Table of contents

Best WordPress accessibility plugins comparedAccessibility CheckerWP ADA Compliance Check BasicFix Alt TextEditoria11ySa11yMake your WordPress site accessible todayAdditional resources

Get the industry’s fastest hosting for WordPress◦ 99.999% uptime
◦ Comprehensive security
◦ 24/7 support

WordPress Guide → Plugins → Accessibility

Top-rated WordPress accessibility plugins

If you own a WordPress site, you’re likely familiar with the endless list of to-dos: optimizing for speed, tweaking SEO, and refining content. However, one critical aspect often slips through the cracks: accessibility. If your WordPress site isn’t usable for people with disabilities, you’re risking lawsuits under legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and alienating potential customers.

So, how do you ensure your WordPress site is on the path to compliance? Accessibility plugins can be a starting point, and this guide compares the best ADA compliance WordPress plugins to help you on your accessibility journey.

Using ADA compliance plugins in WordPress can be helpful, but they are not a complete or guaranteed solution for making your site fully accessible. Relying solely on these plugins is not considered best practice. Instead, they should be combined with manual efforts, adherence to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and regular testing to achieve the best results.

Key points

Making your WordPress site accessible is crucial for legal compliance under web accessibility legislation like the ADA, creating an inclusive user experience, and expanding your audience.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA serves as the benchmark for ADA compliance, focusing on making websites perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users.
No plugin can guarantee full ADA compliance. Accessibility plugins are good for automating basic tasks, but manual testing and third-party audits are necessary to catch nuanced issues.
Accessibility starts with a reliable hosting provider. Liquid Web offers WordPress hosting plans designed to support your accessibility goals, ensuring your site runs smoothly and securely as you work toward full compliance.

Get fast, reliable hosting for WordPress

Power your site with the industry’s fastest, most optimized WordPress hosting

WordPress.org hosting

Satisfying WCAG and ADA compliance with WordPress

Building an accessible WordPress site goes beyond aesthetics. It’s about creating a digital space that everyone can use, regardless of ability.

The ADA is an important law that ensures equal access to public spaces, including websites. it’s a commitment to inclusivity and a chance to broaden your reach. Beyond protecting your business from costly lawsuits, it builds trust and improves user experience for all visitors.

The WCAG, the global standard for web accessibility, offers a clear roadmap to achieving ADA compliance and making your site more accessible for all users. It defines three levels of conformance (A, AA, and AAA) with WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the standard required for ADA compliance. These guidelines emphasize four essential principles: ensuring content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

Complying with these standards helps eliminate barriers for users with disabilities, whether they rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technologies.

Best WordPress accessibility plugins compared

⚠️ Let’s get one thing straight: no plugin alone will make your WordPress site fully ADA-compliant. Accessibility is a complex, nuanced process that requires a mix of automated tools and manual testing. While plugins can help streamline tasks like identifying missing alt text or flagging color contrast issues, they’re no substitute for human oversight.

Manual testing is essential to catch contextual accessibility issues – things a plugin might overlook, like ensuring proper link descriptions or logical tab order. To achieve full compliance, a third-party accessibility audit is highly recommended. This comprehensive approach uncovers gaps that even the most advanced tools can miss.

That said, accessibility plugins can be allies in tackling low-hanging fruit and maintaining ongoing compliance. However, steer clear of any plugin claiming to deliver 100% compliance on its own. The best results come from combining these tools with expert guidance.

Now, let’s break down the top WordPress accessibility plugins, what they offer, and how they can help you on your journey to a more inclusive site:

Accessibility Checker

A good starting point for accessibility beginners, Accessibility Checker scans your content for potential issues right from your WordPress dashboard. It highlights errors like missing alt text, improper heading structure, and low contrast ratios, making it easy to tackle fixes as you go.

The free version of the plugin has limited checks. To unlock additional scans and site-wide reporting, you’ll need to opt for the pro version. Also, bear in mind that this plugin is still an automated tool – some issues need manual review or might be flagged incorrectly.

WP ADA Compliance Check Basic

Designed for quick fixes, WP ADA Compliance Check Basic scans your site for accessibility issues and generates a detailed report. It’s great for catching issues like empty form fields, missing labels, and improperly nested HTML elements.

While it won’t solve every problem automatically, it provides actionable insights to help you move closer to ADA and WCAG compliance. The basic version is mostly a scanner, though – it won’t remedy deeper structural or design issues.

Fix Alt Text

Alt text is a critical component of web accessibility, and Fix Alt Text simplifies the process of adding and managing it. This plugin identifies images without alt text and offers an intuitive interface for bulk editing. By ensuring all images on your site are properly labeled, you improve usability for screen reader users and enhance your site’s compliance.

This plugin is useful if you have a large media library and want to bulk-detect missing alt tags.

However, don’t skip the human review to ensure alt text properly describes each image’s function or context.

Editoria11y

For content creators, Editoria11y serves as a real-time accessibility checker. It highlights potential issues as you write, focusing on text structure, image descriptions, and link clarity.

This plugin strictly focuses on content-level issues; it won’t fix or scan theme-level or plugin-level code. It also may occasionally produce false positives or miss context-specific nuances.

Sa11y

Lightweight yet powerful, Sa11y offers a no-frills solution for spotting accessibility problems. It overlays visual indicators on your site to pinpoint issues like improper contrast and missing ARIA labels. While it’s still not comprehensive, its simplicity makes it ideal for developers who want a quick, clear view of what needs fixing.

Make your WordPress site accessible today

Accessibility is never “done”. While accessibility plugins can automate and simplify the basic parts of the process, they’re just one piece of the puzzle. Keep educating yourself and your team about new best practices. A great resource for this is The A11Y Collective, who offer specialized web accessibility courses for all different levels of knowledge and areas of expertise.

⚠️ Don’t skimp on manual testing and third-party accessibility audits to catch nuanced issues and achieve full compliance because plugins alone won’t suffice.

And finally, if you’re ready to build a fully accessible website, you’ll need a strong foundation. Reliable hosting plays a key role in ensuring your site runs smoothly and securely.

Liquid Web offers WordPress hosting plans designed to support your goals, including accessibility. In fact, the Accessibility Checker plugin is included in the plugin installer for Liquid Web’s managed WordPress plans, providing a faster, 1-click install of this helpful plugin. So don’t wait any longer – contact Liquid Web today and take the first step toward creating a site that’s compliant and inclusive for all!