ADA Compliance Audit: How to Test Your Website

An ADA compliance audit is a structured evaluation of your website, apps, and digital documents conducted by accessibility experts who test against accessibility standards—usually the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA. The audit pairs expert testing with automated tools to find and document barriers that block people with disabilities. UserWay provides expert audits and helps you turn their findings into an action plan.

You already know your digital experiences should offer full and equal access to people with disabilities, and the demand for accessible websites keeps rising. Once you commit to that goal, an accessibility audit is the logical next step. But “audit” is a term people use loosely, and getting it right matters. This article explains what an audit for ADA compliance involves, why it matters for your business and your users, and why it pays to bring in outside experts to do it well.

Key insights

• Automated scans aren’t an audit. Tools catch only a fraction of WCAG issues—a real audit requires expert manual testing.
• WCAG 2.1 / 2.2 Level AA is the the typical standard for testing websites, apps, and documents.
• You get an audit report—each issue mapped to a WCAG criterion with recommended fixes and a prioritized action plan.
• Legal pressure is climbing. Federal accessibility lawsuits under ADA Title III hit 3,117 in 2025 (up 27%), with ADA Title II and Section 504 deadlines on the horizon.
• Audits unlock B2B / B2G deals—buyers increasingly require a completed Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT), which you can’t produce without audit findings.
• Accessibility is a market opportunity, not just a compliance obligation. One in four U.S. adults has a disability; fixing barriers improves UX and conversions for everyone.
• Outside experts pay off—most teams lack the knowledge and skills to audit reliably, and proactive fixes cost far less than emergency remediation.

What is an ADA compliance audit?

An audit for ADA compliance is a structured evaluation of your digital properties—your website, mobile apps, and documents—against WCAG, the global standard for digital accessibility. The audit identifies barriers for people with disabilities in your content and documents each issue so your team can fix it.

Here’s the part people often get wrong: a real audit always includes expert testing by an accessibility professional. Automated tools can—and should—support that work, but automated testing on its own is not an audit. It is just automated testing. The expert evaluation is what makes the result a reliable audit rather than a partial snapshot.

Automated accessibility testing: fast, broad, and partial

Automated tools scan large sites quickly and catch common, code-level issues at scale. They reliably surface problems like low-contrast text, missing alternative text on images, and missing form labels, and they can check hundreds of pages in minutes. That makes automated scanning a strong first layer and an excellent ongoing monitoring tool.

It is not, however, the whole picture—automated tools detect only a fraction of WCAG violations. These tools cannot evaluate meaningful alternative text, full keyboard operability, or end-to-end flows. That gap between “passes an automated scan” and “actually usable” is exactly what expert testing closes.

Manual accessibility testing: the core of the audit

Many digital accessibility requirements call for human judgment. Is the alternative text on an image actually meaningful? Does a checkout flow work from start to finish? Does a pop-up trap keyboard focus? Automated tools cannot answer those questions. Accessibility experts can, and that expert evaluation is the core of any credible audit.

During manual testing, a human expert evaluates a digital experience against each relevant WCAG success criterion—navigating with a keyboard, inspecting code, and testing with assistive technologies, including screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver. This expert testing surfaces barriers that automated tools cannot catch—for example broken reading order and lost focus states. Testing that involves people with disabilities provides the most reliable and authentic insight of all, because it reflects how people actually experience your site.

An audit can be managed efficiently. Most sites and apps are built from shared templates and components, so testing a representative set of pages, components, and templates catches the issues that repeat across your site. By fixing these issues, developers can improve many pages at once.

The deliverable: An audit report

The output of an audit is an accessibility audit report: a documented list of findings, each mapped to a WCAG success criterion, with the recommended fixes your team needs to make remediate them. Its job is to tell you what to fix and how, so you can turn the results into a prioritized action plan to build an ADA-compliant site.

Why auditing for web accessibility matters

There are many reasons to obtain an audit. An expert evaluation helps you understand and address the areas where you may be exposed to legal and business risk—before that risk reaches you. More importantly, though, finding and fixing accessibility issues allows you to provide equitable experiences for people with disabilities. This isn’t just ethical. It also expands your audience and drives real revenue.

Rising legal pressure and compliance deadlines

Web accessibility litigation keeps climbing. According to law firm Seyfarth Shaw, plaintiffs filed 3,117 federal website accessibility lawsuits under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 2025, a 27% increase over 2024. Title III applies to public accommodations, a broad category that courts have widely interpreted to apply to the websites of private businesses.

Meanwhile, regulations for government and federally funded entities are tightening. To comply with a 2024 rule under ADA Title II, state and local governments must ensure their web and mobile content conforms with WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 2027 or 2028, depending on population size. Healthcare and social services organizations need to meet similar requirements by May 2027 or May 2028 thanks to a 2024 rule under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

If you serve customers in the European Union, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) adds further urgency. It became enforceable on June 28, 2025, and extends to US companies that provide covered products and services to EU consumers. The presumed standard for EAA compliance, EN 301 549, incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web and mobile but also adds requirements beyond it.

An audit can help you find and address issues that may expose you to risk, before they trigger a demand letter, lawsuit, or regulatory action.

Procurement requirements and the VPAT

For B2B and B2G vendors, an audit can be a precondition for doing business. Buyers increasingly require proof of accessibility before they will purchase, most often in the form of a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)—which becomes an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) once completed. You cannot produce a credible VPAT without audit findings to support it, so an audit is what lets you meet your buyers’ procurement requirements and keep deals moving.

A large audience and a clear business case

About one in four US adults—28.7%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—lives with a disability. That is a large audience that deserves equal access and often does not have it. Removing barriers expands your reachable market: working-age people with disabilities in the United States hold an estimated $490 billion in disposable income, and the global disability community’s spending power is frequently cited at around $13 trillion.

The benefits of an ADA-compliant, accessible website reach everyone, not only people with disabilities. Addressing accessibility issues improves the overall user experience, which can lower bounce rates, increase conversions, and strengthen brand loyalty. Family members and friends also value accessible products and services, so the audience you gain extends well beyond the people an audit directly serves. An audit, in other words, is a high-return investment.

Why it’s best to bring in outside experts

A reliable audit for ADA compliance depends on expertise most organizations do not have in-house. Here are a few reasons that it’s often wise to bring in outside experts.

1. Most teams lack the expertise and resources to audit reliably.

A credible audit requires deep WCAG knowledge, fluency with assistive technologies, and structured testing methods—capabilities most internal teams simply do not have. Without them, a do-it-yourself audit produces an incomplete and unreliable result, which can give you false confidence that issues are resolved when they are not. Specialized teams, often including people with disabilities who use assistive technologies every day, bring the rigor a reliable audit demands.

2. In-house teams are already stretched, and accessibility often gets deprioritized.

Even skilled developers tend to deprioritize accessibility when competing deadlines pile up, and that is no reflection on their work—it is a question of capacity and focus. Bringing in outside experts means accessibility gets dedicated attention rather than being squeezed in between other priorities.

3. A reliable, third-party audit saves time and money in the long term. 

It may seem more cost-effective to test digital experiences in-house, but for organizations early in their accessibility journeys, the math usually runs the other way. An unreliable audit leaves barriers in place, and fixing accessibility issues in already-built (or live) experiences is far more resource-intensive than addressing them proactively.

The expenses add up when you include the price of litigation: settlements, legal fees, and emergency remediation under a court deadline. Engaging experts up front, with remediation support to match, is what helps you avoid those costs. If you want a structured starting point, UserWay’s ADA Compliance Checklist can help you understand the scope before you engage experts.

Make the audit your starting point

Equal access to the web is the right thing to do, and it is good business. An audit is where that commitment becomes action: it identifies your accessibility issues and gives you a clear, prioritized plan to resolve them. But an audit is the beginning, not the finish line. Compliance is an ongoing practice, and the remediation and continuous monitoring that follow your audit are what bring you into WCAG conformance and keep you there as your site evolves.

UserWay supports every stage of that journey with AI-powered solutions and accessibility expertise that help you work toward ADA compliance. To find the barriers on your site and start turning them into an action plan, begin your accessibility audit with UserWay today.

Frequently asked questions

What is an audit for ADA compliance?

An audit for ADA compliance is a structured evaluation of your digital properties against WCAG, conducted by accessibility experts, to find and document the barriers that block people with disabilities. It covers your website, apps, and documents, combines expert manual testing using assistive technologies with automated scanning, and produces an audit report that maps each issue to a WCAG success criterion with recommended fixes.

How much does an ADA audit cost?

The cost of an audit depends on the scope of your digital properties—how many sites, apps, templates, and user flows need evaluation—and the depth of testing involved. Because every organization’s footprint is different, the best way to understand cost is to request a scoped quote. What is consistent is the return: a proactive audit for ADA compliance costs far less than remediating after the fact or responding to a lawsuit.

Who should conduct an accessibility audit?

A reliable audit is best conducted by accessibility experts. The process often involves people with disabilities, who bring direct experience using screen readers and other assistive technologies and offer insights an automated tool or untrained tester cannot.

Is an accessibility audit legally required?

The ADA does not explicitly require audits. However, WCAG 2.1 AA conformance is required for compliance with ADA Title II, and many courts treat WCAG as the de facto standard for Title III compliance in web accessibility cases. An audit is the most reliable way to find and remediate barriers before they result in legal or regulatory action.

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