Level Access vs axe DevTools
Feature checklists rarely decide anything. What decides it is the pricing metric, who has to write the tests, and which limitation you can live with.
Entry price
Quote on request
Quote onlyFree tier available
Free tierWhat drives the bill
The metric that actually scales your invoice.
Enterprise contracts combining platform licence with audit and advisory services.
The free extension covers a lot. Deque no longer publishes a price for Pro or the axe DevTools for Web bundle — both route through sales or a no-card trial, so budget from a quote rather than a list price.
Free tier
No free tier.
Free browser extension with the core axe-core rule set.
Open source
Self-hostable
No-code authoring
Languages
Platforms
Fits teams
Adoption
Established
Level Access · since 1997
Widely used
Deque Systems · since 2015
Strengths
- Human expert audits and assistive-technology user testing alongside the tooling.
- Legal and VPAT support for organisations under compliance pressure.
- Covers web, mobile and desktop applications.
- Guided manual testing addresses the two thirds of WCAG that scanners cannot.
- Findings come with concrete code-level remediation advice.
- Deque's accessibility expertise is the deepest in the industry.
Limitations
- Expensive, services-heavy engagement model.
- The UserWay overlay heritage is contentious — automated overlays are widely criticised by accessibility practitioners.
- Not a self-serve developer tool.
- Per-seat pricing adds up across a large engineering organisation.
- The free extension is good enough for many teams, blurring the upgrade case.
- Enterprise deployment needs process design, not just a licence.
Best for
Organisations facing accessibility litigation or formal procurement requirements.
Organisations with a formal accessibility programme and compliance obligations.
All of these integrate with: Jira, Azure DevOps, GitHub, Selenium.
Pricing last reviewed August 2026 and is indicative only — confirm on each vendor’s own page.