Overview
An ADA demand letter is a letter from a lawyer, usually representing a single named plaintiff, claiming your website is not accessible and asking for money to settle before a lawsuit is filed. It is not a government notice and not a formal court filing. It is a private legal claim, and it is usually the first sign a store gets that anything is wrong.
You cannot safely ignore one. Here is what it actually is and what to do in the first 48 hours.
What the letter usually contains
Most demand letters follow a template: a claim that the plaintiff, often visually impaired, tried to use your site and could not complete a task like adding an item to cart or checking out. It cites specific pages and sometimes specific WCAG criteria. It closes with a settlement figure and a deadline, often short, to respond before a lawsuit gets filed instead.
Many firms send hundreds of these letters using the same handful of automated scan findings, then adjust the settlement number based on how the business responds. The letter is a negotiation opener, not a final judgment.
Can you ignore it
No. Ignoring a demand letter does not make the claim disappear. It typically leads to one of two things: the firm files a lawsuit directly, which is more expensive for you than settling would have been, or the firm keeps sending follow-up letters with rising settlement figures. Either way, the underlying accessibility problems remain unfixed and the store stays exposed to the next filer too. What actually happens once a suit is filed is mapped out in the ADA lawsuit timeline.
How to respond
Do not reply to the firm directly without counsel. Anything you say can be used in the negotiation. Contact a lawyer experienced in ADA Title III defense first.
Get an independent audit immediately. You need to know whether the claims are true and how deep the problem goes before you can negotiate from an informed position. A documented report, like a real accessibility audit, gives your lawyer something concrete to work with instead of guessing.
Start remediation in parallel, not after settlement. Firms and courts view visible, immediate good-faith effort favorably, and it often improves your negotiating position. The full defense strategy is covered in how to defend an ADA website lawsuit.
Do not install an overlay widget as a quick fix. It does not resolve the underlying issues and can actually appear in the complaint as evidence the site is still broken, explained in overlay widgets don’t make you compliant.
Example
A home goods store received a demand letter citing a missing form label on the newsletter signup and an unlabeled cart icon. The owner engaged a lawyer within a week, ordered an audit that confirmed both issues plus 11 more, and had a developer ship fixes for the cited issues within days. The lawyer used the completed remediation and dated report to negotiate the settlement down significantly from the letter’s opening figure.
Common mistake
Treating the settlement figure in the letter as fixed. It almost never is. It is an opening number designed to make a quick, no-questions payment look easier than fighting. An audit and legal counsel routinely bring that number down, and sometimes avoid a payment structure entirely if the claims turn out to be weak or exaggerated.