Why accessibility became a sales blocker
Accessibility used to be a values conversation. In 2026 it is a procurement conversation: enterprise and public-sector buyers ask for a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) before they sign, and "we don't have one" pauses the deal. WCAG 2.2 raised the bar with nine new success criteria, among them focus appearance, dragging alternatives, target size and accessible authentication.
What automation honestly covers
Automated scanning is excellent at the objective layer: contrast, labels, roles, structure, target sizes, and regressions in all of the above. It cannot judge whether your alt text is meaningful or your flow makes sense with a screen reader. That is expert-review territory. Anyone selling "fully automated compliance" is selling a lawsuit.
Our scanner covers WCAG 2.2 A, AA, and AAA checks, maps results to 66 country standards, runs assistive-technology and user-flow checks, and exports a VPAT directly from results, so the document buyers ask for is a by-product of testing you already run, not a quarterly consulting project.
Start this week
- Scan your login and checkout pages first: highest traffic, highest legal exposure.
- Fix contrast and label findings first; they are cheap and cut the majority of automated findings.
- Generate the VPAT early. An honest partial-conformance document beats silence in procurement.
How we measured this
- The WCAG 2.2 A, AA and AAA checks and the 66 country and region standards are the rule set and the standards table shipped in the accessibility module on the article date (2026-07-24).
- The VPAT export is generated from scan results. Criteria that automation cannot judge (meaningful alternative text, task flow with assistive technology) are marked for expert review rather than claimed.