Common Accessibility Procurement Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

Why Accessibility Procurement Goes Wrong

Organizations that get accessibility procurement wrong are rarely doing so out of indifference. More often, the problem is process — a VPAT review checklist that was written years ago, a single coordinator carrying too much, or a procurement team that received accessibility training once and has not had it updated since. The result is a set of common mistakes that show up repeatedly across industries, and that create real legal and reputational exposure when they are not caught early.

Mistake 1: Accepting Any VPAT as Sufficient

A VPAT is a self-reported document. There is no external body that verifies its accuracy. Vendors can — and sometimes do — submit VPATs that overstate conformance, leave criteria blank, or use vague language that is technically non-committal. Accepting a VPAT without evaluating its quality is not due diligence. It is documentation theater.

What to do instead: Evaluate the VPAT for completeness (are all applicable WCAG 2.1 A and AA criteria addressed?), specificity (do the remarks explain actual product behavior?), and recency (was this written in the last 12 months?). A VPAT that fails any of these checks should be sent back to the vendor with specific questions before the procurement moves forward.

Mistake 2: Reviewing the VPAT Too Late in the Process

Many procurement teams request a VPAT only after a vendor has already been selected — often as a final sign-off step before contract execution. By that point, the organization has already invested time and political capital in the choice, and there is enormous pressure to find a way to make the VPAT acceptable rather than to make a different purchasing decision.

What to do instead: Require the VPAT at the RFP or demo stage, before evaluation begins. This filters out vendors who have not done the work and positions accessibility as a procurement criterion rather than a compliance afterthought.

Mistake 3: Not Documenting the Review

If an accessibility complaint or OCR investigation arises after procurement, your organization needs to demonstrate that it performed due diligence. A verbal conversation with a vendor about their accessibility roadmap does not constitute documentation. Neither does an email that says "we reviewed the VPAT and it looks fine."

What to do instead: Produce a written record of your VPAT evaluation that notes what was reviewed, what criteria were assessed, what gaps were identified, and what the vendor committed to in response. This documentation is what protects your organization if the relationship with a vendor becomes contentious later.

Mistake 4: Not Revisiting VPATs at Renewal

Accessibility conformance is not static. A product that met WCAG 2.1 AA at the time of initial procurement may have regressed after a major update, or a vendor that was making progress on remediation may have deprioritized it after the contract was signed. Treating procurement-time VPAT review as a permanent assessment is a mistake.

What to do instead: Include VPAT re-submission as a contract renewal condition and schedule a review of each vendor's current VPAT at least 90 days before renewal. This gives you time to negotiate remediation commitments or make alternative procurement decisions if conformance has declined.

Mistake 5: Relying on One Person to Carry the Process

In many organizations, VPAT review falls to a single accessibility coordinator who is also responsible for internal audits, user testing, developer training, and a dozen other priorities. When that person leaves, takes leave, or gets overwhelmed, the process stops — and procurement decisions start moving forward without any accessibility review at all.

What to do instead: Build processes that do not depend on individual expertise. Inclusive Digital VPAT Evaluator automates the scoring and evaluation of vendor VPATs so that any member of a procurement team can produce a consistent, defensible review in seconds — regardless of their level of accessibility expertise. The process becomes institutional rather than personal.

Getting Accessibility Procurement Right

The organizations that get this right treat accessibility procurement not as a legal checkbox but as a genuine filter for vendor quality. They request VPATs early, evaluate them rigorously, document their findings, revisit them at renewal, and build processes that scale beyond any single individual. The result is a vendor portfolio that creates fewer barriers, fewer complaints, and far less legal exposure.