The more prospective clients we talk to, the more we hear the same story:
“We’ve never been asked for a VPAT before, but now they won’t consider our product/service unless we have a VPAT.”
If you’re selling into educational institutions, the days of your product or service winning a contract without a VPAT/ACR are numbered — and this isn’t just in the United States, it’s worldwide.
This trend isn’t going away — if you’re selling to schools, accessibility is now part of the procurement process. In 2026, it will be virtually impossible to sell to multiple colleges or universities without having an ACR.
The Quick Story on VPATs
VPAT stands for Voluntary Product Accessibility Template. This is a template you fill in to account for the accessibility of your product or service.
Once filled in and completed, the VPAT becomes an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). Although no one is actually requesting a VPAT (they’d be asking for an empty template), the two terms are used interchangeably in the marketplace.
An ACR is like a quick report card of your product or service’s accessibility. Procurement agents use the ACR to quickly assess your product’s accessibility and compare it with the accessibility of other products.
Check the Box or Accessibility Matters
Some purchasers just ask for a VPAT because they need to check the box. It’s not about whether or not your product or service is accessible, it’s about having the document because the document is necessary as a procedural step.
If this is the case, accessibility issues shouldn’t stop you from winning the contract.
These check the box situations arise when your product or service is only for one or a few people and/or serves a limited purpose.
However, most of the time accessibility will matter. If your product or service is for students, you can guarantee this will be the case. This means you’ll want to fix as many issues as possible so you have a cleaner ACR.
The cleaner your ACR, the better chance you have of passing the accessibility checkpoint.
Of course, it’s not like having perfect accessibility automatically means you win the purchase (your product still needs to serve the school’s purpose for buying it), but accessibility is one bullet point of several in consideration and if you pass with flying colors, that bodes really well for you.
Accessibility Issues
Sometimes, even after your team fixes issues, a few issues remain outstanding.
This could be a deal breaker, but it could also just be a consideration. Here are four ways products with accessibility issues can still win:
- Your product’s accessibility is still better than the competition
- The accessibility issues don’t create a barrier to access
- The accessibility issues are in a part of the product the buyer won’t use
- The totality of your product’s value overcomes the competition, even with more issues
Summary
Many of our clients were weighing whether or not to go through with VPAT services (one buyer might not justify the cost), but when we let them know this will very likely come up again, most have decided to move forward and not lose the current contract at hand.
VPAT Service
If you need help with a VPAT/ACR, we’re happy to help. Just send us a message below or on our contact page and we’ll be right with you.
