Got an ADA website demand letter? What to check first

This page is general information, not legal advice. A demand letter is a legal matter, and the right response depends on facts a lawyer needs to see. What follows is a calm, practical order of work to take alongside that advice, not instead of it.

What a demand letter is

An ADA website demand letter says that your website has barriers that keep people with disabilities from using it, and asks you to act on them. It is not the same as a lawsuit, though a lawsuit may follow, and some businesses learn of a claim only when a complaint is served. The DOJ's position is that the ADA applies to the websites of businesses open to the public (DOJ guidance, March 18, 2022), and federal website accessibility lawsuits rose from 2,452 in 2024 to 3,117 in 2025 (Seyfarth Shaw's ADA Title III tracking). A letter deserves a careful response, not panic.

Seven things to do, in order

1. Talk to a lawyer first

   Before you reply, pay, sign or promise anything, speak with a lawyer who handles disability access or ADA matters. Bring the letter and everything that came with it. Whether the claim is valid, what to say and whether to negotiate are legal questions, and the answers depend on your facts and where you are.

2. Write down every deadline

   If the letter names a date to respond by, note it. If you have been served with a court complaint, court deadlines apply as well. Do not ignore either. Note each date and give the list to your lawyer the same day.

3. Preserve records

   Keep the letter, the envelope or email it arrived in, and any related messages. Before changing the pages the letter names, ask your lawyer how to capture them as they are now: dated screenshots or saved copies are common ways to do it. Do not delete pages, files or messages without that advice.

4. Test the specific pages the letter names

   List each URL and each barrier the letter describes, then try to reproduce them. Common claims can be checked with free tools: the alt text checker for images, the contrast checker and image contrast checker for hard-to-read text, the heading checker, the link text checker, and the PDF accessibility checker for documents. The accessibility bookmarklet runs checks on any page in your browser. Then try each page with a keyboard alone: can you reach and use every link, button and form field?

5. Fix the source code, not with an overlay

   Fix barriers where they come from: the theme, templates, components and content. Look beyond the named pages too, because a barrier in a shared template appears on every page that uses it. Do not install an overlay widget as the fix. In April 2025 the FTC finalized an order requiring accessiBe to pay $1,000,000; the complaint charged that claims its product would make websites conform to WCAG were false or unsubstantiated.

6. Document the remediation

   For each barrier, record what you found, what you changed, when, and who made the change, then re-test and keep the results. Share the record with your lawyer. A clear, dated account of the work is more useful than a general statement that the site was fixed.

7. Consider ongoing monitoring

   Sites change, and fixed barriers can return with a new template, plugin or campaign page. Regular re-testing catches that early. An accessibility statement that tells visitors how to report a problem gives people a direct way to reach you about barriers.

What to avoid

• Ignoring the letter. Deadlines keep running whether or not you respond.
• Replying on your own before your lawyer has seen the letter, especially with claims about your site you cannot back up.
• Buying a widget sold as lawsuit protection. No product can promise that, and the FTC's accessiBe order shows how regulators treat claims of automatic conformance. Our overlays comparison has the details.
• Treating a clean scan as proof. See the next section.

Why a scan cannot settle the question

A scan is a good way to confirm whether specific, machine-detectable barriers are present or gone. It cannot show that a page meets WCAG. Karl Groves found that an automated tool "can definitively test for approximately 25-29% of best practices for WCAG 2.0" and "cannot test for approximately 40%" (Karl Groves), and the DOJ's guidance says a "clean" report "does not necessarily mean everything is accessible". Whether alt text is accurate, or whether a checkout works with a screen reader, takes a person or a closer audit. GotAlt's deep audit compares up to six images per page with their alt text using a vision model, which is the part of a page a rule-based scanner cannot judge. Our methodology lists exactly what we check, and our rule scanner comparison explains the limits of automated checks.

Background reading

For what the law says, see ADA website compliance for businesses and US web accessibility laws. For the standard itself, see which WCAG version the law requires, the WCAG 2.2 checklist and the alt text guide. Shopify merchants can start with accessibility for Shopify stores.