How to Sell Accessibility Audits to Shopify Clients

Why Accessibility “Suddenly” Matters

1. Larger Audience

Over 1 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability — visual, motor, cognitive, or age-related.

Most of them shop online. But when a store has poor contrast, missing labels, or no keyboard navigation, they might just leave. Silently. No complaint, no support ticket. Just gone.

So accessibility directly expands your addressable market.

2. SEO & Technical Quality (nice to have)

Accessible sites use clean structure, semantic HTML, and proper labeling.

Those same principles improve crawlability, usability, and overall site quality.

Accessibility often overlaps with strong SEO fundamentals.

3. Legal & Financial Risk (urgent)

In multiple regions, online stores fall under accessibility laws like:

Law firms and advocacy groups often use automated scanning tools to identify accessibility issues, then send demand letters with settlement requests (commonly a few thousand to ~$10k+).

Merchants often end up paying the settlement to avoid:

Learn Delivery / Accessibility Fundamentals

Before selling anything, we need to learn how to deliver the service.

This includes:

A good place to start is the accessibility training inside Shopify Academy, that we co-created.

It covers practical implementation inside Shopify themes and walks through common accessibility mistakes developers make.

You’ll also find recommended tools for auditing existing sites.

→ Watch the Shopify Academy Accessibility Training

Beyond that, you can find various WCAG checklists online and use them to build your own branded audit templates and reporting framework.

Package and Sell to Clients

Now let’s turn accessibility into an offer.

Start with what fits your current skill level and adjust pricing so that you feel comfortable.

How to Sell This

Two paths, depending on where you are.

1. Existing Clients (Easiest)

Run a free quick scan on their store.

Send them the results.

Don’t pitch yet. Just share:

Attach 2–3 screenshots of real issues. Let the results do the talking.

If they show interest, make the offer.

Let them know you’ve been learning about accessibility and offer a pilot project.

Best timing: during a redesign, migration, or after they mention legal concerns.

2. New Clients (more difficult, but also possible)

Build your audit portfolio.

Audit 2–3 stores. Document everything. Create a sample PDF report you can show new prospects.

(Ideally focus on one niche in the beginning. If you show new clients a case study similar to their store, your chances are much better.)

Scan stores in your niche. If you find clear issues, reach out and show them.

In parallel: Post about it

Create content showing real accessibility issues you’ve found (anonymized).

Break down what’s wrong, why it matters, and how to fix it.

This does two things:

Long term: SEO & paid ads

Accessibility is a topic store owners actively search for.

Try to rank for SEO keywords or bid using paid ads.

This is not beginner friendly though — and becomes much easier once you have a track record, can handle client objections, and have really strong case studies.