Your accessibility score tells you, at a glance, how accessible your website is: a single number from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the fewer and less severe the issues your visitors run into.
The short version
Your score is the severity-weighted percentage of checked elements that pass. Every element you fix raises it, and the most severe issues, and those on the most pages, count the most.
Two things make it different from a simple "issues found" count:
Severity matters. A failing critical check, like a missing form label, hurts your score far more than a low-severity one.
Partial progress counts. Fix one element and your next scan reflects it. You don't have to finish a whole check first.
How scoring works
Each scan tests your pages against a list of accessibility checks based on the WCAG standard, like "Images must have alternative text." For each check, we look at every matching element on every page and record whether it passes or fails. An element is a single thing a check looks at, like one image or one form field, and the same image on five pages counts as five occurrences.
When the same issue repeats across pages, Marker.io groups it into one item in your fix list, so you fix it once and every occurrence passes on the next scan.
Each check has a severity that sets its weight:
Severity | Weight | Examples |
Critical | 10 | Missing image alt text, no accessible button name |
Serious | 5 | Low color contrast, links with no text |
Medium | 2 | Skipped heading levels, redundant landmarks |
Low | 1 | Deprecated ARIA roles, empty table headers |
Your score is the average pass rate across all checks, weighted by severity. A Critical check counts ten times as much as a Low one, so clearing your Critical issues moves the score fastest. For the full list, see Accessibility checks and their weights.
You'll see the score in two places. Your website score covers every element on all scanned pages, so a problem on many pages weighs more. A page score covers just one page. Fixing an element helps both.
Moving your score
Impact on score shows the points you'd gain by clearing a check. Sort by it to tackle the biggest wins first.
Fix it in your code/content, then rescan. Failing elements move to passing and your score rises.
Mark as resolved to credit a fix right away. If the next scan still finds it, it returns.
Ignore false positives or issues that don't apply to you. Ignored elements don't count against you.
Score colors
Score | Color | Meaning |
80-100 | Green | Good, few or small issues |
50-79 | Orange | Needs attention |
0-49 | Red | Significant issues to address |
A score of 80 or above is our threshold for a healthy, broadly accessible site, based on the automated checks.
Is a high score the same as compliance?
No. Marker.io's checks are automated, and automated testing catches only part of WCAG (industry estimates put it around 30 to 50% of success criteria). It can't judge whether alt text is meaningful or whether your site works end to end with a screen reader.
So treat your score as a strong, continuous signal of your site's health, not a certificate of compliance. To confirm you meet a standard like WCAG, the ADA, or the European Accessibility Act, you still need a manual audit by an accessibility expert. Marker.io gets you there faster by surfacing and tracking the automated issues, so your audit starts from a stronger baseline.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn't my score match Lighthouse or another tool?
Lighthouse gives a check no credit until it fully passes. Marker.io measures progress per element, so partial fixes show up right away. Tools also weight severities differently and check different rules, so the exact numbers won't line up. What matters is that your score moves in the right direction as you improve.
When does my score update?
After each scan. Marking elements as resolved or ignored updates it at once. Fixes in your code show up on your next scan.
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