Sharing the split screen with me is a document with a heading cost of ADA website lawsuit. And so today we’ll break down how much it costs to settle one of these and give you realistic numbers. So for the defense attorney, as the first bullet point, I have allocated $5,000. This can range. On the lower side, you might end up paying something like $2,500 and on the higher side $9,000. Of course, it’s not limited to this range, but I think that’s a fair range. And then $5,000 is where a good competitive price will fall.
For the settlement amount, I have $7,500, it can definitely be more. For the range, I have $3,000 on the low end and then $20,000 on the high end, but of course it can go much higher. And then for the accessibility audit, I have $5,000 and on the low end, you’re looking at $2,500 on the high end for an audit, $10,000, maybe slightly more, just depends how involved your website is.
And then for remediation, so where you actually are fixing your website so that you resolve the accessibility issues on your website, I have $5,500 and of course it could be much more than that, but I have a range of $2,500 and then on up to $12,500 for remediation. So the grand total of my conservative estimates is $23,000, the range is $10,500 to $51,500 and there may be other stipulations.
So if you enter into a settlement and the settlement includes an annual audit and annual user testing, the audit might cost you $5,000 a year and then the user testing $2,500 and up, it really depends how involved the user testing is. But this gives you an idea of what you can expect once litigation is initiated and this is why it is so important to prevent litigation whenever possible.
If you are aware that plaintiff’s law firms are targeting your industry or just someone you know about or your friend or your family, if you have awareness of this issue, then you want to, you want to take care of it ahead of time rather than wait and take the risk that you end up in litigation because the costs only go up and this is something you’re going to have to do regardless.
So some positive notes, there is a possible tax credit. I will link to the ADA, to the page on the ada.gov website where they mention a tax credit. I’m not saying it applies, I’m just saying it’s possible. And then there is the ADA compliance course, which does offer training. It’s much less expensive than the traditional options of an audit and remediation, but it is quick, it is immediate and it does provide a sense of relief. Again, it’s not perfect, but it is really, really good and it will significantly reduce your risk of litigation.
