Siteimprove alternatives for a smaller website

Siteimprove is built and sold for large organisations. If you run a smaller site, or you were quoted for the full suite and only need the accessibility part, these six tools check your pages for WCAG faults without an enterprise contract. None of them is an overlay.

Fig. 1Three laptops show three page layouts and one button wears the focus ring

The verdict by use case

Best overall for a smaller site leaving Siteimprove
Pope Tech
The free plan scans 25 pages on a schedule, the paid tiers are priced on its site, and it runs the WAVE engine.
Best for a WordPress site checked in the editor
Accessibility Checker (Equalize Digital)
It flags problems in the WordPress editor as you write, and the vendor says it adds no widget to your pages.
Best like-for-like switch from Siteimprove
Silktide
Pages, PDFs, content quality and manual audits in one suite, the closest match to what Siteimprove sells.

Side by side

Scroll sideways to see all vendors.

How the Siteimprove alternatives compare on what a smaller site needs
Requirement	Pope Tech	Accessibility Checker (Equalize Digital)	Silktide	DubBot	axe Monitor (Deque)	SortSite (PowerMapper)
Re-checks pages as the site changes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Check with the vendor	Yes	Yes
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Check with the vendor	Yes
Checks PDF files	Check with the vendor	Not stated	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialists	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not stated	Yes	Not stated
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not stated	Yes	Yes
Publishes its prices on its own site	Yes	Yes	No	Not stated	Not stated	Yes

The vendors

Pope Tech

What it is: A web accessibility platform that runs the WAVE testing engine over the pages you choose, on a schedule, with reports.
Who it fits: Small and mid-size sites on any platform: the free plan covers 25 pages and the paid tiers are priced on its site.

Re-checks pages as the site changesYes
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2Yes
Checks PDF filesCheck with the vendor
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialistsYes
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)Yes
Publishes its prices on its own siteYes

Pope Tech website

Accessibility Checker (Equalize Digital)

What it is: A WordPress plugin that checks each post as you edit it and can scan the whole site, with reports kept on your own server.
Who it fits: WordPress sites only; the vendor says it cannot scan a site built on another platform.

Re-checks pages as the site changesYes
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2Yes
Checks PDF filesNot stated
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialistsYes
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)Yes
Publishes its prices on its own siteYes

Accessibility Checker (Equalize Digital) website

Silktide

What it is: A governance suite that tests pages and PDFs for accessibility, content quality and compliance, with manual audits on offer.
Who it fits: Teams that want the same kind of all-in-one suite as Siteimprove; Silktide quotes each organisation.

Re-checks pages as the site changesYes
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2Yes
Checks PDF filesYes
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialistsYes
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)Yes
Publishes its prices on its own siteNo

Silktide website

DubBot

What it is: A web quality platform that checks pages and PDFs for WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 issues, plus broken links, SEO and spelling.
Who it fits: Sites with many PDFs or pages behind a login; no price list was on the pages we read.

Re-checks pages as the site changesCheck with the vendor
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2Yes
Checks PDF filesYes
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialistsNot stated
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)Not stated
Publishes its prices on its own siteNot stated

DubBot website

axe Monitor (Deque)

What it is: Deque's site-wide scanning and reporting product, from the company behind the free axe DevTools browser extension.
Who it fits: Teams whose developers already test with axe and want the same kind of results across a whole site.

Re-checks pages as the site changesYes
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2Check with the vendor
Checks PDF filesYes
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialistsYes
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)Yes
Publishes its prices on its own siteNot stated

axe Monitor (Deque) website

SortSite (PowerMapper)

What it is: A Windows and Mac app, also sold as a cloud version, that crawls a site and checks accessibility, links and code.
Who it fits: One whole-site crawl before a redesign or an audit, without a monitoring subscription; prices are on its site.

Re-checks pages as the site changesYes
Says it tests against WCAG 2.2Yes
Checks PDF filesYes
Manual testing by the vendor's own specialistsNot stated
A free way to start (plan, tool or trial)Yes
Publishes its prices on its own siteYes

SortSite (PowerMapper) website

What Siteimprove is today

Siteimprove now calls itself Siteimprove.ai and says it helps “enterprises build digital experiences that work for everyone”. Accessibility is one module of four, beside Search, Analytics and Content strategy. On its accessibility page it describes monitoring across web pages, documents and PDFs, fixes applied inside WordPress and Drupal, and manual testing by specialists who hold CPWA, CPACC or WAS certificates.

That is a lot of product for a business with forty pages and a contact form. If you were quoted for the whole suite and only need the accessibility part, the tools above cover that part, some for free. The IAAP certificates Siteimprove names are explained on our list of official tools and auditor directories.

What Siteimprove publishes about pricing

Nothing. On 22 October 2026 the address siteimprove.com/pricing sent us to the home page, and the pages we read offer “Request a demo” as the way in. A figure you see quoted elsewhere is someone else's estimate, not Siteimprove's. For your own number, ask Siteimprove for a quote, then hold it against the published prices in the table above.

Where to start, by the site you run

Scroll sideways to see the whole table.

The first tool to try for five kinds of site
Your site	Start with	Why
A WordPress site you edit yourself	Accessibility Checker	It flags problems in the editor while you write, before the page is published.
Up to 25 pages on any platform	Pope Tech, free plan	Scheduled scans of the pages you pick, and no credit card needed to start.
Hundreds of pages and a shelf of PDFs	Silktide or DubBot	Both monitor PDFs beside the pages, as Siteimprove does.
A developer already runs axe in the browser	axe Monitor	Deque's site-wide product, from the makers of the free axe browser extension.
One crawl before a redesign or a deadline	SortSite	A desktop app with a free trial, so there is no subscription to cancel afterwards.

For a wider field of scanners, see website accessibility software for small business.

What none of these tools can tell you

Every product on this page is, at heart, a scanner. Siteimprove is too. A scanner reads the code; it cannot use the page the way a person does.

What the Justice Department's guidance says

A “clean” report does not necessarily mean everything is accessible. … Pairing a manual check of a website with the use of automated checkers can give you a better sense of the accessibility of your website.

From Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA, ada.gov, 18 March 2022.

Whichever tool you pick, a person still has to check these by hand:

Every link, button and form field can be reached and used with the Tab key alone, in a sensible order. The focus order checklist walks you through it.
Alt text says what the picture is for. A scanner sees that an alt attribute exists, not whether it is right; try the alt text check.
A screen reader announces the page in a way that makes sense. Our screen reader testing guide shows a first pass an owner can do.
Every Level A and AA success criterion has been looked at, not only the ones a rule can test. The WCAG 2.2 AA checklist lists them as plain tests.

If you need that work done for you, WCAG audit services do the manual part; several of the vendors above sell it too.

Before you leave a Siteimprove contract

Your Siteimprove history is evidence of the work you have done. Keep it before the account closes.

Read your contract for its renewal date and how much notice it needs. Diary the notice date.
Download whatever accessibility reports your plan lets you export, with their dates.
Save the list of PDFs it flagged; documents are the part most easily forgotten in a move.
Keep any manual audit findings and the fixes you made against them.
Run the new tool on the same pages while the old one is still live, and compare the issues each one finds. Each tool runs its own rules, so the scores will not match; the issues should.
Update the date and the contact route in your accessibility statement.

How we compared

Vendor pages read on October 22, 2026

We started from the products named most often as Siteimprove alternatives and kept the ones that check a whole site (or a whole WordPress install) rather than one page at a time. One-page browser checkers are compared in accessibility testing tools.

Each cell says Yes only where the vendor's own page said so when we read it. “Not stated” means we did not find it there, not that the product lacks it. Siteimprove is the reference point, so it is described but not scored.

Verdicts are editorial: no vendor can buy a verdict position or displace another vendor.

No overlay widget is listed. By an overlay we mean a third-party widget or toolbar script sold as making a site conform without changing its source. In April 2025 the FTC approved a final order that bars one overlay vendor from claiming, without evidence to support it, that its automated products can make any website WCAG-compliant. Read the FTC's announcement of the order.

Nothing here is legal advice. For a specific case, ask a lawyer.

Questions

Does Siteimprove publish its prices?

No. When we read its site on 22 October 2026 there was no price list, and its pricing address led to the home page. Of the six tools here, Pope Tech, Accessibility Checker and SortSite print their prices; Silktide says it quotes each organisation.

Is a free tool enough for a small business website?

A free scan is a good first step and catches real faults, such as missing form labels and low contrast. It is not the whole check: the Justice Department's guidance says a clean report does not mean a site is accessible and pairs automated checkers with a manual check. Start with the contrast check and the checklist linked above.

Why is no overlay or accessibility toolbar on this list?

An overlay is a third-party widget or toolbar script sold as making a site conform without changing its source, so the faults a scanner finds are still in the site. Our guide to accessibility overlays sets out what they do and what the FTC's 2025 order said.

For the same reason we left out Acquia Web Governance, which lists among its add-ons PageAssist, which Acquia describes as “a toolbar that you can add to your website”.

Will my accessibility score be the same in the new tool?

Probably not. Each product runs its own rules and weights its own score, so a number from one tool cannot be compared with a number from another. Compare the issues each finds on the same pages instead.

Can any of these tools make my site ADA compliant?

No tool can certify that. DOJ has no regulation setting detailed web standards for businesses open to the public; its position is that the ADA's general rules still apply to websites. What a tool can help you show is progress towards WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Our guide to what the law asks of a website explains more. This is general information, not legal advice. For your own situation, ask a lawyer.