WCAG Audit Services in US
At Accessibility Innovations, we audit websites, web applications, mobile apps, and documents against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, currently WCAG 2.2. Our auditors combine manual testing with screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, and automated tools to produce findings a development team can act on: every issue mapped to the success criterion it fails, rated by user impact, with specific remediation guidance.
The result is not a scan report. It is a defensible record of where your digital properties stand and a prioritized path to conformance.
What is a WCAG Audit and Why Do You Need One?
A WCAG audit is a systematic evaluation of your digital content against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the W3C standard that defines what accessible digital content means in practice. It is the technical benchmark behind nearly every accessibility law that touches US organizations.
Organizations commission WCAG audits to establish a conformance baseline before remediation, to respond to a demand letter or lawsuit with documented facts instead of estimates, to meet procurement requirements that call for audit evidence or a VPAT, and to verify vendor claims before signing. Whatever brings you here, the audit answers the same question: what fails, how badly, and what to fix first.
Which WCAG Version Do You Actually Need?
This is the question most audit vendors skip, and it determines your scope. WCAG has three versions in active use, and different US laws point to different ones.
ADA Title II (state and local government). The Department of Justice rule sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the standard for web content and mobile apps, with compliance dates of April 26, 2027 for entities serving 50,000 or more people and April 26, 2028 for smaller entities and special districts.
Section 508 (federal agencies and their vendors). The Revised 508 Standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level AA. If you sell to the federal government, your VPAT is evaluated against this baseline.
ADA Title III (businesses). No regulation names a version. Courts and settlement agreements consistently reference WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA as the benchmark.
European markets. EN 301 549, the standard behind the European Accessibility Act, incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Our default recommendation is to audit against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the current version. Because each WCAG version includes all criteria from the versions before it, a 2.2 audit covers your 2.0 and 2.1 obligations at the same time and does not need to be redone when regulators catch up to the newer version. If your obligation is specific, a federal procurement VPAT, for example, we scope to the exact standard your buyer will evaluate.
Our WCAG Audit Process
We follow a 6-step WCAG audit process to ensure accuracy, compliance, and actionability:
Scoping
We identify your page templates, critical user journeys, interactive components, and document types, then define a representative sample. Auditing every page of a large site wastes budget; auditing the wrong sample misses the barriers that matter. Scoping is where audit quality is decided.
Automated baseline
Industry-standard tools sweep the full scope for machine-detectable failures: contrast errors, missing alternative text attributes, structural issues. This establishes the floor, not the finding set. Automated tools detect a minority of WCAG failures.
Manual expert testing
Auditors test every sampled page and journey against each applicable WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criterion using NVDA and VoiceOver, keyboard-only navigation, magnification, and platform accessibility settings. This is where task-completion barriers surface: focus traps, unlabeled controls, broken reading order, inaccessible error handling.
Findings and report
Every issue is documented with the success criterion it fails, severity rated by user impact, screenshots, affected locations, and remediation guidance written for the people who will fix it, developers for code issues, content staff for authoring issues.
Remediation support
We walk your team through the findings, answer questions during the fix cycle, and review fixes as they land. If you need hands-on remediation, our team does that work under a separate scope.
Verification and documentation
After remediation we re-test every previously identified issue and issue an updated report. Where you need conformance documentation for procurement or legal purposes, we produce a VPAT/ACR based on the verified results, not on the pre-remediation state.
Why Choose Us For WCAG Compliance Consultants
Here’s why clients across the U.S. trust Accessibility Innovations for ADA consulting:
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Credentialed auditors
Our team holds IAAP CPWA and CPACC certifications, and every engagement is led by a senior consultant, not handed to junior staff after the contract signs.
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Testing by people who use assistive technology
Our audits involve testers with disabilities. Technical conformance and actual usability are not the same finding, and we report both.
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Findings that map to your legal exposure
We tie results to the framework you answer to, Title II, Title III, Section 508, or a procurement requirement, so your counsel and your developers are reading the same document.
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Re-audit verification
We re-test what we reported. A conformance claim based on unverified fixes is not a claim we will put our name on.
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Federal-grade delivery
Engagements delivered for federal, state, and municipal clients, backed by $5M errors and omissions insurance.
More Accessibility Services
We offer more than just WCAG consulting. Our full suite of accessibility services includes:
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WCAG website and app audits
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Digital remediation (HTML, PDFs, forms, media)
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VPAT/ACR creation for software and vendors
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Accessible procurement and vendor review
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Accessibility policy drafting and alignment
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Built environment code reviews and site inspections
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User testing with assistive tech and real users
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Ongoing monitoring and support subscriptions
Our services help you not only meet compliance—but become a leader in inclusive design.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
What is the difference between WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2?
Each version adds success criteria to the previous one. WCAG 2.1 added 17 criteria covering mobile, low vision, and cognitive accessibility; WCAG 2.2 added 9 more, including requirements for focus appearance, dragging alternatives, and accessible authentication, and retired one criterion (4.1.1 Parsing). Content that conforms to 2.2 also conforms to 2.0 and 2.1, which is why we audit against 2.2 by default.
Is a WCAG audit required by law?
The audit itself is not, but the conformance it measures is. The DOJ’s Title II rule requires WCAG 2.1 AA for state and local governments by April 2027 or 2028 depending on size. Section 508 requires WCAG 2.0 AA for federal agencies and what they buy. For businesses under Title III, courts consistently treat WCAG conformance as the benchmark for an accessible website. An audit is how you find out where you stand against the standard that applies to you.
What is the difference between Level A, AA, and AAA?
Levels are cumulative tiers of conformance. Level A covers the most basic barriers; Level AA is the level every major law and regulation references; Level AAA is the strictest tier, which even the W3C does not recommend as a blanket policy for entire sites. Unless your obligation says otherwise, AA is the target.
Can automated tools do a WCAG audit?
No. Automated tools detect a minority of WCAG failures, mostly technical ones like missing attributes and contrast errors. Whether a screen reader user can complete checkout, whether keyboard focus follows a logical order, whether error messages are announced, these require human testing. Our audits use automation for breadth and manual expert testing for the findings that decide conformance.
How many pages do you test?
A representative sample: every template, every critical user journey, and every distinct component type, rather than every page. On template-driven sites, one fixed template corrects every page built on it, so sampling by template is both cheaper and more complete than counting pages. Sample size is agreed at scoping.
How long does a WCAG audit take?
Timeline is fixed at scoping, once we know your templates, journeys, and platforms. Most single-site audits complete within a few weeks; multi-platform engagements (web, iOS, Android) take longer because each platform requires its own assistive technology testing.
Will the audit make us compliant?
No. The audit tells you precisely what fails and how to fix it; conformance happens when the fixes ship. That is why our process includes remediation support and re-audit verification, and why we do not issue conformance documentation based on unremediated findings.
We already have a VPAT from our vendor. Do we still need an audit?
A VPAT is the vendor’s claim about their own product, and many are written by sales teams rather than testers. If the product carries your legal obligation, a Title II portal, a procurement under Section 508, independent verification is exactly what an audit provides. We both validate vendor VPATs and produce independently tested ACRs.