Avoid the Costly Mistake of Ignoring Website Accessibility in 2026

As the focus on website accessibility increases, the cost of ignoring accessibility is rising fast—especially for small businesses and nonprofits. The cost of lawsuits and lost revenue far outweighs the cost of proactively investing in digital accessibility. 

We are on track to see the largest number of website accessibility lawsuits in 2025 and experts predict a further increase in 2026.  This predicted increase is being driven by several factors:

• Individuals filing lawsuits on their own, increasingly supported by AI-powered tools
• New state and international accessibility laws going into effect

The first cases have already been brought in France against websites not complying with the European Accessibility Act (EAA) that went into effect in June 2025.  If you are an e-commerce business with customers in EU countries, this law applies to you!   

Hope is not a Business Strategy

Despite growing legal requirements and enforcement, many organizations continue to avoid addressing website accessibility. Often, this is due to the perceived high cost or a belief that accessibility offers little return on investment. Organization may hope they’ll fly under the radar and avoid legal action or hope that an accessibility “toolbar” will magically fix their inaccessible website. 

Unfortunately, hope is not a business strategy! Ignoring accessibility in 2026 could be far more costly to your organization than proactively addressing it.

The Cost of Website Accessibility

The costs associated with website accessibility typically fall into a three categories – audit, remediation (or rebuild), and ongoing maintenance. 

Accessibility Audits

An accessibility audit identifies where your website design, content and code fails to meet Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Costs depend on the size and complexity of the website, how many pages or templates are audited, and whether the audit includes only automated testing or also includes manual testing. For small businesses and nonprofits, audits typically start around $3,000–$5,000 and increase from there.

Remediation (or Rebuild)

Remediation costs depend entirely on the nature and extent of errors found during an audit.  Remediating small content websites will typically cost less than remediating large e-commerce websites.  We’ve seen these costs start around $3k for small businesses and nonprofits.   

If the audit finds extensive errors, especially errors associated with the underlying website or e-commerce platform, remediation may not be possible or cost-effective.   In those cases, it’s better to rebuild the site on a more accessible infrastructure.  A new accessible website could cost $10k-60k or more, depending on your design, site size, and complexity.

Ongoing Monitoring and Maintenance

Accessibility is a journey, not a destination.  Websites constantly change:

• New content and features are added
• Platforms and plugins update (sometimes breaking accessible features)
• Staff turnover can lead to lost institutional knowledge
• New and untrained content authors may introduce accessibility issues

For these reasons, accessibility investments should include ongoing monitoring, testing, and remediation. Monthly maintenance typically ranges from $500 to $1,500, depending on site size and scope.

The Cost of Website Accessibility Lawsuits

The highest potential cost of ignoring accessibility comes from lawsuits and demand letters. While many settlement details are confidential, estimates suggest that average settlements range from $5,000 to $50,000.  In addition to settlement costs, organizations must pay the fees for their lawyer and often the those of the plaintiff’s lawyer.  This can be up to another $50,000.  

Most settlements also require you to fix your website within a specified period of time, typically in a matter of months. Even worse, there’s a real risk that an organization can be sued again while they are fixing issues from the first lawsuit. Roughly 25% of accessibility lawsuits each month are against organizations that have already been sued before.

So instead of proactively investing in the cost of accessibility, businesses that ignore accessibility still have to pay those costs PLUS all of the legal costs of not being proactive.   

Finally, some organizations may pay for an accessibility toolbar product, hoping it will keep them from being sued.  Again, hope is not a strategy!  These tools do not provide legal protection or accessibility and have in fact been fined and sued for misleading and deceptive marketing relating to these claims.  About a quarter of accessibility lawsuits target websites that use these products.

Other Costs of Ignoring Website Accessibility

Beyond legal costs, inaccessible websites may cost small business and organizations in other ways.

Lost Revenue

It is estimated that people with disabilities represent nearly $500 billion in disposable income in the US alone, and data shows that there are costs to businesses that ignore their purchasing power.   

• One study showed businesses saw up to 28% revenue growth from investing in accessibility.  
• A 2022 Forrester study showed that every $1 spent on accessibility could have an ROI of $100.   

Customer Abandonment and Loyalty

Inaccessible websites have higher abandonment rates and lower customer loyalty. A 2024 Aquia study found that 64% of respondents would consider switching to a competitor’s site if it offered better accessibility. Since acquiring new customers costs more than retaining existing ones, ignoring accessibility is costing businesses more money to find new customers.

Bad PR and Brand Damage

Businesses may also see a cost from bad PR, especially if they are sued.  Bad PR can cost an organization revenue, trust, credibility, and loyalty that could take years to rebuild.

SEO and Search Visibility

Lastly, many website content accessibility best practices are also SEO best practices.  Ignoring these may hurt your page rankings. 

• Meaningful alt text for images
• Real text instead of text within images
• Descriptive headings and proper heading structure
• Meaningful link text (not “Learn More”)
• Transcripts for audio and video content

Scenario: The Cost of Ignoring Accessibility for A Small Business

How might these costs over the course of 4 years impact a hypothetical small business with $2 million in annual revenue and a website that includes:

• 30 pages of content, products or service descriptions
• Online checkout or booking functionality

Proactive Accessibility Investment

• Audit: $3,000–$5,000
• Content fixes: $3,000–$5,000
• Checkout/booking fixes*: $3,000–$5,000

*assuming platform can be remediated

Year 1 investment: $9,000–$15,000
Years 2–4 (maintenance): ~$30,000

Total 4-year investment: up to $45,000

Even modest revenue improvements easily justify this cost. A 28% increase over four years would add $560,000 in revenue. Using Forrester’s ROI estimate, a $15,000 investment could generate $1.5 million in return.

Ignoring Accessibility

If the business is sued, settlement and legal fees could range from $15,000 to $100,000—and they would still need to pay for audit, remediation, and maintenance afterward.

Add:

• Potential bad PR
• A possible 30% revenue drop
• Lost revenue growth

Ignoring accessibility could cost this business well over $1 million over four years—while delivering none of the growth benefits. The negative costs could be double that of a proactive investment in accessibility combined with the potential revenue growth.   

Conclusion

While the exact costs will vary for each organization, ignoring accessibility and hoping to avoid a lawsuit is a potentially costly, short-sighted strategy.  If your organization is interested in managing risk increasing your growth potential, consider investing in accessibility as soon as possible.

Is your site accessible? Take the free self assessment.