Accessibility Tool Pricing Compared (2026): What WAVE, axe, Pope Tech, UserWay, accessiBe & A11yScope Actually Cost

# Accessibility Tool Pricing Compared (2026): What WAVE, axe, Pope Tech, UserWay, accessiBe & A11yScope Actually Cost

"How much does an accessibility tool cost?" has a genuinely confusing answer, because three very different product categories all market themselves with the same words. This guide separates them and lists real 2026 prices, including the free options — and including where our own product sits, with its limits stated plainly.

The three categories (don't mix them up)

Scanners & monitors — test your code against WCAG rules and report what to fix. You (or your developer) fix the code. Examples: WAVE, axe DevTools, Pope Tech, Lighthouse, A11yScope.

Overlay widgets — a JavaScript snippet that adds an accessibility menu and claims to fix issues at runtime. Examples: accessiBe, UserWay, AudioEye. Widely criticized by the accessibility community; we've written about why overlays don't deliver what they promise. In 2025 the FTC fined accessiBe $1M for overstating what its AI could fix.

Enterprise platforms & audits — large-scale monitoring plus human expert review. Examples: Siteimprove, Silktide, Level Access, axe Monitor. Custom-quoted, typically thousands per year.

2026 pricing at a glance

| Tool | Category | Free tier | Paid entry point | Notes |

|------|----------|-----------|------------------|-------|

| WAVE (WebAIM) | Scanner (extension) | Fully free | — (API/standalone quoted separately) | One page at a time, manual |

| Google Lighthouse | Scanner (built into Chrome) | Fully free | — | Accessibility audit is a subset of axe rules |

| axe DevTools (Deque) | Scanner (extension) | Free extension | Pro/enterprise from ~$5,000/yr | Free tier is excellent for developers |

| A11yScope | Scanner + monitoring | 5 scans/hr no signup; 50/mo with free account | $10/mo (Starter) — unlimited scans, 1 monitored site, weekly scans, email alerts, PDF reports | $49/mo Pro = 10 sites + 20-page crawls; $149/mo Agency = 30 sites + white-label PDFs |

| Pope Tech | Scanner + monitoring | 25 pages, 1 site | $25–30/mo (50–500 pages, unlimited sites) | Built on the WAVE engine; strong for page-count-heavy sites |

| UserWay | Overlay (+ paid scanning) | Limited widget | Widget $49/mo; scanning from $119/mo (Pro Plus) | Scanning service runs $990/yr per 100 pages |

| accessiBe | Overlay | — | $49/mo per site (widget, ~$490/yr) | FTC action in 2025 over compliance claims |

| AudioEye | Overlay + monitoring | — | ~$45–49/mo entry | Ranges to $15K+/yr managed |

| Siteimprove / Silktide / Level Access | Enterprise | — | Custom quote (typically $5K–$50K+/yr) | Includes human audits, training, legal support |

Prices checked June 2026 from public pricing pages and published reviews; vendors change pricing — verify before you buy.

How to choose by situation

You're a developer checking your own work → Free covers you: axe DevTools extension or Lighthouse during development, WAVE for spot checks, A11yScope's free scanner when you want a shareable report without installing anything.

You own one website and want to stay clean over time → This is the gap where one-time free checks fail: accessibility regresses with every deploy and content edit. You want scheduled scanning with alerts. Cheapest real options in 2026: A11yScope Starter at $10/mo (1 site, weekly scans, email alerts, PDF reports) or Pope Tech at $25–30/mo (more pages per crawl, unlimited sites — better if your site is hundreds of pages).

You're an agency managing client sites → Compare on number of monitored sites, white-label reporting, and per-site cost. Pope Tech's Team tier and A11yScope's Pro ($49/mo, 10 sites) / Agency ($149/mo, 30 sites, white-label PDFs) are the budget-realistic options; enterprise platforms make sense above ~50 sites or when you need contractual audit support.

You're being threatened with an ADA lawsuit → No scanner subscription, and especially no overlay widget, will make that go away. Get a human audit and remediate the code. Our guide on accessibility costs covers realistic budgets for that path.

The honest caveat about every tool on this list

Automated scanners — ours included — detect roughly 30–40% of WCAG success criteria. They catch the most common failures (which, per our scan data across 244 sites, are color contrast, landmarks, headings, and unnamed links/buttons) but can't judge whether your alt text is meaningful or your keyboard flow makes sense. Use automation for continuous coverage and regression-catching; bring in humans for depth.

The pricing logic follows from that: pay for continuity (monitoring, alerts, history), not for a one-time scan you can get free — and never pay for a widget that promises compliance without changing your code.

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Run a free scan — no signup, ~6 seconds — at a11yscope.com. Paid plans start at $10/month with a 7-day free trial, and you can cancel in two clicks from the billing page.