What does it cost to make a website accessible?
There is no single price, and anyone who quotes one has not seen your website. What there is: four cost blocks of very different sizes. Here they are side by side — with the prices actually being asked on 25 August 2026.
Four cost blocks that keep getting mixed up
Almost every argument about “what does it cost” comes from provider and customer talking about different blocks.
Testing means finding out where you stand. Remediation means changing the code at the places found. Monitoring means making sure it stays that way when the next theme update lands. Documentation means the accessibility statement and the feedback channel that the law requires separately from the technology.
Only the second block is genuinely expensive. The first costs next to nothing, the third is a small recurring amount, the fourth is a writing job. A quote that blends all of it into one number cannot be compared — and usually that is the point.
| Block | What happens | Order of magnitude |
|---|---|---|
| Testing | Automated scan against EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA; optionally a manual review of the criteria that cannot be tested automatically | 0 € to mid four figures |
| Remediation | Changing the places found in the theme, the templates and the content | the largest item, driven by the findings |
| Monitoring | Recurring checks so that updates and new pages do not build new barriers | double to triple digits per month |
| Documentation | Accessibility statement and a channel for reporting barriers | one-off writing, then upkeep |
What the market is asking right now
We opened the public pricing pages of automated testing providers and read the numbers off. For their standard packages they sat between 19 and 299 € per month on that day; one provider adds a “from 999 €” tier for very large sites. Some net, some gross — the comparison only works if you read that along with it.
For remediation there are no comparable list prices. On their own websites, agencies quote roughly 2,000 € to 8,000 € for retrofitting a typical corporate site and 8,000 € to 15,000 € for sites with a shop or many interactive components; for ongoing support, 200 € to 800 € per month. Those are provider self-descriptions, not surveyed market data — we pass them on as exactly that.
Free instant checks are plentiful, ours included. They are an honest entry point and replace nothing: an automated test covers only part of the criteria.
Why the range for remediation is so wide
Because it does not follow the size of the site, it follows the findings — and those are unknown beforehand.
On 25 August 2026 we tested 14 German-language online shops across up to six pages each: 70 pages, 654 consolidated findings, 2,025 passed checks. The range per shop ran from 2 to 157 findings. Two shops in the same sector, with the same page count, can therefore be a factor of 20 apart.
It also matters where the findings sit. A contrast error in the footer appears on every page of the shop — a hundred times over in the raw result, while in truth it is one line of CSS. That is why we consolidate findings instead of adding them up: in the same measurement, 1,553 raw hits corresponded to 654 actual places. Anyone quoting by raw hits is selling you the same work several times.
The practical consequence: a serious remediation quote comes after the findings, not before. Anyone naming a fixed price without a scan has priced in a risk premium that you pay for.
| Shop system | Shops | Findings per shop |
|---|---|---|
| Shopware 6 | 4 | 7 – 152 |
| Shopify | 2 | 5 – 55 |
| OXID eShop | 3 | 13 – 54 |
| WooCommerce / WordPress | 2 | 27 – 35 |
| Magento | 2 | 2 – 13 |
| TYPO3 | 1 | 157 |
Consolidated findings after deduplication, automatically testable criteria of EN 301 549. A small sample, not a representative market study — it shows the spread, not the average for your system.
What page count has to do with cost — and what it does not
Many providers tier by number of subpages. That is convenient to bill and says little: a shop with 5,000 generated product pages usually has one product template. Correct it once and all 5,000 pages are corrected.
Effort arises where there are bespoke components: hand-built filters, a custom navigation, a configurator, a checkout with special logic. Ten of those cost more than ten thousand product pages.
That is why we tier by annual revenue rather than page count. Not because it tracks effort more precisely, but because it tracks risk: whoever has more to lose pays more. Every tier is published openly on the pricing page.
What it costs to do nothing
Penalties are set nationally. In Germany, § 37 of the BFSG provides for fines of up to 100,000 € in the serious cases listed there and up to 10,000 € in the rest. That is the ceiling, not the norm. Other member states have their own ranges.
The normal case looks different, and that is the more useful figure. Since 26 September 2025 the German authority has been the joint market surveillance body of the federal states for accessibility of products and services (MLBF) in Magdeburg. Its acting director Robert Richard described the procedure in Börsenblatt in March 2026: first a request to remedy the defects within a reasonable period, then a second request threatening a ban on the service. In his words: “Sanctions are always the last resort for us.”
So the expensive case is rarely the fine. What gets expensive is remediation under time pressure: work that fits calmly into a planned release costs a multiple as an emergency job against a set deadline. If you want the details of the procedure, see our page on enforcement and market surveillance.
Where you can save without losing anything
- Measure first, commission second. The findings are free; without them you are buying an estimate.
- Templates before individual pages. Getting the product template, the category template and the footer right handles most of the raw result in three changes.
- Contrast first. In our measurement 14 out of 14 shops tested had contrast errors. It is the single most common finding and mostly plain colour work — the cheapest improvement available.
- Do the documentation yourself. The accessibility statement is writing, not programming. Our generator is free and needs no account.
- Do not buy an overlay. A toolbar widget costs money on an ongoing basis and does not satisfy the obligation — the German surveillance bodies consider such tools unsuitable.
Does this apply to me at all?
Microenterprises are exempt for services. Three questions show whether you are one.
What your shop system brings
Shopware, Shopify, WooCommerce, JTL, TYPO3 and site builders — what the core solves and what is left.
Enforcement and market surveillance
Three routes that keep getting confused, and what actually happens when a letter arrives.
What Scanready costs
Tiered by annual revenue, every tier published openly, no sales call.
Numbers instead of guesswork
Before you request a quote you should know the findings. They are free and take less than a minute.