Compliance
Website Accessibility Audit Cost: What Drives It
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A website accessibility audit cost is driven by scope, not page count: unique templates and components, forms, PDFs, third-party widgets and language versions. Remediation usually costs more than the audit itself. Primessio publishes no rates — the first call takes about 30 minutes, costs nothing, and ends with an outline of scope. The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025; Germany implements it through the BFSG.
What drives the cost of a website accessibility audit
Primessio publishes no rates for accessibility work; the first call takes about 30 minutes and costs nothing. Cost follows structure, not page count. Ten unique templates, a shared component library and one form pattern take far less effort to review than a hand-built site where every landing page is its own construction. The drivers we ask about first: the number of distinct templates and components, interactive widgets (search, filters, carousels, maps), forms and checkout flows, PDFs and downloadable documents, embedded third-party services such as payments, booking and chat, language versions, and whether you want a re-test once fixes are deployed.
Two things inflate an estimate silently. Third-party embeds are one — you can fix your own markup and still fail on a payment widget you do not control, so someone has to open a supplier conversation. Documents are the other: a decade of PDFs can outweigh the site itself.
The EAA, the BFSG and who is actually covered
The European Accessibility Act — Directive (EU) 2019/882 — has applied since 28 June 2025, and Germany implements it through the BFSG. The scope is consumer-facing: online stores, consumer banking, e-books, ticketing, telecoms, transport services and the websites and apps that deliver them. Pure B2B sites without a consumer service usually sit outside it.
The BFSG exempts service providers with fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover or balance sheet total up to EUR 2 million. Below both limits the statutory obligation for services generally does not bite; the commercial argument still does, because a customer who cannot complete a checkout does not file a complaint, they leave. This is a plain-language summary of the legislation as it stands in September 2026, not legal advice. Primessio supports compliance work — we do not issue legal opinions and we do not certify conformity.
Three cost blocks: audit, remediation, accessibility statement
WCAG 2.1 level AA and EN 301 549 are the two standards European accessibility work is measured against. Budget in three blocks rather than one number.
The review itself combines automated scanning with manual testing — keyboard-only operation, screen reader passes, zoom and reflow, contrast measurement — and ends in a findings list ordered by severity and by where the fix belongs. Automated tools alone catch only part of the picture, which is why manual time dominates this block.
Remediation is normally the largest block and the one nobody estimates from outside. It covers contrast and design tokens, focus order and visible focus, labels and error messages in forms, alternatives for images and video, heading structure, and the accessible names behind icon buttons. In a design-system codebase these are central fixes. In a legacy codebase they are many small ones.
The third block covers the accessibility statement, the feedback channel behind it, and a re-test that confirms what was actually fixed. Write the statement after the findings are in, not before — otherwise it is a promise instead of a record. The wording belongs with your legal counsel, with technical input from the findings list.
Why an honest first number is a range — and how to narrow it
Anyone quoting a fixed price for accessibility before seeing your templates is quoting a guess. Our contact page puts it plainly: we quote only once the scope is clear enough to quote honestly. The fastest way to narrow the range is a short inventory — templates, forms, documents, embedded services, language versions — which is exactly what the first call produces. That call takes about 30 minutes and costs nothing, and you leave with an outline of scope even if we never work together.
Where accessibility sits in our work: process first, technology second
"I start with your process and the way you work: I put them in order, and only then choose or build technology made to measure," says Dariusz Wtykło, Owner and CEO of Primessio. Accessibility rewards that order. The expensive version is a contractor patching symptoms template by template; the cheap version fixes the component everything inherits.
Accessibility at Primessio sits inside website, online store and custom software work: we build fast, accessible front-ends, fix in code and design what a review finds, and supply the technical input your accessibility statement needs. We do not certify conformity and we do not give legal advice.
Primessio teams work in groups of 5 to 75 people and have delivered 50+ IT rollouts. Team experience comes from projects before Primessio — not a Primessio client roster — and includes a system with 22,000 users for Poland's State Fire Service, a project with a budget of PLN 20.3m.
Run this 10-point qualification check before you ask for a quote
Answer these ten in an afternoon and you will have most of what any provider needs to estimate:
- Do you sell to consumers through the site, or only to businesses?
- Does your organisation have fewer than 10 employees and turnover at or below EUR 2 million?
- How many unique page templates exist — not how many pages?
- Is there a shared component library or design system?
- How many forms, and does any of them take payment?
- Which third-party widgets are embedded, and who owns each one?
- How many PDFs or documents are offered for download, and are they still needed?
- How many language versions are live?
- Can you operate the main purchase path using the keyboard alone, today?
- Do you already publish an accessibility statement and a feedback channel?
Bring the answers to the call. Points 3, 4 and 6 move an estimate more than anything else on the list.
Working with a partner from Warsaw, 1–2 hours from DACH
Warsaw is a 1–2 hour flight from the DACH region, so workshops and review sessions stay practical. Primessio works from Warsaw, across Poland and the Mazovia region, and with clients in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in English or German. Data stays in the EU, with GDPR and security built in from the start. We support your compliance work; we do not promise legal certainty, a conformity guarantee or a particular audit outcome.
Author: Dariusz Wtykło, Owner and CEO of Primessio. Reviewed: September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website accessibility audit cost?
There is no single figure, and Primessio publishes no rates. The cost follows scope: how many unique templates and components exist, how many forms and documents, how much third-party functionality (payments, booking, chat) is embedded, how many language versions, and whether you need a re-test after fixes. The first call takes about 30 minutes and costs nothing; we quote only once the scope is clear enough to quote honestly.
Is my website covered by the European Accessibility Act?
The European Accessibility Act — Directive (EU) 2019/882 — has applied since 28 June 2025, and Germany implements it through the BFSG. It targets consumer-facing digital products and services: online stores, consumer banking, e-books, ticketing, telecoms and transport services. Business-only sites without a consumer service are usually outside it. This is a plain-language summary of the legislation as it stands in September 2026, not legal advice — confirm your own status with your legal counsel.
Are small businesses exempt from accessibility rules?
The BFSG exempts service providers that are microenterprises — fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover or balance sheet total up to EUR 2 million. The exemption is narrower for products than for services, and it does not stop customers from leaving a site they cannot use. Check your own position with legal counsel; we support compliance work, we do not certify it and we do not issue legal opinions.
What is WCAG 2.1 AA and do I need level AAA?
WCAG 2.1 level AA and EN 301 549 are the two standards European accessibility work is measured against. Level AA covers contrast, keyboard operation, focus visibility, form labels and error handling, alternatives for media and predictable structure. Level AAA is stricter and is generally not the benchmark used in European implementing law, so most projects scope to AA and document the rest.
How long does accessibility remediation take?
Remediation length follows the codebase, not the page count. A site built from a small set of reusable templates and a design system is fixed centrally, so contrast, focus order and form patterns are corrected once and inherited everywhere. A hand-built site with one-off pages, legacy PDFs and embedded third-party widgets takes longer, because each element is its own fix and each supplier is its own conversation.
What should an accessibility statement include?
An accessibility statement typically names the standard applied, the parts of the service that are known not to conform yet, the reasons, the plan and a feedback channel with a contact route. Write it after the findings are in, not before — otherwise it is a promise instead of a record. Treat the wording as a legal document for your counsel to approve, with technical input from the findings list.
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