Web Accessibility Vendors — Cost-Benefit Analysis

Our Place · fromourplace.com · prepared July 6, 2026 · sources: vendor quotes + Granola meeting notes. No recommendation — criteria and mapping only.

A.Feature & capability matrix

Per your direction: overlay / DOM-level remediation is excluded — only code-level (source/PR) capability counts. Allyant kept in as a real (if disfavored) option. UsableNet modeled on its AaaS ("Aqua") plan (your team remediates in code); its Fully-Managed DOM-script tier is excluded under the no-overlay rule.

Criterion	TestParty	accessiBe	Level Access	Allyant (incumbent)	UsableNet (AaaS / Aqua)
Remediation model	Agentic	Agentic*	Non-agentic	Non-agentic	Non-agentic
Code-level fixes (not DOM)	Yes — automated code fixes	Yes — Access Code / Solve	Yes (overlay excluded)	No — advisory only	Yes — AaaS, your team fixes source
Automated remediation / agent swarming	Yes — only vendor live today	Access Solve — July '26 target	Inline fix suggestions only	No	No — your team remediates
Shift-left: CI/CD + PR scanning	Yes (PR reviews)	Yes — GitHub Actions, ~85% coverage	Yes — GitHub Actions thresholds	No	IDE linter + CI/CD (GitHub) + browser extension
MCP	Not mentioned	Yes — Cursor/Claude/IDE	Yes — IDE-level (top differentiator)	No	Not mentioned
SDK / API	Not mentioned	SDK (QA + agents) + API	SDK + REST API (mid tier+)	No	Ticketing/Shortcut API only
Manual expert audit included	Monthly, IAAP-certified	Via Access Flow	1 audit + iterative	Its core strength	Annual + 3 QA rounds
Coverage cadence	Continuous (weekly scan + ongoing PRs)	Continuous (per-PR + biweekly rescans)	Monitoring continuous; audit = snapshot	Snapshot (~3 rounds / 3 yrs)	Continuous automated + quarterly blind-user testing
Feature readiness	Live	Access Code live; Solve + legacy scan pending	Live (SDK/IDE detail was open)	Live	AaaS live incl. CI/IDE tooling
Legal defensibility / warranty	$15K/yr credit warranty + legal reports	Monitoring + audit trail	Audit + docs	Conformance letters, affidavits, rebuttals	Litigation support included (indemnity only on Fully-Managed)
Pricing predictability / coverage exposure	Flat monthly, unlimited licenses + 12 hrs/mo support — predictable	Flat annual, Access Solve included — predictable	Mostly flat, but only 1 audit; extra audits billable	Hourly buckets ($155–165/hr) — has historically under-covered; extra audits from page changes went unbought	Flat — unlimited runs/pages; priced by domain + users

* accessiBe is agentic once Access Solve launches (July '26 target; September floor if delayed). Until then Access Code handles new-code PRs; legacy code needs an MCP workaround that adds overhead.

UsableNet deck (Jul 6): confirms AaaS has IDE linter + CI/CD (GitHub), continuous + quarterly blind-user testing, and included litigation support — reflected above. Cost/effort unchanged: UsableNet's own slide rates AaaS engineering "Medium–High" with a 3–6 month ramp, consistent with the non-agentic $17K eng line. Fully-Managed "Assistive" — excluded (confirmed): despite the deck's "fixes the underlying code" framing, Assistive remediates via runtime-injected script. It is an overlay — more intentional than accessiBe's (its injected changes come from a human code audit rather than purely machine-read DOM fixes), but overlay-based nonetheless. Excluded under the no-overlay rule. AaaS is therefore the only in-scope UsableNet option.

B.Cost model & assumptions

TCO = vendor license + engineering cost

Blended dev rate: last full remediation = 6 dev-weeks = $17,000 → ~$2,833 / dev-week.
Agentic vendors (engineers only review generated PRs): assume ~0.5 dev-week → ~$1,400 / yr.
Non-agentic vendors (history says ~6 dev-weeks of issues recur): $17,000 / yr of eng time on your team.
Licenses modeled: TestParty $31,200 (all discounts) · accessiBe $30,000 (Access Solve included) · Level Access $23,380 (tier w/ API+SDK) · Allyant ~$10,000 (HUB + 55 support hrs) · UsableNet AaaS ~$20,000 (1 domain, <5 users; unlimited runs/pages).
Important caveat on Allyant: the ~$10K is a fixed hour bucket, not a full-coverage price. Historically it has funded only one basic audit + a year of remediation support — additional audits needed from page changes went unbought (under-coverage) or would have cost more. Reaching the continuous coverage the agentic tools provide would raise Allyant's real cost above the modeled figure.
3-year view = 3× annual at flat license rates. Multi-year commitments cut license further (Level Access 3-yr $21,042/yr; TestParty 2-yr −5%) — treated as upside, not modeled.

C.Total Cost of Ownership

1-Year TCO

3-Year TCO (cumulative)

Vendor license Engineering cost (dev-weeks)

Vendor	Type	License / yr	Eng cost / yr	1-yr TCO	3-yr TCO

Allyant note: the modeled $10K reflects the fixed hour bucket that has historically under-covered — one basic audit + remediation/yr, with needed extra audits unbought. It is the cheapest line only at that reduced coverage level; buying enough hours to match continuous coverage would move Allyant materially higher, so this row is a coverage floor, not a like-for-like comparison.

D.Legal risk exposure & risk-adjusted TCO

Risk-adjusted TCO = license + engineering + expected annual settlements

History: 5 demand letters to date; settlements averaged ~$7–8K, with the two most recent at $10K each.
Forward assumption: ~3–4 letters/yr (hard to predict) at ~$10K each → ~$35K/yr baseline exposure (3.5 × $10K; range $30–40K) if the live site stays non-conformant. 3-yr baseline ≈ $105K — more than most of these solutions' entire license.
Residual exposure by coverage reliability (illustrative — tune freely): continuous + agentic remediation reaches & holds conformance fastest → ~$10K/yr; continuous detection with manual remediation → ~$15K/yr (depends on your team keeping pace); snapshot / under-coverage leaves drift between audits → ~$27K/yr.
Defensive assets further shift per-claim cost: TestParty $15K/yr credit warranty; UsableNet AaaS & Allyant offer litigation support / conformance letters & rebuttals; accessiBe & Level Access provide audit trails. (Overlay-based indemnity is excluded from scope.)

Risk-adjusted 1-Year TCO

Risk-adjusted 3-Year TCO

License Engineering Expected settlements

Vendor	License	Eng	Residual exposure / yr	Risk-adj 1-yr	Risk-adj 3-yr

Do-nothing reference: ~$35K/yr (~$105K over 3 yrs) in expected settlements at current trajectory. Residual figures are assumptions tied to the coverage-cadence criterion, not vendor promises — adjust the per-letter cost ($10K), frequency (3–4/yr), and reduction levels to test sensitivity.

E.Reading the numbers (neutral)

What the dollar model says

On raw dollars, Allyant is cheapest in both horizons — but only at reduced coverage. Its $10K is a fixed hour bucket that has never funded full coverage; matching continuous coverage would raise its real cost. It is a coverage floor, not a like-for-like line.
Among non-agentic options, Allyant undercuts Level Access (~$40K → higher, driven by license + full eng).
The two agentic options (accessiBe ~$31.4K, TestParty ~$32.6K) sit close together and below Level Access.
The agentic-vs-Level-Access comparison confirms your thesis: a higher sticker can still be lower all-in once engineering time is priced.
Once expected settlements are priced in, the ranking reverses. Allyant's raw-dollar edge disappears — its under-coverage carries the highest residual exposure (~$27K/yr), pushing its risk-adjusted TCO (~$54K/yr) above the agentic options (~$41–43K/yr). Continuous/agentic solutions become the lowest risk-adjusted cost.
Because the do-nothing exposure (~$105K/3yr) exceeds most solutions' license, mitigation effectiveness outweighs license price in the total picture.

What the dollar model does not capture

Recurring vs. avoidable labor: Allyant's $17K/yr is real engineer time diverted from product; agentic tools redeploy it. PR volume also declines over time, pushing agentic eng cost below $1,400.
Coverage cadence: snapshot vendors leave undetected drift between audits — unpriced legal exposure — and produce the ~200-issue batches that caused the backlog.
Time-to-remediate: continuous/agentic fixes reach and hold conformance far faster than an audit-then-fix cycle, shrinking the window of exposure.
Readiness risk: accessiBe's agentic advantage depends on Access Solve landing on schedule.
Pricing predictability: usage-based models (Allyant hourly, UsableNet per-page) force a trade-off — pay more when scope exceeds the bucket, or cap spend and accept thinner coverage. The $17K eng estimate for Allyant assumes buckets that may not hold. Flat/unlimited models (TestParty, accessiBe) fix cost and remove the coverage-vs-budget tension.

Prepared from: TestParty POC & Annual SOWs, accessiBe proposal, Level Access proposal, Allyant 2025 renewal SOW, internal legal-exposure history, and Granola meeting notes (Jun 4–30, 2026). UsableNet: Jun 24 meeting notes + verbally quoted AaaS pricing (~$20K/yr, 1 domain, <5 users, unlimited runs/pages); written proposal still pending.