirements when we scope the work.

No audit can guarantee that. Plaintiffs filed 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in federal court in 2025. What lowers your risk is finding and fixing real barriers and keeping records of that work. Overlay widgets are not a shortcut: in April 2025 the FTC approved a final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million over claims that its widget could make any website WCAG compliant. Read more about accessibility overlays and ADA lawsuits.

The Justice Department’s web accessibility guidance says businesses open to the public must make the goods and services they offer online accessible, and it names WCAG and the Section 508 Standards as helpful technical guidance. There is no Title III web regulation, so courts and settlements usually measure websites against WCAG 2.1 AA. Ask your attorney how this applies to your business.

Yes. Section 508 covers electronic documents as well as web pages. We test PDFs, Word and PowerPoint files for tags, reading order, alt text, tables and form fields, and can fix them through our PDF document remediation service.

If you sell software or digital services to federal agencies, buyers will usually ask for an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), which is written on the VPAT template. The audit gives you the evidence, and our VPAT and ACR documentation service turns it into the report. You can request a VPAT quote here.

Yes. Our sample audit report shows how findings are written, with WCAG references, severity, screenshots and fix guidance for developers.

We do. HalfAccessible audits city, county, school district and special district websites against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the standard in the Justice Department’s ADA Title II rule. Governments serving 50,000 or more people must comply by April 26, 2027, and smaller governments and special districts by April 26, 2028. Each audit is led by founder Mohammad Shadab Saifi (CPACC, WAS, CPWA and DHS Section 508 Trusted Tester) and covers web pages, online forms, PDFs and third-party tools you provide to residents through contracts or licenses. Start with our government accessibility audit request or see our government accessibility services.

Start with the free 30-minute call if this is your first conversation with us: we learn where your site or product stands against ADA or Section 508, scope the audit and give you a quote. Book the $100 one-hour consultation when your team needs technical answers now, such as walking through an existing audit or ACR, going over Section 508 findings with your developer, or reviewing site issues live. If you already know you want a report, the $500 Quick Audit covers up to 5 page templates.

Yes. AccessibilityScore.in, our free tool, runs an automated WCAG scan powered by HalfAccessible and axe-core and gives you an accessibility score with issue-level remediation guidance. It is a good starting point for catching common defects before deeper Section 508 validation, but a scan cannot confirm conformance or produce the evidence a VPAT or ACR needs, so a manual audit with keyboard and screen reader testing is still required.

You receive a written report that maps each finding to WCAG criteria (2.1 or 2.2 AA for ADA Title II work, and WCAG 2.0 AA where Section 508 applies), with severity, user impact, and recommended fixes. Where a buyer needs evidence for procurement, we can align the package toward a VPAT and ACR. Prefer to see the format first? Review our sample audit report.

Your team can remediate in-house from the report, or we can quote accessibility remediation and retesting. State and local Title II teams and federal contractors can also request a scoped government engagement on the government audit quote form. Still deciding between Quick, Complete or a custom scope? Start with the free 30-minute call; use the $100 technical hour when you already have findings and need a live developer walkthrough.