What the letter typically says
The letter comes from a law firm, on behalf of a named person with a disability, often someone who uses a screen reader. It says that the person tried to use your website and could not: could not read product information, could not operate the menu, could not complete checkout, could not fill in a form. It says this is a breach of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it usually cites WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard your site should meet. Whether that is right in your case is for a lawyer to tell you. It asks for two things: a sum of money, and a commitment to make the site accessible, sometimes with a timeline. It sets a date for your response.
The letter may list specific failures, sometimes generated by an automated tool, sometimes from a real attempt to use the site. It may be one of hundreds the firm has sent that month. None of that tells you how seriously to take it. A lawyer can tell you that.
Why they are sent
Website accessibility claims have become a volume business. According to Seyfarth Shaw, 5,006 ADA Title III lawsuits were filed in US federal courts in the first half of 2026. Demand letters are not counted anywhere public and are more numerous than suits, because a letter costs almost nothing to send and many businesses settle on receipt.
Two things make ecommerce stores frequent targets. They are places where a person is clearly trying to buy something and cannot, which makes the harm easy to describe. And their failures are easy to find: most stores run a theme that strips focus styles, apps that inject unlabeled widgets, and product images without alternative text. An automated scan, which anyone can run in a minute, lists these. The firms sending letters run them.
Whether a specific letter has merit, and what the law requires of your business, are questions for a lawyer. This article is about the practical steps that sit alongside that advice.
The first week
- Do not ignore it. The letter has a response date. Missing it does not make the matter smaller. Read it, note the date, and move to the next step the same day.
- Call a lawyer. Preferably one who has handled website accessibility claims before, because the patterns are specific. A lawyer can tell you what the letter means, what the deadline is, what responding looks like, and whether your insurance is relevant. Do not reply to the law firm yourself.
- Preserve the site as it is. Before anyone changes anything, capture the current state: full-page screenshots of the pages named in the letter, an export or backup of the theme, the list of installed apps or plug-ins with versions, and server logs if you keep them. Your lawyer may want a record of what the site looked like when the letter arrived. Changing the site is not forbidden; changing it without a record is unwise.
- Run an accessibility scan. An automated scan of your main templates takes a day and shows you the machine-detectable failures grouped by WCAG criterion: contrast, missing labels, missing alternative text, unnamed buttons, missing language and titles. It catches only the part a machine can judge, and that part almost certainly includes the ones the letter mentions. Give it to your lawyer. We run one for free within two working days.
- Do not install an overlay widget as the fix. It is tempting, because vendors promise compliance in a line of code and you want to say you acted. Overlays do not change the code a screen reader reads, so the failures a tester finds in the markup remain, and the person who sent the letter can find them again. A lawyer can tell you how any step affects your case. From the engineering side, the real fixes are in your theme and apps and are achievable in weeks.
- Tell your team. Whoever edits products and pages should know, this week, that alternative text and heading structure are now part of the job. Half of what a scan finds in a store is content, not code.
- Get a fixed-price scope for the real work. Once the scan is in hand you can ask for a WCAG 2.1 AA audit and a fix sprint with a written price and dates. Your lawyer may want the timeline for the response.
What remediation involves
Remediation means changing the code and content of your site so that it works with the tools people actually use: a screen reader, a keyboard alone, magnification, voice control. It is engineering work in your theme, templates, scripts and content, not a plug-in.
The work usually runs in three parts.
The audit. Every distinct template on the site (home, category, product, cart, checkout, account, content page, forms) is tested with automated tools and then by a person using a keyboard alone, a screen reader on desktop and on a phone, and zoom at 200 and 400 percent. Each failure is recorded against its WCAG criterion with steps to reproduce it and the code change that fixes it. The output is a dated report, which is also the document your lawyer and any future buyer will ask for.
The fix sprint. The findings are fixed in a staging copy of the theme or a branch of the code, which you can open at any time. Typical fixes on a store: restoring visible focus styles; rebuilding cart drawers and modals so keyboard focus moves into them and back out; giving custom controls (variant pickers, quantity fields, accordions, carousels) real roles, names and announced states; associating error messages with the fields they belong to and stating them in text, not colour alone; fixing heading levels and landmarks; writing an alternative text method for product images; reconfiguring or replacing apps that inject inaccessible widgets; pausing autoplaying motion. Every finding is re-tested at the end and its status recorded.
Monitoring. Themes update, apps change, editors add images. A monthly scan plus a manual re-test of whatever changed catches regressions before anyone else does.
What remediation does not include, from us: a conformance statement or a VPAT, which are claims you make with advice; and any opinion on what the law requires, which a lawyer can give you and we cannot.
What it costs
Our prices for the engineering side. Legal costs are separate.
| Work | Includes | Fixed price |
|---|---|---|
| Automated scan | Automated findings on your main templates, grouped by WCAG criterion, with what the scan cannot see. 2 working days | Free |
| WCAG 2.1 AA audit | Automated plus manual testing of every distinct template; dated report by criterion with reproduction steps and code-level fixes. 1 to 3 weeks | $1,200 to $7,500by template and page count |
| Fix sprint | Remediation in your theme, templates and code; app and plug-in review; editor guidance; re-test of every finding. 3 to 6 weeks typical | from $4,000 |
| Conformance monitoringOptional, cancel any month | Monthly scan, re-test of changed templates, regression fixes | $200 to $900 a month |
The audit price moves with the number of templates and whether checkout and account flows are included. The sprint price moves with how much of the theme must be rebuilt and how many apps must be replaced. Both are written down before work starts; half is paid at the start and half at the re-test. The full service is described on the website accessibility audit page.
A closing note
A demand letter is unpleasant and it is also, usually, accurate about one thing: some people could not use your site. The letter's legal weight is for a lawyer to tell you. The failures themselves are findable and fixable, in weeks, in your own code, and a site that works for everyone is a better store on every other day too.
Request a free scan, or email info@riantsoft.com.
Questions people ask
Is a demand letter the same as being sued?
No. A demand letter is a letter from a law firm asking you to settle before any case is filed. A lawsuit is a complaint filed with a court, which you will be served with formally. Many letters never become suits and many suits are preceded by a letter, but the two are different documents with different clocks. A lawyer can tell you which you have received and what deadline applies. Do not assume a letter can be ignored because no case has been filed.
My site is on Shopify. Is accessibility not the platform's job?
The platform provides the checkout and the admin; your theme, your apps and your content are yours, and that is where most failures are found. A theme that removes focus outlines, an app that injects an unlabeled widget, product images with no alternative text: none of these are the platform's to fix. A lawyer can tell you about responsibility. An engineer can tell you that the fixes are in your theme and app configuration and are achievable in weeks.
If I fix the site, does the letter go away?
Fixing the site is a separate question from settling the claim, and a lawyer can tell you how the two relate in your case. What we can say from the engineering side is that a dated audit report and a record of fixes made is useful to your lawyer, that the problems the letter describes are usually real and findable, and that the business which fixes them is in a different position from the one which does not, both with this letter and with the next one.
Should I install an accessibility widget this week so I can say I acted?
We would not. Overlay widgets add a toolbar and modify the page in the visitor's browser; they do not change the code a screen reader reads, so the failures a tester finds in the markup remain, and the person who wrote the letter can find them again. Running a scan and starting on the real fixes is something concrete you can show you did this week. A lawyer can tell you how any step affects your position.
How much does it cost to fix a site properly?
Our prices: the automated scan is free; a WCAG 2.1 AA audit is $1,200 to $7,500 depending on the number of templates and flows; a fix sprint starts at $4,000 and typically takes three to six weeks for a store or business site; monitoring afterwards is $200 to $900 a month and can be cancelled any month. The price is written down before work starts. Legal costs are separate and a lawyer will tell you what to expect there.