ADA website accessibility for small businesses: a practical guide

Does the ADA apply to websites?

Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers businesses open to the public, such as shops, restaurants, hotels, and service providers. The Department of Justice has consistently said that this includes the goods and services those businesses offer online, and its 2022 guidance on web accessibility says so directly.

Thousands of website accessibility lawsuits and many more demand letters are filed in the US every year, and small businesses receive a large share of them. E-commerce, restaurant, and hospitality sites are frequent targets.

Which standard to follow

There is no ADA regulation that sets a technical standard for private business websites. The benchmark everyone uses is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG):

• Settlements and court orders usually require WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 level AA.
• In 2024 the DOJ adopted WCAG 2.1 AA as the rule for state and local government websites under Title II.
• WCAG 2.2 AA includes everything in 2.1 AA, so it is the safest target.

See every AA requirement in plain English in the WCAG 2.2 checklist.

Why overlays are not a fix

Overlay widgets promise one-line compliance. They modify the page in the visitor's browser but leave the underlying code unchanged, can conflict with screen readers, and have not stopped lawsuits. In 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million to settle allegations that it misrepresented its tool's ability to make websites compliant. See Shipcheck vs accessiBe for the fix-at-the-source approach.

A 7-step plan for small teams

1. List your key pages and flows: home, product or service pages, contact form, booking, checkout.
2. Run an automated scan on each page template. Free options include WAVE, axe DevTools, and the website checker.
3. Do a keyboard pass: Tab through every flow without a mouse.
4. Fix in the code, starting with blockers in checkout, booking, and contact forms.
5. Spot-check with a screen reader (VoiceOver on Mac or iPhone, NVDA on Windows).
6. Publish an accessibility statement with a contact method. Use the statement generator.
7. Re-check after every change to templates, themes, or plugins, and keep a record of what you tested and fixed.

The most common failures

• Low-contrast text. Check it with the contrast checker.
• Images without alt text, especially product photos and linked logos.
• Form fields without labels, and errors shown only in red.
• Buttons and links with no accessible name, such as icon-only buttons.
• Menus, modals, and carousels that do not work with a keyboard.
• Missing page language and skipped heading levels.

Also selling to Europe? The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025.