Probably not all the way, and no tool can tell you for certain. Nearly every popular home page has at least one accessibility failure that an automated tool can detect, so assume there's work to do until someone checks. For a website, "ADA compliant" in practice means meeting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The five self-checks below take ten minutes and expose the most common failures. Fail any of them and some of your customers can't use the site today.
What "ADA compliant" means for a website
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires businesses open to the public to serve people with disabilities on equal terms. The Justice Department has long said that includes their websites, and many courts agree, though they split on some questions, such as whether a business with no physical location is covered. The yardstick used in practice is WCAG. It's an international checklist of whether people with different abilities, using different tools (screen readers, keyboards, zoom, captions), can see your site, find their way around it and operate it.
Two things follow. Risk is only half of it, because a failed criterion can mean a real customer who couldn't buy from you. And you can't install compliance like a plugin. It comes from how the site is built.
Five tests you can run in ten minutes
- The keyboard test. Put the mouse away. Using only Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter, reach your menu, open a product and start a purchase or an inquiry. If you get trapped, or lose track of where you are on the page, keyboard and assistive-tech users are stuck too.
- The image test. Right-click a few important images and choose Inspect, or open them in your platform's editor. Do your product and content images have written descriptions (alt text)? A meaningful image with an empty description gives a screen-reader user nothing at all.
- The squint test (contrast). Look at your gray-on-white text, your buttons and your prices. If you have to work to read them in daylight, they probably fail the contrast requirement, the failure automated tools find most often on home pages.
- The form test. Click into the fields on your contact or checkout form. Does each one have a visible label, or only gray placeholder text that vanishes as you type? Unlabeled fields are unusable with assistive tech, and they trip up everyone else too.
- The video and audio test. Does every video with speech have captions? If audio carries part of your message, is there a text version of it?
Five passes don't make you compliant. WCAG has many more criteria, and some need expert judgment. A failure on any of the five, though, tells you plainly where you stand.
Demand letters, calmly
Website accessibility lawsuits are filed in U.S. federal court every week, and demand letters reach businesses of every size, often describing barriers like the ones above. If one arrives, don't ignore it, and don't panic-buy a "compliance widget." Overlay widgets that promise one-click compliance have not stopped complaints, and they can add barriers of their own. The credible response is a real audit so you know where you stand, documented fixes to the highest-impact issues, and advice from a lawyer experienced in digital accessibility. We'd rather say that plainly than sell you fear.
Most sites need fixes, not a rebuild
The usual order of work: fix keyboard traps and make focus visible, label every form field, write meaningful alt text, correct the worst contrast failures, then caption your media. Once the issues are found and ranked, a competent developer can clear the top ones quickly. Finding and ranking them is the whole point of measuring first. Our accessibility lens guide goes deeper, and every finding in our reports says what it means for the business and how to fix it.
ADA questions owners ask
Does the ADA apply to websites?
For most businesses open to the public, yes in practice. The U.S. Justice Department has long said the ADA covers their websites, and many courts agree, though courts split on some questions, such as businesses that exist only online. WCAG is the standard most often used to judge them. How that applies to your situation is a question for a qualified professional. The practical direction holds either way: an accessible site carries less risk and reaches more customers.
Can a tool certify my website as ADA compliant?
No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. Automated scans catch a meaningful share of issues, and we label a finding Measured only when a tool has checked it. Several criteria still require human judgment, so no scanner can certify compliance, ours included.
Are accessibility overlay widgets enough?
The record says no. Sites using overlays have kept receiving complaints, and in 2025 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ordered one overlay vendor to stop claiming its tool could make any website WCAG-compliant. Overlays can also interfere with the assistive tools people already use. Fixing the site itself is the path that works.
What should I do if I received an ADA demand letter?
Don't ignore it, and don't panic-buy a widget. Talk to a lawyer experienced in digital accessibility, get a real audit so you know where the site stands, and start documented fixes on the highest-impact issues. Ignoring the letter is the one clearly wrong move.
Find out where your site stands today
The Grader checks accessibility as one of its six lenses and explains every finding in plain English, labeled Measured or Estimated. It shows you where to start. Like any tool, it can't certify compliance. The engine runs in sample mode while live scanning rolls out.
Grade my site The full accessibility guide