Accessibility Scanner Cost for LMS Course Content

A course site has two different surfaces, and they need two different checks. Inside the learning platform, teachers write pages, assignments, discussions, and quizzes in a built-in editor. Outside it, the public website carries course listings, enrolment pages, and contact forms. A website scanner checks the second surface. It does not log in to the first. Budget for both, and do not pay a website scanner to do a job it cannot reach.

What the built-in checker costs: nothing extra

If your courses run on Canvas, the Accessibility Checker is built into the Rich Content Editor, and it costs nothing beyond the platform itself. It works on Pages, Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Announcements, and the Syllabus, and it flags common problems while a teacher edits: missing alt text, skipped heading levels, long headings, and contrast problems in inline styles. The checker tests a curated selection of WCAG 2.1 level A, AA, and AAA criteria, focused on the high impact rules that most often affect learners, rather than a full level-by-level check.

That free checker has clear edges, and the edges decide the rest of the budget. It does not check uploaded files such as Word documents or slide decks. It does not check captions or transcripts for video and audio. It does not judge whether alt text is good, only whether it is missing or a file name. It does not check content outside the editor, including third party tools, embedded apps, and interactive widgets. It does not check that links describe their destination, or that a link is not broken. In some accounts a course scan covers up to 1,000 items. A teacher who relies on the built-in checker alone will miss exactly the items students complain about most: a video with no captions, a PDF handout nobody checked, and a quiz tool the checker cannot see.

What a website scanner costs, and what it covers

A website scanner checks the public site: the pages anyone can open without logging in. Axeazy's free scan runs in 60 seconds with no signup and no card, and the free tier covers one site, the homepage only, with 3 scans a month. Paid plans add weekly monitoring and fixes: Starter at about $29 a month for one site with up to 500 pages, Pro at about $79 a month for three sites, and Agency at about $199 a month or $1,799 a year for up to ten client sites, with paid prices shown at checkout and an annual saving of 20 to 25 percent. Check those figures on Axeazy's pricing page on the day you buy, because prices can change.

For a course provider, the public site is where enrolment happens, so its barriers matter as much as the course pages. A contact form with no labels, a course listing with empty links, or an enrolment path that traps keyboard focus will lose students before they ever reach the LMS. The website scanner's 98 automated checks against WCAG 2.2 AA, grouped into 14 categories, cover those pages, and every scan and fix is recorded with a date and time. Weekly monitoring on paid plans catches new problems after a site update.

The honest budget for a small course provider

Put the two sides together, and the budget has three lines. First, the built-in LMS checker: no extra cost, but teacher time to fix what it flags, plus a manual check of headings, link wording, and alt text quality, because the checker does not judge those. Second, a website scanner for the public site: free for a first read of the homepage, about $29 a month for a small site with weekly monitoring, or about $79 a month for three sites. Third, the items neither scanner covers: captions and transcripts for video, checks of uploaded files, and manual testing of third party tools and quiz widgets. Those need human time, and for a small provider they are best handled by a short routine: caption new videos before they publish, check each new handout before it uploads, and test each new tool with a keyboard before students meet it.

Do not buy a website scanner expecting it to scan inside the LMS. It cannot log in to course pages, and it cannot see content behind a login. Do not buy an LMS add-on expecting it to fix the public site. Each tool covers its own surface, and the gap between them is where most course accessibility problems live.

A routine that keeps both sides covered

Each week, run the website scan and fix the highest severity items on the most visited templates first. Each time a teacher publishes a course page, run the built-in checker and fix what it flags before students open the page. Each time a video is added, add captions and a transcript before it publishes. Each time a file is uploaded, check its headings, alt text, and reading order in the file itself, because neither checker will do it for you. Record the dates of each check, so the next report shows what changed and when.

Related reading

For the monitoring routine behind this article, read what to look for in accessibility monitoring, and for the buyer checklist, read accessibility tool buyer checklist. For the features that matter most in any scanner, read accessibility tool features that matter most.

• For the free WordPress plugin, read free WordPress accessibility plugin: what it fixes.

FAQ

Can one scanner cover both my website and my LMS courses?

No. A website scanner checks public pages. An LMS checker checks content inside the editor. Neither reaches the other's surface, and neither checks uploaded files or captions on its own.

Is the built-in Canvas checker enough for course content?

It is a strong start, and it is free inside the platform. It is not enough alone, because it does not judge alt text quality, heading quality, link wording, captions, transcripts, or uploaded files. Pair it with a short manual routine for those items.

What should a small course provider pay first?

Pay for the public site first, because that is where enrolment happens and where a barrier loses a student before they start. Use the free LMS checker and a manual routine for course pages, and add paid LMS tooling only after the public site is covered.

Last checked: October 31, 2026 Sources: Instructure Community Canvas Accessibility Checker guide; MSU Denver Canvas Accessibility Checker guide; W3C WCAG 2.2; Axeazy capabilities and pricing pages.

Run Axeazy's free scan on your public course listing page first, then run the built-in checker on one course page, and compare what each one finds.