There’s just not enough time for it to make practical sense.
An accessibility audit usually takes us 10 to 15 days to complete. If your organization wanted a subscription for a WCAG 2.1 AA audit for the same digital asset every month, then you would receive nominal value from the audit; there wouldn’t be enough time to take action on the audit (fix the issues) before a new audit would begin.
For this reason, we recommend maxing out at a quarterly audit. At least with every three months, you’ll have some time to finish fixes before the next audit begins. The quarterly route makes sense if your website or other digital asset is constantly changing (e.g., new code edits, new design, new content uploads).
Another possibility here is that you audit the same digital asset but you rotate the scope in phases. For example:
- Phase 1 Audit: 1-10 pages
- Phase 2 Audit: 11-20 pages
- Phase 3 Audit: 21-25 pages
This phased approach allows you to stagger the audits and cycles through pages and screens at a nice interval frequency. By the time you get back to the Phase 1 scope, 9 months have already passed.
When Monthly Maybe Works
There are limited scenarios where monthly audit-like activities could be justified, but these aren’t traditional full audits. Instead, consider these alternatives:
Mini Audits: Audits focusing on 2-3 pages rather than comprehensive site evaluation. These typically cost $250-$500 and take 1-2 days.
Settlement Reporting: For organizations working through ADA settlement agreements with specific reporting requirements, monthly audits maybe mandated. Check to see if it’s an audit or an automated scan that’s required. Scans are much, much easier (and much more limited).
High-traffic updates: If you’re launching major new features monthly, targeted audits of those specific components or pages can yield tremendous value and resolve accessibility issues immediately.
The bottom line remains the same: there’s simply not enough time for monthly comprehensive audits to provide practical value. Your team needs adequate time to implement fixes correctly, validate the changes, and see meaningful progress toward WCAG conformance. Quarterly audits or phased approaches respect this reality while maintaining appropriate oversight of your accessibility efforts.
And quarterly is still an accelerated pace. Semi-annual or annual audits work really well depending on your situation.
Do you need help with an audit? We’d love to help. Just send us a message and we’ll be right with you.
