Verify WCAG compliance instantly. Check contrast ratios, get accessible alternatives, and build export-ready color palettes for your design system.
Enter your foreground and background colors to instantly check WCAG compliance
This is how normal text (16px) appears with your color combination. Good contrast ensures readability for all users.
Large text preview (18px+ bold or 24px+)
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Add colors from the contrast checker above to build your palette
Input your foreground (text) and background colors using the color picker or by typing hex codes directly.
Instantly see your contrast ratio and whether it passes WCAG AA or AAA standards for different text sizes.
Save compliant color combinations to your palette and export them as CSS variables, JSON, or Tailwind config.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define specific contrast ratios to ensure text is readable for users with visual impairments, including color blindness and low vision.
Required for legal compliance in many jurisdictions. Suitable for most websites and applications.
Recommended for optimal accessibility. Essential for healthcare, government, and education websites.
Large text is defined as 18pt (24px) or larger, or 14pt (18.67px) bold or larger. Large text has lower contrast requirements because bigger letterforms are inherently more readable.
Approximately 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some form of color vision deficiency. Poor contrast makes your content invisible to millions of users.
ADA, Section 508, and international accessibility laws require WCAG compliance. Non-compliance can result in lawsuits and significant financial penalties.
High contrast improves readability in bright sunlight, for aging populations, and for users with temporary impairments. Good accessibility is good design.
Accessible websites see higher engagement rates and conversions. When users can read your content clearly, they're more likely to take action.
Color contrast ratio is a mathematical measurement of the difference in luminance (perceived brightness) between two colors. It's expressed as a ratio like 4.5:1, where the first number represents the lighter color and the second the darker. The maximum possible ratio is 21:1 (black on white or white on black).
WCAG AA is the minimum standard required for legal compliance, requiring a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text. WCAG AAA is a higher standard requiring 7:1 for normal text. While AAA provides better accessibility, it can be challenging to achieve with certain color schemes. Most organizations target AA compliance as their baseline.
To improve contrast, either darken the darker color or lighten the lighter color. Our tool provides automatic suggestions that adjust your colors to meet AA standards while staying as close as possible to your original choices. You can also try using pure black (#000000) or pure white (#FFFFFF) as they provide the highest contrast.
Yes, any meaningful visual elements that convey information need sufficient contrast. This includes icons, graphical objects, and the boundaries of form inputs. UI components and graphical objects require a minimum 3:1 contrast ratio against adjacent colors to meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.11.
No, you should never rely solely on color to communicate important information. Always provide additional visual cues like icons, patterns, underlines for links, or text labels. This ensures users with color blindness or grayscale displays can still understand your content.