If you’ve never been through an accessibility audit, the process can feel opaque.
Before the Audit Starts
You’ll need to provide access to your product. For most SaaS products, that means:
- A staging or production URL the evaluator can access
- Test accounts for each user role (admin, standard user, read-only, etc.)
- Any setup steps needed to reach key workflows (sample data, feature flags)
The evaluator will also confirm scope, which pages, flows, and roles are being tested. Not every screen in a large product needs individual evaluation. The focus is on distinct templates and critical user paths.
What the Evaluator Does
A proper audit combines multiple testing methods:
| Method | What It Catches |
|---|---|
| Automated scanning | Color contrast failures, missing alt text, improper heading structure, missing form labels. Covers roughly 30–40% of WCAG criteria. |
| Keyboard testing | Focus traps, unreachable controls, invisible focus indicators, illogical tab order. |
| Screen reader testing | Missing announcements, confusing reading order, unlabeled regions, broken ARIA patterns. |
| Manual inspection | Zoom/reflow behavior, motion and animation issues, timeout handling, error recovery flows. |
The evaluator tests each WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criterion against your actual product and documents what they find.
What You Get Back
The primary deliverable is a completed ACR, the filled-out VPAT template with your product’s results. Each criterion includes a conformance level (Supports, Partially Supports, Does Not Support, Not Applicable) and specific remarks explaining the finding.
Depending on your engagement, you may also receive:
- A detailed findings report with screenshots and fix guidance
- Follow-up reviews after your team remediates issues
- A re-issued ACR showing what now passes, after your team lands its fixes
How Long It Takes
| Phase | Timeline |
|---|---|
| Discovery | Days 1–7 |
| Audit | Days 7–40 |
| Signed VPAT/ACR | Day 45, committed at signing |
| Remediation and Re-issue | Typically to ~Day 75, on your team’s clock |
The signed ACR lands on day 45, committed at signing, or day 60 on Professional. Remediation runs after that, on your team’s clock, and the full cycle usually wraps around day 75.
What Your Team Needs to Do
Your involvement is minimal but important: provide access, answer questions about intended behavior, and (if your engagement includes remediation) fix the issues your evaluator flags so the final report reflects your product’s actual state.
What reliably slows an audit down is waiting on access, and waiting on answers when the evaluator has a question. It is usually an approvals queue rather than anyone dragging their feet. Name a point person before kickoff and both mostly take care of themselves.