What You'll Learn

• The one red flag that should end a vendor conversation on the spot

• The quieter red flags most buyers miss, including how to read a VPAT

• Why a bad VPAT is worse than no VPAT

• The green flags that mark a partner who leaves you more capable, not more dependent

• The free self-audit to run before you call a single vendor

Here's the thing nobody tells you when you start shopping for an accessibility vendor. You can hand off the hard technical work, the captions, the document remediation, the website fixes, but you can't hand off the responsibility. If a resident can't access your content, that's still your name on it, not the vendor's.

That framing came out of our conversation with Don Torrez on the Government Video Podcast, where he walked through how to evaluate an accessibility partner, what the red flags look like, and why setting expectations early matters. Torrez is a web accessibility consultant who has helped more than 450 organizations navigate compliance. Our paraphrase of the idea: you own the vision and the accountability, you delegate the parts that are genuinely hard to become an expert at, and the right partner does the work and leaves you more capable over time instead of more dependent on them forever.

Which means picking the right partner matters a lot more than picking the cheapest one. So before you sign anything, here's how to tell a real accessibility vendor from one that's going to leave you exposed. Once you've picked one, there's a second checklist for the contract itself. This piece is about getting that far.

The One Red Flag That Matters Most

If a vendor promises you total compliance from one line of code, walk away.

You'll hear it phrased a few ways. "100 percent compliant at the click of a button." "Just add our script and you're covered." It sounds fantastic, which is exactly the problem. Real accessibility doesn't work that way, and the people selling the shortcut usually know it.

This one has a paper trail. On websites, these instant-fix tools are called overlays, third-party scripts that promise compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) without touching the underlying code. They don't fix the real problem, and regulators have said so directly. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered overlay vendor accessiBe to pay $1 million over claims that its automated product could make any website WCAG-compliant, claims the agency called false, misleading, or unsubstantiated. The order was approved as final that April. The National Federation of the Blind had reached the same conclusion years earlier, passing Resolution 2021-04, which condemns overlay providers for convincing website owners that a one-time code installation makes them accessible and lawsuit-proof.

The litigation record points the same direction. UsableNet's 2024 year-end report found that more than 1,000 businesses were sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) despite having an accessibility widget installed, roughly a quarter of all digital accessibility cases that year. Plaintiff attorneys treat an overlay as evidence you knew about the problem and covered it with a script instead of fixing it. And the accessibility profession has been on record against these tools since 2021 through the Overlay Fact Sheet, an open statement now signed by more than a thousand practitioners, including contributors to the WCAG, ARIA, and HTML specifications and in-house accessibility staff at Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Target. The WebAIM practitioner survey puts numbers on it: 67 percent of respondents rate these tools as not at all or not very effective, and among respondents with disabilities that rises to 72 percent.

Overlays are a website problem, and MediaScribe is built for government video, so why bring it up here? Because the pattern travels. The same promise wears a different costume for video: a vendor selling AI-only captions or AI-only audio description, guaranteeing compliance, with no human ever checking the output. Instant, total, automatic, and nobody accountable. Whenever you hear "total compliance, no effort," slow down.

The Rest of the Red Flags

The one-line-of-code promise is the loud one. These are the quieter ones, and they're just as telling.

One package for everyone, no audit. A credible vendor looks at your actual content before quoting you a plan. If they've got a single one-size-fits-all package and they haven't asked what you're working with, they haven't looked at your problem. They're selling you a box, not a solution.

No VPAT or accessibility statement at all. A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is the document that says how well a product meets accessibility standards. It's the first thing procurement offices go looking for, and not having one is often the first red flag. If a vendor can't produce one, ask why.

A bad VPAT, which is somehow worse than none. Getting a VPAT isn't the finish line. Skim it, and watch for the tells:

• Everything marked "Supports." Nothing supports everything. That's a sales document, not an honest one.

• A pile of "Not Applicable" or "Not Evaluated." Read "Not Evaluated" as "Does Not Support" until proven otherwise.

• An empty remarks column, or made-up terms like "Passes/Fails" instead of the standard language. The author probably isn't an accessibility specialist.

• A date more than a year old, or missing contact info. Whoever owned accessibility may have moved on.

Can't answer "what happens if I get sued?" A good vendor won't promise to take on your legal defense, and they shouldn't. But they will come to your aid with documentation of exactly what was done. A vendor who just points at the indemnification clause and shrugs is handing you paperwork that won't help you when it counts.

No humans, no lived experience. Accessibility's whole point is a real person being able to use your service. A vendor who never involves people with disabilities in testing, and has no human quality pass anywhere in the process, is selling you automation and calling it accessibility. Those aren't the same thing.

What a Good Vendor Actually Does

A good vendor makes a visible dent fast and has a plan for your growing independence. For something like document remediation, every file you learn to make correctly shrinks next year's problem. For video captioning, you'll probably always want a partner, but you should still be getting sharper over time, not more stuck.

They hand you a current, credible VPAT and they'll show you the testing behind it. They bring people with disabilities into their testing, because that's the test that counts. They welcome your questions instead of getting cagey. And when you ask the scary lawsuit question, the answer is some version of "we'll document everything we did and stand behind it," not a link to a liability clause.

None of that requires you to become an accessibility expert. It just requires a partner who acts like one.

Before You Call Anyone, Do This

Here's the move most buyers skip, and it's free.

Before you let any vendor scan your site and hand you a scary number, form your own opinion first. Turn on a screen reader and see if it can actually read your content. Unplug your mouse and try to get through your site with just the keyboard. Can you fill out a form? Can you turn on captions and watch a video all the way through?

Then ask the people you're actually serving. Go to your community and ask the best question there is: what do you want to do that you can't? That answer will tell you more than any vendor demo, and it points you straight at where you genuinely need help.

Do this first, and you walk into every vendor conversation already knowing your own problem. That's a much harder buyer to upsell.

Keep the Wheel

The work can go to a partner. The oversight stays with you. That's not a burden, it's the part you actually want to keep, because it's the part that protects your residents and your name.

A vendor who gets that will pass this checklist easily. MediaScribe was built for exactly this kind of partnership on government video, captions, translation, and audio description, with real people in the loop and documentation you can stand behind. Book a call and we'll show you what that looks like.

FAQ

How do we spot an overlay or instant-fix product when the vendor doesn't call it that?

Listen for the promise, not the label. Any pitch built on "total compliance, no effort," one line of code, one script, one button, is the same shortcut wearing different words. On websites it shows up as an overlay. On video it shows up as AI-only captions or audio description with no human ever checking the output. The tell is the same everywhere: instant, total, automatic, and no one accountable. When you hear it, slow down and ask who reviews the work.

We got a VPAT from a vendor. How do we tell a credible one from a box-checking one?

Skim it for the honest tells. If every criterion is marked "Supports," treat it as a sales document, nothing supports everything. A pile of "Not Evaluated" reads as "Does Not Support" until proven otherwise. Empty remarks columns or invented terms like "Passes/Fails" suggest the author isn't an accessibility specialist. And a date more than a year old, or missing contact info, often means whoever owned accessibility has moved on. A VPAT is a starting point for questions, not a finish line.

What's the difference between delegating the work and delegating the accountability?

You can hand a vendor the technical work, captions, remediation, the parts that take real expertise. You cannot hand off the responsibility for whether a resident can actually reach your content. If access fails, it is still your agency's name on it. The practical test of a good partner is whether they leave you more capable over time rather than permanently dependent, and whether they hand over documentation you could stand behind if anyone ever asks.

Is there anything useful we can do before we even talk to vendors?

Yes, and it costs nothing. Run your own quick check first so you walk in already knowing your problem. Turn on a screen reader and see whether it can read your content. Unplug the mouse and try to move through your site with the keyboard alone, filling out a form, turning on captions, watching a video end to end. Then ask your community the most useful question there is: what do you want to do that you can't? You will learn more from that than from any vendor demo, and you will be a much harder buyer to upsell.

A vendor points to their indemnification clause when we ask about lawsuits. Is that a problem?

A vendor shrugging and pointing at the liability clause is a red flag, though not because a good vendor takes on your legal defense. They shouldn't, and won't. The difference is what they offer instead: documentation of exactly what was done, and a willingness to stand behind it. That record is what a regulator asks for first. Paperwork that only limits the vendor's liability does nothing for yours.

Want a partner who passes this checklist easily? Book a call and we'll show you what government-video accessibility looks like with real people in the loop and documentation you can stand behind.