Got a Website Accessibility Demand Letter? What a Small Business Does First

This article covers what the published numbers and cases show about these letters and the suits behind them, and the order in which a small business can reasonably act. We are a web agency, not a law firm. We do not know your facts, your state’s law or what your letter demands, and none of this tells you what to do in a legal matter. Where it says “ask an attorney,” it means it. The article sits in our series on keeping a WordPress site alive because accessibility is part of how a site is kept, and because the technical part of the response is website work.

How common this is

The numbers come from Seyfarth Shaw’s ADA Title III blog, which counts federal filings from the court records. Read them with their limits.

Two cautions. The 5,006 figure is not a website count¹; Seyfarth’s mid-year post gives no separate website number. And the counts leave out state courts: Seyfarth says it sees “a significant number of demand letters and lawsuits filed in state courts,” especially against businesses with physical locations. Its 2026 outlook says plaintiffs continue to send demand letters and file suits about inaccessible websites, with California, New York and Florida the most active, and expects more people filing on their own with AI help. In the first-half count, California had 2,426 federal Title III filings¹.

What the demand letter is

A demand letter is a lawyer’s letter, not a court filing. It alleges that your site is not accessible, often asks for changes and a payment, and sets a deadline. Letters vary, so we describe what the lawsuits say, which is what a letter is a warning of.

The suits Seyfarth describes allege that people with disabilities could not use websites because the sites were not designed to be accessible or to work with assistive technology. In one 2026 New York case, a blind plaintiff alleged he could not buy a pair of sunglasses because of defects that fell short of WCAG: missing image descriptions, hidden elements, pop-ups that screen readers did not announce, unclear labels, actions that needed a mouse and broken links. The Department of Justice’s list of common barriers is similar: poor contrast, color used alone to carry meaning, missing text alternatives, uncaptioned video, forms without labels and mouse-only navigation.

What WCAG 2.1 AA is

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are published by the W3C. WCAG 2.1 is organized under four principles, perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, with three conformance levels, A, AA and AAA. “Level AA” is the one people mean by “WCAG 2.1 AA.” The Department of Justice describes WCAG as helpful guidance, not as a mandatory technical standard under Title III, and says businesses have flexibility in how they comply. A court or a plaintiff’s lawyer may still use it as the yardstick, as the New York case shows. Whether it applies to you is a question for your attorney.

The four failures that matter most map to specific criteria in WCAG 2.1:

These are also the failures found most often. WebAIM’s 2026 analysis of one million home pages detected WCAG failures on 95.9% of them, an average of 56.1 errors per page⁴. The most common were low-contrast text (83.9%), missing alternative text (53.1%), missing form labels (51%), empty links (46.3%), empty buttons (30.6%) and a missing document language (13.5%)⁴.

What to do first

1. Do not ignore the letter. It is a legal document, usually with a deadline. Read it, note the date it arrived, and put it in the hands of someone licensed to advise on it, who can say whether and how to reply.
2. Get counsel. An attorney who handles ADA website matters can tell you what the letter claims, which law applies in your state, what the deadline means and whether to respond. Ask before you sign or pay anything.
3. Ask whether to copy the site first. Your attorney may want a dated copy of the site as it was when the letter arrived, before anything is changed.
4. Audit the site. Test the pages the letter names, the home page, the contact and quote forms and every page that takes a booking or a call. An automated scan finds some failures and misses others, such as a pop-up that screen readers do not announce, so include a keyboard-only walk through the site and a screen-reader check.
5. Fix the common failures. Add descriptions to meaningful images, raise contrast on text and buttons to the ratios above, make every control reachable and usable with the keyboard, and label every form field.
6. Keep a record. In the 2026 case Seyfarth reported, a New York federal court dismissed the suit as moot after the business submitted a declaration and a consultant’s audit report showing remediation; Seyfarth’s lesson was that documented, meaningful efforts can help businesses defend against lawsuits. We cannot say that would work for you. We can say the record is worth keeping.
7. Do not buy a widget as the answer. See the next section.

Why an overlay does not settle it

An accessibility overlay is a script that adds a toolbar and claims to fix a site automatically. In April 2025 the FTC approved a final order against accessiBe, the vendor of one. The FTC had alleged that its claim that its tool could make any website WCAG-compliant was false, misleading or unsubstantiated, and that it presented paid reviews and articles as independent. The order requires $1 million and bars the company from claiming that its automated products make a website WCAG-compliant or keep it compliant, unless it has evidence; the Commission voted 3-0³. The order concerns one company’s claims, and it does not decide how a court will treat a site that has a widget. But it is a reason not to treat a widget as a fix, and not to say in a reply to anyone that the site is compliant because of one. We cover it fully in do accessibility overlay widgets protect a small business.

What we do about it

We write our own themes, with no page builder, and check the common failures in this article as part of optimization: contrast, descriptions, keyboard use and labels. We also publish an accessibility statement for this site. We do not advise on the letter, and we do not claim a site is “compliant” or “protected.” What we do is the technical work an attorney’s advice calls for: an audit, the fixes, and a dated record of what changed. If your site runs on a page builder and the audit finds many failures, the fixes may point to a rebuild, and why your Elementor or Divi site is slow covers the same trade-off for speed.

When to get help

Get a lawyer first, for the letter. Get a web developer second, for the site, once the lawyer has said what the site work is for. Do not hire a firm that promises a “compliant” or “protected” site. The consultation is free; it covers the website side only.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many website accessibility lawsuits are filed?

Seyfarth Shaw counted 3,117 federal website accessibility suits in 2025, up 27% from 2024, and 5,006 federal ADA Title III suits of all kinds in the first half of 2026¹². State-court cases are not in those counts.

Does the ADA require my website to meet WCAG 2.1 AA?

The Department of Justice says the ADA covers the web content of businesses open to the public, that no regulation sets a detailed web standard for Title III, and that WCAG is helpful guidance. Whether a particular court would apply it to you is for your attorney.

What are the most common accessibility failures on websites?

Low-contrast text, missing image descriptions, missing form labels, empty links and empty buttons. WebAIM detected low contrast on 83.9% of one million home pages and missing alternative text on 53.1%⁴.

Will an accessibility overlay protect me?

The FTC’s April 2025 order says one overlay vendor could not claim, without evidence, that its products make a website WCAG-compliant³. The order does not answer whether a widget protects any particular business; ask your attorney before relying on one.

Is this legal advice?

No. We are a web agency. This article reports what the Department of Justice, the FTC, the W3C and Seyfarth Shaw have published; ask a licensed attorney about your own case.

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