A page is whatever the provider’s fee counts, and the three common definitions give three different numbers for one site. A store with 300 products, 20 category pages and one each of home, cart, checkout and account is 324 URLs, 6 templates, or a sample of about 12. Count your templates first, then ask what each quote counts.
Key Takeaway
The number in a quote is a count, not a price. Two providers can quote the same site ten times apart because one is counting URLs and the other is counting layouts, and neither is wrong. Get the count and its definition in writing, then compare.
The Standard Counts URLs, and That Is Not the Work
WCAG 2.2 defines a web page as “a non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP plus any other resources that are used in the rendering or intended to be rendered together with it by a user agent.” One address, one page. The standard’s own example is a web mail program that lives entirely at one URL and holds an inbox, a contacts area and a calendar, with buttons that swap between them without changing the address. That is one web page by the definition, and weeks of testing in practice.
The definition runs the other way too. Three hundred product URLs are 300 web pages, and they are one template built once by one team. Nobody learns anything new at the two hundredth. So the standard’s unit is a useful thing to know and a poor basis for a fee, which is why almost no provider charges by it literally.
Two more parts of the conformance rules add to a count without adding URLs. Under 5.2.2 Full pages, each variation a responsive page presents at different screen sizes has to conform, so a layout that rearranges on a phone is more than one thing to check. Under 5.2.3 Complete processes, every page in a process conforms or none of them do, and the standard uses a store checkout as the example. A checkout counted as one page and tested as one page is not a tested checkout.
One Store, Counted Four Ways
The same store runs through the four readings below. It has 300 products, 20 category pages, and one each of home, cart, checkout and account. That is 324 URLs, and those 324 URLs render through 6 layouts. The arithmetic is shown so you can check it: 324 times $100 is $32,400, and 324 times $350 is $113,400.
| What Is Counted | The Number Here | What It Does to a Quote |
|---|---|---|
| Every URL | 324 | At the published $100 to $350 per page, $32,400 to $113,400. A boundary rather than a quote anyone sends, but it is what a per-page rate literally says. |
| A representative sample | About 12 | The 6 layouts, plus the states and process steps they drag in with them. At the same rate, $1,200 to $4,200. Same words, same rate, a tenth of the number. |
| Unique templates | 6 | Home, category, product, cart, checkout and account. The count does not move when the catalogue grows to 3,000 products. |
| Whichever cap binds first | Set by the page cap | On a tiered fee with paired caps, 6 layouts would fit a low tier and 324 URLs would not. You land in the tier set by the cap you hit first, which is often not the one you were shopping for. |
Rates are the $100 to $350 per page figures published by the providers on the comparison page, read from their own pages on September 14, 2026. The store is hypothetical. The buyer’s guide works the same store through the three pricing models in full.
324 or 6
The same store, counted two defensible ways, before anyone has quoted a fee
What Published Prices Say a Page Is
Read from each provider’s own page on September 14, 2026. Two of the four publish a definition. Two publish a rate and leave the unit to the conversation, which is the gap to close before you sign anything.
| Provider | The Unit Charged | How It Is Defined |
|---|---|---|
| Accessible.orgaccessible.org/pricing | Pages and screens, split into two rates: $100 to $250 per primary page, $25 to $100 per light page. | Defined. Primary pages are “content rich or interactive”; light pages have “minimal content or repeated patterns.” The page also says scope “typically does not include all pages or screens, but rather a representative sample.” |
| DigitalA11Ydigitala11y.com/pricing | $100 to $350 per page, banded by complexity: $100 to $150 simple, $150 to $200 moderate, $200 to $300 complex. | Not defined on the page. The complexity band is published; what makes one page one page is not. |
| Skynet Technologiesskynettechnologies.com | Pages and templates together, capped per tier: 5 pages with 2 templates, 10 with 4, 30 with 12, 50 with 20, 100 with 40. | Both units are published, neither is defined. Because the caps are paired, the tier is set by whichever one you exceed first. |
| Web Audit Solutionswebauditsolutions.com/pages/vpat-services | Page bands: less than 10, less than 20, more than 20. | Not defined on the page. A store is in the top band on a URL count and the bottom band on a template count. |
Figures come only from each provider’s own pages, never from a review site or a pricing aggregator. Prices and definitions may have moved since September 14, 2026. Follow the source link in any row to check it yourself, and if something here is inaccurate, tell us and we will correct it.
How a Methodology Counts
If you want a neutral answer rather than a vendor’s, the W3C publishes one. WCAG-EM 2.0, a W3C Group Note dated 23 July 2026, stopped counting pages altogether. Its unit is a “view,” defined as “a web page, document, software or view, or an equivalent unit of conformance defined in the accessibility standard being evaluated.” Its Step 3 builds a sample in three parts:
- A structured sample. Views covering the common views, the essential functionality, the different types of content, the technologies relied upon, and anything else relevant. Types of content are described as varying in “styles, layouts, structures, and functionality,” and as “often generated by different templates and scripts.” That is the template count, arrived at from the other direction.
- A random sample on top. Ten percent of the structured sample, selected at random from views not already chosen. It is there to test whether the structured sample was representative. On an 80 view structured sample that is 8 more, for 88 in total.
- Every complete process, end to end. Checkout, signup, application. Not a step from each.
There is no fixed number in it anywhere, and that is the finding. A count that is defensible is one that follows the variety of a product, and variety is what a template list measures.
Count Your Own Before You Ask for a Number
Half an hour with a notepad puts you ahead of every quote you are about to receive. The list below is the same one an evaluator builds.
- One line per layout. Walk the site and write down each visually distinct page type once. Home, listing, detail, form, dashboard, article. Most products land between 5 and 20.
- Add the states of each layout. Empty, loading, error, results found and nothing found, signed in and signed out. A form with a validation state is two things to test, and the error state is where audits find failures.
- Add every step of each process. All of checkout, all of signup, all of the application. The conformance rules treat a process as one unit, so a half tested process buys nothing.
- Add one set per role. If an admin sees a different interface from a member, that is a separate set of templates, not a variation of the same one.
- Add what somebody else built. An embedded booking widget, a payment step on a processor’s domain, a help centre on a subdomain, a PDF a buyer has to download. These are usually missed, and they are usually where the worst findings are.
- Stop counting the catalogue. Three hundred products on one template are one line on this list. If two of them are genuinely built differently, that is two lines.
The result is a number you can hand to four providers and get four comparable quotes from, which is not what happens when you hand them a URL and wait.
Questions That Settle the Count
- “What counts as a page here, and how many are in scope?” A number and a definition, before the fee is agreed, ideally with the template names or the sampled URLs listed.
- “Is the whole checkout in scope, or one page of it?” The answer tells you whether the provider is scoping to the conformance rules or to a page count.
- “Are the signed in views included?” Authenticated areas are frequently outside a per-page scope by default, and they are where the real work usually lives.
- “What happens if the count is wrong?” Scopes move. Ask whether a missed template is a change order or absorbed, and get the answer before the audit, not after.
- “Are mobile layouts counted separately?” Each variation a responsive page presents has to conform, so this is a real question and not a technicality.
How Harbor Counts
Harbor counts unique templates, with no page cap. Three hundred products on one product template are one template. Every state of a template in scope, every step of each process, and each role’s view of the interface are part of that template’s evaluation rather than extras billed later. Each one is tested by hand against all 55 WCAG 2.2 A and AA criteria, by a named evaluator, Andrew Szigety, DHS Trusted Tester TT‑2606‑09221.
Harbor does not publish a fee. The template count is what the fee follows, so the first job on a 15-minute call is agreeing that count and writing it down. The scope and the fixed fee follow in writing, usually within a few business days, and you see both before you commit to anything.
- The Buyer’s Guide
- What a VPAT Costs
- Published Provider Terms
- How Engagements Are Scoped
- Agree Your Count on a Call
Common Questions
- What counts as a page in an accessibility audit?
- It depends on what the provider counts, and there are three common answers: every URL, every unique template, or a representative sample of both. A store with 300 products, 20 category pages and one each of home, cart, checkout and account is 324 URLs, 6 templates, or a sample of about 12. Ask which of those three a quote is built on before you compare it to any other quote.
- Do 300 product pages count as 300 pages?
- Usually not. Three hundred products rendered by one product template count once on a per-template fee, because testing the three hundredth teaches you what the second one already did. On a per-page fee they can count 300 times, which is how one store gets quotes that differ tenfold. Providers who cap pages and templates together put you in the tier set by whichever cap binds first: Skynet Technologies runs 5 pages with 2 templates, 10 with 4, 30 with 12, 50 with 20 and 100 with 40, read from its own page on September 14, 2026.
- Is a single-page app one page?
- Under WCAG it can be. WCAG 2.2 defines a web page as a non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI, and the standard’s own example is a web mail program living at one address that holds an inbox, a contacts area and a calendar. That is one web page by the definition and many screens of testing. Counting URLs will always understate an app, so count the distinct views and states instead.
- How many pages should an accessibility audit sample include?
- There is no fixed number. W3C’s evaluation methodology, WCAG-EM 2.0 (Group Note, 23 July 2026), says to select a structured sample covering the common views, the essential functionality, the different types of content and the technologies relied upon, then add a randomly selected sample equal to 10 percent of that structured sample, then add every step of each complete process. The size follows the variety of the product rather than its URL count.
- What counts as a page in a VPAT?
- The conformance report covers the product you scoped, and the scope statement inside the report is where that count is written down. Published VPAT pricing counts in different units: Accessible.org separates content rich primary pages from light pages with repeated patterns, Web Audit Solutions bands products at under 10, under 20 and more than 20 pages, and Skynet Technologies caps pages and templates together in each tier. Harbor counts unique templates, with no page cap, and fixes the fee in writing after a 15-minute call.