Description
Website · Live preview · Documentation · Free vs Pro · Support
Two engines. One honest scope.
AuditWand finds accessibility issues on your WordPress site, fixes the mechanical ones in one click, and keeps a dated record of the work. Page checks run inside your editor, free and local: the bundled engine checks the page you are writing, drafts included, and nothing leaves your site. Site scans run in the AuditWand cloud on Pro: every page of your live site, with history, alerts, and the documents the European Accessibility Act expects. Both engines find a subset of WCAG issues and say so on every result.
Why website accessibility matters
Accessibility is now a legal expectation in most markets a WordPress site sells into. In the European Union, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has applied since 28 June 2025 to many businesses that sell to consumers online, and member states enforce it with fines and orders. In the United States, web accessibility claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are filed by the thousands every year, with demand letters many times more frequent. In Ontario, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) requires larger organizations’ public websites to meet WCAG 2.0 AA.
The plain benefits arrive whether or not a law applies to you: more visitors can use the site, including the roughly one in six people who live with a disability; search engines read the same structure and text alternatives that screen readers do; clear labels and readable contrast reduce complaints and abandoned forms.
Two honest notes. Some very small businesses have limited exemptions under the EAA, and whether your site is covered depends on what you sell, to whom, and where; check with a professional rather than taking a plugin’s word for it. And no automated tool, ours included, can make a site accessible or compliant on its own. AuditWand finds what can be found automatically, fixes what can be fixed safely, guides you through the rest, and documents the effort.
What it checks
- The bundled engine. AuditWand ships axe-core 4.13.0 by Deque Systems, unmodified: 89 automated rules, 62 testing WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 success criteria at levels A and AA and 27 best-practice checks such as heading order and landmark structure. The same engine version runs in your editor and in the cloud.
- Plain English on top. 54 of the most common rules carry an AuditWand explanation: what the issue is, who it affects, and how to fix it in WordPress terms. Every issue links to its documentation page with the WCAG success criterion and the EN 301 549 clause.
- Worth reviewing. 3 additional checks flag judgment calls a machine cannot decide: vague link text such as “click here”, images marked decorative that may carry meaning, and links to PDF documents. They never count toward your score.
- Page checks in the editor. Press “Check this page” in the AuditWand box on any post or page, drafts included. The check runs in your browser with the bundled engine and shows results in seconds; the content is not sent anywhere. Unlimited, with or without an account.
- Automatic check on save. Turn it on under Settings and every save runs a page check.
- History, kept locally. Every page check is recorded on your site with its date and counts; the History tab and the dashboard widget show them with no connection at all.
- Site scans (Pro). Every page of your live site is crawled and checked in the cloud, with results streamed into the Issues and Pages tabs as they arrive, a live progress bar, and a delta line after every rescan.
Every rule the engine checks has its own page at https://auditwand.com/docs/issues.
All 16 fixes, free
Every fix is a server-side change to the HTML your site sends to visitors; there is no visitor-side script and no overlay. Each fix is individually switchable, shows a before-and-after preview, is reversible with one click, and is logged with a timestamp when applied or turned off. A master pause suspends every fix at once. Fixes an accessibility-ready theme already provides are never applied twice.
- Skip-to-content link. Adds a “Skip to content” link as the first element of every page, invisible until a keyboard user reaches it.
- Visible keyboard focus. Draws a clear outline around links, buttons, and fields when they receive keyboard focus.
- Underline links in content. Underlines links inside post and page content, so a link never depends on color alone.
- Warn on new-tab links. Adds a screen-reader note “(opens in a new tab)” to links that open new tabs, plus rel protection.
- Stop links opening new tabs. Removes target=”_blank” from content links, so every link opens in the same tab.
- Label the search field. Gives the WordPress search box an accessible label and requires a search term before submitting.
- Label comment fields. Ensures the comment textarea carries a proper label, which many themes omit.
- Language & direction attributes. Declares the page language, and right-to-left direction where used, so screen readers pick the right voice.
- Allow zooming on mobile. Removes the viewport settings that stop people from pinch-zooming on phones.
- Remove forced tab order. Removes positive tabindex values that override the natural keyboard order.
- Remove redundant tooltips. Removes title-attribute tooltips from links and images, which usually repeat the visible text.
- Fallback page titles. Gives pages without a title one built from your site name, since the title is announced first.
- Label unlabeled form fields (heuristic). Gives form fields that have only a placeholder an accessible label built from that placeholder.
- File type & size on document links. Appends notes such as “(PDF, 1.2 MB)” to document links, so readers know what a link opens.
- Block PDF uploads. Stops new PDF files from entering the media library. Existing files are untouched.
- Accessibility statement link in the footer. Adds an “Accessibility statement” link at the end of every page, pointing at the page you set in Settings.
Every fix is free on every plan, with or without an account. What each fix changes and when not to use it: https://auditwand.com/docs/fixes
Media Library Audit
Missing alt text is the most common accessibility failure on the web, and no scanner can fix it for you, because only a person knows what an image means. The Media tab shows every image in your media library with its alt-text state (missing, deliberately decorative, or described) and where it is used, and you write or edit the alt text in place.
The fix-in-sequence workflow is the missing-alt filter: every image without alt text in one list, each with its alt field in place and a one-click decorative marker, so you work through them one after another. A short guide on writing good alt text sits beside the list. You stay the author: AuditWand never writes alt text for you and never sends your images anywhere. Entirely free, on your own site. No other accessibility plugin in the directory offered a media-wide alt-text view when we surveyed the category in August 2026.
Guide: https://auditwand.com/docs/media-library-audit
Why AuditWand
- Media Library Audit (market first). Every image in your media library with its alt-text state, where it is used, and a fix-in-sequence workflow for the missing ones. Free on every plan; no other accessibility plugin in the directory offered a media-wide alt-text view when we surveyed the category in August 2026.
- Drafts never leave your site. Page checks run in your browser with the bundled engine. Nothing is uploaded until you choose to connect and run a cloud scan. An automated consent suite installs the plugin fresh, walks every screen, and fails the build on a single outbound request before you connect.
- Data stored in Frankfurt. Scan data lives in the EU. The database is in Frankfurt and the application servers are in Falkenstein, Germany. A data processing agreement is included on every plan at no charge; the sub-processor list names each provider, its location, and its transfer mechanism.
- Mapped to EN 301 549 clauses. Every issue names the WCAG success criterion and the EN 301 549 clause, so what you read matches what an EU authority reads. 62 of the 89 rules carry a clause mapping, taken from the engine’s own metadata and published on each issue’s documentation page.
- Monitoring that does not depend on you. Site scans run in the cloud, so results, alerts, and summaries arrive whether or not anyone opens WordPress. Regression alerts state what broke and where; weekly and monthly summaries arrive by email; a scan with failed pages is reported as failed, never as clean.
- All 16 fixes, free. Server-side changes to your real HTML, individually switchable, reversible, and logged. Never a visitor-side overlay. The fix registry carries no plan tier, and an automated test fails the build if one ever appears.
Tiny by design. The plugin zip is 283 KB across 19 files, most of it the bundled engine. Your visitors receive nothing from AuditWand: no scripts, no styles, no cookies, no tracking. A fix you switch on adds exactly that fix’s HTML and a few hundred bytes of CSS. Tests enforce zero visitor weight on every release.
Honest by design. Automated testing finds a subset of WCAG issues. AuditWand tells you what it found and how to fix it. It does not and cannot make your site “compliant” or guarantee protection from legal claims. Treat any tool that claims otherwise with suspicion.
Cloud service (optional)
No account is needed for page checks and fixes. A free AuditWand account connects your site for site-wide scans, monitoring, and reports (service, see below). Everything that runs inside the plugin is free and works without a connection. Site scans are part of Pro: every page of your site, checked in the cloud. Prices are shown in USD.
What connects. Press “Connect to AuditWand” under Settings, approve on the AuditWand page, and land back in WordPress connected. One email address creates a free account in the same step. No keys, no code, no meta tags. Disconnect from either side at any time.
What is sent. After you connect, your server sends your site address and page URLs to the AuditWand API, authenticated with a connect key stored on your site. Site scans read your public pages the way any visitor does and store the findings with short HTML snippets. After an editor page check, the plugin reports a bare counter (a check happened, and when); the content is never included. No visitor data, no analytics, no third-party call from your site.
Where it is stored. Scan data is stored in the EU (Frankfurt) on servers in Germany. We use a small number of sub-processors, some US-based, under EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Sub-processor list: https://auditwand.com/legal/privacy#sub-processors
Terms of Use: https://auditwand.com/legal/terms · Privacy Policy: https://auditwand.com/legal/privacy · Data Processing Agreement: https://auditwand.com/legal/dpa
Guide: https://auditwand.com/docs/cloud-scanning-and-monitoring
The free plan
The free plan is everything that runs inside the plugin, for one site:
- Unlimited in-editor page checks, running locally in your browser (drafts never leave your site)
- All 16 one-click fixes, including fallback page titles, file type and size on document links, block PDF uploads, and the footer statement link
- Automatic check on save in the editor
- Dismiss any finding with a recorded reason, and the complete Ignore Log
- Plain-English fix guidance and send-to-developer handoffs
- The editor box and the dashboard widget
- Accessibility statement template download
- “Accessibility monitored” badge and a public status page with visitor feedback
- Media Library Audit: every image’s alt-text status in one view, with inline editing and a fix-in-sequence workflow
- History of your recent page checks
What’s in paid plans
Pro ($19/mo or $149/yr, save 35%. 1 site)
See every page, not just the one you’re editing.
- Site scans: every page checked in the cloud, 500 pages per scan, rescan anytime
- Monthly scheduled scans
- Regression alerts by email: what broke and where
- Complete history with trends and a scan-comparison view
- Hosted accessibility statement that updates itself from your scan data
- Dated PDF reports mapped to EN 301 549 / EAA clauses
- Accessibility column in your Posts and Pages lists
- Bulk review and bulk un-ignore
- Element screenshots with View-on-page
- Weekly email summaries
- Priority email support (typically 1-2 business days)
- Priority scan queue and 2 simultaneous scans
- Development and staging sites never count toward the site limit
Business ($49/mo or $399/yr, 5 sites)
- Everything in Pro across 5 sites in one dashboard
- Weekly scheduled scans
- Reports in English, German, and French
- 3 team seats
- 2,000 pages per crawl
Every paid plan: 30-day money-back guarantee · page packs (+2,500 pages per crawl for $10/mo). Full comparison: https://auditwand.com/docs/free-vs-pro
Compatibility
Requires WordPress 6.0 and PHP 7.4. Verified on every combination of WordPress 6.5, 6.8, 7.0, and 7.1 with PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.3, and 8.4, with zero PHP notices, plus multisite. The editor box appears in the block editor and the Classic Editor; page-builder sites use the Pages tab. Scans and fixes operate on the final rendered HTML, so any theme or builder works; the tested-with list is in the FAQ.
Support
Email support@auditwand.com or post in the forum at https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/auditwand-accessibility; replies typically arrive within 1 to 2 business days. Security issues: security@auditwand.com, acknowledged within 48 hours. No phone line and no 24/7 desk: AuditWand is a one-person company with automated systems as the team.
Data and privacy
On your site, the plugin stores its settings, the fix log, the Ignore Log, and your page-check history in WordPress options; it creates no tables and no scheduled tasks, and uninstalling removes every option. In the cloud, once connected: your site address, page URLs, scan findings with short HTML snippets, and your account email and plan. Nothing about your visitors is collected; deleting a site or your account erases its cloud data. Details: https://auditwand.com/docs/data-and-privacy and https://auditwand.com/legal/privacy
Source code and build
The bundled data file assets/editor-data.js is generated from assets/src/editor-data.json by build/build-editor-data.cjs; both ship in the plugin, and running the build script with Node rebuilds the compiled file. The bundled engine assets/axe.min.js is axe-core by Deque Systems, unmodified; source: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core. All other files are hand-written source.
Third-party libraries
This plugin bundles axe-core 4.13.0 by Deque Systems, licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, included unmodified as assets/axe.min.js. Source: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core
Screenshots
Installation
- Install and activate the plugin. Page checks, all 16 fixes, and the Media Library Audit work immediately. No account is needed.
- Open any post or page and press “Check this page” in the Accessibility box, or open the AuditWand menu for the Media Library Audit and the fixes under Settings.
- Optional, for site-wide scans, monitoring, and reports: go to the AuditWand menu Settings and press Connect to AuditWand.
- Approve on the AuditWand page. If you do not have an account yet, one email address creates a free account in the same step.
- You land back in WordPress, connected. Site scans are part of Pro; the free account adds the badge and the public status page.
- To try the plugin without installing anything, open the live preview: https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https%3A%2F%2Fauditwand.com%2Fblueprints%2Fauditwand-accessibility.json
FAQ
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Does this plugin make my site accessible or EAA/ADA compliant?
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No, and be wary of any tool that says yes. No automated tool can. AuditWand finds a substantial subset of accessibility issues automatically, explains how to fix them, fixes the mechanical ones, and documents your ongoing effort. Fixing what it finds improves accessibility. Full conformance also requires human review: judging whether alt text describes an image, whether captions are accurate, whether content is understandable. Those are the parts no engine can test, and AuditWand says so on every clean result.
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Do I need an account or a paid plan?
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No account is needed for the local layer: unlimited page checks (they run locally in the editor), all 16 one-click fixes, auto-check on save, the Media Library Audit, and dismiss-with-reason with the complete Ignore Log all work on a fresh install with no connection. A free account connects your site for the cloud service and adds the badge and public status page; paid plans add site scans of every page, scheduled scans, history and trends, regression alerts, hosted statements, and PDF reports.
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What leaves my site, and where does it go?
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Before you connect: nothing. The plugin makes no outbound request of any kind, and an automated test suite proves it on every release. After you connect: your server sends your site address and page URLs to the AuditWand API, authenticated with your connect key, and site scans store findings with short HTML snippets from your public pages. Editor page checks run in your browser; the content you are editing is never sent. After a check completes, the plugin reports a bare counter (a check happened, and when) so your public status page can show activity. Everything is stored in the EU (Frankfurt). Deleting a site or your account removes it.
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What do the 16 fixes actually change?
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Small, safe corrections to the HTML your site sends to visitors: a skip link, visible keyboard focus, underlined content links, labels on the search box, comment fields, and placeholder-only form fields, the page language attribute, zoom allowed on phones, forced tab order removed, redundant tooltips removed, a note on links that open new tabs (or those links kept in the same tab), a fallback page title, file type and size on document links, PDF uploads blocked, and a footer link to your accessibility statement. Nothing changes in your database or your content. Each fix shows a before-and-after preview, can be turned off with one click, and is logged with a timestamp. With every fix off, your site’s output is byte-for-byte what it was without the plugin.
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Is this one of those accessibility overlays?
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No. Overlays inject a script into the visitor’s browser that tries to patch the page after it loads. They are widely criticized by the accessibility community, regulators have acted against vendors who claimed such tools deliver compliance, and sites using them continue to receive complaints and claims. AuditWand ships zero visitor-side JavaScript. Its fixes are real server-side corrections to your site’s HTML, and everything else it does is detection, guidance, and record-keeping.
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Does the plugin slow down my site?
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No. With every fix off, the plugin adds nothing to your site’s front end: no scripts, no styles, no requests. Each fix you enable adds only its own HTML change and, for a few fixes, a few hundred bytes of inline CSS. Site scans run on AuditWand’s servers, which visit your public pages the way an ordinary visitor does, with a small number of parallel page workers and a polite pace. The whole plugin is 283 KB.
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Which editors and page builders does it work with?
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Every feature works from the AuditWand admin menu regardless of editor. The in-editor “Accessibility” box with the instant “Check this page” button appears in the block editor and the Classic Editor. Page-builder edit screens (Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and others) cannot host the box; use the Pages tab in the AuditWand menu to see per-page findings, then open the page in your builder to fix them. Site scans and issue tracking behave identically for every editor.
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What is AuditWand tested with?
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Every combination of WordPress 6.5, 6.8, 7.0, and 7.1 with PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.3, and 8.4: sixteen combinations, each booted with debugging on, every admin screen and the editor walked, and zero PHP notices. Also a classic-widgets theme (Twenty Twenty-One), a block theme (Twenty Twenty-Five), Astra, and multisite with network-wide activation. Builders: pages built in Elementor and Beaver Builder Lite, scanned, fixed, and marked by View on page. AuditWand works with any theme or builder that outputs standard HTML, because scans and fixes operate on the final rendered output. Issue tracking survives builder re-saves because issue fingerprints ignore builder-generated markup noise, and themes that declare the accessibility-ready tag never get the skip-link and focus fixes applied twice.
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How do I get support?
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Email support@auditwand.com or post in the plugin forum at https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/auditwand-accessibility. Replies typically arrive within 1 to 2 business days. There is no phone line and no 24/7 desk; AuditWand is a one-person company with automated systems as the team, and we say so wherever support is mentioned. If you are facing litigation or need a formal audit, engage an accessibility professional: AuditWand is automated tooling for finding, fixing, monitoring, and documenting accessibility work, not an audit service and not legal advice.
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Does it produce the documents the European Accessibility Act expects?
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EU accessibility rules generally expect an accessibility statement, a way for visitors to report problems, and evidence of ongoing effort. On the free plan, AuditWand generates an accessibility statement template pre-filled with your site’s known limitations, and the public status page carries a visitor feedback form. The fix log and the Ignore Log with reasons are your dated evidence trail. Pro adds a hosted statement that updates itself from scan data and dated PDF reports mapped to EN 301 549 clauses. None of these documents claims compliance on your behalf; they describe what was checked, what was found, and what was done.
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Can I use AuditWand in Quebec, or in French?
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The plugin works anywhere. Its interface is in English today and is translation-ready; German and French listing text is published, and translations are welcome through translate.wordpress.org. The Business plan delivers reports in French and German. Consumer purchases from Quebec are not accepted until French-language terms of service exist, in keeping with the Charter of the French Language; business customers in Quebec can subscribe.
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What is the refund policy?
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Every paid plan carries a 30-day money-back guarantee: email support within 30 days of your first payment and the payment is refunded in full. Statutory rights, including the EU 14-day right of withdrawal, are unaffected. Renewals are disclosed before purchase with the price and term, and cancellation is self-serve with no barriers. Details: https://auditwand.com/legal/refunds
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How do I delete my account and my data?
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In your dashboard, open Settings › Account and choose Delete account. Deletion is immediate and cascades through every site, scan, issue, and record on the account. You can also email privacy@auditwand.com from your account address and we complete it within 30 days. Uninstalling the plugin removes every option it created on your site.
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Do you support agencies and teams?
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The Business plan covers 5 sites with 3 team seats in one dashboard, so an agency can run several client sites from one account. Team members act inside the owner’s account with their own sign-in. The locked disclaimer on every report stays in place, because it protects your clients as much as it protects us.
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What does the score mean?
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The score starts at 100 and subtracts points for each open issue found by automated checks: 10 for critical, 5 for serious, 2 for moderate, 0.5 for minor. It never goes below zero. Items under “Worth reviewing” do not affect it, because they need human judgment. It is a progress meter, not a certificate. A rising score means fewer and less severe problems. It is not a compliance percentage, because automated checks test only part of the rules.
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How do I report a security issue?
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Email security@auditwand.com. Report privately rather than opening a public thread. We aim to acknowledge reports within 48 hours. Details: https://auditwand.com/.well-known/security.txt
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What happens if my paid plan lapses?
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Nothing breaks. Fixes you applied keep running, because they run on your own site. You keep the free layer in full. Paid surfaces lock again until you return, and your history is kept for the retention period stated in the Privacy Policy.
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Is the plugin translated?
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The plugin is translation-ready with a complete language template, and the listing is published in English, German, and French. Interface translations arrive through translate.wordpress.org as contributors complete them; if you would like to help with a language, the project is open there.
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“AuditWand Accessibility” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “AuditWand Accessibility” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.1
- Listing description updated.
1.0.0
- First public release. Free page checks in the editor with the bundled axe-core 4.13.0 engine, all 16 one-click fixes, the Media Library Audit, dismiss-with-reason with the complete Ignore Log, plain-English guidance with send-to-developer handoffs, the statement template, and the badge with its public status page, all without an account. Site scans, history, alerts, and reports on Pro.
- Added: documentation site at https://auditwand.com/docs, with a page for every rule the engine checks (plain English, why it matters, how to fix it, the WCAG criterion, and the EN 301 549 clause) and a page for every fix (what it changes, before and after, when not to use it). Issue cards link to their page.
- Added: every issue names its WCAG success criterion and EN 301 549 clause.
- Added: the Help tab now carries short guides that mirror the documentation site, from the same source.
- Added: a live preview in WordPress Playground, linked from the listing.
- Changed: the listing rewritten around what the plugin checks, every fix by name, the Media Library Audit, and the cloud service, with an expanded FAQ and new screenshots.
Development releases (0.1.0 to 0.16.3)
- Page checks in the editor moved from a cloud call to the bundled engine running in the browser, so drafts never leave the site, with automatic check on save and a local history.
- The fix engine grew from 14 to 16 server-side fixes, all free, with individual switches, before-and-after previews, a master pause, theme awareness, and a log of every apply and revert.
- The Media Library Audit: every image with its alt-text state, usage locations, inline editing, and a fix-in-sequence workflow.
- Site scans with live progress, per-page findings, a delta line after every rescan, dismiss-with-reason and the Ignore Log, guided fixes with time estimates, send-to-developer handoffs, and the accessibility column in the Posts and Pages lists.
- View on page with severity markers and element screenshots, for logged-in editors only.
- The badge, the public status page with visitor feedback, and the accessibility statement template with known limitations fed from scan data.
- One-click connect with a full connection lifecycle: disconnect and reconnect from either side, site replacement, and a clean reset when a site is removed.
- Honesty and privacy throughout: the subset disclosure on every clean result, failed pages fail the scan, zero visitor-facing weight enforced by tests, data-location wording naming the sub-processors, and all styles and scripts loaded through registered handles.
- Every feature that runs inside the plugin made free on every plan; paid plans cover cloud services only.