Getting started
From signup to audit-ready VPAT in 10 minutes.
This walkthrough takes a brand-new ClearShield account through its first scan, its first scheduled monitor, and its first generated conformance document. If you already signed up and just want the VPAT/ACR/EAA explainer, skip to that guide.
Create your account
Head to /signup. Sign up takes about 30 seconds — first name, last name, email, password. You’ll see a checkbox asking you to confirm you’re not currently in active accessibility litigation; check it if true (if you ARE in active litigation, please contact us via your attorney instead — see the Terms § Active Litigation).
Confirm your email when the verification link lands in your inbox (usually within 60 seconds). After clicking, you’ll be dropped on your dashboard.
Run your first scan
On the dashboard, you’ll see a Quick Scan widget. Drop in a URL (it must be publicly accessible — we can’t scan behind logins yet) and click Scan now. A typical page completes in 8–15 seconds.
You’ll see a score out of 100, broken down into errors / warnings / passes. Click the score card to open the full report — each violation maps to a specific WCAG 2.2 success criterion, with the affected DOM element, a code snippet, and a fix suggestion.
Add a site to monitor
Go to /dashboard/monitor and add a URL. Sites on the watchlist get one-click re-scans, show up in the score-trend report, and (on paid plans) can be put on an automatic scan schedule.
Free tier lets you watchlist 1 site. Lite adds weekly automated scans for that 1 site. Pro covers 5 sites with daily scans. Business is unlimited.
Crawl your whole site (Lite+)
The Quick Scan only audits the URL you give it. To scan your entire site at once, use /dashboard/crawl. Paste a URL — ClearShield discovers up to 25 pages (sitemap.xml first, link-discovery fallback), lets you pick which to scan, and runs them serially.
Each page becomes its own scan record. The site-wide score is the average across all pages.
example.com/blog instead of just example.com).Generate your first conformance document
Open any scan from your history. In the toolbar you’ll see three buttons: VPAT, ACR, EAA. Each opens a print-ready document built from the scan’s WCAG findings:
- VPAT 2.5 — the ITI-standard template for US Section 508 + ADA compliance. The most-asked-for format.
- ACR — Accessibility Conformance Report. Procurement-flavored sibling to the VPAT — when a buyer’s compliance team asks “send us your ACR”, this is what they want.
- EAA — European Accessibility Act self-declaration referencing EN 301 549. For businesses serving European customers. Lite+ tier.
Free tier shows a 12-row preview of VPAT + ACR (enough to see the document format). Lite and above unlock all 56 criteria and the “Save as PDF” print dialog. Read more in the VPAT vs ACR vs EAA guide.
Set up scheduled monitoring (Lite+)
The real value of ClearShield is continuous coverage — every fix-then-regression cycle gets caught and documented automatically. Go to /dashboard/scheduled, pick a URL from your watchlist, and set a cadence (hourly, every 6h, daily, weekly).
When the cron fires, the scan runs, lands in your history, and (if the score drops by 5+ points vs the last run) sends you a regression-alert email with a link to the new report.
Upgrade when you’re ready
The free tier is built for evaluation; the actual product value lands at Lite ($99/mo) and above. Open /upgrade to see the full plan comparison and pick what fits.
Stripe handles checkout. Cancel anytime in one click from your billing settings. Annual billing saves 20%.
What’s next?
- VPAT vs ACR vs EAA explained— pick the right document for your audience.
- WCAG 2.2 explained— what each criterion actually tests, so you can read the reports fluently.
- API & webhooks— run scans from CI/CD, listen for scan events.