Most “instant accessibility” products are overlays — a script you paste into your site that sits on top of it and claims to fix accessibility automatically. Perceva is not one, and the reason is not a marketing position. It is what the public record shows about how well that approach works.
We are not lawyers, and nothing on this page is legal advice or a statement about your situation. What follows is a description of documented events, with links, so you can read the sources yourself.
What an overlay is
An overlay is JavaScript. You add a snippet to your site; the script loads in your visitors’ browsers and attempts two things at once:
- A widget — a floating accessibility button that opens a panel of toggles: bigger text, higher contrast, a “screen reader mode”, a dyslexia-friendly font.
- Automated repair — the script scans the page as it loads and tries to patch problems on the fly: inferring alt text for images, adding ARIA attributes, adjusting contrast.
Neither part changes your source code. Remove the script and the site is exactly as inaccessible as it was before.
What the record shows
1. The FTC ordered an overlay vendor to pay $1 million over its compliance claims
On 3 January 2025 the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement requiring accessiBe Inc. and accessiBe Ltd. to pay $1,000,000 over its marketing of accessWidget, its overlay product (FTC press release, 3 January 2025).
The FTC’s complaint alleged that accessiBe misrepresented the ability of its AI-powered tool to make any website meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In the Commission’s words, the claims were “false, misleading, or unsubstantiated”. A second count concerned marketing rather than the product: the FTC alleged the company presented third-party articles and reviews as if they were independent opinions by impartial authors, without disclosing its material connections to those reviewers.
The order bars accessiBe from representing that its automated products can make any website WCAG-compliant, or can ensure continued compliance with WCAG over time, unless it has evidence to support the claim. The Commission approved the order as final on 22 April 2025, by a 3-0 vote, after a public comment period (FTC press release, 22 April 2025).
Two things are worth reading carefully in that. First, the regulator did not object to the existence of the product — it objected to a specific claim about what automation can achieve. Second, the prohibition is conditional: the company may make the claim again if it has the evidence. It has not been established that it does.
2. More than a thousand accessibility practitioners and disabled users have signed a statement that full compliance cannot be achieved with an overlay
The Overlay Fact Sheet is a public document describing what overlay products can and cannot do. It states that while an overlay may improve conformance with a handful of provisions in the major accessibility standards, full compliance cannot be achieved with an overlay. It states specifically that automated application of text alternatives for images is not reliable, that automated repair of form labels, error handling and focus control is not reliable, and that automated repair of keyboard access is not reliable.
Its signatories describe themselves as people who are experts in the field and have spent their careers on accessibility, or who are end users with disabilities, or both. As of 1 September 2026 the signatory list on the fact sheet numbered 1,031 names. The list is open and grows over time, so check the page for the current figure rather than quoting ours.
The signatories also make a pledge, which is the part that matters most for anyone choosing a vendor: they undertake never to advocate, recommend, or integrate an overlay that markets itself as providing automated compliance with laws or standards.
3. Sites that use overlays are still being sued
UsableNet, a digital accessibility company, reads the actual complaints filed in federal and key state courts each year and publishes the counts. In its analysis of 2025 filings, more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits were filed across federal and state courts (UsableNet, ADA web lawsuit trends).
On overlays specifically, UsableNet reports that accessibility widgets appear in complaints frequently — but as a subject of the complaint, not as a defence. Its monthly data shows no meaningful reduction in lawsuits against widget users across 2025, with volume peaking above 150 cases in a single month. An increasing number of filings referenced an accessibility widget while alleging that code-level barriers remained unresolved, and some alleged that the widget itself interfered with screen readers.
We are quoting one organisation’s count of court filings. It is the most systematic public count we could find and we are naming it rather than laundering it into “studies show”. If you want a second read, the filings themselves are public.
What Perceva does instead
We scan your actual code, tell you exactly what is wrong and where, give you the fix, and keep checking as your site changes.
- Real code-level scanning, built on axe-core, the open-source engine developers already trust — run against the WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA rule sets. See our methodology for exactly what that covers.
- Plain-English explanations, not W3C jargon.
- A copy-paste fix for every issue we have written up.
- Continuous monitoring the moment it ships — your site changes every week; one scan isn’t enough. It is not running yet, and we are not going to describe it as though it were on the page where we criticise a company for exactly that.
- No script slowing your site down. Nothing of ours runs in your visitors’ browsers.
- No claims we can’t stand behind. Automated testing finds roughly half of accessibility issues. The rest need a human. We say so on every report.
The difference is where the fix lives. An overlay’s repairs exist only while a third party’s script is loading and working. A code fix is in your repository, survives the vendor, and is what someone reviewing your site actually sees.
If you already have an overlay installed
We are not going to tell you to rip it out this afternoon, and we have an obvious commercial interest, so weigh this accordingly.
A reasonable sequence looks like: get a code-level picture of what is actually broken underneath the script; fix the highest-impact issues in your source; check whether the overlay is itself creating problems for keyboard and screen reader users, which is a human test, not an automated one; and only then decide whether the widget is still earning its subscription. What you should not do is treat an installed overlay as evidence that the underlying work is done — that is precisely the assumption the sources above address.
Perceva is not affiliated with any overlay vendor.
Sources
Every source below was fetched and read while this page was drafted.
| Source | What it confirms |
|---|---|
| FTC press release, 3 Jan 2025 | accessiBe Inc./Ltd. to pay $1,000,000; complaint alleged accessWidget did not make all user websites WCAG-compliant and that the claims were false, misleading, or unsubstantiated; separate count on undisclosed connections to reviewers. |
| FTC press release, 22 Apr 2025 | Final consent order approved 3-0 on 22 April 2025; bars representing that its automated products can make any website WCAG-compliant or ensure continued compliance over time, absent supporting evidence. |
| Overlay Fact Sheet | States full compliance cannot be achieved with an overlay; automated alt text, form repair and keyboard repair are not reliable; signatory list numbered 1,031 on 1 September 2026; signatories pledge not to recommend overlays marketed as automated compliance. |
| UsableNet, ADA web lawsuit trends | More than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits filed in 2025; no meaningful monthly reduction in lawsuits against widget users; peak above 150 cases in a single month. |
| axe-core | The engine Perceva runs; rules for WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 at levels A, AA and AAA plus best practices. |
Related
- How we scan, and what a scan can’t tell you
- Do accessibility overlays actually work? What the evidence shows
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