The test mark — the award rules
Anyone awarding a test mark has to disclose what it stands for. So the rules are set out here in full: the conditions, the testing cycle, the deadlines, the end — and the limits of what an automated test can establish at all.
What the mark says — and what it does not
The mark carries one statement and one date: “Tested regularly against EN 301 549”, test date DD.MM.YYYY.
It says: this website is tested automatically against EN 301 549 on a fixed cycle — the standard the European Accessibility Act refers to, which in turn refers to WCAG 2.1 Level AA — and the last test found no machine-detectable violations.
It does not say: accessible, certified, EAA-compliant, officially recognised. Scanready is a private testing service — not an authority, not a notified body, not a state-recognised certification body. The mark is a technical finding without official effect; it binds neither authorities nor courts, and it is neither proof of conformity nor a certification.
Automated testing only covers part of the criteria — the figure commonly quoted is around one third. Among the things left untested:
- whether the checkout can be operated entirely with the keyboard
- whether the keyboard focus is visible at every point
- whether reading order and tab order match what you see
- whether alt texts are correct in substance — a machine sees that they exist, not whether they describe the image
- whether error messages are understandable and actually help
- whether videos have captions that match the audio
That is not a weakness of this testing service but a property of the method: a machine cannot judge the rest, in principle. This is why the limit appears in the mark’s alt text, on every public test page and in every report — and why it stands here at the top rather than in the small print.
A test mark that claims more than was tested becomes a risk in its own right: for whoever carries it, and for whoever awards it.
When the mark is awarded
Six conditions that must all be met at the same time. There is no score and no amber light.
- A running All-round contract. Without recurring re-testing a quality mark may not be carried — that is not a clause of ours but the condition under which it is permissible at all. The mark therefore belongs to the All-round contract, in which we produce the corrections ourselves and re-test them. Under the watch service, where remediation is the customer’s job, it is not awarded.
- At least four actually tested pages of the domain, among them necessarily the home page and at least one page with a form — contact, login, basket or checkout. Testing the home page alone does not carry a standing mark: in our test run one home page showed 7 types of violation, while the same domain across eight pages showed 9 types and 60 instances.
- Zero machine-detectable violations on the tested pages, of any severity. There is a reason for the hard line: the scanner only sees the machine-testable part in the first place. Anyone who does not even pass that part cannot carry a mark that claims testing.
- At most three documented exceptions. Some findings are demonstrably outside the operator’s control — a third-party payment frame, a map service, an advertising slot. Such findings can be carried as an exception if each one is individually justified and named on the public test page, none of them is critical, and at most three are open at the same time. Each is re-assessed at every re-test and expires after twelve months. An unnamed exception does not exist — it would be a falsification of the result.
- An accessibility statement and a feedback channel for reporting barriers are reachable on the website. The scanner does not check this; it is a visual check at first award and half-yearly thereafter.
- No accessibility overlay in use. Such scripts alter the page at runtime and thereby distort the result; they are also regarded by the German market surveillance bodies as an indication against conformity. If an overlay is removed, testing continues as normal.
If a web application firewall blocks the subpages, no mark is awarded as long as the operator does not add the Scanready identifier to their allow list. Circumventing an access barrier is out of the question — we measured this on a shop whose home page responded and whose subpages were all refused.
The threshold is reachable. In the test run of 21.08.2026, one of eight tested shops stayed at zero findings across seven pages, with 206 passed checks.
What the mark applies to
- It applies per domain — not per company and not per group.
- Subdomains are separate test objects and need their own award.
- Country endings of the same brand count as one presence if the pages are identical in content and technology; the host change is stated in the report. Otherwise: separate awards.
- It may only be embedded on the tested domain. Not in emails, not in advertisements, not on marketplace profiles, not on social networks — there the route to the test page is missing, and with it the verifiability that carries the mark in the first place.
- Without a link to the test page it may not be carried. The mark without a link is a claim; with a link it is evidence.
How often it is re-tested
The test date in the mark is the date of the last full test, not of the weekly short test. A date suggesting a depth of testing that did not happen would be misleading.
| Test | Cycle | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Short test | weekly | home page |
| Full test | every 14 days | all discoverable pages, up to 8 |
| Visual check of mandatory items | half-yearly | accessibility statement, feedback channel |
Maximum age 45 days. If the test date is older, the status automatically switches to suspended — even without any finding, and even if the failure is on our side. That is the emergency brake for the case where our own testing pipeline stops. A mark that keeps running only because nobody is looking any more would be exactly what a quality mark must not be.
When a later test finds something
Accessibility is not a state but a process: every theme update, every plugin, every new product page can introduce a barrier. A new finding therefore does not lead to immediate withdrawal — but it does run out.
| Status | Trigger | Mark | Test page |
|---|---|---|---|
| valid | no open finding | is served | finding 0 |
| grace period | new findings | continues to be served | names the open points with a deadline |
| suspended | grace period expired | neutral graphic instead of the mark | suspension with date and reason |
| ended | end of contract | not served | archived state |
Grace periods from the day of the finding: 14 days for critical or serious, 30 days for moderate or minor, 60 days where the cause demonstrably lies in third-party content (embedded video, third-party ad slot, payment service) — after which a documented exception is decided on.
During the grace period the mark stays visible, but the test page names the open points openly and with a deadline. Anyone who clicks sees the actual state, not a polished version. The mark promises ongoing testing, not freedom from errors — and it keeps exactly that promise during the grace period too.
Repeat brake. If the same violation is found for the third time within twelve months, no grace period applies on the third occasion. Otherwise a cycle of introducing and fixing just before the deadline would allow a mark to be carried permanently that was never covered.
Not testable. Two consecutive full tests without a result — site unreachable, firewall blocking, certificate expired — set the status to not testable; after 30 days the mark is suspended. Not testable is not an accusation, but it is not a test either.
Reinstatement. After remediation we test again immediately, out of cycle. If that test comes back clean, the mark is served again without delay. The suspension stays in the test history; the history is not tidied up — it is the evidence that testing really happens.
What happens on cancellation
- The mark expires on the last day of the contract term. No run-out, no residual term, no goodwill extension — without re-testing it may not be carried on.
- For locally copied embeddings there are five working days to remove them.
- The image address then permanently serves a neutral graphic rather than an error. A broken image on the customer’s site explains nothing to anyone; the neutral graphic explains itself.
- The test page stays online for twelve months as an archived state, clearly marked: “Testing ended on DD.MM.YYYY — not a valid mark”. That helps both sides: the former customer keeps their record of continuous effort in case of an inspection, and links from other sites do not run into nothing. After that it is deleted, or earlier at the customer’s request.
- The corrections stay in the website. We do not roll anything back and we do not reclaim anything.
If the contract ends because we terminate it over a breach of the presentation or wording rules, the archived state is dropped.
How the mark is presented and worded
Whatever stands next to the mark reflects back on the mark. That is why it is regulated exhaustively.
Permitted are finding sentences — sentences that describe what was measured:
- “Tested regularly against EN 301 549”
- “Continuously tested for accessibility — view the test report”
- “Automated test against EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA, last on DD.MM.YYYY”
- “We work continuously on the accessibility of this website. The current test status is publicly available.”
Not permitted is anything claiming more than was tested or sounding official: “certified”, “certificate”, “certified accessibility”, “accessible” as a statement of fact, “EAA-compliant”, “legally compliant”, “legally safe”, “official”, “state-recognised”, “tested by the authorities”, “EU-tested”, “100 %”, “fully tested”, “all criteria met”.
Equally not permitted are additions suggesting officialdom: stars, wreaths, coats of arms, flags — the European flag included. The mark itself is embedded unchanged: no other colours, no distorted aspect ratio, no frames or drop shadows, no display below the minimum width, no altered or empty alt text, no background that cancels its contrast.
A breach of these two paragraphs leads, after a single request with a ten-day deadline, to withdrawal of the mark and termination for cause. Not as a penalty, but because what the mark stands for no longer holds.
How to check a mark in use
Every valid mark has a public test page at scanready.eu/geprueft/ followed by the tested domain. It shows the test date, the scope of the last test, the current status, all documented exceptions and the test history.
Not listed means: no mark. Anyone wanting to know whether a mark is genuine — a purchasing department, a competitor, a supervisory body, a sceptical customer — looks up the domain. That makes a copy worthless towards anyone who checks. Which is precisely why verifiability is not an accessory but the core.
Two further self-disclosures sit in the image itself: the large variant carries the tested domain, the small one the test date. A copied graphic therefore names the wrong domain on someone else’s site, and a copied date goes stale by itself.
How to report misuse
Misuse means: someone displays the mark without carrying it.
Every test page carries a “report mark” link. Anyone who sees an embedding that does not appear in the directory reports it there — or informally to [email protected] with the address of the page. Every report is looked into, and whoever reports gets an answer.
In addition, when serving the mark the server compares the origin of the request with the registered domain; on a foreign origin it serves a graphic pointing to the correct domain. An honestly stated limit: this origin information can be missing or forged. It is therefore treated only as a signal, not as proof — and where it is missing the mark is served normally, so that our own customers are not the ones affected.
Fee, and changes to these rules
Nothing is charged separately for the award. The mark is included in the testing contract. A separate fee would be permissible, but it would put the award decision under suspicion of being for sale. What is paid for is the testing, not the mark.
Changes to these rules are announced 30 days before they take effect — by email to everyone carrying the mark, and on every test page. Every test page refers to the version in force at the time of the test; older versions remain retrievable. Anyone who in 2029 wants to read what was tested against in 2026 must be able to.
If a rule is tightened, existing holders get a transition period of 90 days.
What these rules do not cover
Five points at which the method reaches its limit. They are stated here so they do not get lost.
- The checkout stays untested. The basket is opened but not filled; the ordering process is currently out of the scanner’s reach. That is why the award requires “at least one page with a form” — the ordering process itself is not covered by it.
- Consent banners are not clicked away. An automated click on “accept” would be a declaration of intent in someone else’s name. Where a banner covers content, the number of findings is more likely too low than too high — so the result favours the site being tested.
- The exception rule is the softest point in the framework. It is necessary because third-party embeds genuinely exist, and it is at the same time the lever people will use. Hence: at most three, each named publicly, none of them critical, expiry after twelve months.
- No substitute for a human audit. Anyone who needs a robust statement about the accessibility of a website also needs a manual audit with assistive technology and with disabled people. The mark does not replace that and does not claim to.
- The directory is up, it is simply still empty. These rules apply from the first mark awarded. Any domain can already be looked up at scanready.eu/geprueft/ — for now the answer for every domain is that no mark is held, and that is precisely the point: not listed means no mark. Reports are already accepted.
Next
All-round in detail
The service the mark belongs to: testing, remediation, re-testing, public test page.
Watch service in detail
The same testing on the same cycle, without remediation — and without a test mark.
Pricing
Three tiers by annual turnover, openly listed, without a sales call.
First the finding, then the mark
The mark comes at the end, not at the beginning. Before it comes the test — it costs nothing and takes half a minute.