accessiBe vs UserWay vs AudioEye: 2026 Head-to-Head Comparison [Master Table]

Last updated: September 3, 2026

accessiBe, UserWay, and AudioEye are the three most searched-for accessibility widget brands, and they differ more in packaging than in architecture: accessiBe sells an AI-powered overlay priced by site traffic, UserWay sells a freemium widget now owned by Level Access, and AudioEye is a publicly traded company pairing automation with human experts. All three deliver their fixes through JavaScript at page load rather than editing a site's source code.

Key numbers: Plaintiffs filed 3,117 federal website accessibility lawsuits in 2025, up 27% from 2024, per Seyfarth Shaw's ADA Title III tracking. Based on TestParty's analysis of Court Listener public records, 1,000+ businesses with accessibility widgets installed were named in lawsuits in 2024, and 456 more in H1 2025. In April 2025, the FTC finalized a $1 million order and 20-year consent order against accessiBe specifically. AudioEye reported roughly 127,000 customers and $41.2M in annual recurring revenue as of Q1 2026 (company earnings release).

TestParty competes in this market. This comparison uses public information and cited sources; evaluate all options against your own requirements.

What criteria matter when comparing accessiBe, UserWay, and AudioEye?

Compare the three vendors on five criteria: what the product actually changes, how much human expertise is included, pricing model and transparency, company profile and accountability, and the documented track record — enforcement actions and litigation outcomes included.

1. What it changes. A browser-layer adjustment, a JavaScript-delivered fix, or an edit to your source files — this single question separates the whole market, as our comparison of 15 web accessibility tools across five categories shows.
2. Human expertise. Automated tooling detects roughly 60–70% of WCAG issues at best (TestParty detection data); what covers the rest?
3. Pricing model. Traffic-tiered, freemium, or plan-tiered — and whether numbers are published at all.
4. Company profile. Private, private-equity-owned, or publicly traded changes what you can verify.
5. Track record. Regulatory actions, practitioner criticism, and what court records show about widget-equipped defendants.

Every criterion above can be checked from primary sources: FTC orders on ftc.gov, AudioEye's financials in its SEC filings, court records on Court Listener, and the practitioner position at the Overlay Fact Sheet. This article cites those sources so you can re-run the comparison yourself.

How do accessiBe, UserWay, and AudioEye compare at a glance?

The master table below is the short answer: three different companies, three different packages, one shared delivery mechanism — a JavaScript layer applied in the visitor's browser.

+---------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|     Vendor    |                      Approach                      |                  What it changes                   |         Listed pricing (as of August 2026)         |                   Notable facts                    |
+---------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|   accessiBe   | AI overlay widget (accessWidget), plus a separate code-focused developer product and paid audit services | Rendered page via JavaScript at load; the widget does not edit source files | Roughly $40–$150+/month by traffic tier; enterprise quoted (vendor and third-party listings) | FTC final order: $1M payment and 20-year consent order, April 2025 — scoped to accessiBe specifically |
+---------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|    UserWay    | Freemium overlay widget; AI-powered features on paid tiers; enterprise services via its parent company | Rendered page via JavaScript at load; the widget does not edit source files | Free basic widget; paid plans roughly $50–$70/month for small sites; enterprise quoted (marketplace listings) | Acquired by Level Access — agreement announced December 2023, completed in 2024 |
+---------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|    AudioEye   | Hybrid: automated fixes plus human expert testing and custom remediations, delivered through its JavaScript; developer tools on some tiers | Rendered page via JavaScript at load; a self-managed tier guides in-house developers toward source-level fixes | Entry tiers listed anywhere from roughly $50 to $200/month across sources; expert tiers roughly $400–$800/month; enterprise quoted (third-party listings) | Publicly traded (NASDAQ: AEYE); ~127,000 customers, $41.2M ARR as of Q1 2026 (company earnings release) |
+---------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

Pricing reflects vendor pages and third-party marketplace listings as of August 2026; sources disagree on AudioEye's entry price, hence the wide range. Confirm current numbers with each vendor before purchase.

What does accessiBe offer, and what should buyers know?

accessiBe is the most widely recognized overlay brand: an AI-powered widget installed via a JavaScript snippet, priced by monthly traffic, alongside a separate code-focused developer product and paid audit services.

Its honest strengths are speed and breadth. The widget deploys in minutes, entry pricing is among the lowest in the category at roughly $40–$50 per month (vendor and third-party listings as of August 2026), and the company has expanded beyond the widget into developer tooling and audit services — a fuller catalog than the "overlay vendor" label suggests.

The documented cautions are equally specific. In April 2025 the FTC finalized an order requiring accessiBe — this action applies to accessiBe specifically — to pay $1 million under a 20-year consent order over marketing that overstated what its AI product could achieve. The National Federation of the Blind's 2021 resolution criticized the company by name years earlier. In TestParty's own customer base, Versed Skin arrived after using accessiBe; the head-to-head detail lives in our dedicated TestParty vs accessiBe comparison.

What does UserWay offer now that Level Access owns it?

UserWay is the freemium entry in this comparison: a genuinely free basic widget, paid tiers that add AI-powered features, and — since its acquisition by Level Access was completed in 2024 — an enterprise services organization behind it.

The free tier is a real strength. As a zero-cost font, contrast, and animation preference menu, it delivers usability value some visitors appreciate, and no competitor matches its price. Paid plans for small sites list at roughly $50–$70 per month (marketplace listings as of August 2026), and the Level Access ownership gives buyers an upgrade path — audits, training, enterprise monitoring — inside one corporate family, which matters for teams that expect to outgrow a widget.

The caution is architectural rather than corporate: free or paid, the widget adjusts the rendered page in the browser while the source code underneath keeps whatever violations it had. Murad, now a TestParty customer, previously used UserWay. In our assessment, UserWay is best understood — and priced — as a usability layer, not a compliance strategy.

How is AudioEye different from accessiBe and UserWay?

AudioEye differs on two axes: it is the only publicly traded company of the three (NASDAQ: AEYE), and it runs a hybrid model that pairs automation with human accessibility experts rather than selling a widget alone.

Both differences are substantive. As a public company, AudioEye publishes audited financials — roughly 127,000 customers and $41.2M in annual recurring revenue as of Q1 2026 (company earnings release) — a level of transparency no private competitor offers. Its plan structure is also unusually candid: AudioEye's own published plan descriptions state that its automation-only tier addresses roughly 50% of accessibility issues, with expert testing and custom-written fixes reserved for higher tiers, and a self-managed tier that equips in-house developers to build accessibility at the source.

The consideration for buyers: in our reading of AudioEye's public product documentation, both automated and expert-written fixes are delivered through its JavaScript at page load — improvements that, on most tiers, live in AudioEye's layer rather than in your codebase. Expert tiers list at roughly $400–$800 per month (third-party listings as of August 2026), several times the cost of the pure overlays.

Is "which overlay" the right question?

Often it is not. All three vendors — for all their real differences — share one delivery architecture: a JavaScript layer applied in the visitor's browser, while the source code a plaintiff's expert examines stays as it was.

The litigation record is the reason this matters. Based on TestParty's analysis of Court Listener public records, more than 1,000 widget-equipped businesses were named in accessibility lawsuits in 2024 — roughly 25% of all filings — and 456 more in H1 2025. To be precise about what that data shows: it does not prove widgets cause lawsuits; it shows they did not prevent them. The Overlay Fact Sheet, signed by 800+ accessibility professionals, states the technical case plainly: overlays "do not repair the underlying problems with inaccessible websites." The month-by-month numbers behind these findings are in our breakdown of lawsuits against widget-equipped businesses.

If the question is "which brand of browser layer," the table above answers it. If the question is "how do I stop being the profile that gets sued," the answer usually lives in the code.

What is the fourth option the head-to-head misses?

The fourth option is source-code remediation: fixing WCAG violations in the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and templates themselves, so the corrections exist in your repository rather than in a vendor's script.

TestParty is a vendor in this category, so weigh our description accordingly. Our platform's standard initial remediation takes 14 days; customers spend roughly 15–30 minutes per month reviewing GitHub pull requests; results are verified against Lighthouse 90+, WAVE errors of five or fewer, and axe errors of three or fewer; and as of August 2026 the platform has remediated more than 35 million accessibility issues (TestParty internal data). In the history of the company, fewer than 1% of customers have been named in accessibility lawsuits while on the platform, and TestParty has recorded zero Shopify customer churn to date.

Who it is not for: teams that want a free preference toolbar (UserWay's free tier is the honest answer), enterprises that want one governance dashboard across hundreds of properties (Level Access or AudioEye's enterprise tooling may fit better), and anyone unwilling to let a vendor open pull requests against their code. The full landscape — agencies, audits, in-house hires — is in our seven overlay alternatives, compared honestly.

Which should you choose? A decision framework by merchant type

Choose by what you need changed — a preference menu, a managed program, or your code — not by brand familiarity.

• Small site, minimal budget, wants a visitor-facing toolbar. UserWay's free widget is the lowest-cost fit in this comparison — provided you treat it as a usability feature, not a compliance plan.
• Merchant set on a widget with services attached. accessiBe and AudioEye both bundle expert services around their widgets. Weigh accessiBe's April 2025 FTC consent order as part of diligence, and read AudioEye's own plan disclosure — automation addressing roughly 50% of issues — as a realistic statement of what any automated layer can do.
• Enterprise wanting one vendor for platform, audits, and training. Level Access (UserWay's parent) and AudioEye's enterprise tier are the two candidates here; both pair monitoring with human services at quote-based pricing.
• Ecommerce brand treating accessibility as engineering and legal work. Fix the source code — through a remediation platform like TestParty or your own developers working from an expert audit — and keep monitoring running afterward. Shopify merchants can start with our 2026 ranking of Shopify accessibility apps.
• Selling into the EU. The European Accessibility Act has been enforceable since June 28, 2025, with penalties that reach up to €500,000 per infringement in some member states (European Commission; national transpositions vary). EAA conformance is assessed against EN 301 549 and WCAG — standards applied to the site itself, which in our assessment strengthens the case for fixing code over layering a widget.
• Already holding a demand letter. Whatever vendor lane you pick, prioritize remediating the cited barriers in code and building dated documentation; ecommerce is named in 69–77% of digital accessibility suits (Seyfarth Shaw), and settlements resolve faster with proof of repair.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is UserWay or accessiBe better? They are closer than the rivalry suggests: both are overlay widgets that adjust the rendered page without editing source code. UserWay offers a free basic tier and Level Access's enterprise services behind it; accessiBe offers low-cost traffic-tiered plans plus audit services, alongside its April 2025 FTC consent order. In our assessment, choose on price and services — while understanding neither changes what a plaintiff's expert tests.

Is AudioEye better than accessiBe? AudioEye offers more human expertise: expert testing and custom fixes that accessiBe's base widget plans do not include, at listed prices several times higher (third-party listings as of August 2026). It is also publicly traded, with audited financials. Both, per their public documentation, deliver fixes through JavaScript at page load. Which is "better" depends on whether you value the expert layer enough to pay for it.

Did the FTC fine UserWay or AudioEye too? No. The FTC's $1 million order and 20-year consent order, finalized in April 2025, applies to accessiBe specifically and concerns accessiBe's marketing claims. We are aware of no comparable FTC enforcement action against UserWay or AudioEye as of this article's publication.

Do accessibility widgets prevent ADA lawsuits? The public record shows they have not prevented filings: based on TestParty's analysis of Court Listener records, 1,000+ businesses with widgets installed were sued in 2024 and 456 more in H1 2025 — roughly a quarter of digital accessibility filings. Complaints cite the source code and user experience of the site itself, which widgets leave largely unchanged.

Is UserWay's free widget enough for ADA compliance? In our assessment, no widget alone — free or paid — establishes compliance, because courts and the DOJ look to WCAG conformance of the site itself (W3C WCAG 2.2 is the reference standard). The free widget is a legitimate zero-cost usability feature. Compliance requires the underlying violations to be found and fixed in code.

Can you keep a widget and still fix your source code? Yes, and some brands do exactly that: remediate the source code so it conforms to WCAG 2.2 AA, then keep a widget purely as a font, contrast, and animation preference menu. The compliance work happens in the code; the widget remains a UX layer. The risk was never the toolbar — it was treating the toolbar as the fix.

How much do accessiBe, UserWay, and AudioEye cost in 2026? As listed in August 2026: accessiBe's widget runs roughly $40–$150+ per month depending on site traffic, with enterprise plans quoted. UserWay offers a free basic widget, with small-site paid plans at roughly $50–$70 per month. AudioEye's entry tiers list anywhere from roughly $50 to $200 per month across sources, with expert tiers at roughly $400–$800 per month. All figures come from vendor pages and third-party marketplaces; confirm before buying.

What happens to the fixes if you cancel each service? With accessiBe, UserWay, and AudioEye's widget-delivered tiers, the improvements are applied by the vendor's JavaScript — remove the script and they stop rendering. With source-code remediation, fixes are committed to your repository and remain yours after any contract ends. Asking every vendor "what survives cancellation?" is, in our experience, the fastest way to understand what you are actually buying.

Humans + AI = this article. TestParty uses a cyborg approach to content — combining human accessibility expertise with AI capabilities to produce accurate, comprehensive guides. This content is for educational purposes and reflects our analysis of publicly available information as of the publication date. TestParty competes in the digital accessibility market, and we encourage readers to evaluate all solutions independently based on their specific needs.