WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance Checker
WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the accessibility standard referenced by the ADA, the European Accessibility Act, and dozens of national laws. Scan your site against it in seconds.
No signup required. Results in under 60 seconds.
What Is WCAG 2.1 AA and Why Does It Matter?
WCAG 2.1 AA is the conformance level most accessibility laws worldwide reference as the minimum standard for websites and web applications. Published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, it includes 50 success criteria across levels A and AA, organized under four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR). Level AA sits in the practical middle ground — stricter than the bare-minimum Level A, but achievable for real-world websites unlike the aspirational Level AAA. In the United States, the Department of Justice has confirmed that WCAG 2.1 AA is the benchmark for ADA Title II compliance. The EU's European Accessibility Act (EAA), in force since June 2025, maps to the same criteria via EN 301 549. Ignoring WCAG 2.1 AA means risking lawsuits, fines, and excluding approximately 1.3 billion people globally who live with some form of disability.
What a WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance Checker Tests
A WCAG 2.1 AA compliance checker evaluates your page's live DOM against machine-testable success criteria. Key checks include:
- Color contrast (1.4.3): Text must meet a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio against its background (3:1 for large text)
- Text alternatives (1.1.1): All non-decorative images need meaningful
altattributes - Keyboard access (2.1.1): Every interactive element must be reachable and operable via keyboard alone
- Form labels (1.3.1, 3.3.2): Input fields require programmatically associated labels
- Heading structure (1.3.1): Headings should follow a logical hierarchy without skipping levels
- Focus indicators (2.4.7): Focused elements must have a visible outline
- Reflow (1.4.10): Content should reflow at 320px width without horizontal scrolling
Automated checkers evaluate these and dozens of other criteria in seconds, giving you a prioritized list of violations to fix.
What Automated Testing Catches — and What It Misses
Automated WCAG testing tools detect roughly 30-40% of all WCAG 2.1 AA issues. They excel at objective, programmatic checks: missing alt text, insufficient contrast ratios, absent form labels, invalid ARIA attributes, and improper heading order. These are the highest-volume violations — the WebAIM Million study finds contrast failures on 81% of homepages and missing alt text on 54%. However, automated tools cannot judge quality: whether alt text is actually meaningful, whether tab order is logical, whether error messages make sense, or whether content is cognitively accessible. A complete accessibility strategy combines automated scanning (to catch the bulk of violations quickly) with manual testing using a keyboard and screen reader. CompliScan gives you the automated first pass so you can focus human effort where it matters most.
How CompliScan Checks WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance
CompliScan renders your page in a real Chromium browser via Playwright, executes all JavaScript, and runs the axe-core accessibility engine against the fully rendered DOM. Each violation is mapped to its specific WCAG 2.1 success criterion, categorized by impact (critical, serious, moderate, minor), and enriched with an AI-generated fix suggestion showing the exact code change needed. Your results include an overall compliance score so you can track progress over time.
- Free scan: Instant single-page check with full results
- Shield ($49/mo): 3 sites, weekly automated scans, AI fix suggestions
- Shield Pro ($149/mo): 10 sites, daily scans, PDF compliance reports
- Agency ($299/mo): 50 sites, priority scanning, white-label reports
Start with a free scan to see exactly where your site stands against WCAG 2.1 AA.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from the WCAG 2.1 AA page on CompliScan?
CompliScan's WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance Checker focuses on giving you a practical scanning tool with actionable results. Enter your URL, get a prioritized list of WCAG 2.1 AA violations, and receive AI-powered fix suggestions — all within seconds. It is the same underlying axe-core engine, optimized for quick compliance checks.
Does this checker test every WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion?
CompliScan tests all machine-detectable WCAG 2.1 AA criteria — roughly 30-40% of the 50 A+AA success criteria can be fully evaluated by automated tools. Criteria that require human judgment (like whether alt text is meaningful or whether content order is logical) need manual review. The scanner flags these as 'needs review' where possible.
Is WCAG 2.1 AA still the right target, or should I aim for WCAG 2.2?
WCAG 2.1 AA remains the most widely legislated standard globally. WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, adds 9 new success criteria but has not yet been broadly adopted into law. If you are starting fresh, targeting WCAG 2.2 AA is sensible since it is backward-compatible. If you are remediating an existing site, WCAG 2.1 AA covers the requirements most laws actually enforce today.
How often should I run a WCAG 2.1 AA compliance check?
At minimum, check after every significant content or code change. For production sites, weekly scans catch regressions early — new deploys, CMS content updates, and third-party widget changes can all introduce violations. CompliScan's Shield plan automates weekly scans so you do not have to remember.
Can I use the free scan for an entire website?
The free scan checks a single page. Most accessibility issues are systemic — shared navigation, footer, and layout components mean a single-page scan reveals patterns across your whole site. For full multi-page coverage, CompliScan's paid plans let you monitor 3 to 50 sites with automated recurring scans.
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