WCAG color contrast checker
Test any text and background pair against the WCAG 2.1 contrast thresholds. Runs entirely in your browser.
Large text 24px
Normal text at 14px looks like this sentence.
What the thresholds mean
WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (24px and up, or 18.66px bold) at Level AA, the level referenced by the ADA, the European Accessibility Act, and Section 508. Level AAA raises those thresholds to 7:1 and 4.5:1. The ratio compares the relative luminance of the two colors; pure black on white is 21:1.
One pair passing here does not make your site compliant
Contrast failures are the single most common accessibility violation on the web, and they hide in places a manual check misses: hover states, placeholder text, disabled buttons that convey information, and text sitting on images or gradients, where the effective background changes pixel by pixel. Our site scanner measures rendered contrast across your whole site, including text over images, which rule-based tools skip.
Check your whole site, not one color pair
Run a free WCAG 2.2 AA scan: contrast on every page, plus keyboard navigation, alt text, forms, and 90+ other checks. No signup needed for the score.