- 2,588PDFs on 14 websites
- 25,807 pages in all
- 9,656failed checks fixed in one night
- 75% of the library’s 12,832
- 343hours of review, approximately
- under ten minutes for each document that ends up certified
- 2,153documents certified, approximately
- 83% of the library, up from 3
Picture the ADA coordinator at a statewide public-safety agency. The agency publishes on 14 websites, and nobody has ever counted the PDFs across all of them. The Title II compliance date of April 26, 2027 is on the calendar (as of October 2026).
How big was the library?
Proof crawled all 14 sites and found 2,718 PDFs. 2,588 of them, 25,807 pages in all, became the library. Most are short: the typical document is a single page, such as a form, a notice or a county crash summary. 29 run past 100 pages. If you have never counted the PDFs across your own sites, this is the step that comes first.
What shape was it in?
3 of the 2,588 documents met WCAG 2.1 AA, and between them the library failed 12,832 accessibility checks. Worse, 1,632 documents (63%) could not be read by any accessibility checker at all: 1,546 had never been tagged, and 86 were scans with no text layer. A checker produces a report on all 2,588 files and stops there.
What did Proof do in one night?
At 7:35 in the evening the coordinator started one remediation over the whole library with the recommended settings: machine fixes apply on their own, and anything an AI writes waits for a person. Then they closed the tab. By the next morning, Proof had:
- made 1,582 of the 1,632 unreadable documents readable, tagging 1,497 and adding a text layer to 85;
- fixed 9,656 of the library's 12,832 failed checks (75%);
- certified 51 documents outright, each with a public verification page;
- drafted 13,227 image descriptions across 2,041 documents, for a person to accept or edit.
No one touched a file. 2,575 of the 2,585 documents it worked were finished within 11 hours; the last ten, reports of 174 to 673 pages, were done by mid-morning.
What was left for a person to do?
The coordinator was not facing 2,588 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 13,227 drafted image descriptions; accept, edit or mark decorative | 103 hours |
| Reading order | Confirm the reading order on 2,222 documents | 112 hours |
| Colour and contrast | Confirm colour use and non-text contrast; accept drafted recolours | 39 hours |
| Everything else a person must judge | Content captured by tagging, headings, images of text, then opening and approving each document | 89 hours |
| Total | 343 hours |
That is under ten minutes for each document that ends up certified, or about two months for a single reviewer. Reading order is the largest lane here: 2,222 documents, most of them single pages that had never been tagged, so the order Proof inferred needs one look each. 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 2,153 of the 2,588 documents (83%) to WCAG 2.1 AA, from a starting point of 3. Where a review turns up a real problem, that document goes to repair instead of sign-off.
The other 435 need a repair before they can certify: a table or a list to tag, a missing title, 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 1,000-document rate of $15, the 2,153 documents that certify come to roughly $32,000. A file over 50 pages counts as one document per 50 pages, and 29 files here run past 100, so the true figure is higher; above 2,500 documents Ockem prices the library with you, at or below $15 per document. Most documents need one manual check from your team, two at the 90th percentile; in this library that review is the 343 hours above.
A remediation service that rebuilds files one at a time is commonly quoted at $3–10+ per page: $77,000 to $258,000 for the same 25,807 pages, with the review done for you, over many months. 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 months at this size. Proof did the rebuilding across the whole library in one night, 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. What the certificate claims, and what it does not.
How we did this study
We pointed Proof's crawler at the agency's 14 public websites, 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 14 public websites, without its participation, and we do not name it. Library studies hold this place until a customer agrees to be named.
Why could no checker read 1,632 of the documents?
1,546 had never been tagged, so there was no structure for a checker to test, and 86 were scans with no text layer. A checker reports those files as failures and stops. Proof tagged 1,497 of them and added a text layer to 85 overnight, which is what made the rest of the checks possible.
How were the 343 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: 13,227 drafted image descriptions, 2,222 reading-order confirmations and the rest. They are estimates, not a timed review of this library.
What happens to the 435 documents that still need a repair?
Proof names each one and the repair it needs: a table or a list to tag, a missing title, or a rebuild from the source file. Your team makes those repairs in Proof, or Ockem's experts take them on under Assured, quoted per document, with the same certificate at the end.
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.