How we scan and score

The engine

We render your page in a real browser and run the pinned, versioned engine axe-core 4.12 against WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 Level AA. The exact version is recorded on every scan, so a result stays reproducible and a report stays dateable.

Honest coverage: ~30–57%

Automated testing catches only part of the WCAG picture. How large a part depends on method: common industry estimates sit around 30%, while Deque’s axe-core study reaches up to 57%. We deliberately quote that range rather than a single number — anything else would be dressing it up.

That is why we never claim “100% compliant” from a scan. Whatever automation cannot decide with confidence, we explicitly flag for manual review.

What is checked automatically

Reliably machine-checkable, among others: colour contrast, missing alt text, form labels, link and button names, heading structure, language attributes, document titles, ARIA misuse and landmark regions.

What needs a human

Whether an alt text is meaningful, whether focus order is logical, whether error messages are understandable, whether content is in plain language — that takes judgement. We count such items as “needs manual review” and they never lower the score.

How the 0–100 score is computed

The score starts at 100 and subtracts a weighted penalty per confirmed issue by severity, floored at 0. Manual-review items do not lower it — we only penalise what the scan actually confirmed. A site score is the mean of its page scores.

Not an overlay

We do not modify your site or lay a widget over it. We test your real pages and tell you what to change in your own code.