AccessNorth

Ontario hasaccessibility rulesfor websites.Let's see whereyours stands.

There's a provincial law — the AODA — and since January 1, 2021 it has required a lot of Ontario organizations to make their website work for people with disabilities. If that's the first you're hearing of it, you're in very good company. Point us at your site and we'll check it for free, then explain what we found in plain English. About 10 minutes, no account, no sales pitch.

Check your website — free

We'll scan your real pages for the accessibility problems that trip up visitors, and show you a plain-English report. No certificate, no legal advice — just an honest look.

We only use your email to follow up on your results. No marketing blasts, promise.

Prefer the keyboard? Press Tab — we built it to work that way.

Which one sounds like you?

Four situations, four honest answers. All straight from Ontario's rules (O. Reg. 191/11) and ontario.ca — nothing dressed up.

You have 50 or more staff in Ontario

This applies to you

Then your public website has needed to meet WCAG 2.0 AA — the accessibility rulebook Ontario points to — since January 1, 2021. Pages you published after 2012 count; older ones are mostly grandfathered in.

You're a city, school board, hospital, college, university or transit agency

A report date has passed

Then the same web rules apply no matter your size — and your last accessibility report was due December 31, 2025. If you missed it, Ontario still asks you to file. Late beats never.

You have 20 to 49 people

A report is due Dec 31, 2026

You file an accessibility compliance report by December 31, 2026 — but at your size it covers customer service, not your website. We'll be straight with you: a website scan doesn't fill in that report. It's still worth having on file, and it's your head start for the day you cross 50.

You're a smaller shop, under 20

No report needed

The law doesn't ask you for a report, and the website rule doesn't kick in until 50 staff. But if a customer can't use your site, that's business walking out the door — reason enough to take a look.

What we actually look for

Plain-English, not a wall of code. These are the kinds of things the scan catches — the ones that trip up real visitors every day.

Text that's too faint to read, especially for older eyes

Images with no description for screen readers

Buttons and links you can't reach with a keyboard

Forms where the boxes aren't labelled

Headings and page structure a screen reader can't follow

Colour used as the only way to tell something apart

An automatic scan won't catch everything — and we'll say so

The honest part

On its own, automated checking finds about 57% of accessibility issues by volume (Deque, 2021) — the machine-detectable ones. The rest needs a human: keyboard walk-throughs, screen-reader listening, judgement calls. That's exactly what our Deep Report adds.

How the free check works

Give us your web address

Just the URL, and an email to send the results to. No account, no card.

We scan your real pages

Up to 25 pages on your own domain. We respect robots.txt and don't touch anything we shouldn't. It usually takes a few minutes.

You get a plain-English report

A simple score, what we found, where it lives, and what to fix first — written for you, not for auditors.

Let's talk about the fines — honestly

You may have heard scary numbers. Here's the real picture, without the fear.

The ceiling is not the everyday

Up to, not typical

Yes, the AODA allows fines of up to $100,000 a day for a corporation, and up to $50,000 a day for an individual — but those are the legal maximums, not what usually happens. Day-to-day penalties for a corporation run $500 to $15,000.

Nobody's at your door — but there are real reasons to act

Straight talk

Ontario's own 2023 review of the law found there's basically no active enforcement right now, and we won't pretend otherwise. The honest reasons to sort this out: the December 31, 2026 reporting deadline, questions from government buyers, the risk of a complaint or lawsuit, and customers who simply can't use your site today.

That “instant compliance” button someone sold you

If a salesperson pitched you a widget — one line of code and you're “compliant” — here's what the public record actually shows. No hard feelings; a lot of good businesses bought one.

The biggest overlay maker paid a $1 million settlement

On the record

In April 2025 the U.S. FTC settled with overlay vendor accessiBe over claims that its widget could make a site automatically meet WCAG — plus reviews dressed up to look independent. The exact promise the category sells got sanctioned.

A quarter of sued sites already had a widget running

Not a shield

Of the sites hit with accessibility lawsuits in 2025, 24.9% (983 of 3,948) already had an overlay installed when they were sued (UsableNet). Whatever a widget does, it doesn't stop the lawsuits.

Even the vendors put automation at about half

By their own count

Overlay maker AudioEye puts automation at roughly 50% of issues and sells human help on top. And 1,031 accessibility specialists have signed an open letter advising against overlays.

We fix the actual code — no widget, nothing to renew

What we do instead

We find the problems in your real pages and either hand your web person a clear list or fix them ourselves. Fixed code works for everyone — no script tag, no monthly fee. In Canadian dollars.

What it costs

Start free. Everything's in Canadian dollars, and you always know the price before you commit.

Free check

Free — start here

An automatic scan of up to 25 pages, and a plain-English report with a score.

AODA Deep Report

$995 one-time

The free scan plus a real person: a review of your key pages, screen-reader spot checks, how the AODA applies to you, and a prioritised fix list.

Monitor

$149 / mo

We re-scan every month and flag anything new, with a plain-English fix guide and a quarterly status update. Yearly: $1,490.

Monitor + Fix

$499 / mo

Everything in Monitor, plus up to 4 hours a month of us fixing issues right in your site, and a yearly hands-on re-check.