Platform guide
Squarespace Accessibility: A Practical Guide
Polished templates aren’t the same as an accessible site. Here’s what Squarespace handles and what’s on you.
Squarespace’s polished templates lead a lot of owners to assume their site is accessible by default. The templates do provide a reasonable baseline, but Squarespace gives you less low-level control than a hand-coded site — which means some accessibility issues are yours to manage in content, and a few are constrained by the platform. Here’s the realistic picture.
The short version
Squarespace templates start you off decently, but accessibility still comes down to your content choices — alt text, headings, contrast, link text — plus any custom code blocks you add.
Is Squarespace accessible?
A well-chosen template with disciplined content can get close to WCAG 2.1 AA. But default styling sometimes uses light, low-contrast text, and the gallery/summary blocks and custom code embeds are common sources of issues. As with every platform, “the template looks clean” is not the same as “a screen-reader user can complete the task.”
What Squarespace handles vs. what you do
| Squarespace / template | You |
|---|---|
| Responsive layout & baseline semantics | Image alt text (set per image) |
| Keyboard support in native blocks | Heading levels in text blocks |
| Template structure | Contrast of fonts and buttons |
| Custom code blocks & embeds |
Common Squarespace accessibility issues
- Low-contrast text from default light styling — a frequent failure.
- Missing image alt text (Squarespace lets you set it, but it’s often skipped).
- Heading-level skips when text is sized visually rather than marked up (use the heading checker).
- Vague link text on buttons and “read more” links (see the link auditor).
- Inaccessible custom code blocks and third-party embeds.
- Carousels/slideshows without accessible controls.
How to fix them
- Fix contrast first — adjust font and button colors in the style editor to clear 4.5:1.
- Add alt text to every meaningful image in the image settings.
- Use proper heading levels (Heading 1/2/3) instead of just enlarging text.
- Write descriptive button and link text.
- Audit custom code blocks — they bypass the template’s defaults.
- Re-test after design changes and template updates with monitoring.
Be wary of overlay plugins
Third-party “accessibility” code blocks are often overlays — they don’t make you compliant and can break assistive tech. Fix the content instead.