WCAG 2.2 AA Accessibility Audits

A Real 5-Step Audit.
Not Just a Scanner.

Automated scanning, real screen reader simulation, a manual compliance checklist for what automation can't catch, and 11 formal reports - including a jurisdiction-specific VPAT® - generated in one workflow, on your desktop.

60+automated rules, WCAG 2.0-2.2 A/AA
5guided audit steps
11client-ready report formats
6jurisdiction-specific VPAT editions

How It Works

A 5-step guided workflow, not a single button.

Most accessibility tools run one automated scan and stop there. Governance Studio walks a real audit workflow end to end - the same process a professional auditor would follow.

Every step feeds the next - nothing re-entered twice

Data collected at each step flows automatically into the final reports.

STEP 0

Engagement Setup

A 7-question wizard sets jurisdiction, audit purpose, media presence, authenticated areas, forms/checkout flows, viewports to test, and dynamic-content flags - each answer changes which WCAG success criteria apply and how the VPAT gets built.

STEP 1

WCAG Audit

Choose a discovery mode (crawl, sitemap, or URL list), set max pages and parallel workers, configure smart exclusions and optional multi-viewport testing, then run the automated scan.

STEP 2

WCAG Results

Review every automated violation with the exact failing element and fix guidance.

STEP 3

Screen Reader Simulation

Run a real accessibility-tree analysis on representative page templates.

STEP 4

Manual Compliance Checklist

Human-reviewed criteria automation cannot evaluate - captions, cognitive load, OS display settings.

STEP 5

Generate Reports

Pick from 11 report formats and generate the full package in one click.

Client Presets

Save the setup once. Reuse it every audit.

With this many configuration options, re-entering them for every repeat engagement would be its own chore. Governance Studio lets you save the entire Step 0-5 setup as a named preset - per client, per property - so a re-audit is a couple of clicks, not a fresh wizard walkthrough.

The full Step 0 wizard

Jurisdiction, audit purpose, media presence, authenticated areas, forms/checkout flows, viewports, and dynamic-content flags.

The audit configuration

Target URL, discovery mode, max pages, and exclusion patterns.

Report checkbox selections

Every selection, exactly as you left it.

Client & product metadata

ACR product name, version, and vendor; accessibility statement organization name and contact email.

Organized by name

A name, client, website, and description so your preset list stays organized across many client engagements.

Edit or save as new

Edit a saved preset in place, or save changes as a new one without touching the original - your choice each time.

Built for repeat engagements. Scan results are never saved in a preset - only the setup. Quarterly re-audits, multi-property agency work, and recurring compliance cycles all start from the same saved configuration instead of a blank wizard.

Detection Depth

What actually gets checked - not just a pass/fail badge.

Automated tools alone catch roughly 30-40% of real WCAG issues. Governance Studio layers three detection methods so the gap between "automated scan" and "real audit" actually closes.

Automated scanning

  • Runs an open-source automated accessibility testing engine, tagged for every WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 Level A + AA rule, plus best-practice rules (clearly labeled as recommendations, not official conformance criteria)
  • Contrast checking against the real WCAG thresholds (4.5:1 normal text / 3:1 large text for AA), with a built-in suggestion tool that proposes a passing color
  • Robots.txt-aware crawling, automatic exclusion of build/asset paths for WordPress, Next.js, Nuxt, Astro, SvelteKit, Gatsby, and other common frameworks, and an adaptive concurrency pool that backs off automatically if a target site starts rate-limiting the scan

Real screen reader simulation

  • Opens a real Chrome DevTools Protocol session per page and pulls the full accessibility tree - the exact same data source a screen reader reads from - then formats it to match how a real screen reader would announce each element
  • Not a literal screen reader extension and not claimed to be one - an honest, accurate label for a real, underlying browser accessibility-tree analysis
  • Surfaces the exact HTML snippet behind every failing element, ready for direct developer handoff
The manual checklist closes the rest of the gap. Captions, cognitive load, and OS-level display settings genuinely require human judgment - Governance Studio's Step 4 checklist covers exactly the criteria automation cannot evaluate, and answers feed directly into the formal VPAT conformance tables.

Scope & Re-Audits

Test every device. Prove what actually got fixed.

Multi-viewport testing

  • Audit desktop, tablet, and mobile viewports in the same run - each gets its own pass, not a single desktop-only scan assumed to represent every device
  • Issues found on more than one viewport are merged into a single tagged entry, not triplicated across the report

Baseline comparison

  • Load a prior audit as a baseline and re-scan the same property to see exactly what changed
  • The Verification Report shows Fixed, New, and Unchanged issues side by side - real evidence of remediation progress, not just a fresh issue count

Jurisdiction Coverage

One audit. Six jurisdiction-correct VPAT® editions.

Governance Studio generates a full VPAT® Version 2.5 as an editable Word document, with the correct edition and legal citations for your jurisdiction selected automatically from Step 0's setup wizard - not a generic template you edit by hand.

United States

VPAT® Rev 508, mapped to Section 508

European Union

VPAT® Rev EU, mapped to EN 301 549 V3.2.1, EU Web Accessibility Directive, European Accessibility Act

United Kingdom

VPAT® Rev EU, mapped to EN 301 549 V3.2.1, PSBAR 2018, Equality Act 2010

Australia

VPAT® Rev EU, mapped to EN 301 549 V3.2.1, Disability Discrimination Act 1992

India

VPAT® Rev INT, mapped to IS 17802:2021, RPwD Act 2016

International

VPAT® Rev INT, mapped to EN 301 549 V3.2.1

Jurisdiction-specific VPAT generation - especially a dedicated IS 17802 edition for India - is genuinely rare among accessibility tools. Most automated VPAT generators handle a single edition or map loosely to EN 301 549. Governance Studio builds the correct success-criteria mapping, legal citations, and document classification for each of the 6 editions automatically, as an editable Word document, not a fixed template.

Report Output

11 formal reports. One audit run.

Every report is white-labeled with your company name and assessor details, set once and applied automatically to every engagement.

.docx
Web Accessibility Audit Report
11-section formal audit report - the primary compliance document.
.docx
ACR / VPAT
VPAT® Version 2.5, correct edition for your jurisdiction. Required for government and enterprise procurement.
.xlsx
Excel Workbook
7 sheets: full issues log, remediation tracker, developer fix guide.
.html
Interactive Issues Report
Filterable issue dashboard with a live contrast-fix suggester. Offline-capable.
.html
Screen Reader Report
Full accessibility-tree findings with HTML snippets for each failing element.
.html
Executive Briefing
One-page risk summary for board-level and legal reporting - no technical detail.
.html
Accessibility Statement
Ready to publish at /accessibility on your site.
.docx
Accessibility Statement (Word)
Same statement, editable, for legal review before publishing.
.html
Per-Page Reports
One detailed report per audited page, for developer handoff.
.html + .docx
Verification Report
Before/after comparison against a prior audit baseline.
.html
Accessibility Badge
Embeddable, score-free trust signal for your site's footer.

Pricing

One license. Every WCAG audit. No per-page fees.

A single flat price covers unlimited WCAG audits across every property you own - and includes AEO/SEO and Site Health tools in the same license, not a separate add-on.

Governance Studio License

$399/ month

$4,450 billed annually - or month-to-month at $399

  • Unlimited properties - no domain or site cap
  • Unlimited pages - no volume tiers or overages
  • Unlimited audit runs - scan as often as needed
  • 5 simultaneous sign-ins, each with their own login
  • All 11 WCAG report formats included
  • VPAT® Version 2.5 - US, EU, UK, Australia, India & International editions
  • WCAG 2.2 AA + Section 508 + ADA + EN 301 549 + IS 17802
  • Real screen reader simulation via Chrome DevTools Protocol
  • Manual compliance checklist - feeds VPAT tables
  • Verification reports - baseline comparison built in
  • Also included: AI & Search Readiness (AEO/SEO) - 7 reports, 8 AI crawler checks
  • Also included: Site Health tools - broken links, regex, meta, images
  • Localhost, staging & authenticated-page scanning
  • 7-day free trial - no credit card required

Common Questions

Things teams ask about the WCAG audit.

No. The open-source automated engine behind the scan is real - but automated scanning alone catches roughly 30-40% of real WCAG issues. Governance Studio adds real screen reader simulation via Chrome DevTools Protocol and a manual compliance checklist for the criteria automation genuinely cannot evaluate, with both feeding directly into the formal VPAT conformance tables.
It opens a real Chrome DevTools Protocol session per page and pulls the full accessibility tree - the same data a real screen reader reads from - then formats the output to match how that information would be announced. It is not a literal screen reader extension, and the product does not claim it is - it's an accurate, honest label for a real underlying browser accessibility-tree analysis.
Yes. Because Governance Studio runs entirely on your desktop, it can reach any URL your machine can reach - localhost builds, VPN-gated staging environments, internal tools. It also supports HTTP Basic Auth or raw header injection (cookies/authorization tokens) for logged-in areas, with clear documented limits - it does not bypass OAuth redirects, CAPTCHA, or 2FA.
It genuinely changes. Each of the 6 jurisdictions gets its own success-criteria-to-standard mapping (Section 508, EN 301 549, or IS 17802), its own legal citations, and its own document classification - US reports are marked "For Official Use Only," every other jurisdiction uses "Confidential - Internal Use Only." A US report never shows EN 301 549 citations, and vice versa.
Up to 5,000 pages per audit, with no per-page metering - the 100th page costs the same as the first. Choose crawl, sitemap, or a manual URL list as your discovery mode, and optionally test across desktop, tablet, and mobile viewports in the same run.

Run a real WCAG audit, not just a scan.

Download the app, create your free trial account, and run a full 5-step audit on one of your own properties. See exactly what a jurisdiction-specific VPAT looks like. No call required.

Download Free Trial

$399/mo - Unlimited properties - 11 report formats - 7-day free trial - no credit card required