Free Accessibility tool

Website Accessibility Checker

Enter your address and we test that page plus up to four key pages in a real browser against WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA rules. Each barrier comes with the element, the page, a screenshot and an explanation of who it affects.

Free. Tests up to five key pages in about a minute.

What this tool checks

  • Five pages that represent your site

    The page you enter, plus up to four pages picked from its links for the kind of site. On a store that means a collection, a product, the cart and a content page; elsewhere, pages such as pricing, contact, an article or services. Templates repeat, so one product page usually shows the problems of all of them.

  • WCAG rules on the rendered page

    Each page loads in Chromium at 1366 × 900 and axe-core, Deque’s open-source rules engine, runs its WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 Level A and AA rules after the page’s scripts have run. That catches problems a theme or app only creates once the page is built in the browser.

  • Impact and success criteria

    Every failing rule shows its impact (critical, serious, moderate or minor), the WCAG success criteria it maps to, and how many elements and pages it affects.

  • The failing element, outlined

    An example element’s HTML and a screenshot of the page with that element outlined, so you or your developer can find it in the template without guessing.

  • Items a person must decide

    When axe-core finds something it can’t settle, such as text over a background image whose contrast it can’t measure, the item is listed as needs review. It is never counted as a failure.

  • A keyboard probe

    On the first page we press Tab 40 times and record where focus goes: whether it moves at all, whether it gets stuck in a loop (often inside a cookie banner), whether the first stop is a skip link, and which focused elements show no visible focus indicator. That last check is a heuristic, so it is shown as needs review.

What it can’t check

  • Hear what a screen reader announces. Software can confirm that a button has a name, not that the name makes sense when read aloud.
  • Judge captions, transcripts or audio descriptions for video and audio.
  • Assess cognitive and content criteria, such as whether instructions are clear or error messages help people recover.
  • Test pages behind a login, a password or bot protection, or go through a checkout.
  • Tell you whether your site conforms to WCAG or complies with any law. Automated rules find part of the problems; the rest need people.

Why it matters

Accessibility barriers are often small template mistakes with large effects. An icon-only cart button with no accessible name is announced as just “button”, so a screen reader user can’t tell what it does. Grey text on white that misses the 4.5:1 contrast ratio is hard to read for many people with low vision, and for anyone using a phone in bright sunlight.

Because the same header, product card and footer appear on every page, one fix in a template can clear hundreds of failures at once. That is why results are grouped by rule, with counts of elements and pages, instead of listing each instance as a separate problem.

Accessibility also has a legal side in many countries. A scan can’t tell you whether a law applies to you or whether you meet it. What it gives you is a dated list of real barriers on your own pages, which is the practical place to start either way.

How to read the results

Critical
The barrier can stop some people from using the element at all, for example a form field with no label or a button with no name. Fix these first.
Serious
The barrier makes a task much harder for some people, such as body text that fails the contrast ratio.
Moderate
The barrier causes difficulty or confusion, but people can usually work around it.
Minor
A small problem or annoyance. Still worth fixing the next time you edit that template.
WCAG success criteria
The numbers next to a rule, such as 1.1.1 or 1.4.3, are the criteria it tests. A rule with no criterion listed is a best practice rather than a WCAG requirement.
Elements and pages
How many elements failed the rule and on how many of the tested pages. A rule that fails on every page usually lives in a shared part such as the header, menu or footer.
Needs review
axe-core found something it couldn’t decide. Look at the element yourself: it may pass or fail. These items aren’t counted as failures.
Focus trap
Tab kept cycling through the same few elements. If they belong to a cookie banner, keyboard users may not be able to reach the rest of the page.
Focus doesn’t move
Pressing Tab never focused anything. Links and buttons may be built from div or span elements, or a script may be swallowing the key.
Skip link
Whether the first Tab stop is a “Skip to content” link. Without one, keyboard users tab through the whole header on every page. Landmarks and headings can also meet WCAG 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks.
No visible focus indicator
Focused elements where we saw no outline, box shadow or underline. A different style, such as a colour change, can still be visible, so tab through these yourself to confirm.

How to fix the most common problems

  • Text that fails the contrast ratio

    Normal text needs at least 4.5:1 against its background, and large text (about 24 px, or about 18.7 px bold) needs 3:1. Change the colour in your theme settings or design tokens rather than element by element, then check placeholder text, hover states and text over images again.

  • Images without alt text

    Give each meaningful image an alt attribute that says what it shows or does, such as the product name and colour. Decorative images get an empty alt (alt="") so screen readers skip them. In Shopify you add alt text from the image in the product’s Media section; in WordPress, in the Alternative Text field of the Media Library.

  • Form fields without labels

    Tie a label to each input with <label for> matching the field’s id, or use aria-label when there is no visible text. Don’t rely on placeholder text as the only label: it disappears as soon as someone types. Newsletter sign-ups and header search boxes are the usual culprits.

  • Buttons and links with no accessible name

    Icon controls for the cart, search, menu or social profiles often contain only an SVG. Add visible text or an aria-label that says what the control does (“Open cart”, not “icon”), and add aria-hidden="true" to the SVG itself.

  • A cookie banner that traps focus

    Make sure every banner button can be reached with Tab and used with Enter or Space, that closing the banner returns focus to the page, and that a banner which doesn’t block the page doesn’t hold focus at all. Check your consent tool’s settings and update it if the script is old.

  • Focus outlines removed in CSS

    Search your stylesheets for outline: none or outline: 0 on links, buttons and :focus. Replace it with a visible style such as :focus-visible { outline: 2px solid currentColor; outline-offset: 2px; }.

Questions about this tool

Is this accessibility checker free?

Yes. There is no sign-up; you only confirm that you own or manage the site. The paid Accessibility Fix Report adds up to 20 more pages from your sitemap, a keyboard-only journey, a 320 px reflow check, before-and-after code built from your failing markup, AI prompts, a PDF and 5 re-tests.

How much of WCAG can an automated checker test?

Only part of it. A rule can check that an image has alt text, not that the text describes the image, and that a field has a label, not that the label is clear. Treat the results as a list of definite problems, then test the rest with a keyboard and a screen reader.

If the scan finds nothing, is my site compliant with the ADA or WCAG?

No. No automated test can show that a site conforms to WCAG or complies with the ADA, the European Accessibility Act or any other law. A clean result means the automated rules found no failures on the pages tested.

Can I check a staging site or pages behind a login?

Pages behind a login, a password or bot protection can’t be tested. If your bot protection blocks the scan, allow the FixReportsScanner user agent or test a public staging copy.

I fixed an issue. Why does the result look the same?

Results for the same address may be reused from a scan in the last hour. Wait for that hour to pass, and clear any page cache or CDN cache, before you test again.

Sources

Related tools

The Accessibility Fix Report ($174, one-time) starts from the full free scan and adds more pages, the change to make for every finding, a PDF and re-tests to verify your fixes.

About the Accessibility Fix Report