Guide

Website accessibility consultant or audit: which one do you need?

A website accessibility consultant is a specialist you hire by the hour or on a retainer. They help your team make a site accessible and keep it that way. An audit is one part of that work, and you can buy it on its own: a report of what fails WCAG and how to fix it. Many site owners who search for a consultant only need the audit. This guide shows what each one does, what it costs, and how to tell which fits your site.

What an accessibility consultant does

• Audits. They test your site against WCAG 2.1 AA and report what fails. Most engagements start here.
• Remediation support. They work with your developers while the fixes are made, answer questions and check the fixed pages.
• Design and code review. They review new components and page designs before release, so old problems do not come back.
• Training. They teach designers, developers and content editors how to build accessible pages.
• Documents. They help write an accessibility statement, an internal policy, or the conformance report (VPAT or ACR) that a procurement team asks for.
• Ongoing testing. They re-test the site after releases, often on a monthly retainer.

What a consultant costs

Most consultants bill by the hour or sell a block of hours each month. Published rates vary a lot. We found $50 an hour at an offshore firm, and US vendor guides quote $150 an hour and more. A full engagement for a small business site, with an audit, help during the fixes and a re-test, usually adds up to several thousand dollars. The audit part is often quoted on its own, and the typical ranges are in our audit cost guide.

When a consultant is the right buy

• You are building or rebuilding a site or an app, and you want accessibility designed in from the start.
• You have your own design and development team, and they need training and review over several months.
• You ship changes every week, or you maintain a design system that many pages depend on.
• You need one person to own the whole program: policy, procurement documents and a testing schedule.

In these cases an audit alone is too little. A report shows what is broken today. It does not train your team or review next month's release.

When an audit is all you need

• Your site runs on a theme or a builder such as Shopify, WordPress, Wix or Squarespace, and your developer or agency can make the fixes.
• You want a dated record of what was wrong and when you checked.
• You received a demand letter, and your attorney needs findings with evidence quickly. Start with the 72-hour guide.
• A customer asks for proof before they sign, and you need the audit a conformance report is written from.

For these cases we sell two fixed-price audits. The automated audit costs $149 for 10 pages and arrives within 24 hours. Nobody reviews it, and the report says so. The signed audit costs $490 for 10 pages and arrives in 48-72 hours. A certified accessibility specialist reviews the findings and signs the report. Every finding in both has the WCAG criterion, evidence and a fix instruction for your developer. You can read a full sample report before you buy.

How to check a consultant before you hire

• Ask for a sample report. A real audit lists each finding with its WCAG criterion, evidence and a fix. A score or a screenshot from a free scanner is not an audit.
• Ask how they test. Automated tools cover roughly a third of the WCAG success criteria. The rest needs a person with a keyboard and a screen reader.
• Check certifications in the public registry. The main certifications come from IAAP. CPACC covers accessibility knowledge in general. WAS and CPWA cover technical testing, which matters more for audit work.
• Ask what the price includes. How many pages, how many hours, and whether a re-test after the fixes is part of it.
• Walk away from promises. Nobody can make a site lawsuit-proof or 100% compliant. A consultant who sells a widget as the fix is selling the wrong thing (accessibility widgets and lawsuits).

Common questions

How much does a website accessibility consultant cost?

Published hourly rates run from about $50 at offshore firms to $150 and more in the US. A small business engagement with an audit, help during the fixes and a re-test usually costs several thousand dollars. A fixed-price audit costs less because it covers only the testing and the report.

Do I need a consultant to make my website ADA compliant?

No law says who must test your site. What counts is whether the site works for people with disabilities. Many small businesses get there with an audit and their own developer. Whether the ADA reaches your site at all is covered in is my website ADA compliant. This is general information, not legal advice.

What is the difference between an accessibility consultant and an audit?

An audit is a product: a report of what fails and how to fix it, at one point in time. A consultant is a person or a firm you work with over time. Most consultants include an audit in their work.

Will a consultant fix my website?

Some do the fixes themselves, and many advise your developers while they do the work. Ask before you sign. We do not fix sites. Our report is written so that your developer can.

What is a WCAG consultant?

The same job under another name. WCAG is the technical standard that accessibility audits test against, so a WCAG consultant, an ADA website compliance consultant and a digital accessibility consultant all do this work.