Section 508 compliance, for people who sell software
Section 508 is a US procurement rule, not a certification scheme. It binds federal agencies, and it reaches you through what they are allowed to buy.
What the law actually says
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires US federal agencies to make the information and communication technology they develop, procure, maintain or use accessible to people with disabilities. The obligation sits on the agency. You are affected because an agency that cannot show the technology is accessible is not permitted to buy it.
The Revised Section 508 Standards, in force since 2018, incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA by reference for web content and software. Most buyers now ask against WCAG 2.1, which is a superset, so a WCAG 2.1 AA evaluation satisfies a Section 508 request with room to spare.
What compliance means for a vendor
There is no certificate and no register. Nobody audits you and stamps you compliant; there is no body that could. What exists is documentation: you state, criterion by criterion, how your product conforms, and you sign it. That document is the ACR.
This surprises people who arrive expecting something like SOC 2. There is no equivalent process here. The entire mechanism is a report that someone is willing to put their name to.
“No, there is no VPAT certification.”
Information Technology Industry Council, publisher of the VPAT template
Who else this reaches
Section 508 binds federal agencies only, but the language travels. Most US states run their own parallel rules for state purchasing. Universities and school districts inherit it through federal funding conditions and through their own settlements. By the time it reaches a vendor questionnaire at a mid-market enterprise, the clause has usually been copied several times and nobody in the room can say where it came from — but the box still has to be filled.
What we deliver against it
A Section 508 ACR covering all fifty WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA criteria, each with a conformance level and a written explanation, evaluated across every distinct template of your product, with every failure verified by hand before it is written down. $1,200, five business days. What that includes.
- What the report itself looks likeThe four conformance levels and why the explanations are the part that gets read.
- What a Section 508 report costs$1,200, five business days, and what sits inside that.