Did you know that accessibility saves money when planned early?
Did you know that including accessibility in project requirements usually adds less than two percent to overall costs, while fixing issues later can cost up to ten times more? When accessibility is addressed early, it fits naturally into planning. When delayed, it becomes expensive, disruptive, and far harder to manage without trade-offs.
Why this keeps happening
Accessibility is often left out of early requirements. Leaders prioritize timelines, scope, and visible features. Risks that feel abstract get deferred. By the time barriers surface, budgets are locked and options are limited. What could have been planned becomes a retrofit.
What this signals
This pattern signals how accessibility is treated as an adjustment, not a baseline. Early silence makes late discovery feel inevitable. Cost spikes appear sudden, even though they were created by earlier omissions. Accessibility feels costly because it was never given space to be efficient.
Why this matters to leaders
Late fixes force leaders into reactive decisions. Costs rise. Teams get frustrated. Trust in planning erodes. This is not about ethics versus efficiency. It is about how early visibility shapes financial control and decision quality.
Where leaders encounter this
Late fixes force leaders into reactive decisions. Costs rise. Teams get frustrated. Trust in planning erodes. This is not about ethics versus efficiency. It is about how early visibility shapes financial control and decision quality.
Closing reflection
Accessibility is not what drives cost overruns. Delays and lack of planning do.
Where in your projects does accessibility first become visible to leadership?
Take the Inclusive Leadership Self-Assessment Test
If you’re curious to see where your organization sits on the Digital Accessibility Maturity Model – and what that means for your next leadership decisions – you can take a short, leadership-focused survey to find out.
Inklusiv Insights Newsletter
About Denis Boudreau
Denis Boudreau is a consultant, trainer, and speaker specializing in digital accessibility and disability inclusion. He works with organizational leaders who want to equip their teams with the skills to create accessible websites and digital products – so no one is left behind. A Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), Denis has trained thousands of web professionals over the past 20+ years and delivered hundreds of workshops in both English and French. He has helped leading brands like Netflix, Salesforce, and Victoria’s Secret embed accessibility into their digital strategies, empowering them to meet legal obligations, improve user experience, and connect with more people, more effectively.