WCAG audits: levels, scope, and what 'AA' actually means

WCAG — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — is the standard behind ADA lawsuits, Section 508, and the European Accessibility Act alike. An audit tells you where you stand against it.

The levels: A, AA, AAA

Level A is the floor (without it, some users are locked out entirely). Level AA is the near-universal legal and contractual target — Section 508, ADA settlements, and the EAA all point at it. AAA is aspirational for most sites. When a contract says "WCAG compliant," it almost always means 2.1 AA.

Automated vs manual coverage

Automated tools (axe-core, Lighthouse, WAVE — and VPATForge's scanner) reliably catch contrast, alt text, labels, ARIA misuse, and document-structure issues. They cannot judge focus order, meaningful link text in context, keyboard traps, or screen-reader comprehension. A WCAG audit means both layers; a scan alone is a screening.

Typical findings

The same handful of failures dominate almost every first audit: color contrast, missing form labels, images without alt text, missing page language, icon-only buttons, and focus that disappears into modals. Most are cheap to fix once located.

When you need the audit vs the scan

Facing procurement, a demand letter, or an EAA deadline → audit with documentation. Just want to know how bad it is → start with the free scan below; it's the first step of the audit anyway.