WAVE vs Level Access

Feature checklists rarely decide anything. What decides it is the pricing metric, who has to write the tests, and which limitation you can live with.

WAVELevel Access

Entry price

From $0.04 per page (API, indicative)

Free tier

Quote on request

Quote only

What drives the bill

The metric that actually scales your invoice.

Free for interactive use; the API is priced per page for bulk scanning.

Enterprise contracts combining platform licence with audit and advisory services.

Free tier

Browser extension and single-page online checker are free.

No free tier.

Open source

Self-hostable

No-code authoring

Languages

Codeless

JavaScriptCodeless

Platforms

Web

WebiOSAndroidDesktop

Fits teams

Solo / side projectStartupScale-up / mid-marketEnterprise

Enterprise

Adoption

Widely used

WebAIM (Utah State University) · since 2001

Established

Level Access · since 1997

Strengths

The in-page visual overlay teaches non-specialists what is wrong far better than a list.
Free for everyday developer and designer use.
WebAIM's guidance behind each rule is authoritative and clear.

Human expert audits and assistive-technology user testing alongside the tooling.
Legal and VPAT support for organisations under compliance pressure.
Covers web, mobile and desktop applications.

Limitations

Manual, page-by-page — not a CI tool.
Alerts require human judgement, so counts are not directly comparable between pages.
No issue tracking or programme management.

Expensive, services-heavy engagement model.
The UserWay overlay heritage is contentious — automated overlays are widely criticised by accessibility practitioners.
Not a self-serve developer tool.

Best for

Designers and developers learning accessibility, and quick manual spot checks.

Organisations facing accessibility litigation or formal procurement requirements.

Pricing last reviewed August 2026 and is indicative only — confirm on each vendor’s own page.