Can I run the accessibility scan of my website myself?
Yes, you can do part of it yourself. Free and paid tools automatically scan against parts of WCAG 2.1 level AA and give you a quick picture of common issues: insufficient colour contrast, missing alt text, or form fields without associated labels. That is a useful starting point. However, it is not the whole story, because an automated scan cannot assess part of the requirements in EN 301 549. Matters such as the logic that a screen reader follows, the order in which you tab through a page, or whether alternative text is substantively correct for what appears in the image require assessment by a human.
Where exactly the line lies between doing it yourself and outsourcing depends mainly on what you want to do with the results. Getting an initial impression of approximately where you stand can be done with an automated test. Building a file that demonstrably shows you are working to meet your obligations requires more.
What an automated scan does pick up
Software is strong at recognising patterns in source code. Think of a button without an accessible name, a contrast ratio that falls just below the standard, an image without an alt attribute, or a page without a clear heading structure. These are concrete, objectively measurable points, and that is often where a significant portion of quick wins can be found. A free quick scan of a handful of key pages already provides useful signals in this area, without requiring you to have an account. in a few questions see approximately where your website stands is a way to try it yourself before you invest further.
What an automated scan cannot see
The checkout process, the login flow and multi-step forms are more difficult because interaction and sequence are involved. Can a user who only uses the keyboard complete the entire order without getting stuck in a menu? Does a screen reader user hear at the right time that an error message has appeared? Is the alt text of a product photo substantively correct, or does it just say "image1.jpg"? These are questions that a script cannot answer with certainty. They require someone who actually navigates the page with a screen reader or only with the keyboard.
Doing it yourself: suitable for orientation
If you want to know whether your business falls under the directive at all, and which parts of your site or app contain the most obvious risks, starting yourself is a sensible first step. You quickly see if there is something fundamentally wrong with colour contrast or alt text, and that points you towards where you want to invest most of your time. For micro-enterprises providing services with fewer than ten employees and revenue of at most two million euros, there is also an exemption; a scope check makes it immediately clear in that situation whether further steps are necessary.
Outsourcing: suitable for the file
Once it comes to the checkout process, the login flow, a prioritised action list in plain language, and the mandatory accessibility statement with improvement plan and deadlines, the conversation shifts from "what do I see immediately" to "what can I demonstrate". That is the point at which a full scan with report and documentation per country adds value: not because an automated test suddenly sees everything, but because the results are organised, prioritised and saved, including the part that software cannot assess. Make sure that each report explicitly states which part has and has not been automatically tested; this distinction belongs in any document you use as justification.
One thing that neither solution solves
An accessibility overlay or widget that promises your site complies "with a single line of code" does not meet the legal requirement. This applies regardless of whether the underlying scan was performed by yourself or by a service provider: a widget does not change the underlying code and therefore does not actually solve any of the problems mentioned above.
The practice: a combination
In practice, a combination works best: run a quick-scan yourself regularly to flag issues quickly, and for the parts that go beyond automated testing — the checkout process, the declaration, the improvement plan with deadlines — use a fixed structure that tracks what has already been assessed and what still needs to be. Read more about how that division works in practice, and where the information in each step comes from, in the explanation of how axessia works.
Would you like to get an impression yourself before you decide what to outsource? Start with the free scope check and quick-scan, and see in the knowledge base by topic what is relevant for your situation. What the more comprehensive process entails and what it costs is clearly set out in the explanation of the subscription options.