An ADA website company finds the accessibility barriers on your website and fixes them. That usually means an audit, followed by remediation of the code and content, and sometimes a redesign when the problems run deep. If you've been comparing companies, you've probably noticed a lot of overlapping terms: accessibility audits, WCAG testing, remediation, compliance monitoring, accessible web design. They're all pieces of the same job, and you'll get the best results from a team that can handle every piece.
pondSoup has been designing and building websites since 1999, and accessibility is part of every project we take on. Here's what the work involves, how to spot the difference between a real accessibility partner and a software subscription, and what to ask before you hire anyone.
What an ADA Website Company Actually Does
The work starts with understanding how people with disabilities experience your site. Some visitors use screen readers that read each page aloud. Others navigate entirely with a keyboard, magnify the screen several times over, or use voice control. An ADA website company tests your site the way those visitors use it, finds the places where they get stuck, and changes the site so they can get through.
In practice, that's a cycle. We evaluate the site, document and prioritize the issues, fix the code and content, then test again to confirm the fixes hold. On a new website, the same thinking goes into accessible design and development from the first wireframe, which costs far less than fixing problems after launch.
It Starts With an Accessibility Audit
An audit measures your site against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the technical standard courts and federal agencies point to. Current federal rules for state and local governments and HHS-funded organizations require WCAG 2.1 Level AA. At pondSoup, we test to WCAG 2.2 AA, the current version, so your site meets that benchmark and the newer criteria added since, like minimum tap-target sizes and keyboard focus that stays visible behind sticky headers.
A useful audit report tells you what each problem is, where it appears, who it affects, and how to fix it, ranked so your team knows what to tackle first. A checkout form screen reader users can't complete goes at the top of the list. A heading out of order on a page nobody visits goes near the bottom.
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Remediation: Fixing What the Audit Finds
An audit report on its own doesn't make anyone's experience better. Someone has to go into the code and make the changes. Remediation could involve rewriting HTML so screen readers understand the page structure, connecting labels to form fields, rebuilding a dropdown menu so it works with a keyboard, adjusting colors to meet contrast requirements, and writing alt text that describes what an image actually communicates.
This is where a lot of accessibility companies stop. They hand over a spreadsheet of WCAG violations, and you're left looking for a developer who can interpret it. pondSoup does both. The team that audits your site is the team that fixes it, so nothing gets lost between the report and the repair.
Hotel Warner, a historic hotel in West Chester, Pennsylvania, is a good example of how this works. When lawyers contacted the hotel about its website's accessibility, its web development team called us. We audited the site and fixed everything we found, from color contrast and keyboard navigation to tab order and a long list of smaller problems. Five business days after we started, the site was accessible and the hotel had resolved the issues.
When a Rebuild Makes More Sense
Some websites can be fixed with targeted changes. Others have accessibility problems baked into the theme, the templates, or the page builder, and every patch seems to create two new issues. When the same problem shows up on every page because of how the site was built, rebuilding the core templates usually costs less over time than repairing them one page at a time.
Because pondSoup is a full design and development studio, we can make that call honestly and handle either path. A rebuild is also a chance to fix whatever else was holding the site back, from dated design and slow pages to content your team finds hard to update.
That's what we did for Rosetta Radiology, a medical practice in Midtown Manhattan. We rebuilt their Squarespace site in WordPress, adjusted the design to meet contrast and sizing requirements, and converted every PDF on the site to an accessible format, a step a lot of remediation projects skip entirely.
What a Good Accessibility Review Covers
A thorough review goes well past missing alt text, and it includes the parts of your site you didn't build yourself. These are the areas we look at on every project:
- Keyboard navigation: every link, menu, button, and form works without a mouse, with a visible focus indicator.
- Screen readers: content and navigation make sense when read aloud in VoiceOver and NVDA.
- Forms: fields are labeled, instructions are clear, and error messages explain how to fix the problem.
- Structure: headings follow a logical order so screen reader users can jump through the page.
- Color and contrast: text and controls are readable, and color is never the only way information is shown.
- Images and media: alt text communicates what matters, and videos have captions.
- Mobile: tap targets are large enough, content reflows at 400 percent zoom, and pinch-to-zoom works.
- Documents: PDFs and other downloads are tagged and readable.
- Third-party tools: donation forms, schedulers, chat widgets, and payment pages don't break the experience.
Forms deserve extra attention because they're often where a visitor needs to get something done. When we built the website for the Memorial Foundation for the Blind, that included its grant application forms, which applicants can complete with a screen reader or keyboard alone.
Why Scanners and Overlays Fall Short
Automated scanners are worth running. They check hundreds of pages in minutes and catch a lot of repeated technical errors. What they can't tell you is whether your alt text makes sense, whether a keyboard user gets trapped inside a pop-up, or whether someone using a screen reader can finish your checkout. Automated tools find somewhere between a third and half of WCAG issues, and manual testing with real assistive technology covers the rest.
Overlay widgets are a different story. These are the toolbar icons that promise instant ADA compliance from one line of code. They leave the underlying code untouched, and disabled users and accessibility professionals have criticized them for years for interfering with the assistive technology people already rely on. In 2025, the Federal Trade Commission ordered one of the best-known overlay vendors to pay $1 million over its compliance claims, and sites running overlays still get named in accessibility lawsuits. If a company's main offering is a widget, keep looking.
Can Anyone Guarantee ADA Compliance?
Be wary of any company that promises a certificate or a guarantee. The ADA doesn't name a technical standard for private businesses, and the rules that apply to you depend on what kind of organization you are: a government agency, a federally funded program, or a business open to the public. Websites also change every week, and each new page, PDF, or plugin can introduce fresh barriers.
A responsible partner tells you which standard they tested against, what they found, what they fixed, and how they confirmed it. That documentation shows a genuine, good-faith effort, and it's what pondSoup delivers at the end of every accessibility project.
How to Choose an ADA Website Company
Start by asking what happens after the audit. If the answer ends with a report, you'll still need someone else to do the actual work. A few more questions worth asking:
- Do you test manually with screen readers and keyboards, or only with automated tools?
- Which version of WCAG do you test against?
- Can your team fix the problems you find on our current platform, including WordPress?
- Do you review PDFs, forms, and third-party tools like donation or scheduling platforms?
- Do you sell or recommend overlay widgets? (The right answer is no.)
- What do we receive at the end, and how do we keep the site accessible afterward?
It's also worth looking at the company's design and development portfolio. Accessibility touches navigation, layout, color, content, and code, so the strongest accessibility partners tend to be the ones who build good websites in the first place.
Why pondSoup
pondSoup has been designing and building websites since 1999, with a dedicated ADA compliance team on staff. We audit existing sites, fix what we find, and rebuild when that's the smarter investment. Our accessibility clients include food distributor Simply Food, real estate firm 21 Alpha Property Group, Rosetta Radiology, Hotel Warner, and the Memorial Foundation for the Blind.
Not Sure Where Your Website Stands?
Because accessibility is one part of what we do, we weigh it alongside everything else that makes a website work: clear messaging, strong design, fast pages, and search visibility. You get one team that understands the whole site. We'll start with an audit and show you exactly what needs attention.
Fill out the form and tell us about your site, or request an ADA website audit.