"Accessibility audit" can mean two different things: checking a physical building, or checking a website. This guide is about the second - making sure disabled people can actually use your website, and that you're on the right side of the law.
Here's the short version:
A website accessibility audit is a structured check of whether people with disabilities can use your site. It measures your pages against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - the international standard - and flags the barriers that stop people using assistive technology like screen readers, keyboards, or screen magnifiers.
If you're new to the topic, our guide on what website accessibility is covers the foundations. This one is about the audit itself: what it checks, what it costs, and how to run a basic one yourself. It's also one dimension of a broader SEO audit.
What Is a Website Accessibility Audit?
An accessibility audit measures your website against WCAG, usually at Level AA - the standard most websites are expected to meet and the one most laws point to. A proper audit combines two things:
- Automated scanning - software checks your pages for common, machine-detectable issues like missing alt text or low colour contrast. It's fast and cheap.
- Manual testing - a person actually uses the site with a keyboard and a screen reader to catch the things software can't judge, like whether a form is announced in a sensible order.
You need both. The automated part gives you a quick baseline; the manual part is where real confidence comes from.
What an Accessibility Audit Checks
In plain terms, an audit works through whether your site is:
- Perceivable - can people see or hear the content? Alt text on images, captions on video, and enough colour contrast between text and background. (See our alt text guide.)
- Operable - can people use it without a mouse? Keyboard navigation, a visible focus outline, no "keyboard traps", and enough time to complete things.
- Understandable - is it clear and predictable? Labelled form fields, helpful error messages, and consistent navigation.
- Robust - does it work with assistive technology? Proper, semantic HTML so screen readers can interpret the page correctly.
In practice, the issues that come up most often are: missing or unhelpful alt text, poor colour contrast, form fields with no labels, a broken heading structure, content you can't reach with a keyboard, and images of text. Many of these overlap with good SEO, which is why fixing them tends to help your search visibility too.
Why It Matters: the Legal Side
This is where a lot of small businesses get caught out. In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 treats a website as a "service", which means it has to be reasonably accessible to disabled people. Beyond that:
- The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025, covering many businesses that sell to customers in the EU.
- In the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been applied to websites through the courts, and accessibility lawsuits are common.
The risk isn't only legal. Around one in six people has some form of disability, so an inaccessible site quietly turns away a large slice of potential customers - and sends a poor signal to search engines, which reward well-structured, readable pages.
Automated vs Manual: an Honest Word
You'll see tools that promise instant, "100% compliant" accessibility from a single line of code. Be sceptical. Automated tools are genuinely useful - they catch a large share of the mechanical issues quickly and cheaply - but studies consistently find they detect only a portion of all WCAG problems, commonly estimated at around a third. The rest - like whether your page actually makes sense read aloud, or works for someone navigating by keyboard - needs a human to test it.
So the honest picture: use an automated scan to find and fix the obvious issues fast, then bring in manual testing (or a professional audit) for full confidence, especially if you have real legal exposure.
How Much Does an Accessibility Audit Cost?
It depends on how deep you go:
- Automated scan: free to low-cost. A free AuditCrow scan checks a page for common accessibility issues alongside SEO, speed, and more.
- Professional audit: in the UK, a full manual website accessibility audit typically runs from around £500 for a small site to £10,000 or more for a large or complex one, depending on the number of page types and the depth of testing.
For most small businesses, the sensible path is to fix everything a free scan surfaces first, then decide whether a paid audit is worth it based on your size and legal risk.
How to Run a Basic Accessibility Audit Yourself
You can catch a lot in an afternoon:
- Run an automated scan to get a baseline of common issues.
- Try keyboard-only navigation. Put your mouse aside and Tab through a key page. Can you reach and use every link, button, and form? Can you always see where you are?
- Check colour contrast on text against its background - low-contrast text is one of the most common failures there is.
- Test with a screen reader. Windows (Narrator) and Mac (VoiceOver) both have one built in. Listen to whether your page makes sense read aloud.
- Review your headings and alt text. Headings should describe the page structure in order; meaningful images should have descriptive alt text.
- Prioritise and fix, starting with issues that block people entirely (unreachable content, unlabelled forms) before cosmetic ones.
For the fundamentals behind each of these, see what website accessibility is, and 5 SEO quick wins for fixes that help accessibility and search at the same time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a website accessibility audit? A structured check of whether people with disabilities can use your website, measured against the WCAG standard. It combines automated scanning with manual testing.
How much does an accessibility audit cost in the UK? A professional manual audit typically ranges from around £500 for a small site to £10,000 or more for a large one. An automated scan can be free.
Can I do an accessibility audit myself? Yes, for a solid baseline - a free scanner plus your own keyboard and screen-reader testing catches many issues. Full, legal-grade compliance usually needs professional manual testing.
What standard should I aim for? WCAG 2.2 at Level AA is the widely accepted target for most websites, and the level most legislation points to.
Does an accessibility audit help SEO? Often, yes. Many accessibility fixes - clear headings, alt text, semantic HTML, readable contrast - also make your pages easier for search engines to understand.
Accessibility isn't all-or-nothing, and you don't need to fix everything at once. Start by seeing where you stand: run a free AuditCrow scan to flag the most common accessibility issues on your page in plain English, then work down the list.