- 472PDFs on one website
- 8,340 pages in all
- 1,561failed checks fixed in under three hours
- 67% of the library’s 2,340
- 91hours of review, approximately
- about 15 minutes for each document that ends up certified
- 364documents certified, approximately
- 77% of the library, up from zero
Picture the ADA coordinator at a state agency with one public website and a library the size many counties and small agencies have. The Title II compliance date of April 26, 2027 is on the calendar (as of October 2026), and nobody knows how many PDFs the site carries or what shape they are in.
How big was the library?
Proof crawled the website and found 486 PDFs. 472 of them, 8,340 pages in all, became the library: newsletters and flyers, rule-hearing notices, provider guidance, grant and procurement documents, reports and plans. The typical document is 4 pages; 9 run past 100.
What shape was it in?
Not one of the 472 documents met WCAG 2.1 AA. Between them they failed 2,340 accessibility checks, and 83 could not be read by any checker at all: 65 had never been tagged and 18 were scans with no text layer. The first analysis of the whole library took 43 minutes.
What did Proof do in under three hours?
The coordinator chose the whole library, kept the recommended settings, and pressed one button: "Remediate 472 documents". Machine fixes apply on their own, anything an AI writes waits for a person, and documents Proof finishes completely are certified under the agency's standing instruction. Two hours and 49 minutes later, Proof had:
- made 81 of the 83 unreadable documents readable, tagging 63 and adding a text layer to 18;
- fixed 1,561 of the library's 2,340 failed checks (67%);
- certified 13 documents outright, each with a public verification page that says no person approved it;
- drafted 5,118 image descriptions across 341 documents, for a person to accept or edit.
No one touched a file. Five minutes after the click, 9 certificates had already been issued while the rest of the library was still running.
What was left for a person to do?
When the run finished, the coordinator was not facing 472 files to rebuild. They had a review queue, sorted by the decisions only a person can make, with the work already drafted:
| Lane | What the person does | Approximate review time |
|---|---|---|
| Alt text | Read 5,118 drafted image descriptions; accept, edit or mark decorative | 40 hours |
| Reading order | Confirm the reading order on 326 documents | 28 hours |
| Colour and contrast | Confirm colour use and non-text contrast; accept drafted recolours | 4 hours |
| Everything else a person must judge | Headings, language of parts, images of text, link purpose, then opening and approving each document | 19 hours |
| Total | 91 hours |
That is about 15 minutes for each document that ends up certified, or under two and a half weeks for a single reviewer. This library is heavy on images: the 341 documents with pictures carry a median of 6 that each need a description, which is where most of the time goes. We estimated these times from 5,236 timed review actions by remediators and public-agency staff working in Proof on 635 public-sector documents, applied to this library's own queue.
How many documents end up certified?
Working that queue certifies 364 of the 472 documents (77%) to WCAG 2.1 AA, from a starting point of zero. Where a review turns up a real problem, that document goes to repair instead of sign-off.
The other 108 need a repair before they can certify: most often a list to tag (62 documents), or a rebuild from the source file. Proof names each of those documents and the repair it needs. Your team makes those repairs in Proof, or Ockem's experts take them on Assured, quoted per document, with the same certificate at the end.
What would this library cost?
Ockem charges one flat price per document, charged only when the document certifies. At the pack rates for a library this size, $15 to $22 per document, the 364 documents that certify come to roughly $5,500 to $8,000. A file over 50 pages counts as one document per 50 pages, and 9 files here run past 100, so the true figure is somewhat higher; the pricing page's estimator does the sum for your own count. Most documents need one manual check from your team, two at the 90th percentile; in this library that review is the 91 hours above.
A remediation service that rebuilds files one at a time is commonly quoted at $3–10+ per page: $25,000 to $83,000 for the same 8,340 pages, with the review done for you. A checker costs little and fixes nothing.
How does this compare with a checker or a service?
A checker reports on every file and stops. A remediation service rebuilds files one at a time and takes weeks. Proof did the rebuilding across the whole library in under three hours, and what it handed a person was a short, specific decision on each document.
What does the certificate say?
Each one names what the machine checked, what a person attested and what was not tested, and links to a public page anyone can use to verify it. A certificate Proof issues on its own says exactly that: no person approved it. What the certificate claims, and what it does not.
How we did this study
We pointed Proof's crawler at the agency's public website, imported every linked PDF, and ran one remediation with the recommended settings. The agency did not take part and we do not name it. The counts of documents, pages, checks and fixes are Proof's own measurements of the run. The review hours and the certified count after review are estimates, from timed review work in Proof on other public-sector documents, applied to this library's queue. Prices are Ockem's list prices as of October 2026; the per-page range comes from vendor quotes we reviewed in August 2026. This study was written by Ockem, which makes Proof.
If you are that coordinator, start where this study started: count your PDFs, free.
Questions
Is this agency an Ockem customer?
No. We ran Ockem Proof on the PDFs the agency had posted on its public website, without its participation, and we do not name it. Library studies hold this place until a customer agrees to be named.
Why did Proof certify only 13 documents without a person?
Proof certifies a document on its own only when every check passes by machine and nothing is left for a person to judge. A document with an image to describe, a reading order to confirm or a colour decision waits for a person. Those 13 certificates say exactly that: no person approved them.
How were the 91 review hours estimated?
From 5,236 timed review actions by remediators and public-agency staff working in Proof on 635 public-sector documents, applied to this library's own queue: 5,118 drafted image descriptions, 326 reading-order confirmations and the rest. They are estimates, not a timed review of this library.
Would my library look like this one?
Not necessarily. This library is heavy on images, so alt text is most of the review. Our other study, a 2,588-document library across 14 websites, had 63% of its documents unreadable by any checker. A free count of your own site shows which kind you have.
Can Ockem run this on my library?
Yes. Point us at a domain and we count every linked PDF, assess a sample and price the whole library, free, usually within three business days. Or try one PDF free, with no account.
This study reports Ockem’s own measurements and estimates. It isn’t legal advice.