Understanding Your Score

How the Score Works

The accessibility score is a number from 0 to 100 that represents what percentage of checks pass on a scanned page. A higher score means fewer accessibility issues.

Score Ratings

Score	Rating	What It Means
90–100	Excellent	Few or no issues. Page is highly accessible.
70–89	Good	Some issues to address, but no critical barriers.
50–69	Needs improvement	Multiple issues that affect usability for people with disabilities.
Below 50	Poor	Significant accessibility barriers. Immediate attention needed.

Calculation

The score is calculated based on:

1. Total checks run — The number of WCAG checks evaluated on the page
2. Checks passed — Checks that found no issues
3. Severity weighting — Errors reduce the score more than warnings or notices

Severity Weights

Severity	Impact on Score
Error	High — Each error significantly reduces the score
Warning	Medium — Warnings have a moderate impact
Notice	Low — Notices have minimal impact

The formula prioritizes errors because they represent definite WCAG failures, while warnings and notices may need manual review.

What Affects Your Score

Common Score Reducers

• Missing alt text on images (error)
• Form inputs without labels (error)
• Insufficient color contrast (error)
• Missing document language (error)
• Empty links or buttons (error)
• Broken heading hierarchy (warning)
• Missing skip navigation (warning)

Quick Wins

These fixes often have the biggest impact on your score:

1. Add alt text to all images — Usually the most common issue
2. Add labels to form fields — Fixes multiple issues at once
3. Set the document language — Single fix, site-wide impact
4. Fix empty links and buttons — Common in navigation menus

Score Changes Over Time

Your score may change between scans for several reasons:

• You fixed issues (score goes up)
• New content was added with issues (score goes down)
• A theme or plugin update changed the HTML (score may change in either direction)

Pro users can track score trends over time on the dashboard with Scheduled Scans.

Score Limitations

The score reflects automated checks only. It does not measure:

• Keyboard navigation experience
• Screen reader compatibility beyond HTML structure
• Cognitive accessibility
• Content readability

A score of 100 does not guarantee full WCAG compliance. Use the score as a starting point and complement it with manual testing.

Improving Your Score

1. Start with errors — they have the highest score impact
2. Use Quick Fixes for issues that can be resolved inline
3. Address warnings next
4. Re-scan after making changes to verify improvements
5. Review the Level A checks to understand each criterion