Does the ADA Apply to Your Website? What Small Business Owners Need to Know
Promoted Content.
You already know the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) shows up in the physical world. The ramp by the front steps. The wider doorway. The restroom with the grab bars. You handled all of that without thinking of it as a legal project. It was just how you let more people in.
Here is the part that surprises most owners: the same law reaches your website, and the courts have said so for years.
The ADA's text does not mention websites. It became law in 1990, back when almost no business had one. But judges have repeatedly ruled that a business website is an extension of your storefront. If a customer with a disability cannot use your site, it is the same as blocking the front door. The gap between what the law says and how courts actually read it is exactly what catches small businesses flat-footed.
Why Are Small Businesses the Ones Getting Sued?
Small businesses are getting sued over accessibility because they are the softest target, not because they are the worst offenders.
The AudioEye 2026 Web Accessibility Litigation Report counted more than 5,000 web accessibility lawsuits filed in 2025. Nearly 70% named online retailers, and a large share were businesses with under $25 million in revenue. Filings in the first half of the year rose 37% over the same stretch a year earlier.
The logic is cold, but it is simple. A big company has a legal team and an accessibility staff. You have a website and a to-do list. That makes you faster to sue and quicker to settle.
And settling is not cheap. For a small business, the average loss in these cases runs around $20,000 to 35,000, before you add legal fees and the cost of actually fixing the site. That cost is enough to wipe out a new hire or a planned increase to existing marketing growth channels.
What Does Website Accessibility Actually Require?
Accessibility means a person with a disability can use your site just like everyone else. Not a special version. The same site.
That includes someone who is blind and uses a screen reader, a tool that reads a page out loud. It includes someone who cannot use a mouse and moves through a site with the keyboard. It includes someone with low vision who needs real contrast to read your text.
The standard courts point to is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). You do not need to memorize it. You need to know where sites tend to break.
The AudioEye 2026 Digital Accessibility Index, which scanned more than 160,000 pages, found that the average web page has 62 accessibility issues. About 13 of them are high-risk, meaning they are the kind that turn up in lawsuits. Retail pages were the worst, at close to 65 issues each.
Now the good news, because there is some. Just five problems cause roughly 40% of everything the Index found:
- Missing image descriptions: A screen reader cannot describe a photo without written alt text. A product image with no description is invisible to a blind shopper. So is the "Buy" prompt sitting on top of it.
- Unclear link text: A link that only says "click here" tells a screen reader user nothing about where it goes.
- Unlabeled buttons: A checkout or menu button with no label is a dead end for anyone not using a mouse.
- Low color contrast: Light gray text on a white background is a wall for people with low vision, and honestly for the rest of us at 4 p.m.
- Missing "skip to content" links: Without one, a keyboard user has to tab through every menu item, on every page, every time.
Notice something about that list. Fix those five, and you have not just lowered your legal risk. You have made your site easier to use for every customer you have. Accessibility and a better storefront are the same project. They always were.
What Can You Actually Do About It?
Start with the five issues above because they drive most of the claims and frustration. You do not have to boil the ocean.
- See where you stand: Run your site through a free tool like the AudioEye accessibility scanner. It checks any page in real time and shows you what is broken and how to fix it.
- Describe your images: Write one short, clear sentence for every meaningful image, product photos first.
- Fix your links and buttons: Name the destination in the link. Give every button a real label.
- Check your contrast: Make sure your text stands out clearly against whatever is behind it.
- Post an accessibility statement: A short page that states your commitment and gives people a way to report a problem signals good faith and gives a frustrated customer a path that doesn't involve a lawyer.
Why "We Fixed It" Is Not the Finish Line
Here is the trap I watch small businesses fall into: they clean up the site once, exhale, and move on.
But your website is not a printed brochure. It changes constantly. New products, new photos, a seasonal banner, or a theme update your web person pushed on a Tuesday–every one of those changes can quietly introduce a new issue. A one-time cleanup goes stale the moment you post your next sale.
That is why steady monitoring beats a single audit. Automated tools can catch and fix many common issues as they appear. Human experts handle the harder ones that software cannot judge on its own. The point is protection that keeps up with your site, not a box you check once and forget.
So, does the ADA apply to your website? Yes. Is the risk growing? Also yes. But the fixes are closer than you think, and they pay you back in customers you were accidentally turning away.
Find out where your site stands today. Then take the next step, and the one after that.
Post sponsored by AudioEye
About the Author
Post by:Mike Barton
Mike Barton is VP of Communications at AudioEye, where he focuses on digital accessibility and what it means for everyday businesses. Working closely with AudioEye's product and accessibility teams, he has a firsthand view of the practical challenges business owners face in making their websites usable for all customers.
Company: AudioEye
Website: https://www.audioeye.com/
