# Buying Accessibility: What to Put in the Vendor Contract Source: https://suitshieldhq.com/blog/2026-10-31-vendor-accessibility-contracts-procurement-stores.html Reviewed October 31, 2026 Your theme, your apps, and your agency built the barriers your store gets sued for. Procurement is where that risk gets priced and assigned: conformance language, evidence requirements, and remediation duties to demand before signing. ## The liability lands on you, the code came from them When a demand letter arrives over an inaccessible storefront, it names the store. The plaintiff has no relationship with your theme developer, your app vendors, or the agency that assembled it all, and neither, in most contracts, do you, at least not on accessibility. Standard vendor terms promise a working product and say nothing measurable about WCAG conformance, which leaves the store holding the full cost of barriers it did not write and cannot fix. That gap is a procurement failure, and it is cheapest to close at signing, when you still have leverage. Start from the correct standard. The store's obligation in US retail is generally framed around WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the version courts and settlement agreements reference, whatever a vendor's marketing page claims about supporting the latest guidelines. Contracts should name the version and level explicitly. Supports accessibility is not a specification. Conforms to WCAG 2.1 AA for the components supplied, with conformance demonstrated on the delivered build, is one, and the difference between those sentences is the difference between a brochure and a remedy. ## Evidence to require before you pay Ask for an Accessibility Conformance Report, the completed VPAT template, for the exact product and version you are buying, and read its remarks column, where the honest vendors disclose the components that only partially support a criterion. An ACR full of supports with no remarks and no dates was written by marketing. Then require a demonstration on your staging store, with your content, because conformance on the vendor's demo theme says little about their component inside your header, your cart, and your checkout flow. Build acceptance around it. The contract should tie final payment or renewal to an accessibility acceptance pass on the delivered work: keyboard traversal of the components supplied, screen reader checks on interactive elements, and a defect window in which conformance failures are fixed as defects, not billed as changes. Agencies resist this exactly once, at negotiation. After signing, the same clause is simply how the work is managed, and the vendors who do this well already work this way for their enterprise clients. You are asking to be treated like one. ## Remediation duties, timelines, and the exit Conformance decays. Themes update, apps ship new versions, and a component that passed in January can regress by June. The contract needs a maintenance duty: the vendor warrants conformance across updates during the term, notifies you of changes affecting accessibility features, and fixes regressions within a stated window scaled by severity, days for a checkout blocking barrier, longer for cosmetic issues. Without that sentence, every update is a small act of faith, and your audit history becomes a record of conformance you used to have. Include the exit while everyone is still friendly. If a vendor cannot or will not remediate a material barrier, you need the right to terminate the component and receive the cooperation, data, and documentation required to replace it. Also require that custom work product, templates, and documentation transfer cleanly. Stores discover the absence of these clauses during a dispute, which is the most expensive possible classroom. The clauses cost nothing at signing except an honest conversation about whether the vendor believes its own conformance claims. ## Run procurement like an audit, because it is one Operationally, this becomes a short checklist your team applies to every theme purchase, app install, and agency statement of work. Named WCAG version and level in the agreement. A current ACR on file. A staging demonstration with your content. Defect treatment and fix timelines for regressions. Termination and handover rights if remediation fails. Five items, none exotic, all enforceable, and together they change the vendor conversation from trust us to show us, which is where it should have been all along. None of this transfers your legal duty. The store remains responsible to its customers, and a contract cannot sign that away. What it can do is make the parties who build the storefront share the cost of building it correctly, and give you working remedies while there is still time to use them. The demand letter will still have your name on it. The difference is whether you open it alone. ## Related reading If this topic is useful, these earlier guides go deeper on connected questions: [Consent Checkboxes at Checkout: Unchecked, Labelled, and Readable, or They Do Not Count](https://suitshieldhq.com/blog/2026-10-30-accessible-consent-checkboxes-checkout-forms.md), [Accessibility User Testing: Recruiting Real Users Instead of Simulating Them](https://suitshieldhq.com/blog/2026-10-30-accessibility-user-testing-recruiting-stores.md), and [Form Labels Audit: The Checkout and Contact Forms Regulators Read First](https://suitshieldhq.com/blog/2026-10-29-form-labels-audit-store-forms.md). ## Frequently asked questions ### Can a vendor contract transfer our ADA liability to the vendor? No. The store's duty to its customers stays with the store, and plaintiffs will name the store. A contract can, however, create indemnity, warranty, and remediation obligations that make vendors share the cost and do the fixing, which is the practical protection available. ### What is an ACR or VPAT and should we require one? An Accessibility Conformance Report, completed from the VPAT template, documents how a product meets each WCAG criterion. Require a current one for the version you are buying, and read the remarks for partial support disclosures rather than accepting a wall of unqualified claims. ### Which WCAG version should contracts name? WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the version US retail settlements and court decisions most commonly reference. Name the version and level explicitly in the agreement. Vague promises to support accessibility standards are not enforceable specifications. ### What fix timelines are reasonable for accessibility defects? Scale them by severity: days for barriers that block browsing or checkout, longer windows for minor issues. The key is that conformance failures are treated as defects under warranty, including regressions introduced by updates, not as billable change requests.