ADA, with finding concentration on the public surface.

SaaS accessibility leads ship the audit-grade artifact from a different surface than ecommerce does — split across two pages the buyer reads before any auth wall: the marketing site (hero images, pricing CTA, alt-text) and the developer docs portal the engineering buyer navigates next (sidebar disclosure trees on grouped API sections). The remediation posture is the same — WCAG 2.2 + EN 301 549, the pull request as the audit-grade artifact — but the finding concentration now sits where the ADA demand letter reads, on the public surface.

See the worked alt-text + link-purpose PR Start a free WCAG scan

Why this vertical, this quarter

Three pressure points shape the run.

SaaS product accessibility reads from the public-facing surface, split across two pages: the marketing site a buyer reads first (hero image, pricing CTA, alt-text) and the developer docs portal the engineering buyer navigates next (sidebar disclosure-tree on grouped API sections). The ADA demand-letter factory has noticed both surfaces.

ADA demand letters — public-surface scope
SaaS plaintiffs now target the marketing hero CTA, the public docs-portal sidebar tree, and the docs-portal table-of-contents — the surfaces the engineering buyer navigates before any login. Findings concentrate on the public-facing surface where the buyer sits, not on a logged-in product form the audit never reaches.
Settlement band — per SaaS tenant
Per-tenant settlement ranges cluster between roughly $5K and $90K, with volume discounts when the demand-letter factory targets a category. The defense is the audit-grade pull request — a redacted diff, an axe-core diagnostic, a WCAG 2.2 SC, an EN 301 549 clause.
Two surfaces, one finding concentration
The densest finding concentration splits across two SaaS-facing pages: the marketing page (hero image alt-text, pricing-CTA wrapping link) and the developer docs portal (sidebar disclosure-tree on grouped API sections). The locator bar lives on the public surface — before any auth wall — so the buyer reads it first.

A worked redacted PR

One finding, one redacted pull request, end to end.

Below is a redacted PR diff for a SaaS marketing-page <Hero> — a hero <Image> is wrapped in a <Link> that routes to the signup page, but ships without alt on the image and without a link-purpose label, so an AT user hears a destination URL with no destination context and a silent image. Identifiers are redacted; the rule spans any marketing-page hero whose CTA is an image-only link.

axe-core finding

serious

Rule: image-alt
Impacted surface: SaaS marketing page hero — Start your trial CTA wrapped around a hero image
Surface type: Public marketing-page hero (buyer-facing, unauthenticated)
Description: The hero <Image> on the marketing page renders without an alt attribute; it is wrapped in a <Link href="/signup"> with no other accessible name. An AT user traversing the hero hears a bare destination URL with no purpose and a silent image — failing SC 1.1.1 (non-text content needs a text alternative) and SC 2.4.4 (link purpose must be determinable from the link text in its context), equivalent to EN 301 549 §9.1.1.1 + §9.2.4.4.

app/(marketing)/_components/hero.tsx:1–32JSX diff

before

/* app/(marketing)/_components/hero.tsx */
import Image from "next/image";
import Link from "next/link";

export function Hero() {
  return (
    <section aria-labelledby="hero-heading">
      <Link href="/signup" className="block">
        <Image
          src="/marketing/hero-trial.png"
          width={1200}
          height={600}
          priority
        />
      </Link>
    </section>
  );
}

after

/* app/(marketing)/_components/hero.tsx */
import Image from "next/image";
import Link from "next/link";

export function Hero() {
  return (
    <section aria-labelledby="hero-heading">
      <Link
        href="/signup"
        aria-label="Start your trial — opens the signup page"
        className="block focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-brand-700"
      >
        <Image
          src="/marketing/hero-trial.png"
          width={1200}
          height={600}
          priority
          alt="Start your trial — opens the signup page"
        />
      </Link>
    </section>
  );
}

WCAG1.1.1(level A)
WCAG2.4.4(level A)
EN 301 549§9.1.1.1
EN 301 549§9.2.4.4
axe-coreimage-alt

Run a Sigil pilot

Stop filing ADA exceptions. File a pull request.

The free WCAG scan is one URL. The pilot files the same redacted PR against your own repository on every deploy — the audit-grade artifact your counsel, your product team, and your accessibility lead all read from the same source across the SaaS marketing page (hero alt-text + pricing CTA), the developer docs portal, and the sidebar disclosure-tree the run concentrates on.

Request early access See pricing tiers

EAA inquiry response · source-level answer

When the regulator asks how a SaaS marketing page preserves a text alternative on its hero image and a link purpose on the wrapping Start your trial CTA, the same diff above is what gets read back. In the registration language a 2025 EAA questionnaire row expects:

Q: How does the marketing-page hero <Image> wrapped in a <Link> satisfy non-text-content + link-purpose on the SaaS surface?
A: the hero <Image> carries an alt mirroring the link purpose; the wrapping <Link> carries an aria-label with the same text, and a visible focus ring on keyboard activation. The AT virtual cursor reads a single accessible name from the link element rather than a destination URL with no context, so the sighted and AT traversal match. EN 301 549 §9.1.1.1 + §9.2.4.4, mapped to WCAG 2.2 SC 1.1.1 + SC 2.4.4, are met at the source — the diff is the artifact, committed to the project repository alongside the merge.

The same source-level shape is traversed end-to-end on /integrations/github, and surfaces as a recurring fix class on /changelog — the audit-grade record procurement reads from the same source as the regulator request.