Is Your Website a Lawsuit Waiting to Happen? How to Stay ADA-Compliant

The Pew Research Center estimates that roughly 13% of the world's population lives with a disability. Yet only 3% of websites are designed to accommodate their needs.

This accessibility gap is inconvenient for disabled users—and can be financially devastating for business owners.

Failing to optimize your website to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards could not only land you in hot water with the Department of Justice but also trigger lawsuits, costing you as much as $100,000 in legal fees.

If you are unsure about what ADA requirements entail, whether they apply to your website, or what you need to do to meet these standards, keep reading.

What Are ADA Standards?

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), just like physical businesses, websites must be accessible to people with disabilities. To remove barriers for users with vision, hearing, and mobility impairments, most business websites must:

• Allow users to alter fonts and colors for easier readability
• Provide text alternatives for images
• Include captions for video content
• Ensure digital forms are easy to understand and complete
• Accommodate “mouseless” navigation

Do ADA Standards Apply to My Business?

According to the ADA, these standards apply to Title I, II, and III businesses.

• Title I: Any business with at least 15 full-time employees working 20 or more weeks per year.
• Title II: State and local governments, services, programs, or activities
• Title III: Any business considered a “place of public accommodation,” including hotels, restaurants, bars, theatres, retail stores, and many others.

What Happens If My Site Is Not ADA-Compliant?

Failure to meet ADA user accessibility standards is a serious offense and could mean:

• Hefty legal penalties: Department of Justice fines begin at over $55,000 for first offenses and $110,000 for subsequent violations.
• Lawsuits: According to Usablenet’s annual report, more than 4,600 ADA lawsuits were filed in 2023. Most of those cases originated in New York, Florida, and California and cost business owners an average of $16,000 to settle. If that case goes to court, legal fees could exceed $100,000.
• Missed opportunities: Roughly 42 million Americans are living with disabilities. And if you fail to accommodate this demographic, you’re missing out on potential revenue and growth opportunities.

I Received a Demand Letter for Non-Compliance. Now What?

If you have already received a demand letter, do not ignore it. Instead:

• Carefully review the allegations to understand the specifics of the non-compliance accusations.
• Contact a lawyer who specializes in ADA compliance.
• Immediately contact an ADA compliance agency like WISE Digital Partners. We will review the ADA demand letter and audit your website to determine if it is in violation.

What Happens If a Lawsuit Is Filed Against Me?

If you received a demand letter and did not make immediate efforts to remediate your website, you may face higher litigation costs. In general, you should expect to spend:

• $5,000 to $10,000 in attorney fees if you settle out of court
• $100,000 if your case goes to trial
• $4,000 per incident for state-mandated statutory damages

It’s important to remember that you may also be on the hook for the plaintiff’s attorney fees in addition to your own legal fees and fines. These fees are also calculated on a per-website basis, so if your business has multiple websites, you could be facing substantial legal costs. 

A few years ago, a prospective client from California approached us. This client owned multiple businesses and websites and had a case filed against them that resulted in $45,000 in legal fees—that’s prior to any digital remediation.

Because the case was filed with the state and settled, they now have a much higher burden of accessibility to reach and maintain. Additionally, they will have ongoing fees to support their monitoring efforts.

How Do I Find Out If My Website Is ADA-Compliant?

There are essentially two ways to test whether your website is ADA-compliant:

Use Automated Testing Tools

Do a quick Google search. You’ll find plenty of tools that can quickly scan your entire website, generate a report, and assign your website a user accessibility rating score.

While these tools are a useful starting point, we don’t recommend relying on them for a few reasons:

• They are hyper-focused on the technical aspects of accessibility
• They cannot replicate the human browsing experience
• They lack context and cannot distinguish between different types of data
• They cannot account for a wide range of disabilities

Work With an ADA Compliance Agency

For more comprehensive testing, we recommend partnering with an ADA compliance company like ours. Here’s why:

Our website audit is free: Our team will conduct a free audit to determine if your website meets compliance standards. If it doesn’t, and you would like our assistance, we charge a one-time setup fee and an ongoing monthly management fee to keep your website compliant.

We manually test: While automated tools can identify some accessibility issues, nothing can replace the human touch. During testing, our team accounts for a wide range of disabilities to identify and resolve any accessibility issues AI-powered tools might miss.

You may qualify for a tax credit: Did you know that the IRS offers a $5,000 tax credit to cover the costs associated with ensuring your website is ADA-compliant? If you have questions about qualifying criteria, we can help.

How Does Your ADA Compliance Company Protect Me?

Maintaining ADA compliance is an ongoing effort, which means you need to regularly review and update your site. This is why it pays to partner with an ADA compliance service specialist like WISE.

In addition to identifying and remediating any non-compliant elements on your site, we will also provide ongoing monitoring and maintenance. This ensures that you remain compliant when adding new content and features.

Get ADA-Compliant Today!

Whether you’re just gearing up to build a new website, received an accessibility demand letter, or simply want to avoid hefty fines in the future, our ADA compliance service experts are here to help. Contact us today!