Squarespace Accessibility Checker

Squarespace powers millions of websites for creative professionals, restaurants, small businesses, and portfolio sites. Its polished templates attract users who prioritize design — but visual polish and accessibility are not the same thing. A beautifully designed portfolio with light gray text on white backgrounds is functionally invisible to users with low vision.

Squarespace's user base includes many businesses that serve the public: restaurants with online menus, retail stores with e-commerce, and service providers with booking forms. These are exactly the types of businesses targeted by ADA Title III demand letters. In 2025, restaurants and retail sites were among the top industries hit by web accessibility lawsuits, and Squarespace's market share in those verticals makes its users particularly exposed.

Squarespace templates produce cleaner semantic HTML than most drag-and-drop builders, but significant issues persist across the platform:

• Text over images without sufficient contrast — Squarespace's signature design pattern of overlaying text on hero images frequently fails WCAG 1.4.3 contrast requirements, especially when the image varies in brightness.
• Gallery blocks without alt text — Squarespace's gallery, grid, and carousel blocks display images without descriptive alt text unless the user manually adds it through the image editor — which most don't.
• Custom CSS overriding accessible defaults — Squarespace lets users inject custom CSS, and common recipes from forums remove focus outlines (outline: none), hide skip links, or change button elements to look like links without appropriate roles.
• Accordion and tab blocks with inconsistent keyboard support — older Squarespace templates use accordion and tab components that partially support keyboard navigation but don't follow WAI-ARIA authoring practices for expanded/collapsed state announcements.
• Embedded third-party content — code blocks with embedded maps, social feeds, and booking widgets often introduce entirely inaccessible iframe content that Squarespace can't control.

Squarespace offers limited code access, but many fixes are achievable through the editor and Design panel. Run your site through CompliScan first to identify exactly what needs attention.

For contrast issues, use the Design > Colors panel to adjust text and background color pairings. Squarespace 7.1 uses a palette system — update the palette colors rather than overriding individual elements. For text over images, add a semi-transparent overlay between the image and text using the section background settings.

For alt text, click any image block, select the pencil icon, and enter descriptive alt text in the "Image description" field. For gallery blocks, each thumbnail has its own alt text field. For custom CSS problems, audit any CSS you've added in Design > Custom CSS — remove any outline: none rules and ensure focus styles are visible. CompliScan's AI recommendations are written specifically for Squarespace's CSS injection system.

Every Squarespace site that serves U.S. customers is a potential ADA compliance target. The DOJ has made clear that websites are covered under Title III of the ADA, and courts have consistently agreed. The ADA Title II deadline of April 24, 2026 adds urgency for any government or public-entity Squarespace site.

For EU-based businesses on Squarespace, the European Accessibility Act requires e-commerce and service websites to be accessible. Unlike ADA, the EAA is prescriptive: it references harmonized standards based on WCAG 2.1, not just "reasonable accommodation."

Squarespace's own accessibility statement acknowledges ongoing work but explicitly states that "website owners are responsible for the accessibility of the content they create." CompliScan gives you the evidence trail — scan reports with timestamps and compliance scores — that demonstrate your due diligence effort.