How to write a VPAT
What goes in each part of an Accessibility Conformance Report, in the order you have to do it.
A VPAT is the blank template. What you are actually writing is an ACR — an Accessibility Conformance Report — and it is a statement your company makes about its own product. That framing matters, because it tells you who has to be comfortable signing it.
1. Pick the edition and the standard
Ask the buyer which standard they need before writing anything. The four editions are not interchangeable, and producing the wrong one means doing the work twice.
2. Define the scope, precisely
This is the part most often done badly, and the part that causes the most trouble later. Name the product, the version, and the platform each statement applies to. "Example Platform" is not a scope. "Example Platform 4.2, web application, tested in Chrome 140 on Windows 11" is.
If your product has a customer-facing web app, an admin console and an iOS app, those are three different evaluations and, usually, three different documents. A single ACR that quietly spans all three will be read as covering all three.
3. Test — automated first, then by hand
Run an automated pass to find what a machine can find. It is fast and it removes the obvious. But understand its ceiling: an automated rule exists for 23 of the 55 Level A and AA criteria, and a rule firing clean is not evidence the criterion is met. Automated testing can show that a criterion fails. It cannot show one is met.
Then do the manual pass: keyboard-only navigation, a screen reader, 200% zoom, 320px reflow, and every criterion a tool cannot reach. Our worksheet lists the question for each one.
4. Choose a conformance level for each criterion
| Level | Means |
|---|---|
| Supports | The product meets the criterion without known defects. You are asserting this; be able to show how you tested it. |
| Partially Supports | Some of the product meets it and some does not. The remarks must say which parts, or the row is not useful to a buyer. |
| Does Not Support | The majority of the product does not meet the criterion. |
| Not Applicable | The criterion has no bearing on this product — no prerecorded video, so no captions criterion. |
"Not Evaluated" exists as well, but only for Level AAA criteria in most editions. Leaving A or AA rows empty is not an option: a buyer reads a blank row as something you are hiding.
5. Write remarks that are worth reading
The remarks column is what separates a document that closes a deal from one that generates another round of questions. A buyer's accessibility reviewer is looking for evidence that you tested honestly, not for a clean sheet.
- Be specific about where. "Some images lack text alternatives" is weak. "Chart images on the reporting dashboard have no text alternative" is verifiable.
- Say what you tested with. Browser, assistive technology, version.
- Do not hide a known defect. A "Partially Supports" with a clear remark and a fix in the roadmap reads better than a "Supports" that the reviewer disproves in ten minutes — and one disproved row puts every other row in doubt.
6. Have the right person sign it
An ACR is a representation about your product that buyers will rely on, and in the US the FTC has acted on overstated accessibility claims. Whoever signs should be someone who can stand behind the testing. That is why no honest tool, including ours, will fill in the conformance levels for you.
What gets a VPAT sent back
- The wrong edition for the standard the buyer cited.
- A scope that does not name a version, or that silently covers several products.
- Every row marked "Supports" — read as untested, not as excellent.
- Remarks that restate the criterion instead of describing the product.
- A date more than a year or two old, on a product that has shipped since.
The evidence-gathering, done for you
We scan your product's public pages, collect the evidence, and hand back a draft ACR in the ITI structure: detected failures with the rule and the markup that triggered them, and a specific question for every criterion a machine cannot judge. Your reviewer makes the calls and signs it. $299 per product, or $249/month to have it re-run every quarter and on release.