Cost of Website Accessibility vs. a Lawsuit: How Early Investment Saves You Money

Every inaccessible website carries a hidden price tag: the cost of a lawsuit waiting to happen. While fixing accessibility issues now can cost a few thousand dollars, ignoring them can open the door to legal claims that escalate rapidly, with attorney fees, settlements, and business disruption adding up to tens of thousands.

The choice is clear: invest in accessibility early or risk paying far more later. 

Below, we’ll break down the costs of website accessibility versus the financial and reputational fallout of an accessibility lawsuit — and show why acting early is the smartest move.

Why Accessibility Costs Less than a Lawsuit

Typical Costs of Making a Website Accessible

A major misconception around digital accessibility is that it requires a complete overhaul of your site and the help of expensive accessibility experts. That belief is part of why 70% of surveyed business leaders hesitate to get started with digital accessibility.

The reality is that the cost of making your website accessible depends entirely on your site.

For example:

• A simple website with only a few pages can cost between $3,000 and $10,000.

• Larger, more complex websites can cost between $10,000 and $50,000. 

The amount of fixes your website needs also influences cost — the more errors detected, the higher the potential expense.

Other factors that influence the cost of web accessibility include:

• Number of pages on your website

• Content complexity, such as forms, interactive elements, videos, and other dynamic features

• Automated tools used to identify accessibility issues

• Approach to expert testing and fixes, whether fully automated, fully manual, or a hybrid of both.

See what accessibility could cost your site — and how much you could save — by using AudioEye’s Accessibility Calculator. Get a free personalized estimate instantly.

Typical Costs of Accessibility-Related Lawsuits

Every accessibility lawsuit is different, which means the costs behind them will vary. Each case is dependent on a unique mix of factors — from the severity of the violation to the strength behind your response. Regardless, accessibility-related lawsuits can quickly get expensive. 

Some of the things that influence how much a lawsuit might cost include:

• Scope of the claim: How many pages or features on your website or other digital content are affected, and how severe the accessibility issues are.

• Legal fees: Attorney costs can add up fast, even before a settlement is reached.

• Settlement amounts: Many cases are resolved through settlements, with costs varying widely depending on the size of the business and the nature of the claim. 

• Repeat claims: Incomplete or rushed fixes can often lead to additional lawsuits, further increasing costs. 

• Business disruption: Time spent dealing with legal proceedings can slow down projects, delay launches, or divert internal resources.

Let’s use the Americans with Disabilities Act(opens in a new tab) (ADA) as an example. Under the ADA, businesses are required to make their digital content accessible to individuals with disabilities. Failing to do so can result in ADA lawsuits that are regularly settled for between $5,000 and $20,000. 

And that’s just the initial settlement. Add on defense attorney fees (which can run $10,000-$25,000 in many cases), plus audit or fix costs after the fact. In some regional cases (like in New York), companies report settling between $15,000 and $40,000(opens in a new tab) once legal fees are included. Should a company receive a subsequent violation, it can face compliance fines of up to $150,000.

Hidden Costs Businesses Don’t Expect

Beyond the obvious financial burden of settlements and legal fees, inaccessible websites carry a number of hidden costs that can quietly chip away at your business’s growth and reputation — most of which go overlooked until it’s too late. 

• Brand damage: When customers encounter barriers, they notice. Coupled with lawsuits or public complaints, that negative publicity can spread quickly and damage your brand’s reputation.

• Loss of customer trust: According to one study, 71% of users with disabilities will immediately leave a site(opens in a new tab) that presents accessibility barriers. And once they leave, that trust can be difficult to regain. 

• Missed market opportunity: The disability community controls roughly $2.6 trillion in disposable income(opens in a new tab), meaning failure to create accessible experiences can cut your business off from critical revenue streams and a highly loyal customer base. 

• Additional development debt from rushed fixes: When companies try to patch accessibility problems at the last minute (especially under legal pressure), they often build messy or temporary fixes. Over time, these patches create technical debt, meaning future dev cycles will cost far more to clean and rebuild.

Real Cost Comparisons: Accessibility Investment vs. Lawsuit Expenses

What You Pay Upfront vs. What You Pay After a Claim

When it comes to accessibility, the financial difference between acting early and waiting until a lawsuit arrives can be staggering. 

The table below breaks down what businesses typically spend on proactive accessibility versus what they might pay after receiving a claim — including legal fees, settlements, and emergency fixes. 

Note: These figures are estimates. Costs will vary depending on your organization, the law involved, the severity of accessibility issues, etc.

The bottom line: When you fix accessibility issues proactively, you’re protecting your entire digital footprint — every page, form, PDF, interactive component, and future content gets covered. 

On the other hand, a lawsuit (or demand letter) typically targets what’s already on your site — meaning you fix only what’s broken, often under pressure. That patchwear rarely scales, and new content usually introduces new risks. 

The Compounding Cost of Doing Nothing

Sitting on your hands and doing nothing may feel safe — but in reality, it’s a ticking time bomb, one that can cost more with each passing month. Here’s what’s often overlooked when accessibility isn’t a priority:

• Technical debt: The longer inaccessible code, markup, or design patterns remain on your content, the more tangled and messy your site becomes. Fixing accessibility issues later — especially after repeated fixes — costs far more than building accessibility in from the start. In fact, retrofitting accessibility is often six times more expensive(opens in a new tab) than planning for it during the initial content creation process.

• Content debt: More pages = more potential violations. As your site grows, so does your “attack surface.” That means a business that was too small to matter at first can suddenly become a target once its content reaches a certain scale. In 2024 alone, 8,800 web accessibility lawsuits were filed in the U.S(opens in a new tab).

• Assistive technology incompatibility over time: As you add new features — such as media, interactive widgets, and complex forms — without considering accessibility, you increase the likelihood of incompatibilities with screen readers, keyboard navigation, captions, or other assistive technologies. These issues accumulate and often require expensive retroactive fixes. Not to mention that your legal risk also grows significantly.

• Higher fix and rework costs down the road: Once a lawsuit is served or a demand letter is received, companies often scramble to patch everything — leading to rushed and messy code, temporary solutions, and mounting technical debt that must be cleaned up later (with even more time and money).

Put simply: the cost of doing nothing when it comes to accessibility doesn’t stay static — it compounds. What starts as an “obvious maybe” soon turns into a major financial risk. The longer you wait, the higher the price becomes.

Online store in a web browser

Why Accessibility Pays Off (Literally)

Accessibility Supports SEO, UX, and Conversion

Accessible websites provide faster and clearer experiences for all users. Clean, well-structured code and semantic headings not only help people navigate your site more easily but also make it easier for search engines to index your content. This boosts SEO rankings, reduces bounce rates, and creates smoother user journeys, ultimately increasing ROI.

Accessibility Reduces Long-Term Maintenance Costs

Building accessibility in from the start means you fix issues once instead of scrambling page by page later. It avoids rushed, expensive development turnarounds and messy code patches, saving time and money over the long term while keeping your site easier to maintain and expand.

Accessibility Helps You Reach More Customers

One in four U.S. adults has a disability(opens in a new tab), and the aging population continues to grow, increasing demand for inclusive digital experiences. People with disabilities also control over $2.6 trillion in spending power, making accessibility a clear business advantage. Accessible design benefits everyone — from assistive technology users to older adults and those with temporary impairments — expanding your audience and building trust.

Accessibility Isn’t Just Cheaper — It’s Smarter

Choosing accessibility early isn’t just the safer option — it’s the smarter investment. The cost of building an accessible, compliant website is almost always a fraction of what you’ll end up paying once legal fees, settlements, rushed fixes, and brand damage stack up. 

But beyond the dollars, accessibility is simply better for your customers. It builds trust, strengthens loyalty, and ensures more people can actually use your digital content. 

This is where AudioEye helps keep accessibility both effective and affordable. Our Accessibility Platform expertly combines powerful automation with human-assisted AI technology to deliver speed and accuracy — catching more WCAG issues than any other scanner on the market. With continuous monitoring, custom fixes, and ongoing legal support, you get long-term peace of mind without the inflated costs of manual audits or one-off fixes. 

Curious about what accessibility would actually cost for your site — and how much you could save by avoiding a lawsuit — use AudioEye’s Accessibility Calculator. Or schedule a demo to see how AudioEye keeps compliance simple and affordable.