Email Accessibility Checker

1.3 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability—that's 16% of the global population. In the US alone, 26% of adults have a disability, and 8.1 million have a visual impairment. When your emails aren't accessible, you're not just failing a compliance checkbox—you're making it impossible for a significant portion of your audience to engage with your content. This checker analyzes your HTML against WCAG 2.1 AA standards and flags the issues that matter most in email.

What WCAG Means for Email

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 Level AA is the standard most regulations reference. For email, the most relevant requirements are: color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (18px+ or 14px bold), meaningful alt text on all informational images, minimum font size of 14px for body text, descriptive link text (not "click here" or "read more"), proper heading hierarchy (h1 before h2 before h3), and a logical reading order that makes sense when CSS is disabled. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) went into effect in June 2025, making these requirements legally binding for companies serving EU customers.

The Five Most Common Email Accessibility Failures

In our analysis, the most frequent issues are: 1) Missing alt text—40% of marketing emails have at least one image without alt text. Screen readers either skip the image entirely or read the filename, which is useless. 2) Insufficient contrast—light gray text on white backgrounds is everywhere and fails WCAG's 4.5:1 ratio. 3) Tiny font sizes—footer text at 10-11px is unreadable for many people, not just those with visual impairments. 4) "Click here" links—screen readers often navigate by links alone, and a list of 5 "click here" links tells the user nothing. 5) No semantic structure—using bold text instead of actual heading tags means screen readers can't navigate your email's structure.

Accessibility Improvements That Also Help Everyone

Here's the thing: accessible emails perform better for all subscribers. Larger fonts improve readability on mobile (where 60%+ of emails are opened). High-contrast text is easier to read in bright sunlight. Descriptive link text improves click-through rates because readers understand where they'll go. Alt text ensures your message gets across even when images are blocked (which happens in 40-50% of email clients by default). Accessibility isn't a sacrifice—it's better design.

Integrate Into Your Email Quality Workflow

Run this checker before every campaign send. Pair it with the contrast checker for detailed color analysis, the email word counter to ensure fast loading, and the spam word checker for content quality. Check your email's dark mode preview to verify it looks good on screen readers' typical viewports. A comprehensive pre-send check takes 5 minutes and catches issues that would affect thousands of recipients.