Accessibility agencies: WCAG audits & remediation partners

WCAG 2.2 Level AA (or 2.1 AA where your contracts still cite it) is the common target for public sites and many product surfaces. Level A is usually too weak for enterprise procurement or regulated industries; full AAA is rarely required site-wide. Put the exact standard and level in the brief and SOW, and require a defined evaluation method — not a vague pledge to “follow best practices.”

Audit first when you lack a current, prioritized inventory across critical flows. Go straight to remediation when a recent audit, VPAT gap analysis, or legal demand already lists defects with severity. Strong partners often sell a fixed audit or sample evaluation, then a separate remediation SOW — so you fund high-risk fixes before rewriting low-traffic pages.

No. Automation is valuable for CI and catch of common markup issues, but it misses many keyboard, focus, and screen-reader failures. Credible agencies combine tools with manual testing against WCAG and your real tasks. Treat “we ran axe and passed” as a starting gate, not proof of conformance.

Cost tracks surface area and debt: a scoped audit of key templates often lands in the low-to-mid five figures; remediation ranges widely based on whether shared components can fix many pages at once or every template is bespoke. Ask for estimates against a written inventory of journeys and third-party widgets — not a single “accessibility package” price with no scope.

Require handoff of patterns, issue criteria, and retest results you own; add automated checks in CI where possible; and name an internal owner for design-system and content accessibility. Budget a lightweight periodic review or retainer only after the critical backlog is cleared — continuous spend without a regression plan usually means the same defects return.