Accessibility Budgeting Method

Estimate the work that actually changes

A shared navigation repair may affect thousands of URLs while requiring one component change. A collection of unrelated scanned documents may require individual work on each page. Count distinct repairs and content units before multiplying by a rate. Include evaluation, implementation, editorial work, verification and maintenance as separate activities.

Build an estimate from a sample

1. Inventory templates, components, forms, documents, media and complete user processes.
2. Choose representative examples, including difficult cases such as complex tables or third-party interfaces.
3. Measure or estimate the time needed to evaluate, repair and retest those examples. Record the source of each assumption.
4. Apply those assumptions to the remaining comparable units and list work that needs a separate estimate.
5. Add a chosen contingency for identified uncertainty and review the estimate when evidence changes.

The worksheet formula

Estimated hours equal the sum of each quantity multiplied by its hours per unit. Labor cost equals those hours multiplied by the selected hourly rate. The total including contingency equals labor cost multiplied by one plus the contingency percentage divided by 100. Separate expenses and taxes need their own allowance.

For an arithmetic illustration only: two shared components at three hours each, plus four hours of retesting, total ten hours. At a user-selected rate of 100 currency units per hour, that is 1,000 before contingency or separate expenses. These example numbers are not market benchmarks.

Record uncertainty honestly

Source access, custom widgets, document complexity and the quality of existing components can change effort. Use evidence from the actual project to choose a range or contingency. Do not imply that a fixed percentage is a statistical confidence interval unless a defensible model and data support it.

This page publishes a planning method, not a measured cost dataset. The previous fixed-rate presentation has been replaced with the editable Accessibility Budget Worksheet. No empirical per-CMS pricing study is claimed.

Supporting workflows

• Create the evaluation scope
• Inventory shared templates and components
• Plan verification work
• W3C planning and managing web accessibility