The best website accessibility software for a small business
Accessibility software for a website should crawl every page, re-check it after each change and tell you what to fix in your own code. All six tools here crawl a whole site; the table shows what else each one states on its own pages. Overlay widgets are not listed: 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, and a widget leaves your code unfixed.
The verdict by use case
Best overall for a small business
It runs the WAVE engine across your pages for detectable WCAG 2.2 A and AA fails on a weekly, monthly or quarterly schedule, separates errors from alerts, and keeps guided manual tests in the same dashboard.
Best for a site full of PDFs
It tests PDFs against PDF/UA-1 beside the pages and tracks all 86 WCAG 2.2 success criteria, marking which ones need a person.
Best for one full sweep before a deadline
A desktop app crawls the whole site and its files in one run with over 320 WCAG 2.2 tests, with no platform to set up first.
Side by side
Scroll sideways to see all vendors.
| Requirement | Pope Tech | Silktide | Siteimprove | axe Monitor (Deque) | DubBot | SortSite (PowerMapper) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checks a whole site, not one page at a time | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Re-checks on a schedule or continuously | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Check with the vendor | Yes |
| Names WCAG 2.2 as the test target | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Check with the vendor | Yes | Yes |
| Marks items a person must judge, apart from sure fails | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Yes | Not stated | Not stated |
| Guided manual tests or manual results kept in the tool | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Checks the PDFs themselves, not only links to them | Check with the vendor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scans pages behind a login | Yes | Not stated | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works inside WordPress or Drupal | Not stated | Not stated | Yes | Not stated | Check with the vendor | Not stated |
| Has an ACR (VPAT®) for its own product | Not stated | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Yes |
The vendors
Pope Tech
- What it is
- A web platform that runs WebAIM's WAVE engine across a site's pages and tracks the results over time.
- Who it fits
- A small team that wants plain WAVE results for the whole site, scheduled, with manual tests kept in the same place.
- Re-checks on a scheduleYes
- Names WCAG 2.2 as the targetYes
- Marks items a person must judgeYes
- Manual tests tracked in the toolYes
- Scans pages behind a loginYes
- Checks the PDFs themselvesCheck with the vendor
Silktide
- What it is
- A monitoring platform that scores the whole website and its PDFs against WCAG 2.2 and tracks progress.
- Who it fits
- A site with many PDFs, or an owner who wants every WCAG 2.2 criterion tracked, not only the ones a machine can test.
- Re-checks on a scheduleYes
- Marks items a person must judgeYes
- Manual tests tracked in the toolYes
- Checks the PDFs themselvesYes
- Scans pages behind a loginNot stated
- Has an ACR for its own productYes
Siteimprove
- What it is
- An enterprise content platform whose accessibility module monitors sites, PDFs and logged-in pages and proposes fixes in the CMS.
- Who it fits
- A larger organisation on WordPress or Drupal with many people publishing; the vendor says it helps enterprises.
- Re-checks continuouslyYes
- Works inside WordPress or DrupalYes
- Scans pages behind a loginYes
- Manual tests tracked in the toolYes
- Names WCAG 2.2 as the targetNot stated
axe Monitor (Deque)
- What it is
- Deque's site-wide scanner built on its axe-core rules engine, with reports and progress over time.
- Who it fits
- A business with developers who already use axe tools and need scheduled scans that can log in first.
- Re-checks on a scheduleYes
- Marks items a person must judgeYes
- Scans pages behind a loginYes
- Checks the PDFs themselvesYes
- Names WCAG 2.2 as the targetCheck with the vendor
- Has an ACR for its own productYes
DubBot
- What it is
- A web governance platform that checks pages and every linked PDF for WCAG issues, plus links, spelling and SEO.
- Who it fits
- An organisation with an intranet, a customer portal or a staging site to check, and a PDF library to inventory.
- Names WCAG 2.2 as the targetYes
- Checks the PDFs themselvesYes
- Scans pages behind a loginYes
- Re-checks on a scheduleCheck with the vendor
- Works inside WordPress or DrupalCheck with the vendor
SortSite (PowerMapper)
- What it is
- A desktop crawler for Windows and macOS, also sold as a web app, that tests a whole site and its files in one run.
- Who it fits
- An owner who wants one full sweep of the site before a deadline, from their own computer, with no platform to set up.
- Names WCAG 2.2 as the targetYes
- Checks the PDFs themselvesYes
- Re-checks on a scheduleYes
- Scans pages behind a loginYes
- Has an ACR for its own productYes
What a scan catches and what it cannot
Every tool on this page reads your pages' code and flags what breaks a rule. That is real work saved: a missing alt attribute on 200 product photos turns up in one run, not over a week of clicking. But a rule a machine can test is only half of most success criteria. The other half is a judgment, and the software hands it back to you.
Scroll sideways to see all columns.
| Success criterion | A scan can flag | A person has to decide |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1.1 Non-text Content Level A | Every image on every page with no alt attribute, counted across the site. | Whether each product photo's alt text describes that product, not the same words pasted on all of them. |
| 2.4.2 Page Titled Level A | Pages with an empty or missing title. | Whether each title says what that page is about. |
| 3.1.1 Language of Page Level A | Pages with no language set in the code. | Whether the language set is the one the page is written in. |
| 1.3.1 Info and Relationships Level A | Data tables with no header cells. | Whether the headings, lists and tables in the code match how the page looks. |
| 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) Level A | Links with no text, and vague text such as “click here” repeated across pages. | Whether each link's text, read with its sentence, tells a visitor where it goes. |
| 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions Level A | A form field with no label in the code. | Whether the label tells a visitor what to type and in what format. |
The left column is what a scan reports as a fail. The right column is why a clean scan is not a finished site. Check a single colour pair yourself with the contrast check, or test one image's alt text against the job that image does with the alt text check to see the gap on your own content.
What the ADA guidance says
A “clean” report does not necessarily mean everything is accessible.
DOJ's 2022 web guidance says automated checkers need to be used carefully, and that pairing them with a manual check gives a better sense of how accessible a site is.
Match a tool to your site
Most small sites need two things from this software: a re-check after every change, and a look inside the PDFs (menus, price lists, forms) that owners upload and forget. Switch on what your site has and the list narrows to the tools that state all of it on their own pages.
4 of 6 tools state all 2 of your needs on their own pages.
Not confirmed on the vendor's own page
A tool missing from the result may still do the job: “Not stated” means its own page did not say so on the day we read it, so ask before you rule it out. Already quoted for an enterprise suite? Our Siteimprove alternatives page is built for that question. If PDFs are most of your problem, a scanner only finds them: fixing them is the job of the PDF remediation software we compare separately.
Reports a small owner can read
The report is what you actually buy. Before a trial ends, run it on your own site and read one issue line end to end. A good line names the criterion by number, the page, the element in the code and what is wrong, and groups repeats so one template fix clears many pages.
A line you can act on
- Criterion
- 1.1.1 Non-text Content, Level A
- Where
- /menu, and 14 more pages built from the same template
- Element
- <img src="brunch.jpg">
- What is wrong
- The image has no alt attribute, so a screen reader reads out the file name or skips it.
- Who fixes it
- Whoever edits the menu template: one fix clears all 15 pages.
- Status
- Open since the scan on 3 October; re-checked weekly
A line you cannot
- A score for the whole site with no page named
- "Image issue" with no criterion number
- The same problem listed 15 times, once per page
- No way to mark an item as reviewed by a person
Criterion numbers matter because they are how a developer, an auditor or a lawyer will talk about the problem. If the tool does not print them, map each issue yourself with our WCAG 2.2 AA checklist, which lists every Level A and AA criterion as a plain test.
Ask for this in the trial
One issue line with a criterion number, a page and an element; a way to mark an item as reviewed by a person; a scheduled re-check; and an export you can hand to a developer. All four, or keep looking.
The manual pass no software replaces
Set aside an hour a month for what no scan does. Put the mouse away and walk your home page, your contact form and your checkout with the Tab key, using the focus order checklist. Then listen to the same pages with a free screen reader; our screen reader testing guide walks through the first session.
When you need a dated, signed answer, before a redesign goes live or after a demand letter, that is a human audit, not software. The WCAG audit services we compare test by hand and cite criteria. For one page at a time while you build, the browser checkers in accessibility testing tools compared run the same kind of rule checks page by page.
Quick reference
- Software finds rule breaks across the whole site and re-checks after changes.
- A person decides what alt text, titles, headings and link text should say, and walks the keyboard.
- Fix in your source code or CMS, then let the next scheduled scan confirm it.
- Keep the reports: they are your record of work done.
How we compared
Vendor pages read on
We listed software that crawls a whole site, reports issues against WCAG for a person to fix in the source. Page-at-a-time browser checkers have their own comparison. Each status word comes from the vendor's own product, help or accessibility statement pages, read on the date above; “Not stated” means we did not find it there, not that the tool lacks it.
We left out any vendor that sells an overlay widget, or is owned by a company that does, and we do not print prices, which change by plan and page count.
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
Can software make my website ADA compliant?
No software can, and no body certifies a site as “ADA compliant”. DOJ has no regulation setting detailed web standards for businesses open to the public; its guidance points to WCAG. These tools tell you where your site falls short of WCAG 2.2 Level AA. People fix it, and the next scan confirms the fix.
This is general information, not legal advice. For your own situation, ask a lawyer.
How is a scanner different from an accessibility widget?
A scanner reads your site and reports what to fix in the code; nothing is added to your pages. A widget is a script that changes the page in the visitor's browser and leaves the source as it was. Our accessiBe alternatives page covers what to use instead.
Do I need monitoring, or is one scan enough?
One scan tells you where you stand today. Every new page, product photo and uploaded PDF can add a new fail, so a site you edit weekly needs a scheduled re-check. A site that rarely changes can run one full sweep, fix what it finds, and sweep again after the next redesign.
Which WCAG version should the software test against?
WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Content that conforms to WCAG 2.2 also conforms to WCAG 2.0 and 2.1, so a 2.2 test covers the older targets too. The DOJ rule for state and local governments uses WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and a site that meets WCAG 2.2 Level AA also meets it.
Can a scan replace an accessibility audit?
No. A scan finds rule breaks; an audit has a person test with a keyboard and a screen reader and judge every criterion. Start with the fix order for an owner, use software to hold the line, and bring in an auditor before a redesign or after a demand letter.
Related
- Siteimprove alternativesMonitoring platforms a smaller site can use instead of an enterprise suite.
- Accessibility testing tools comparedCheckers you run page by page, judged on rules mapped to WCAG and what they leave to a person.
- WCAG audit services comparedWho audits a small-business site by hand against WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA, verdict by use case.
- Accessibility overlays: what they do and what they don't8 min read