Before Your Accessibility Subscription Renews

A subscription renewal is a buying decision, and it deserves the same questions as the first purchase. Most renewals pass without one, because the renewal date arrives by email, the card is already on file, and the site seems fine. Run this checklist four weeks before the renewal date, while there is still time to switch, renegotiate, or cancel cleanly. An afternoon of checks beats a year of paying for a plan that no longer fits.

1. What did the plan actually do this year

Open the reports from the past year and count three things: scans run, fixes landed in code, and problems still open. A plan that scanned weekly, fixed code items, and kept a dated record has earned its renewal. A plan that shows only a current score, with no history, has not shown its work. Axeazy records every scan and fix with a date and time, and reports can be exported as a PDF, so a year of reports should read as a story: problems found, fixes merged, new problems caught after updates. If your current vendor cannot show that story, ask for it before the renewal date, and treat a missing history as a missing feature.

Check the site itself, not only the reports. Move through the homepage, a service or product page, and the contact form with a keyboard only, and confirm focus is visible and never disappears. A site that passes a keyboard check and a scan is a site the plan served well. A site that fails either check needs a fix list before renewal, not a renewal first and a fix list later.

2. Does the price still fit the site

Compare the renewal price with the price for your site today: page count, traffic, and site count as they stand now, not as they stood when you signed. Sites grow, and plans price growth in different ways: by traffic, by pages, by sites, or by templates. Ask what the renewal price covers, and what would move it up during the next term. For scale, Axeazy lists 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 compare, because prices can change, and a renewal quote should be compared with a live price, not with last year's memory of one.

Check for add-on costs that appeared during the year: documents, retesting, extra pages, extra sites, support tiers. A renewal price that quietly includes add-ons you never used is a price to question. A renewal price that excludes a retest you need is a price to complete before you sign.

3. Do the pages and paths still match

Sites change templates, add a checkout path, or add a booking flow during a year. Check whether the plan's covered pages still match the site's important templates. A plan that covers the homepage and blog posts, while the site's checkout path sits outside it, no longer covers the site that matters. Ask whether new templates joined the monitored set automatically, or whether they waited for a manual step. Ask whether the plan covers forms and checkout steps, or only content pages. The scan behind Axeazy's monitoring runs 98 automated checks against WCAG 2.2 AA, grouped into 14 categories, but a check only helps on pages inside the plan's scope, so scope is the first renewal question after price.

4. What happens to reports and fixes if you leave

Read the exit terms before the renewal date, not after it. Ask what happens to reports, records, and code fixes when the subscription ends. Merged code fixes stay in your code, because they are your code. A script product stops when the subscription stops, and its settings go with it. Ask whether reports can be exported in full before cancellation, and whether the history stays available after the plan ends. Download the full history before any cancellation, even if you plan to renew, because a downloaded record is yours regardless of what the vendor's portal does next.

For sites with a GitHub repository, Axeazy sends fixes as a real pull request with a visible code diff that the owner or developer reviews and merges, so the fixes live in the site's own repo and stay there after any plan ends. For Shopify stores and other sites with no repo, Axeazy scans the site and gives a guided checklist, and the applied checklist items live in the theme, not in a vendor portal. That distinction matters at renewal: fixes in your code are yours, while adjustments that live in a vendor script are rented.

5. The renewal decision, in one page

Write the decision on one page: what the plan did this year, what it costs next year for the site as it stands, which pages it covers, what happens if you leave, and what a competing plan would cost for the same scope. If the current plan wins on those five lines, renew, and set the next review date for four weeks before the following renewal. If it loses on two or more lines, switch, and follow the migration order: fix the code first, retest without the old tool on a staging copy, and only then remove it. If the decision is close, ask the vendor for the missing item in writing, such as a retest, a page scope change, or a price for the same scope, and let the answer decide.

Related reading

• accessibility software for small retailers For the migration order if you switch, read switching from an overlay to code level fixes, and for the buyer checklist to run against any replacement, read accessibility tool buyer checklist. For the monitoring plan behind renewal, read what to look for in accessibility monitoring.

FAQ

When should I start the renewal checklist?

Four weeks before the renewal date. That leaves time to ask for missing reports, compare a competing plan, and switch cleanly if the current plan loses. Starting the week of renewal leaves no time for any of those.

Should I cancel before the renewal date if I plan to switch?

Read the contract's notice period first, and cancel by its process, after the new tool's fixes are tested. Cancelling early can leave a gap in monitoring, while cancelling late can trigger a renewal charge. Time the cancellation to the migration, not to the calendar alone.

What if the vendor offers a discount to renew?

Compare the discounted price with a competing plan for the same scope, not with the undiscounted renewal price. A discount on a plan that no longer covers your checkout path is not a saving. A discount on a plan that still fits is worth taking, with the new price in writing.

Last checked: October 31, 2026 Sources: W3C WCAG 2.2; Axeazy capabilities and pricing pages.

Run Axeazy's free scan on your homepage this week, and put its dated report beside last year's reports before your renewal date arrives.