Is Your Contractor Website ADA Compliant? We Tested 2,213 Sites and 9 in 10 Failed. Sites With an Accessibility Widget Failed Just as Often.

A customer who can't read the pale grey text on your website doesn't call to complain. Neither does the one whose phone reads your Facebook icon out loud as “link”. They hit the back button and call the next contractor.

That's the everyday cost of a website that isn't accessible. In the U.S. there's a legal side too: lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) over websites rose again in 2025. So on October 23, 2026, we tested 2,292 contractor websites from Google's business listings in 16 cities across the U.S. and Canada. 2,213 home pages opened properly, and we ran every one through the same free checker.

2,019 of the 2,213 home pages (91.2 percent, about 9 in 10) failed at least one automated accessibility check. 1,933 (87.3 percent) had one of the six problems WebAIM finds most often. And the 181 sites running an accessibility widget, the little person-shaped button often sold as a quick fix, failed those six at 87.3 percent, the same as sites without one (87.4 percent).

What We Tested, and What a Free Checker Can't Tell You

We searched Google's business listings for 8 trades (plumbers, HVAC companies, electricians, garage door repair, pest control, roofers, painters and landscapers) in 8 U.S. metros and 8 Canadian ones, from Los Angeles to Toronto. The top 20 businesses in each search linked to 2,292 different websites.

We opened each home page once in a real Chrome-based browser, waited 8 seconds for everything to load, then ran axe-core 4.13.0, a free, open-source checker made by Deque Systems. It tests a page against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the rule book from the W3C, the group that sets web standards, at Level A and AA. We blocked every Google Analytics and ad-pixel hit our visits would have sent, so the test added nothing to anyone's reports. 79 sites couldn't be read (bot walls, dead or parked domains, or a link to a Facebook page), which leaves 2,213.

Know the limits before you read the numbers:

• Home page only, one visit. One desktop visit per site. No inner pages, PDFs, video captions or keyboard testing.
• A checker catches only part of it. Deque's own study of more than 13,000 audited pages found automated axe tests caught 57.38 percent of the issues, and could test 16 of the 50 WCAG 2.1 AA requirements. So passing the checker doesn't make a site compliant. Failing it almost always means a real barrier.
• Main page only. Embedded maps, chat windows and some forms load inside a frame from another company's server, and the checker skips those.
• Text on top of photos isn't counted. The checker marks it for review instead of failing it, so the low-contrast number is a floor.
• We checked the checker. We read 36 random flags by hand, six of each problem type. 34 were exactly the barrier a blind or low-vision visitor would hit. The other 2 still technically failed but were borderline: a 1-pixel tracking image with no description and a hidden spam-trap box on a form.
• We haven't named any business. Every number below is a total.

9 in 10 Contractor Home Pages Failed at Least One Automated Check

Only 194 of the 2,213 home pages (8.8 percent) came back with no flags. The typical page had 11 flagged elements across 2 kinds of problem. Here are the six problems WebAIM tracks every year, and how many of the 2,213 sites had each:

Problem	What it means for a visitor	Sites
Low-contrast text	Pale grey text, or white on a light colour, that people with low vision (or anyone on a phone in the sun) struggle to read	1,658 74.9%
Links with no name	A screen reader says “link” or reads out a web address instead of where the link goes	1,156 52.2%
Images with no alt text	A blind visitor hears nothing, or a file name, where your photo or logo is	303 13.7%
Buttons with no name	Slider arrows, menu and chat buttons announced as just “button”	185 8.4%
Form fields with no label	A box on the form with no name at all, not even grey hint text	160 7.2%
No page language set	A screen reader may read the page in the wrong language or accent	35 1.6%

Low contrast is the big one, and the easiest to shrug off, because owners can read their own colours fine. Leave it out completely and 1,353 sites (61.1 percent) still fail one of the other five.

For context, WebAIM tests the home pages of the top 1 million websites every year with a different checker, called WAVE. Its 2026 report found “95.9% of home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures.” Different tool, different websites, so the numbers don't line up one to one. The picture is the same.

Size and rank made no difference. Sites in Google's top 3 failed one of the six at 88.0 percent, the rest at 87.2. Businesses with under 50 reviews failed at 82.4 percent, those with 1,000 or more at 88.3. The U.S. (86.7) and Canada (88.0) matched, and every trade landed between 83.9 and 89.6 percent. The website builder mattered a little more, from 66.7 percent on Squarespace (63 sites) to 95.3 percent on GoDaddy's builder (107), with WordPress at 91.0 percent (1,172). The builder sets the start. Colours, icons and plugins added on top decide most of it.

The Four Failures Your Customers Actually Hit

1. A pale button on the line that asks for the job

WCAG asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 between normal text and its background, and 3 to 1 for large text (18 point, or 14 point bold). The W3C's own explainer notes that 3 to 1 is the minimum the ISO and ANSI display standards recommend for standard text and vision. 1,085 of the 2,213 sites (49.0 percent) have text below even that.

The worst place for it is the button that asks for the call. 873 sites (39.4 percent) have low-contrast text containing words like call, quote, estimate, book, schedule or contact. We read 16 of them at random: 12 were the button or link itself, like a “Schedule Now” button at 1.86 to 1 and a “Call Us” button at 2.38 to 1. 5 of the 16 were near misses above 4 to 1, a one-shade fix. The W3C doesn't round: 4.499 to 1 fails.

2. Icons that just say “link”

1,156 sites have at least one link with no name a screen reader can read out. Where those links point (a site can count in more than one row, and we read up to 12 per site, so these are floors):

• The site's own pages, usually from the logo or a photo card: 705 sites (31.9 percent)
• Facebook, Instagram, Google Maps and other social or review icons: 452 sites (20.4 percent)
• Other outside links, like badges and partner logos: 362 sites (16.4 percent)
• Slider arrows and menu toggles: 248 sites (11.2 percent)
• The tap-to-call link: 79 of the 2,026 sites that have one (3.9 percent)

To a sighted visitor, a row of footer icons is obvious. To a screen reader user, it's “link, link, link, link”. The fix is a few words of hidden text on each icon.

3. Quote forms a screen reader can't fill in

1,158 sites (52.3 percent) put form fields right on the home page, usually a quote or contact form. 159 of those (13.7 percent) have at least one field with no label and no hint text at all, so a screen reader announces an empty box. That number is a floor: the checker accepts grey hint text inside the box as a label, even though it disappears the moment you start typing. The Department of Justice's web accessibility guidance spells out why it matters: “Labels allow people who are blind and using screen readers to understand what to do with each form field”.

4. Zoom switched off

264 sites (11.9 percent) carry a line in their code that tells the browser to block or limit pinch-to-zoom. Deque's rule page puts it plainly: “Zooming and scaling must not be disabled”. The same DOJ guidance notes that “People with vision disabilities may need to be able to use a browser's zoom capabilities to increase the size of the font so they can see things more clearly.”

Accessibility Widgets Didn't Change the Result

181 of the 2,213 sites (8.2 percent) run an accessibility widget, also called an overlay: a button, usually a little person icon, that opens a menu of settings like bigger text or higher contrast. They're far more common in the U.S. (13.4 percent of sites) than in Canada (2.9 percent), and among big companies (17.0 percent with 1,000+ reviews, 2.6 percent under 50). The most common were WordPress accessibility-toolbar plugins (48 sites), AudioEye (42), UserWay (38) and accessiBe (23).

Sites with a widget failed at least one of the six common checks at 87.3 percent (158 of 181). Sites without one failed at 87.4 percent. Low contrast (75.1 versus 74.9 percent) and links with no name (53.0 versus 52.2 percent) barely moved.

We tried to be fair to the widgets. We left each widget's own button and menu out of the test, and because some run automatic fixes when the page loads, we tested every widget site again with a 15-second wait. Of the 164 widget sites we could compare, 143 failed one of the six after 8 seconds and 143 after 15. A random group of 177 sites without a widget went from 154 to 156. Waiting longer changed nothing.

That doesn't make a widget useless. A text-size or contrast setting can help some visitors. But most widgets change the page only after a visitor opens the menu and switches something on, and the default page is the one our test saw. A screen reader user already brings their own software. What they need is a phone link, a form field and a Facebook icon that each have a name.

The regulators agree. In January 2025, accessiBe agreed to pay $1 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that it misrepresented its AI tool's ability to make any website WCAG compliant. The final order, approved April 22, 2025, bars the company from claiming its automated products “can make any website WCAG-compliant or can ensure continued compliance with WCAG over time, unless it has the evidence to support such claims.” And the DOJ guidance says: “Automated accessibility checkers and overlays that identify or fix problems with your website can be helpful tools, but like other automated tools such as spelling or grammar checkers, they need to be used carefully. A ‘clean’ report does not necessarily mean everything is accessible.”

Does the Law Require It? ADA in the U.S., AODA in Ontario, Nothing Yet for B.C. Businesses

This is a summary of public sources, not legal advice. Got a demand letter? Call a lawyer.

United States

The ADA covers “businesses that are open to the public”, and the DOJ's March 18, 2022 guidance says that includes what they offer online. It adds that businesses “can currently choose how they will ensure that the programs, services, and goods they provide online are accessible to people with disabilities.” WCAG is named as helpful guidance, not a required standard, so there's no fixed federal rulebook for a private business's website.

The lawsuits keep coming. Seyfarth Shaw, a law firm that tracks ADA cases, counted 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in federal court in 2025, up 27 percent from 2,452 in 2024 and 36 percent of all federal ADA cases about businesses. New York (1,021), Florida (961) and Illinois (585) led. California's federal courts saw only 4, which Seyfarth puts down to courts there holding that online-only businesses aren't covered. The counts are federal only, and plaintiffs also file in New York and New Jersey state courts. Seyfarth doesn't break the numbers down by industry, and we found no count for contractors.

Fixing things helps if a claim does come. In an April 2026 New York federal case, a judge dismissed a website suit as moot after the business documented its work with an accessibility consultant since 2023. The dismissal was without prejudice, so it isn't a shield, but it shows why a dated record of your fixes is worth keeping.

Ontario

Ontario's Integrated Accessibility Standards regulation applies to “an organization with 50 or more employees in Ontario”. Since January 1, 2021, those organizations' websites have had to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, apart from live captions and pre-recorded audio descriptions. A 12-person Ontario plumbing shop isn't covered by that section. A 60-person HVAC company with its staff in Ontario is.

British Columbia

The Accessible British Columbia Regulation so far applies only to public bodies: school districts, municipalities, health authorities, libraries and provincial agencies. Private contractors aren't on the list. We checked Ontario and B.C. only, so look up your own province if you work elsewhere.

How to Fix the Big Six, and Test Your Own Site in 15 Minutes

None of these needs a new website. Hand this list to your web person:

1. Darken the pale text and buttons. Normal text needs 4.5 to 1 against its background, large text 3 to 1. Start with the Call, Quote and Book buttons.
2. Name every icon link. Add hidden text to each social icon, the phone icon and the email icon, like aria-label="Call us" or aria-label="Our Facebook page".
3. Describe your images. The logo's alt text is your business name, and real photos get a short description. Decorative images get an empty alt="".
4. Put a visible label on every form field. Each box needs a label that stays on screen while the visitor types.
5. Name the icon buttons. Slider arrows, menu, search and chat buttons each need a name, like “Open menu”.
6. Set the page language. The page's html tag should carry lang="en", or lang="fr" for a French site.
7. Let people zoom. Remove user-scalable=no and any maximum-scale below 2 from the page's viewport line.
8. Title your embedded map and video. 416 sites (18.8 percent) have an embedded map, video or form with no title.

Then test it yourself. Paste your address into WebAIM's free WAVE checker, or in Chrome, right-click, choose Inspect and run the Lighthouse accessibility report. Next, put the mouse down and press Tab from the top of your home page: you should reach the phone link and every box on the quote form, and see where you are each time. Last, turn on VoiceOver (iPhone) or TalkBack (Android) and listen to your own home page for a minute.

Google gets something out of a few of these fixes too. Its image guidelines say “Google uses alt text along with computer vision algorithms and the contents of the page to understand the subject matter of the image.” We ran the same test on our own home page and website design page: zero automated flags. Still, per the DOJ, a clean report doesn't mean everything is accessible. It's a starting point, not a certificate. If your list is long and the site is old, a rebuild can cost less than patching, and that's the kind of work our website design team does. Two more checks to run: our HTTPS test and our privacy policy check.

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