The lack of accessibility ROI data
When you start researching accessibility and looking for data, you’ll find the same statistics repeated in almost every article:
- the number of people with disabilities worldwide;
- the amount of money they spend;
- the number of lawsuits related to accessibility; and
- the number of emails that fail accessibility testing.
What you won’t often find are concrete numbers, such as: “Since we started implementing accessibility, our metrics have increased by X%.” This lack of data can be a barrier to building accessibility. So it’s important to acknowledge and examine it.
Why accessibility ROI is difficult to measure
Reason one. Email accessibility benefits not only people with disabilities. These practices often make content easier for everyone to use, including AI systems. Semantic HTML, proper formatting, and clear alt text make content more accessible and understandable for all recipient groups. As a result, overall metrics often improve, and it becomes difficult to isolate the specific impact of accessibility alone.
Financial companies I work with see increases in all metrics after improving accessibility. They also avoid lawsuits and even get feedback like “Your emails are easy to read.
Reason two. The subscribers who benefit most from accessibility are largely invisible in analytics. Most analytics platforms don’t tell you whether a recipient uses a screen reader, keyboard navigation, voice control, or other assistive technologies.
So even when accessibility leads to better engagement or higher conversion rates, it’s hard to connect those results to people with disabilities. The impact is real, but the number of people whose experience you improved remains invisible in the data. This makes it difficult to present a clear “before-and-after” case.
Reason three. Reducing the risks of lawsuits, fines, and reputational damage is also difficult to measure. At the same time, for many organizations, the question is no longer “if” they will be sued, but “when.” The number of lawsuits related to inaccessible websites increased by 27% from 2024 to 2025.
Reason four. The Web Accessibility Initiative states on its website that “the direct return on investment (ROI) is too difficult to measure. ROI is important, of course, but not by any means the only way to measure how an accessibility commitment benefits organizations of all kinds.”
Accessibility is very low in the prioritization. And that’s because it is perceived as a cost of doing business as opposed to something that is really recipient-centric and recipient-focused.
What this does not mean
Just because the impact of accessibility cannot be demonstrated with specific numbers does not mean that accessibility doesn’t work.
Accessibility delivers many benefits. The Web Accessibility Initiative highlights the following reasons why accessibility is good for business:
- driving innovation;
- strengthening the company’s brand;
- expanding market reach; and
- minimizing legal risks by improving customer experience and satisfaction.
The challenge is that many of these benefits are difficult to measure and validate with data.
What this means
Companies should still build accessibility into every possible level of their operations. It is the socially responsible, ethical, and financially smart thing to do. Accessibility affects business performance, even if it is impossible to pinpoint exactly where and by how much.
Karl Groves, who has worked on web accessibility for more than a decade, suggests answering three simple questions when evaluating the ROI of accessibility:
- Will it increase our income?
- Will it save us money?
- Will it help us mitigate risk?
The answers to these questions reveal how accessibility creates business value even when precise numbers are unavailable.
Accessibility is an investment that pays off through a better user experience, higher conversion rates, reduced customer support costs, and a lower risk of non-compliance over time.
That’s why accessibility is worth doing. This applies to digital accessibility on websites and in emails, as well as accessibility across the organization as a whole. Take small steps and be consistent.
Moreover, accessibility no longer requires an ROI-based justification in the EU. Since June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has been in effect and is mandatory across all EU member states. Businesses are expected to meet their accessibility requirements to avoid legal penalties.
Progress over perfection. Focus on making progress incrementally. It’s a win.
Mike Paciello,
Wrapping up
The fact that accessibility’s impact cannot be easily measured does not mean it isn’t working. On the contrary, it’s a direct consequence of how accessibility works. The better accessibility does its job by creating a universal design that works for everyone, the harder it becomes to separate its impact from the many other factors that influence performance.
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