The Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't mention websites or alt text by name. But for over a decade, federal courts have ruled that the ADA covers commercial websites, and the de facto compliance standard plaintiffs cite is WCAG 2.1 (or 2.2) AA. Missing alt text is one of the most commonly named violations.

Here's what the law actually requires for images, what changed under the 2024 DOJ rule, and how to make your site no longer worth suing over.

Key Takeaways

• Title III ADA covers commercial websites; courts have consistently ruled this since the 2000s.
• The 2024 DOJ rule (Title II) requires public entities (state and local governments) to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Title III private-sector enforcement still relies on case law.
• Missing alt text is among the top violations cited in ADA web complaints.
• Settlement amounts vary widely; disclosed cases and law-firm materials suggest typical resolutions land in the low-to-mid five figures plus legal fees.
• You can dramatically reduce risk with automated audits + bulk alt text generation.

The ADA and the Web

The ADA passed in 1990, before the modern web existed. Title III prohibits discrimination by "places of public accommodation," meaning businesses open to the public. For the past two decades, U.S. circuit courts have largely ruled that commercial websites count as places of public accommodation, especially when they connect to a physical business. The Ninth Circuit's Robles v. Domino's (2019) is the most-cited precedent.

What does that mean in practice? Plaintiffs can sue companies for inaccessible websites, and courts will hear the case. The standard the courts apply, even though the ADA itself doesn't name it, is WCAG 2.1 (and increasingly 2.2) AA.

The 2024 DOJ Rule

In April 2024, the Department of Justice finalized a Title II rule requiring state and local government websites and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Compliance deadlines run from 2026 to 2027 depending on entity size. This rule applies only to government, not private companies, but it cements WCAG 2.1 AA as the federal compliance benchmark.

For private companies, the practical effect is reinforcing what was already true: WCAG 2.1 (or 2.2) AA is the standard plaintiffs and courts use. SC 1.1.1 (alt text on non-text content) is a Level A criterion, so it's required at every WCAG conformance level.

For the 1.1.1 requirements specifically, see WCAG Alt Text Guide.

ADA Web Lawsuit Volume

According to industry trackers like UsableNet's annual digital accessibility lawsuit report, federal ADA web lawsuit filings have run in the low-thousands per year for several years, with a small number of serial plaintiffs filing dozens of cases each. Most cases settle out of court. Settlements typically include some combination of:

• A monetary payment to plaintiff and attorney (low-to-mid five figures is common, but specific amounts are usually confidential)
• A consent decree requiring WCAG 2.1 AA compliance within a defined window
• Ongoing third-party monitoring
• Internal accessibility training requirements

Total exposure (settlement plus remediation plus monitoring) varies significantly with site size and existing compliance state. For ecommerce and large content sites, remediation cost dominates.

What Makes a Site a Target

Plaintiffs' firms run automated scans against thousands of sites looking for easy violations. Missing alt text is the single most common violation they find. It's trivial to detect at scale. If your site has hundreds of images without alt text, you're flagged.

Other quick-detection violations: missing form labels, missing skip-navigation links, color-contrast failures. But alt text is the highest-volume issue because images are the most numerous element on most sites.

How to Comply (For Images)

Three-step playbook:

Step 1: Audit your site

Run an automated scan to count missing alts. AltText.ai's free crawl analyzer scans up to 25 pages and shows you the count. Pair with axe DevTools or WAVE for deeper page-by-page audits.

Step 2: Triage decorative vs informative

Images that don't add information (decorative borders, stylistic patterns, icons paired with visible labels) get alt="". Everything else gets a real description. See decorative images guide.

Step 3: Generate descriptions at scale

For ecommerce stores with thousands of product images, manual alt text doesn't scale. Use an AI generator with human review for the catalog. AltText.ai handles bulk generation in 130+ languages and writes descriptions back to your CMS via direct integrations with WordPress, Shopify, and others.

Document Your Compliance Effort

If you receive a demand letter, the question becomes: were you making a good-faith effort? Audit logs, plugin install records, and remediation timelines support a defense. Automated alt text generation provides a paper trail showing when each image was processed.

Related

• WCAG Alt Text Guide (2026): the underlying technical standard
• Section 508 Alt Text Requirements: federal contractor variant
• Screen Reader Alt Text: what assistive tech actually does with your alt
• What Is Alt Text?: the foundational definition