Morton Digital

2026-05-17 · 6 min read

How Much Does a WCAG 2.1 Audit Cost? A Government IT Director's Pricing Guide

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# How Much Does a WCAG 2.1 Audit Cost? A Government IT Director's Pricing Guide

If you are trying to figure out how much a WCAG 2.1 audit costs for a government website, you have probably noticed that the answers you find online range from "a few hundred dollars" to "hundreds of thousands of dollars." Both numbers are real. Neither one is useful without context.

This guide breaks down the actual price spectrum, explains what you are buying at each tier, and gives Florida state and local government agencies a realistic budget figure for the kind of audit that will actually hold up to DOJ scrutiny under the Title II Final Rule.

The WCAG audit price spectrum

Automated scans: $0–$500

Free and low-cost automated scanners — axe-core, Lighthouse, WAVE, Siteimprove's basic tier — are widely available. Some vendors sell packaged scan reports for a few hundred dollars.

The fundamental limitation is coverage. Automated tools reliably detect approximately 57% of WCAG failures. The remaining 43% — keyboard navigation gaps, screen reader behavior, ARIA live region correctness, PDF accessibility, dynamic content announcements — only surface through manual testing with a human and real assistive technology.

A scan-only report will not satisfy a DOJ compliance review. It will not give your web vendor actionable remediation guidance. And it will not tell you which issues are actually preventing people with disabilities from using your site.

Boutique manual audits: $5,000–$15,000

This is the tier where legitimate manual audits live for most mid-size government websites. A professional firm that combines automated scanning with manual keyboard testing and screen reader testing typically charges $5,000–$15,000 for a 100–300 page government site.

At this price point, you should expect: a findings report citing specific WCAG 2.1 success criteria by number, severity ratings, affected URLs, and developer-facing remediation guidance. You should also receive a drafted accessibility statement and a VPAT.

If a vendor in this tier is offering anything less than that, ask what is missing.

Enterprise platforms: $60,000–$250,000+

Enterprise accessibility platforms — Level Access, Siteimprove, Deque — operate at this level. They bundle ongoing monitoring software, managed services, and legal risk management with the audit itself.

For most Florida county and municipal IT departments, this tier is unnecessary and cost-prohibitive. The DOJ Title II rule requires conformance to WCAG 2.1 Level AA — it does not require an enterprise SaaS contract. If you have a site that needs a compliance audit, not a permanent monitoring platform, the enterprise tier is pricing you for features you do not need.

What drives the cost of a legitimate audit

Page count and scope. Auditing every page of a large government site is impractical. A well-scoped audit samples representative page types — homepage, service landing pages, forms, search results, document library, calendar — and critical user journeys. For most government sites, 100–300 representative pages is an appropriate sample.

Manual testing ratio. The difference between a $500 scan report and a $9,500 manual audit is not markup — it is the labor cost of manual testing. A trained auditor doing thorough keyboard and screen reader testing on 200 pages takes 40–80 hours. That time is priced into the engagement.

Deliverable quality. A price quote that does not include a VPAT, an accessibility statement draft, or a post-remediation verification pass is not a complete audit. Ask what is in the deliverable before comparing prices.

Auditor qualifications. CPACC (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies) and WAS (Web Accessibility Specialist) certifications from IAAP are the industry standard. An auditor without accessibility certification is a generalist; a certified auditor has demonstrated specific technical knowledge of WCAG conformance evaluation.

Why the DOJ Title II timeline matters for your procurement decision

The DOJ Title II Final Rule sets compliance deadlines based on population:

Those deadlines are for the remediated site, not the audit report. A typical audit-plus-remediation cycle for a government website takes 9–18 months:

| Phase | Duration | |---|---| | Procurement | 2–6 weeks | | Audit execution | 4–8 weeks | | Findings review and remediation planning | 2–4 weeks | | Developer remediation | 3–9 months | | Verification pass | 2–4 weeks |

If you are a Florida county or municipality with a population over 50,000 and have not started procurement, the April 2027 deadline is approximately 24 months away. Depending on your procurement method and the size of your site, you may have very limited runway.

Florida government procurement options for a WCAG audit

P-card / micro-purchase. Many Florida agencies can purchase services under $10,000 with a purchasing card, bypassing formal competitive bid requirements. A fixed-fee WCAG audit priced at or below your agency's micro-purchase threshold can often be initiated in days, not weeks. Confirm your agency's specific IT services threshold.

Informal quotes (3 bids). For purchases between $10,000 and approximately $65,000 (thresholds vary by agency), most Florida agencies require three written quotes and award to the lowest responsive bidder. A well-prepared scope document cuts this process to 2–3 weeks.

MyFloridaMarketPlace (MFMP). MFMP contracts cover IT consulting services and can accommodate accessibility audit engagements of any size. Search for "accessibility audit" or "WCAG" in the STC catalog.

GSA Schedule. Federal IT Schedule contracts are available to Florida agencies via piggyback. Confirm with your purchasing agent.

What a $9,500 fixed-fee audit covers

Morton Technology Consulting's Parallax audit is priced at $9,500 for a complete WCAG 2.1 AA engagement:

At this price, the engagement fits within the p-card threshold for many Florida agencies. It does not require a lengthy procurement process. It produces the audit artifacts your legal team, web vendor, and ADA coordinator need to execute a credible remediation.

For a comparison of what this audit delivers against enterprise alternatives, the sample report is available without registration.

The cost of not auditing

The out-of-pocket cost of a WCAG audit is straightforward. The cost of waiting is harder to quantify until it becomes concrete.

Florida saw more than 1,800 federal ADA digital-accessibility filings in 2025. Prior DOJ consent decrees — including agreements affecting Florida municipalities — typically require remediation on tight deadlines with contempt exposure for non-compliance, plus ongoing monitoring periods that can run 12–24 months. Settlement amounts in government web accessibility cases have ranged from tens of thousands to well into six figures.

A $9,500 audit conducted before a complaint is filed is a different kind of expenditure than remediation conducted under a consent decree after one is settled.

If your agency's website has not been audited against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the question is not whether to audit. It is whether to do it on your timeline or on the DOJ's.

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*Morton Technology Consulting LLC provides WCAG 2.1 AA audit services to Florida state and local government agencies. Contact [email protected] for a scope conversation. The WCAG Pre-Audit Readiness Kit ($149) includes a 47-point remediation tracker, VPAT worksheet, accessibility statement template, and procurement guide.*

Sources

  1. [1] Deque University — Automated vs. Manual Testing — "automated testing tools can only detect 57% of accessibility issues"
  2. [2] ADA.gov — DOJ Fact Sheet: New Rule on Accessibility of Web Content — "State and local governments must make sure that their web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA"
  3. [3] Federal Register — Interim Final Rule extending Title II compliance dates (April 20, 2026) — "The compliance date for State and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more is extended from April 24, 2026, to April 26, 2027"
  4. [4] Level Access — Enterprise Accessibility Platform (pricing range from published accounts) — "enterprise accessibility platform pricing"
  5. [5] UsableNet — ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Report 2025 — ""
  6. [6] ADA.gov — Project Civic Access settlements database — ""

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