Manifesto product
Turning an Accessibility Problem Into a Product
Eighteen months ago we rolled out our accessibility audit. Last year it made £106,000. It does two things at once: makes our clients' websites genuinely more accessible, and creates sustained work and revenue for the team. Here's how it came together.
Challenge
New legislation in 2018 required public sector websites to meet WCAG AA compliance. Most agencies treated accessibility as a one-off compliance exercise rather than a repeatable capability, which meant every audit started from scratch and knowledge stayed locked in individual heads. We needed something that scaled: consistent, testable, and built to improve over time rather than a single deliverable per client.
Solution
I built the foundation before the product: internal training on assistive technology and testing, then a network of accessibility champions across every discipline, so client conversations about compliance level happened early and knowledgeably.
The audit itself is built on a structural model, not a manual one. A spreadsheet covering every WCAG criterion tests components rather than pages, so a single fix inherits across every instance of that component sitewide. That's the core mechanic that makes it a product rather than a service: fix once, scale everywhere. Around that we built a repeatable process, tailored content per client, and a backlog that feeds continuous improvement rather than ending at the audit.
Since launch, the product line has grown. A training offering for client teams now sits alongside the audit, giving clients the skills to catch issues themselves rather than relying on us to find them, and creating a second revenue stream from the same core capability.
Impact
Three client sites placed in Silktide's top ten most accessible charity websites, seven in the top twenty. The audit made £106,000 last year, eighteen months after launch, with the training offering extending its reach further. The work also led to me joining BIMA 100's Class of 2025 as Champion for Change, and to a seat on the BIMA Inclusion Council.
Impact
10
clients who now have more accessible websites as a result of the audit and the fixes we made
£106k
Additional revenue made in 2025
4
clients in Silktides top 10 charities and 7 total in the top 20. June 2026
3
Talks at different events. Acquia Engage, Umbradd and BIMA Round tables.