Accessibility Testing API

Manual accessibility scanning works for ad-hoc checks, but development teams building and deploying continuously need programmatic access to accessibility testing. An accessibility testing API lets you:

• Block inaccessible deploys — fail a CI/CD pipeline stage if accessibility violations exceed a threshold
• Build custom dashboards — pull accessibility data into your existing project management and reporting tools
• Automate at scale — scan hundreds of URLs programmatically without manual intervention
• Integrate with alerting — trigger Slack, email, or PagerDuty notifications when accessibility regressions are detected

With ADA lawsuits exceeding 10,000 per year and the April 24, 2026 Title II deadline, organizations need accessibility testing that keeps pace with their deployment velocity. An API makes accessibility a continuous quality gate, not a periodic checkbox.

Several accessibility testing APIs exist in the market, each with different capabilities and pricing:

• Deque axe API — enterprise-grade API using axe-core; pricing starts at $6,000+/year; includes detailed violation data
• pa11y CLI/Node — open-source, runs axe-core or HTML_CodeSniffer; free but requires self-hosting and infrastructure management
• Tenon API — developer-focused REST API; uncertain future post-acquisition; proprietary rule set
• WAVE API — WebAIM's API for WAVE scanning; per-credit pricing model

The common limitation across existing APIs: none include AI-powered fix suggestions. They return violation data that developers must interpret and remediate manually. CompliScan's API is designed to close this gap by including AI fix suggestions alongside every violation, making API results immediately actionable.

CompliScan's accessibility testing API is currently in development. The API will bring the same axe-core scanning and AI fix suggestion capabilities available in CompliScan's web interface to your programmatic workflows.

Planned API capabilities:

• REST API — scan any URL via HTTP POST, receive JSON results with violations, compliance score, and AI fix suggestions
• Webhook callbacks — receive scan completion notifications for asynchronous scanning of large sites
• CI/CD integration examples — GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, and CircleCI integration templates
• Rate limits by plan — API access included on Shield Pro ($149/month) and Agency ($299/month) plans

In the meantime, CompliScan's scheduled monitoring provides automated scanning on weekly or daily schedules — achieving continuous accessibility testing without API integration. The web interface and PDF reports cover most team collaboration needs.

While CompliScan's API is in development, here are practical approaches to automated accessibility testing:

• CompliScan scheduled monitoring — paid plans ($49-299/month) run automated scans on configurable schedules, catching regressions without API calls
• pa11y in CI/CD — use the open-source pa11y tool with axe-core in your CI pipeline for pre-deploy checks; use CompliScan for post-deploy monitoring and AI fix suggestions
• axe-core in unit tests — add @axe-core/playwright or @axe-core/puppeteer to your test suite for component-level accessibility checks during development
• Combined workflow — axe-core in CI for fast pre-deploy checks + CompliScan monitoring for comprehensive post-deploy audits with AI fixes

This layered approach ensures accessibility is tested at every stage of your development lifecycle while leveraging CompliScan's unique AI fix suggestions for remediation guidance.