Shopify accessibility, answered

No. SiteRemora works inside your code, the way a developer would. Your storefront looks exactly as you designed it: every change goes into the theme or the catalog, approved by you or by the autopilot rules you switch on, and your visitors see only the fixed page.

Shopify is our first platform. SiteRemora installs as an embedded Shopify app, reads your published theme and the apps that inject markup into it, and patches through your theme files and Shopify’s content APIs. There’s no script to paste and no code for you to write.

Install the app from Shopify, authorize it, and start your first scan from the dashboard with one click. After that it rescans on its own on your plan's schedule, and on Deep Sea you can let autopilot apply the safe fixes as your store changes.

No. The whole point is that it does the developer-level work for you. Fixes are written into your theme code, explained in plain language, and reversible in one click. You can leave the Liquid files closed.

Three quiet loops: scan, patch, review. It scans your rendered storefront, locates the exact line of Liquid, CSS, or HTML responsible for each violation, and generates a targeted fix. You decide whether fixes apply automatically or wait for your approval.

Good scanners exist. The unsolved problem is what happens after the scan: writing the alt text, adjusting the tokens, fixing the labels, and keeping it clean as the store changes. SiteRemora scans continuously and applies the fixes in the theme code, so the report reads as a list of things already done.

It renders your real storefront in a headless browser and runs industry-standard accessibility checks (the same axe-core engine trusted by professionals) plus its own DOM detectors, across your home page, product pages, collections, cart, search, and blog. Because it tests the rendered page, it sees what a shopper’s screen reader would.

Yes. That’s the core reason it exists. Accessibility breaks every time you update your theme, install an app, or edit a product. SiteRemora re-scans on a schedule (and on demand), so new violations get caught and fixed instead of quietly piling up until a demand letter arrives.

A 0–100 score for your store’s accessibility. Every page we scan runs a set of checks, each weighted by how much it affects people, using the same weights as Google Lighthouse. A page’s score is the share of that weight that passes, and your store’s score is the average across the pages we scanned, so a problem on every page counts for more than one on a single page. While critical issues are open the score is held lower: the hold starts at 89 and drops with each kind of critical issue and with each page they reach. 100 means every check we run is passing. It goes up as fixes ship and shows you what is holding it back. The score measures what automated checks find, which is part of accessibility, and it is a measure of progress rather than a compliance rating. How the score works has the details and a worked example.

Every change is stored with its exact before and after, and any fix can be reverted in one click, by anyone on your team, whenever you like. Reverting puts the original code back in the same theme the fix was written to.

Yes. Every store starts in Manual, where each fix waits for your approval. On Deep Sea you can switch on autopilot in Settings. After each automatic scan, Smart adds the page language and a skip link to themes that need them, and Full also corrects skipped heading levels. Labels for buttons, links and form fields, AI-drafted patches and alt text always wait for you. You can change modes anytime, every applied fix stays reversible, and a fix you revert stays reverted.

No. Checkout runs on Shopify’s hosted infrastructure and is Shopify’s responsibility. SiteRemora works on the parts you control: your theme templates and content across the rest of the customer journey, which is where the vast majority of violations (and lawsuits) live.

Always. Every fix keeps the exact code it replaced, and the full history of every change is kept so you can review, compare, or roll back at any point. Nothing is overwritten without a trail back to the original.

SiteRemora runs automated checks based on WCAG 2.1 AA, the version referenced by ADA case law, the Department of Justice web rule, and the European Accessibility Act through EN 301 549. Automated checks cover part of the standard, and some criteria always need a person. It fixes the most common failures directly in your theme and catalog: missing alt text, unlabeled buttons and form fields, skipped heading levels, missing landmarks and skip links, a missing page language, and lists and empty headings inside your pages. Contrast is fixed at a color you choose, starting from the nearest passing shade of your own.

For each image missing a description, SiteRemora reads the photo and drafts alt text that matches what a sighted shopper would see: “walnut leather sneaker, side view.” Open one image to edit its draft before it is saved, or use Fix All on a group to save the draft for every image in it. Each description is saved to every product, collection or file that uses the picture, and each one is recorded and can be reverted. Images that live in the theme files get the same draft, written into the Liquid that renders them. New images are checked on the next scan. Shore includes alt text within its five AI fixes; Reef and Deep Sea write as many as you need.

Only to the color you choose. For each failing pair, SiteRemora suggests the nearest shade of your own color that passes and shows the ratio before and after. You keep it, edit it or pick another, and that color is written into the theme: once in the stylesheet when one class sets both colors, so every use of it changes together, or on the element itself. Contrast fixes always wait for you, with autopilot on as well, and each one reverts in one click.

Icon-only buttons and links with no accessible name, social icons included; form fields missing labels; skipped heading levels and a missing main heading; missing landmark regions and skip-to-content links; a missing page language attribute; ARIA names on custom controls; and text colors that fail contrast, at the color you choose. Each is written into your Liquid templates as a change you can review and revert.

Yes. Because it scans the fully rendered storefront, markup injected by other apps (review widgets, upsell popups, chat bubbles, email capture modals) is included in the audit. Those app-injected elements are one of the biggest sources of new violations, and they’re easy to miss with a code-only scan.

That’s a core reason this product exists. SiteRemora watches content as it ships (new products, new posts, new descriptions) and either fixes the small stuff automatically or surfaces it for review before it drags your score down.

U.S. courts have declined to let an overlay end an ADA claim, and the FTC fined the largest overlay vendor for misleading compliance claims. In the first half of 2025, 22.6% of ADA website lawsuits hit sites that already had a widget installed. Code-level remediation is what regulators and judges look for. The rulings and the FTC order are in Accessibility Overlays Don't Work, and the side-by-side with the biggest vendor is SiteRemora vs accessiBe.

If you sell online in the US or EU, the short answer is yes. In 2025, plaintiffs filed more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits in the United States by UsableNet's count, and roughly 70% targeted e-commerce. Most Shopify stores have detectable WCAG violations on every page, and 45% of the federal suits hit businesses that had already been sued once.

The EAA took full effect on 28 June 2025. It applies to any business selling e-commerce services to consumers in the EU, wherever the business is based, and fines run to six figures in several member states. If you use Shopify Markets to sell into the EU, you’re likely in scope. SiteRemora's checks are based on WCAG 2.1 AA, the standard EN 301 549 and the EAA reference.

It takes over the part an auditor would otherwise repeat every few months: the automated checks, the fixes and the dated record. Some criteria always need a person, so a business that needs a formal conformance report still wants an audit, and we hand the auditor a much shorter list.

Yes. Every fix is recorded with its exact before and after and a timestamp: a versioned record of what was fixed, where, and when. If a demand letter arrives, that documented remediation history is the kind of good-faith evidence a lawyer wants to see. On the paid plans it also arrives as a monthly change report, ready to forward or print.

Take it seriously, and keep your money in your pocket on day one. Four steps: (1) send the letter to an attorney who handles ADA Title III website cases within a few days, since most letters set a 14 to 30 day response window; (2) preserve evidence by screenshotting the pages named in the letter before you change anything; (3) run a real scan of your storefront and start fixing the actual code, documenting every change with a date; (4) respond through counsel by the deadline. Demand letters typically open at $5,000 to $25,000, and businesses that show prompt, documented remediation usually settle for far less than the opening number. SiteRemora gives you the scan and the dated fix history for step three; your attorney handles the rest. The longer version is the demand-letter guide, and what a good-faith record looks like covers what to have ready.

Most ADA website demand letters settle in the low thousands to low five figures. Industry trackers put typical first-offense settlements at $5,000 to $75,000 including the plaintiff’s legal fees, with your own attorney fees and the cost of fixing the site on top. A pre-litigation settlement with prompt remediation tends to land near the bottom of that range; a case that goes to federal court lands near the top. Fixing the store properly is almost always cheaper than the second letter.

Yes. In 2025 roughly 45% of ADA website lawsuits hit businesses that had already been sued at least once. A settlement resolves one plaintiff’s claim; it does not make the site accessible, and the next plaintiff runs the same automated checks. The only durable defense is a store that is actually fixed and keeps getting re-checked as themes, apps, and products change. That continuous re-scan is what SiteRemora is for; Accessibility Drift explains how a fixed store decays.

No. In the first half of 2025, 22.6% of ADA website lawsuits targeted sites that already had an overlay installed, and in April 2025 the FTC fined the largest overlay vendor $1 million for claiming its widget made sites compliant. An overlay adds a menu on top of the page; the theme code underneath, the part screen readers and plaintiffs’ scanners read, stays as it was. Fixing that code is what courts look at. See Accessibility Overlays Don't Work.

In practice, yes if you sell to U.S. customers. Courts have consistently treated e-commerce sites as places of public accommodation under ADA Title III, and courts treat “I use Shopify” as beside the point: Shopify provides the platform, and your theme, your content, and your installed apps are your responsibility. If you also sell to consumers in the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. The standard both point to is WCAG 2.1 AA. The full answer, with what Shopify covers and what is yours, is in Is Your Shopify Store ADA Compliant?.

No. Shopify’s own free themes are built to a reasonable baseline, and checkout is Shopify’s responsibility. Everything else is yours: theme customizations, product images without alt text, unlabeled icon buttons, and the markup injected by review, chat, pop-up, and upsell apps. Those are where the violations in lawsuits come from, and they change every time someone edits the store.

Five things cover most of it: write alt text that describes each product and theme image; give every icon-only button and link an accessible name; label every form field; keep heading levels in order with proper landmarks and a skip link; and fix any text that fails the 4.5:1 contrast ratio. Then re-check after every theme update, app install, and product import, because that’s when it breaks again. SiteRemora scans the rendered store for all of this, fixes the code-level items in your theme and catalog, and fixes contrast at the color you choose. The checklist walks through each item.

Three plans, plus enterprise arrangements. Shore (free) gives you three scans a week of up to 150 pages each, shows every issue in plain language, and includes five AI fixes to try, for code or alt text. Reef ($79/mo, or $790 a year) scans up to 3,000 pages at a time, applies as many AI code fixes as you need, writes alt text to the product record, checks daily, and keeps the revert history, an exportable record and a monthly change report of every fix; it is where most stores start. Deep Sea ($149/mo, or $1,490 a year) scans up to 5,000 pages, re-scans after theme and catalog changes and can apply the safe fixes on its own. Bigger brands, larger catalogs and portfolios get an enterprise arrangement scoped per brand: signed human audits, evidence packs, a 48-hour demand-letter response and a named contact, with the scope and price agreed with you. The pricing page has the full table.

Reef scans up to 3,000 pages at a time and Deep Sea up to 5,000, and a store bigger than that is checked in rotation. Each scan covers every page type, then takes the pages checked longest ago, starting with any never checked, so every page in your sitemap gets its turn. Pages a scan leaves for later keep their latest results, up to 10,000 pages in all, and the dashboard says how many pages the last scan checked and how many results come from earlier scans. Shore scans up to 150 pages, the most recently updated first or the ones you pick.

Billing is handled entirely through Shopify. Charges appear on your regular Shopify invoice. You pay monthly, or once a year for two months free: Reef is $790 a year and Deep Sea $1,490. Upgrades take effect as soon as you approve the charge in Shopify, and downgrades at the end of your current billing cycle. There’s no separate account or card to manage.

Every plan. Shore includes AI alt text within its five AI fixes, shared with code fixes; Reef and Deep Sea write as many descriptions as you need, drafted from the product images.

Anytime. Upgrades take effect right away; downgrades, and a switch from yearly to monthly billing, apply at the end of the period you’ve paid for, and you keep your current features until then. Switching to the free Shore plan cancels the paid subscription, your paid features last until the end of the month or year you’ve paid for, and your fix history stays intact.