AccessiBe overlays paint over the problem. Bloodhound finds what's actually broken.

What AccessiBe actually does

AccessiBe is the best-known accessibility overlay product. You install a JavaScript snippet, and the widget injects code into the page at runtime that tries to fix WCAG violations on the fly. Adjustments include reading-order rewrites, alt-text guesses, contrast filters, and keyboard-navigation patches. AccessiBe markets this as “one-click ADA compliance” and pitches a daily auto-scan.

The pitch is irresistible if you are a Shopify merchant with no developer, no accessibility background, and a vague worry about getting sued. The reality is messier.

What the accessibility community says about overlays

The OverlayFactSheet is the single most cited document in this conversation. It is signed by hundreds of accessibility practitioners, including engineers from major screen-reader vendors and several W3C contributors. Its position, summarised:

• Overlays do not bring a website into WCAG conformance.
• Overlays can introduce new barriers, particularly for users of assistive technologies like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver.
• Real screen-reader users frequently disable overlays because the rewritten DOM is harder to use than the original.
• Hiring a developer to fix underlying issues is the recommended path. An overlay is not an alternative.

That is the consensus of the practitioner community. On top of that, the legal record matters. Lawsuits filed against US retailers running AccessiBe, including Murphy v Eyebobs and the broader wave of 2023 to 2025 ADA Title III filings tracked by Seyfarth Shaw and UsableNet, treat the presence of an overlay as no defence. Plaintiffs have argued, and courts have not rejected, that the overlay can constitute an additional barrier rather than a remediation.

We are not your lawyer. Talk to your own counsel about your obligations under ADA, the European Accessibility Act, and the UK Equality Act. The factual point is simply that the overlay does not satisfy the underlying conformance requirement.

What Bloodhound does instead

Bloodhound audits your live storefront from outside the page. There is no script injection, no DOM rewriting, no widget. We run four accessibility engines in parallel against your store, deduplicate the findings, and surface every failing element with:

• The exact CSS selector of the failing element
• The WCAG 2.2 success criterion it violates (AA level)
• Why it fails, in plain English
• What to change to make it pass, with code-level guidance where useful
• A severity rating reflecting real-world impact on assistive-tech users

The engines we stack are axe-core (Deque), Pa11y, Lighthouse accessibility audits (Google), and IBM Equal Access. Each catches a different class of issue, which is why a stacked approach finds significantly more real violations than any single engine. Pope Tech runs WAVE only. AccessiBe runs its own proprietary scan and then tries to paper over what it finds. We just give you the list.

Bloodhound vs AccessiBe: comparison

The honest cases for AccessiBe

There are two. First, if your goal is to display a visible accessibility menu on your site, with font-size and contrast toggles for users who prefer them, AccessiBe provides that UI. So do several free libraries. Second, if your goal is to put something on your site so that you can point to it in a procurement conversation, AccessiBe lets you do that. Whether that satisfies the procurement requirement, or the actual law, is a separate question.

What AccessiBe does not do is fix the underlying violations. The overlay paints over them at runtime. The next deploy of your theme, the next app you install, the next product description you ship, the violations are back. Bloodhound is built for the opposite workflow: find them, fix them in the theme, watch the count go down, keep monitoring.

How to switch

You don't have to remove AccessiBe to try Bloodhound. Install Bloodhound from the Shopify App Store, run a scan, and compare its findings to what AccessiBe claims to be fixing. You will see exactly which WCAG failures the overlay is silent on. From there, decide whether to keep paying for the widget or to put the budget into real remediation.

For stores that want a human-led audit alongside the automated scan, Bloodhound includes a partner referral to a vetted accessibility consultant who will hand-test with assistive tech and produce a signed conformance statement. The two together, automated continuous scanning plus a human audit at intervals, is what the practitioner community actually recommends.

What we are not claiming

We are not claiming Bloodhound makes you legally compliant. No tool can make that claim honestly. We are claiming Bloodhound gives you an accurate, current picture of your accessibility posture, with a clear remediation path, and that this is more useful than an overlay that hides the picture.

If you want a one-click button that absolves you of the work, no honest tool will sell you that. If you want a one-click install that shows you the work and helps you do it, that is what Bloodhound is.