Silktide
👤 Oliver Emberton (Coding since age 8; ran Silktide since 2001. Turned a viral free site-scanner into two decades of accessibility authority.)🌐 siteoliveremberton.comLinkedIn
Give away a WCAG checker everyone uses; sell organizations continuous whole-site accessibility monitoring.
Will it work? · our read
Rode the mandate. But the scan is now free everywhere (axe, Lighthouse, AI). Silktide must be the compliance system of record, not just the checker — or better-funded Siteimprove wins.
01How the money moves
Give away a free WCAG checker devs use worldwide
→
Regulation (EAA, ADA) forces orgs to prove compliance
→
They buy annual whole-site monitoring
02The numbers
about $3M
2024 revenue
Latka est.
about 2x
rev, 2021-24
Latka est.
4% of rev
max EAA fine
EU EAA
Revenue is a third-party estimate (Latka); Silktide is private and publishes no figures. getlatka
About $3M in 2024, up from $1.6M in 2021 — roughly doubled in three years, all bootstrapped.
03Weight class — CENTStap an axis
Control Mid
Owns a 20-year accessibility brand and the Silktide Index, but no lock-in — customers can switch tools freely.
04The key move
Give away the scanner
The free scanner (Sitescore, 2004; later a WCAG checker devs use everywhere) went viral on TV. It became a 20-year lead machine — so when the EAA forced compliance in 2025, Silktide sat atop the funnel.
fact
The counter-intuitive move
Free tools are cheap to copy — accessiBe and AudioEye give away scanners too, and axe is open source. The viral moment was a one-time gift, not a repeatable moat.
our read
05Where the moat is
What defends Silktide is distribution and trust, not the scan itself:
20-year accessibility brand + Silktide IndexFree checker = massive top-of-funnelWhole-site monitoring, not one-page scansPublic-sector trust: NHS, Oxford, gov
06How it diesmedium confidence
If checking becomes a free browser/AI feature, the paid scan-every-page layer commoditizes. Durable value — ongoing governance plus human audits — is Siteimprove's better-funded turf. our read
Show evidence · counter
Evidence: First EAA lawsuits filed in France (Nov 2025); a court ordered Carrefour to fix its site and app (June 2026) — enforcement is real, not hype.
Counter: But regulation keeps ratcheting — WCAG updates, fresh lawsuits, US ADA plus EU EAA — so compliance urgency recurs. And Silktide bundles content, UX, and SEO, not just accessibility, which is stickier than a checker.
07Against rivals
Siteimprove owns enterprise governance; AudioEye and accessiBe push cheap overlays. Silktide sits between — real audits at mid-market price. our read
08Who uses it
GovernmentsUniversities (Oxford, Michigan State)NHS / healthcareEnterprises (eBay)Web agencies
★Would it work for you?
Do you have a distribution wedge before the deadline hits — a free tool people already use?
Silktide's edge was 20 years of free-tool reach, not the scanner. We don't score you — you answer.
🚀Use it as a launchpada prompt for your own AI
Copy → paste into your AI → then develop it freely in the conversation.
You are a sharp, honest startup strategist. Use the proven case below as a launchpad for MY idea — help me find my own angle, not copy it.
<my_profile>
Domain I know: [your domain]
My unfair advantage (access/audience): [your edge]
Interests: [your interests]
Resources & goal: [your resources] · [your goal]
</my_profile>
<case name="Silktide" model="saas">
What it does: A free WCAG checker on top; annual whole-site accessibility monitoring underneath.
Why it won (moat): Distribution and public-sector trust built over 20 years — not the scan tech.
Weakest axis (CENTS): The scan is commoditized by axe, Lighthouse, and AI.
How it could die: Checking becoming a free browser/AI feature, with Siteimprove out-spending the governance layer, erodes it.
</case>
<task>
Be a skeptical operator, not a cheerleader. No generic startup platitudes. If my angle is weak, say so plainly.
First, a reality check: markets like this mostly fail. State the honest base rate (how crowded/hard is this?) and the ONE specific thing that would have to be true for ME to be the exception — grounded in my profile above.
Then a compact table:
- Fit — does this pattern suit my edge, or fight my gap?
- Angle — my sharpest differentiation vs Silktide (concrete, not "better UX")
- Distribution — exactly where my first 100 users come from (this is the hardest part — be specific, not "content marketing")
- Risk — its "how it dies" (above) in MY situation
Finish with one line: "The single thing to do next."
Use only the facts above; if data is thin, say so — never invent numbers.
Then stay with me and go deeper on whatever I ask — tech stack, rough cost & time, the smallest MVP to test, pricing, or timing.
</task>
✓ Copied — paste into your AI
👤Placeholders like [your domain] auto-fill from your profile — example values for now.Set up profile →
Sourcesupdated · daily
Silktide — company history: Sitescore free tool (2004), dropping web design (2010), pivot to accessibility, Silktide Index (2020).Latka — Silktide: revenue about $3M (2024), up from $1.6M (2021), about 27 staff, bootstrapped (third-party estimate).European Commission — EAA in effect 28 Jun 2025: accessibility mandatory across all 27 EU states, fines up to 4% of revenue.Silktide — free Accessibility Checker: 200+ WCAG 2.2 checks, screen-reader and disability simulators (the free top-of-funnel).Silktide — accessibility solution: whole-site automated testing; customers include NHS, University of Oxford, eBay, Michigan State.
Revenue (about $3M, 2024) is a third-party estimate from Latka, not a first-party disclosure — Silktide is a private UK company that publishes no figures, so it is marked EST / not independently confirmed. The founder, 2001 bootstrapping, free-scanner-to-platform history, customers (NHS, Oxford, eBay, Michigan State), and the regulation timeline (EU Web Accessibility Directive; EAA in force 28 Jun 2025, fines up to 4% of revenue; French lawsuits Nov 2025; Carrefour ordered June 2026) are documented on first-party or official sources. The 'give away the scanner' story is on Silktide's own history page; the read that this is (or is not) a repeatable moat is [our inference]. We never score you.