How to Pass Your SEBI Website Accessibility Audit: Process, Cost & Common Failures

If you're a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or Investment Adviser getting quoted for your first website accessibility audit before the 31 October 2026 deadline, two questions come up every time: what actually happens during the audit, and what will it cost? Here's a plain answer to both, plus the WCAG issues we see most often on RA/IA sites.

What actually happens in a website accessibility audit

A proper accessibility audit is not just a scanner report. It typically has four stages:

1. Automated scan — tools catch the easy, machine-detectable issues: missing alt text, low colour contrast, missing form labels, empty links and buttons.
2. Manual testing — a human auditor navigates the site using only a keyboard and a screen reader (JAWS, NVDA or VoiceOver), because most real accessibility barriers only show up this way, not in an automated scan.
3. WCAG 2.2 checklist review — every success criterion at Level A and AA is checked against the live site, page by page.
4. Report & sign-off — you get a prioritised list of findings; once they're fixed, the auditor retests and signs off.

This is the same shape of process our own SEBI website accessibility audit service follows, working with IAAP-certified auditors for the audit itself.

What actually drives the cost

There's no single number that applies to every site, because the two biggest cost drivers vary a lot from firm to firm:

• Number of pages & interactive elements — a five-page compliance site costs far less to audit than a site with a client portal, forms, calculators or a blog.
• How accessible it already is — this is the big one. A site that was never built with accessibility in mind can need dozens of hours of remediation: rewriting markup, fixing colour tokens across the whole design, adding keyboard support to custom menus. A site built to WCAG 2.2 from day one usually just needs a conformance check.

The failures we see most often on RA/IA websites

Across financial-services sites specifically, the same handful of WCAG issues come up again and again:

1. Low colour contrast on gold/green CTA buttons and light-grey body text — common on brand-heavy finance sites.
2. Missing or unhelpful alt text on logos, charts and screenshots.
3. Form fields without programmatic labels — a placeholder is not a label.
4. Keyboard traps in mobile menus — a hamburger menu that opens but can't be closed or tabbed out of with a keyboard.
5. Heading levels skipped (H1 straight to H3), which breaks screen-reader navigation.
6. Research report PDFs that aren't tagged — a screen reader can't make sense of an untagged PDF.
7. No visible focus outline once a site's default browser styling has been overridden.
8. Auto-playing or animated elements with no way to pause them or a prefers-reduced-motion fallback.
9. Complaints-data and disclosure tables built without proper table headers, so a screen reader can't associate a number with its column.
10. Colour used as the only signal — e.g. a red/green "status" dot with no text label next to it.

The cheapest way to pass: build it in, don't bolt it on

Every one of the failures above is cheap to avoid at build time and expensive to retrofit across dozens of pages later. That's the entire logic behind building WCAG-accessible from day one: the audit is still required either way, but instead of a remediation project it becomes a conformance check. See our full SEBI website accessibility guide for what WCAG 2.2 requires in more depth, and the SEBI-compliant website checklist for everything else your site needs to carry.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a SEBI website accessibility audit cost?

It depends mainly on how many pages your site has and how accessible it already is. Get a quote after a quick pre-scan rather than a flat number quoted blind.

Who is allowed to conduct the audit?

SEBI expects it to be carried out by a qualified accessibility auditor, commonly one holding an IAAP certification such as CPACC or WAS/CPWA. Confirm the current requirement on sebi.gov.in.

Does a WCAG-accessible site still need an audit?

Yes — the audit requirement applies regardless of how the site was built. Building accessible from day one just means less to remediate.

This article is an informational summary by Arihant Intellect (a web & IT service provider, not a SEBI-registered intermediary) based on general WCAG 2.2 audit practice, and is not legal or compliance advice. Always verify the current SEBI circular and requirements on the official SEBI website, sebi.gov.in, and consult your compliance officer. See also our article on the 31 October 2026 accessibility audit deadline.