You got an ADA demand letter. Here's what to do in the next 48 hours.
Calm action beats panic. We'll run a full audit, give you a documented fix trail, and help you prepare a defensible record. Starting at $499.
Request priority turnaround Small Site: 72 hours · Full Site: 1 week · demand-letter cases move to the front of our queue
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The envelope was certified. Inside was a letter you did not expect, from a firm you have never heard of, on behalf of a plaintiff you will never meet. It used vocabulary you had to look up — Title III, ADAAG, WCAG, alleged barriers — and somewhere in the third paragraph there was a dollar figure and a response deadline. Your hands did a thing. You put the letter down and picked up your phone and started typing.
First thing, and we mean this: you're probably going to be okay. The vast majority of these letters settle without going to court. Typical settlement figures in the US for small-business ADA web accessibility claims land somewhere in the $5,000 to $20,000 range, most of which is plaintiff's attorney fees rather than damages. The underlying remediation work — the actual accessibility fixes — is almost always cheaper than the legal costs of ignoring it. We wrote the financial detail up in how much an ADA lawsuit actually costs a small business if you want the numbers spelled out.
The correct sequence is boring and it is not complicated. Do not respond to the letter yourself, not even to say "we're working on it" — let a lawyer handle the communication. Get a real accessibility audit so that your lawyer has a documented remediation record to work with. Use the audit output to negotiate a settlement or to demonstrate good-faith remediation, which is the standard defense pattern that works. Fix what the audit finds, on whatever timeline is reasonable for the scope of work. Keep records of every change.
What the plaintiff's firm is looking for is a soft target with no paper trail. A documented audit plus a remediation timeline is what turns you from a soft target into a nuisance case, which is what gets settlements smaller and faster. We cannot be your lawyer. What we can be is your evidence.
What you actually get
Small Site Audit ($499) is the minimum useful response for most demand-letter cases: full WCAG 2.1 AA sweep, manual screen reader walkthrough, written report with severity and effort grouping, 72-hour turnaround. Full Site Audit ($1,500) is the right call if your site is larger than 50 pages or if your attorney has asked specifically for broader coverage; it includes a 30-minute handoff call and covers up to 500 pages against both WCAG 2.1 AA and 2.2 AA.
Either tier produces a document your attorney can attach to negotiation correspondence. We can deliver in PDF, in a format suited for exhibit attachments, or as a clean Word document — whatever your counsel asks for.
Questions demand-letter clients ask us
Should I respond to the letter myself?
Not without legal advice, no. Even a friendly "we're working on it" reply can be used against you later. Talk to a lawyer first, then have the lawyer respond. The audit we produce gives your attorney something concrete to work with — a documented baseline and a remediation plan — instead of having them negotiate blind.
How fast can you turn this around?
Small Site Audit is 72 hours from the moment you submit payment and site details. Full Site Audit is one week. Demand-letter cases move to the front of our queue, so if you submit before noon on a weekday we typically have the scan running within a few hours. If your deadline is tighter than 72 hours, tell us in the form and we'll confirm whether we can meet it before you pay.
Will my audit actually help in negotiation or court?
It creates a documented remediation record, which is the accepted defense pattern for ADA web accessibility claims. Courts and plaintiffs' firms both recognize that good-faith remediation with a professional audit trail reduces the claim's leverage. We are not your lawyer — we cannot promise any specific legal outcome — and any lawyer worth hiring will tell you the same thing. What we can promise is that the report is the kind of evidence your attorney can actually use.
What if I can't fix everything before the deadline?
You almost certainly cannot. Almost nobody can. That is okay. The defensible position is documented good-faith remediation, not perfection. Fix the critical findings first, document when each fix shipped, and keep the report as proof of the plan. A timeline of work-in-progress fixes is far more defensible than a rushed half-fix plus silence.
Do you work directly with my lawyer?
Yes. If your attorney wants the report in a specific format, delivered to them directly, or accompanied by a summary memo, we'll do that at no extra cost. Put their email in the form and we'll coordinate. We've handed reports to attorneys before and we know the format they want.
Useful reading right now
How much an ADA lawsuit actually costs a small business is the financial deep-dive — real settlement ranges, where the money goes, and why the remediation work is almost always the cheaper path. If you've been awake for 20 hours reading legal blogs, read that one next.
Accessibe alternatives that actually work is relevant because roughly half the demand-letter clients we see already had an overlay widget installed at the time of the claim. The widget was not a defense. A real audit is.
Request priority turnaround
Tell us your site, your deadline, and whether you have a lawyer involved. We'll reply within the business day with a confirmation and a payment link. If your deadline is shorter than 72 hours, say so in the form and we'll confirm whether we can meet it before you pay anything.
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