DigitalPlugs ADA Compliance scans your posts and pages for real, code-level accessibility defects — missing alt text, broken heading structure, unlabeled form fields, low-contrast text and more — and shows you exactly what to fix and why, right inside the post editor. Several of the most common issues can be fixed with one click, for free, with no account or license required.
Unlike accessibility overlay widgets, this plugin does not claim to make your site instantly “compliant.” It finds real WCAG 2.x and Section 508 failures in your actual markup so you, or your developer, can fix them.
Useful links
- Upgrade to Pro — full-site scanning, bulk auto-fix, scheduled reports and more
- Documentation — the full user guide for every feature in this readme
- Get an Accessibility Consult, or Hire Us — want a human to look at your site, or remediation work done for you?
Scanning
- Unlimited posts and pages, on unlimited sites — no artificial cap of any kind on the free tier
- Real-time scanning on every publish or update (can be turned off in Settings)
- On-demand “Start Scan” of your whole site, processed in safe background batches so it never times out
- 57 individual accessibility checks (37 warnings, 20 best-practice alerts), covering:
- Images: missing, empty and invalid alt text; redundant alt/title; aria-hidden conflicts; image maps; self-linked images; invalid longdesc references
- Links: empty links, ambiguous link text, adjacent duplicate links, redundant link text, unannounced new-window links, bare URLs as link text, unlinked email addresses, broken same-page anchors, links dressed up as buttons
- Headings: missing, empty, skipped levels, missing or duplicate H1
- Forms: missing, empty or duplicate labels, mismatched label targets, ungrouped related fields
- Buttons: empty buttons with no accessible name
- Tables: missing or empty headers, invalid scope, layout tables, orphaned header references
- ARIA: invalid element references, empty labels, missing page language
- Media: autoplaying audio/video with no controls, embeds with no fallback text, audio/video with no nearby transcript mention
- Content hygiene: duplicate or blank titles, redundant title attributes, unreadable viewport-unit font sizing, fake paragraph spacing, malformed lists, duplicated table captions, deprecated blink/marquee elements
- Color & zoom: inline text/background combinations below the 4.5:1 minimum, absolute font sizing, viewport tags that block pinch-zoom
- Keyboard access: click-only handlers, disrupted tab order, meta-refresh redirects, JavaScript-only navigation menus
- WCAG 2.2: minimum target size (2.5.8), focus not obscured (2.4.11)
Fix issues without leaving wp-admin
Seven of the checks above include a real, working one-click Fix — free, unlimited, with no license required:
- Empty headings removed
- Missing form labels added (using the field’s own placeholder or name, never invented text)
- Redundant title attributes removed
- Positive tabindex clamped back to zero
- Site language set automatically from your site’s own locale
- A visually-hidden “(opens in a new window)” notice added to unannounced new-window links
- rel=”noopener” added to new-window links, closing a real security gap too
Every fix is verified immediately after applying it — the plugin rechecks that exact spot against the same rule that flagged it, and reopens the issue for manual review rather than marking it fixed if it’s still failing.
Where you see it
- A dashboard with an issue summary, a compliance score, and a per-check breakdown
- A filterable, sortable issues list — filter by status, error type or post type, search by title or post ID, and Fix, Ignore, Recheck or View the offending markup for any issue
- A Block Editor sidebar panel showing the open issues for the post you’re editing, with a one-click Recheck that rescans without a full save
- A matching notice for the Classic Editor
- A Guidelines Reference page explaining every check in plain English, with its WCAG citation
- A Site Health status card summarizing your site’s open issues
- A Help page with documentation, an accessibility consult link, and — once you’re ready — the upgrade path to Pro
Configuration
- Choose which post types are scanned
- Choose your compliance standard: WCAG 2.2 Level AA, Section 508, or the EU’s European Accessibility Act — rules that don’t apply under your chosen standard are skipped and hidden from the reference list
- Turn real-time scanning on or off
- Choose whether plugin data is removed on uninstall
Built to the standard it enforces
The plugin’s own admin screens and Block Editor panel are audited against the same WCAG 2.2 AA and Section 508 rules the scanner checks your content for: full keyboard operability, visible focus states, correctly associated form labels, non-skipping heading structure, and severity information that is never color-only.
Free vs. Pro
Everything in this readme so far — all 57 checks, all 7 one-click fixes, unlimited posts on unlimited sites — is completely free, forever, with no license required. Pro is genuinely separate functionality on top of it, mainly around scanning content the free plugin doesn’t reach at all, and automating what you’d otherwise do by hand:
- [Pro] 8 additional accessibility checks (65 total)
- [Pro] Full-site scanning: widgets, menus, theme templates, taxonomy terms, shortcode output, your theme’s own CSS, WooCommerce products, EDD downloads, and any custom post type
- [Pro] “Fix All Safe Issues” bulk auto-fix in one batch, with a full undo log
- [Pro] Live, on-canvas issue markers right inside the Elementor editor
- [Pro] A front-end accessibility checker with on-page markers and a screen-reader simulator
- [Pro] A visitor-facing accessibility toolbar (text size, contrast, underlining, focus visibility)
- [Pro] Scheduled scans with email digests
- [Pro] VPAT / ACR report generation and Excel export
- [Pro] WooCommerce product image alt-text audit across your whole catalog
- [Pro] Multisite network-wide compliance rollup
- [Pro] REST API, WP-CLI, and webhooks
- [Pro] White-label branding for agencies
- [Pro] Priority support
Every Pro tier unlocks that exact same list — Professional, Small Business and Agency differ only in how many sites one license covers, so pick based on how many sites you manage. See current pricing and get DigitalPlugs ADA Compliance Pro
Screenshots
Pro's front-end accessibility checker: numbered markers show every issue directly on your live page, and clicking one opens a detail popup with its severity, WCAG citation, plain-English fix guidance, and the exact offending code.
Pro's VPAT / ACR report, generated from your site's own real scan data and exportable as a PDF: every WCAG success criterion is marked Supports, Partially Supports or Not Evaluated based only on what automated scanning actually found — criteria that need manual testing are honestly marked "Not Evaluated" rather than guessed at.
The main Dashboard: a compliance score, a plain-English conformance summary, and a per-check issue breakdown you can click into. Full Site Scan, Email and Export are Pro features — shown here, disabled, until Pro is licensed.
Pro's Client Reports: generate a signed, read-only link to today's compliance summary that clients can view without logging in — branded with your own White Label settings, set to expire automatically, and revocable at any time.
The Settings page: pick your compliance standard (WCAG 2.2 AA, Section 508, or the EAA, with a plain-language note on when the EAA actually applies), configure real-time scanning, and choose your scan scope. The free plugin scans posts and pages; Pro expands scope to custom post types, media and more, shown here with Pro active.
More of Pro's Settings: schedule the full-site scan and email a digest when new issues turn up, send signed (HMAC-SHA256) webhook notifications to an external system like CI or Slack, and turn on the front-end accessibility toolbar for visitors — with an honest note that it improves the browsing experience but isn't a substitute for fixing the underlying issues.
Pro's per-role permission matrix (including WooCommerce roles like Shop Manager and Customer) and White Label settings, so an agency can hand off report links — and, if they choose, the whole admin menu — under their own name, logo and accent color instead of this plugin's.
The free plugin's Guidelines Reference page: every check explained in plain English with its exact WCAG success criterion, a link to the official W3C reference, and a clear Warning-vs-Alert legend — scoped automatically to whichever compliance standard you've selected.