ADA Compliance and Software Procurement: What Your Organization Needs to Know

What the ADA Requires from Software Purchasers

Title II of the ADA applies to state and local government entities including public universities, school districts, and municipal agencies. Title III applies to places of public accommodation, which courts have increasingly interpreted to include websites and digital services.

Under both titles, organizations are required to ensure that the programs and services they offer, including through third-party software, are accessible to people with disabilities. You cannot purchase an inaccessible tool and disclaim responsibility because the vendor built it. Software procurement decisions are ADA compliance decisions.

Section 508 and Its Relationship to the ADA

For federal agencies and organizations that receive federal funding, Section 508 adds a separate explicit requirement. Section 508 is implemented through the ICT Accessibility Standards, which reference WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical benchmark. For most covered organizations, WCAG 2.1 AA conformance is what vendor software must be evaluated against.

What Due Diligence Looks Like in Practice

The primary mechanism for vendor accessibility due diligence is VPAT review. Requesting and reviewing a VPAT before contract execution is the baseline expectation for any organization with ADA or Section 508 obligations.

But requesting a VPAT is not the same as reviewing it. Due diligence requires evaluating the VPAT for completeness, specificity, and recency. An incomplete VPAT or one with vague language does not constitute evidence of due diligence. Organizations that are serious about ADA compliance in procurement also document their reviews.

Common Legal Risks in Software Procurement

The most common risk pattern: an organization purchases a tool, a user with a disability encounters an accessibility barrier, they file a complaint, and the organization cannot demonstrate it performed any accessibility review before signing the contract.

A secondary risk is procurement without ongoing review. A third risk is inconsistency: some vendors get rigorous VPAT review and others get none. This inconsistency suggests accessibility review is ad hoc rather than systematic, which is itself a liability.

Building a Scalable Compliance Process

Organizations that manage ADA compliance in procurement most effectively treat it as a system rather than a series of individual judgments. They require VPATs at the RFP stage, use a scoring rubric, document findings, include accessibility commitments in contract language, and re-evaluate at each renewal.

Inclusive Digital VPAT Evaluator automates the scoring of vendor VPATs against WCAG 2.1 criteria and produces an audit-ready report in seconds. It was designed specifically for ADA coordinators, procurement officers, and compliance teams that need to evaluate vendor accessibility at scale without sacrificing rigor.