Website Accessibility Audit Cost: What to Expect

Accessibility audit cost depends on the tested pages, component states, complete user journeys, WCAG version and level, assistive technologies, report detail and retest terms. Compare quotes against the same written scope.

Separate software access from expert evaluation, reporting, disabled-user research and retesting. A low quote may cover a small public-page sample; a higher quote may include authenticated journeys, several assistive technologies and developer-ready evidence.

Automated Scan Costs

Automated accessibility scans use software to test your pages against WCAG success criteria that can be evaluated programmatically. Tools like axe DevTools, WAVE, and Google Lighthouse check for missing alt text, colour contrast failures, missing form labels, duplicate IDs, incorrect ARIA usage, and similar issues that have clear pass-fail conditions in the HTML.

Free options: Browser extensions like axe DevTools (by Deque) and WAVE (by WebAIM) are completely free and test one page at a time. Google Lighthouse runs accessibility audits as part of its performance testing suite and is built into Chrome DevTools. These tools are excellent for developer workflows and catch the most common accessibility issues during the build process.

Paid automated scanning: Compare live quotes by page allowance, scan frequency, authenticated-page support, rules engine, integrations, exports and retention. Treat the subscription as monitoring infrastructure rather than an expert audit.

Automated coverage varies by rules engine and page content. Tools cannot judge every criterion or complete task. Manual keyboard, zoom, visual and screen-reader testing remains necessary for applicable criteria.

If your budget allows only automated scanning, you are better off using the free browser extensions thoroughly on your key pages than paying for a monitoring platform that gives you a false sense of comprehensive coverage. The free tools catch the same issues — the paid tools just scale the scanning across your entire site and track issues over time.

Manual Audit Costs

A manual accessibility audit involves a trained accessibility specialist testing your site using keyboard navigation, screen readers, and other assistive technologies. The specialist works through a representative sample of your pages, testing each WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion and documenting every failure with its location, the criterion violated, the impact on users, and specific remediation guidance.

Small sample: Price the representative pages, shared components, states and complete processes. A site with few URLs can still require extensive testing if it contains complex forms or media.

Multiple journeys: Quote custom widgets, multi-step forms, authentication, checkout and content-management tasks explicitly. List the browser and assistive-technology combinations included.

Complex application: Role-based access, many states, document formats and integrated services expand the sample. Distinguish expert conformance evaluation from separate usability research with disabled participants.

Manual audits are priced by the number of unique templates and components rather than the total number of pages. A 10,000-page blog with one blog post template costs less to audit than a 200-page application with 50 unique interactive screens. The complexity of the interface — modals, drag-and-drop, real-time updates, data tables, maps, charts — drives the price more than page volume.

Full WCAG Audit Costs

A conformance evaluation combines tool-supported checks with manual testing of every applicable criterion within the defined scope. The output may support a WCAG conformance claim or an Accessibility Conformance Report prepared from the appropriate VPAT edition; the purchaser must specify the required standard and document.

A conformance quote should name the WCAG version and level, evaluation methodology, sample, complete processes, technologies relied upon, test environments, reporting format and retest terms. Whole-site conformance cannot be inferred from an unspecified sample.

The deliverable should map findings to the success criteria in the named WCAG version, identify tested pages and complete processes, and give evidence that a developer can reproduce. “Supports” and related terms belong to an ACR; a defect report can use pass, fail, not present and not tested.

Usability research with disabled participants is separate from a WCAG conformance evaluation. Price recruitment, access needs, task count, sessions, analysis and participant compensation as explicit research inputs.

Ongoing Monitoring

Accessibility is not a one-time fix. Every content update, design change, code deployment, and plugin update can introduce new accessibility issues. Ongoing monitoring ensures that accessibility gains from your audit are maintained and that new issues are caught quickly.

Automated monitoring: Compare current vendor prices by page allowance, scan frequency, authenticated coverage, integrations and export access. Monitoring detects only rules the tool can evaluate.

Periodic manual review: Choose a cadence from release frequency, service risk and procurement duties. A change-focused review can test new or modified components and journeys; it should not be described as a full re-audit unless the full scope was retested.

Baseline re-audit: Quote a repeat evaluation when material changes or an evidence requirement justify it. State whether it retests the original scope, expands it or samples only changed areas.

Combine automated regression checks with manual testing after material component changes. Choose periodic review from release frequency, risk and procurement needs rather than a generic annual cost.

Cost of Non-Compliance

Accessibility defects can block customer tasks, increase support and remediation work, and create legal or contractual exposure where a duty applies. Model those costs from the organisation's actual users, service and jurisdiction.

Legal scope: Exposure depends on entity type, jurisdiction and facts. Ask qualified counsel to assess applicable law; do not use a generic lawsuit average to price technical testing.

Regulatory scope: The European Accessibility Act applies from 28 June 2025 to specified products and services with exemptions and national implementation. UK and other duties have different scopes. Check the current regulator source for the organisation.

User and commercial impact: Measure failed tasks, abandonment, support contacts and excluded journeys in the service's own analytics and research. Population or spending-power figures do not establish the revenue effect of a particular defect.

Reputation damage: Public accessibility lawsuits and advocacy campaigns create lasting reputational harm. Social media amplifies accessibility failures. Being named in an accessibility complaint signals to customers, partners, and employees that your organisation does not prioritise inclusion.

Do not justify an audit with a generic lawsuit or revenue calculation. Estimate the organisation's remediation, operational and legal risks from its own scope and seek legal advice where required.

Our Pricing

AuditWeb's published website-audit options are $297 and $997 with custom pricing for wider scopes. Accessibility depth, manual assistive-technology testing, an ACR and retesting must be confirmed in writing because they are not implied by a package name.

Use W3C's guidance on evaluation tools and WCAG-EM scope to compare deliverables. Review the website audit cost guide and request a fixed quote for the exact sample, methods and outputs.