Guide
Is my website ADA compliant? Here is how to actually check
First, the honest frame: there is no government checker, no official certificate, and no tool that can stamp a website "ADA compliant". What exists is a technical standard, WCAG 2.1 level AA, that US courts and the Department of Justice consistently reference, and increasingly deep ways to check your site against it. Pick the depth that matches what is at stake for you.
What "compliant" means for a website
The ADA itself never mentions websites; it requires that places of public accommodation be accessible, and courts have applied that to sites for years. In practice the question every court, regulator, and demand letter reduces to is: does the site conform to WCAG 2.1 AA? That is a set of 50 testable success criteria covering things like text alternatives for images, keyboard operability, contrast, and form labeling. About a third of them are checkable by a machine; the rest need judgment. That split is why "checkers" disagree with each other and why no scan can promise you are safe. What the standard itself tests, version by version and level by level, is covered in our WCAG compliance check guide.
Three depths of checking
| Depth | Cost, time | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Free instant check | $0, one minute | The machine-checkable layer on one page: missing alt attributes, contrast, broken ARIA, unlabeled fields. A quick temperature reading, honestly labeled. |
| Automated audit | $149, 24 hours | Your whole site through the full automated pipeline, every finding with evidence and fix instructions. The report states on page one that no human reviewed it. |
| Signed audit | $490, 48-72 hours | Everything above plus the judgment criteria, reviewed and signed by an IAAP-certified specialist. The version you show a lawyer, a customer, or a court. |
The failures that actually show up
Across the sites we test, the same handful of failures accounts for most findings: images without meaningful alt text, form fields labeled only by placeholder text, color contrast below the 4.5:1 threshold, keyboard traps in popups and menus, links whose text says "click here", and heading structures that look right visually but are soup to a screen reader. None of these are exotic; all of them are in the machine-checkable layer or one judgment step past it, which is why even the free check tends to be informative.
Common questions
Is there an official ADA compliance checker?
No. Anyone selling a certificate or a compliance badge is selling something the law does not recognize. The credible artifacts are a conformance evaluation against WCAG 2.1 AA and an accessibility statement, which is exactly what an audit produces the evidence for.
My scan came back clean. Am I safe from lawsuits?
No, and distrust anyone who says yes. A clean automated scan means the machine-checkable third is in order. Most claims in real complaints also cite issues from that third, so it matters, but it is not immunity and we will never sell it as such. What reduces risk is fixing what all the layers find and keeping a dated record; see what determines repeat risk.
I already got a demand letter. Which check do I need?
Not the free one and not the $149 one; your attorney needs the signed audit, and your first hour is better spent in the 72-hour guide.
How often should I re-check?
After every redesign or platform migration, and on a calendar otherwise; sites drift as content and apps change. The free check makes the in-between checks free.