Barriers stay invisible. Until someone checks.
Scanready checks online shops and digital services against EN 301 549 — the standard behind the European Accessibility Act. And fixes what the check finds.
Check your site — free See pricing
EN 301 549 V3.2.1 · WCAG 2.1 AA · binding since 28 June 2025
The situation in three lines
- Since early 2026
- Germany's joint market surveillance authority for accessibility (MLBF) is actively checking: through its own systematic controls and in response to complaints. Its preparatory phase ended in January 2026.
- Up to €100,000
- That is the maximum fine under the German implementing act. Every member state sets its own range; warning letters from competitors and associations come on top.
- Not for everyone
- Micro-enterprises — fewer than 10 staff and no more than €2m annual turnover — are exempt, as are offerings aimed solely at other businesses. Who has to make their website accessible?
One example shop, four real findings
WCAG 1.1.1
Product image without alt text
The image carries no text alternative. To a screen reader the product does not exist.
In the code:
<img src="jacke-nordkap.jpg">If you cannot see it, you do not know what it is — and you do not buy it.
WCAG 1.4.3
Reference price too pale
The struck-through price sits light grey on white: 2.1:1. The requirement is 4.5:1.
In the code:
#B1B3B7 / #FFFFFF · 2,1:1In daylight, on a phone, that line is simply gone.
WCAG 4.1.2
Basket button with no name
The button is an icon only. The code carries no name, no role, no state.
In the code:
<button class="cart"><svg>…</svg></button>It is announced as “button”. Where it leads stays anyone’s guess.
WCAG 3.3.2
Input field without a label
The newsletter field only has a placeholder — which disappears at the first keystroke.
In the code:
<input type="email" placeholder="Email address">Come back to it and you no longer know what you were meant to type.
FINDINGS
We fix it. Others send you work.
Other providers hand you exactly this list — and with it, the work. We work through the findings inside your site, re-check afterwards and keep monitoring.
Run the same check on your own address.
Six pages of your shop, tested against WCAG 2.1 AA. Result in under a minute, right here on this page.
Object tested
| No. | Checkpoint | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | issues found | – |
| 02 | of them critical or serious | – |
| 03 | pages tested | – |
Delivery
A report is not a fix.
What you usually get
A report with 40 to 120 findings. Then you look for an agency, collect quotes and pay somewhere between €590 and €1,250 for a one-off fix. The next theme update starts the cycle again.
What you get from us
The same findings — plus the fix. We work through them in your website, test again afterwards and keep monitoring. You do not get a to-do list, you get a site that has been put right.
From findings to conformity
The scan is the beginning, not the product.
- Step 1
Test
Automated testing against WCAG 2.1 AA on the pages that matter: home page, category, product detail, basket, contact, legal notice, privacy policy and terms.
- Step 2
Report
Every issue with its success criterion, the affected page, the HTML location and a concrete remediation note. Listed separately: what is established automatically and what a human has to judge.
- Step 3
Fix
We work through the findings in your website — in the theme, in the templates, in the content. Then we test again so the fix is documented.
- Step 4
Stay ready
We keep testing on a fixed schedule. New barriers introduced by shop updates, new products or new plugins show up immediately — not during an inspection.
What automated testing cannot do
A test tool reliably detects part of the WCAG criteria: missing alternative text, insufficient contrast, unlabelled controls, faulty ARIA markup. The rule of thumb is that roughly one third of the criteria can be tested automatically.
The rest needs human judgement: whether an image description actually fits, whether the checkout can be operated by keyboard, whether the tab order follows the reading order, whether an error message is understandable. On top of that come the mandatory documents — the accessibility statement and a feedback mechanism.
That is why we report both separately, and why a report without findings is not a proof of conformity here. Anyone promising accessibility “at the push of a button” is not selling you conformity but a risk: the German market surveillance authorities consider overlay tools unsuitable, and the German Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted warns about these vendors’ advertising claims.
Shopware, Shopify, WooCommerce & co. — what applies to your platform?
No shop platform is accessible out of the box. Whether your site meets the criteria is decided by the theme, the extensions and your content — in other words, exactly the parts you are responsible for.
- Shopware 5 and 6 — The default theme is a starting point, not evidence. As soon as a custom theme, modified templates or plugins are involved, a previously tested state no longer holds. We test the shop that is actually delivered to visitors.
- Shopify — Themes from the store differ widely, and installed apps push their own markup into the page — pop-ups, reviews, product finders. That is where we find most of the unlabelled controls.
- WooCommerce and WordPress — Two layers that have to fit together: the theme and the plugins. Every update can shift something. This is where a one-off fix has the shortest shelf life.
- JTL-Shop, OXID, Magento — Grown installations with many modifications. The effort rarely sits in the software itself but in templates and content that have accumulated over years.
- TYPO3 and other CMS — For pure content management systems, remediation products already exist on the market. The gap is with online shops — and they are precisely who the law targets.
- Custom build — No standard to point at. The report hands your developers the HTML location together with the criterion — or we take on the remediation ourselves.
What we test against
We do not judge by feel but against the standard the legislation relies on — the same one market surveillance applies.
| Basis | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Directive (EU) 2019/882European Accessibility Act | Applies since 28 June 2025 in all 27 member states — with no grandfathering, so existing websites are covered too. |
| National implementing lawe.g. BFSG in Germany | Each member state has its own implementing act, its own market surveillance authority and its own penalty range. In Germany, fines of up to €100,000 are possible, plus warning letters from competitors and associations. |
| EN 301 549refers to WCAG 2.1 Level AA | The technical benchmark, identical across Europe. These are exactly the criteria we test — verifiable, because the standard is published. |
Scanready is not a public authority and not a notified body. Our authority comes from the standard we name, not from a mark that looks official.
In the end it sits in your footer.
Customers who are tested can display a Scanready test mark. It carries the test date and links to the public test report — something you can look up rather than something we claim.
© 2026 Nordlicht Handel GmbH
The check mark sits where customers and buyers look for it — small, verifiable, dated. One click leads to the public check page with the latest result.
It reads “Tested regularly against EN 301 549”, never “certified accessible”. That difference is not word play: automated testing only covers part of the criteria, and a mark claiming more than was tested becomes a legal risk in its own right.
Four rules we hold ourselves to
- The test criteria are public: EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 AA are published standards, so anyone can look up what is being tested.
- Testing is repeated. A quality mark without recurring checks is not permissible — which is why the mark is only valid while testing continues.
- No appearance of officialdom: no EU flag, no circle of stars, no “state-approved”.
- Never claim more than was tested — hence “tested against EN 301 549”, never “certified”.
Where does your website stand?
One address, one click, one number. The finding is free — what you do with it is your decision afterwards.