A big chunk of your list can't read your emails the way you designed them. Some people use screen readers. Some bump the font size on their phone. Some have images turned off by default, which is more common than most marketers expect.
Accessible email isn't a special project. It's mostly a handful of small choices you make while you build the campaign, and every one of them also makes the email easier for everyone else to read.
Here's the checklist I'd run through before hitting send.
Write real alt text on every image
Alt text is the sentence a screen reader reads out loud when it hits an image. It's also the text that shows up when images don't load.
Describe what the image does, not what it looks like.
- Bad:
image1.jpg - Also bad:
banner - Good:
Spring sale, 25% off all garden tools
If your most important message lives inside a graphic (a big "50% OFF" hero image, say), a lot of people will never see it. Put that message in real text somewhere too.
Decorative images (dividers, spacer graphics, background flourishes) should get empty alt text so screen readers skip them instead of announcing junk.
Don't build the whole email as one image
It still happens. One giant JPG, no live text. It's terrible for screen readers, terrible when images are blocked, and it's a classic spam-filter trigger because there's no text to read.
Aim for real text with images supporting it.
Keep text big enough to read
Body text at 16px minimum. Headlines larger. Anything under 14px starts to fail people over 40, which is a lot of buyers.
A few related habits:
- Left-align body copy. Centered paragraphs are harder to track line to line.
- Skip all-caps for anything longer than two or three words. Screen readers sometimes spell it out letter by letter, and it's slower to read either way.
- Use generous line spacing, around 1.4 to 1.5.
- Avoid thin, light-gray fonts on white. That "elegant" look is a readability problem.
Use web-safe fonts with sensible fallbacks. Fancy custom fonts get replaced in plenty of inboxes anyway.
Check your color contrast
Contrast is the difference between your text color and the background behind it. The common target is a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
You don't have to eyeball it. Free contrast checkers let you paste two hex codes and get a pass or fail in a second.
The usual offenders:
- Light gray text on white
- White text on a pale brand color (yellow and light blue are frequent problems)
- Text sitting on top of a busy photo
- Buttons where the label barely stands out from the fill
And never use color alone to carry meaning. "Click the green button" leaves out anyone who can't tell which one is green. Say "click Reserve my seat" instead.
Write link and button text that stands on its own
Screen reader users often pull up a list of every link in an email and tab through it. If half of them say "click here," that list is useless.
Make link text describe the destination.
- Weak:
Click here/Read more/Learn more - Strong:
Read the full pricing breakdown/Book your Tuesday slot
Same rule for buttons. "Get my free checklist" beats "Submit" every time, and it usually converts better too. Our CTA Generator is handy when you're stuck on phrasing.
Keep tap targets big. A button should be at least 44 pixels tall so someone with shaky hands or a big thumb can hit it.
Give the email a clear structure
Screen readers use headings to jump around, the same way you skim a webpage. That only works if your headings are real headings.
- Use actual heading elements (H1, H2, H3) in order, not bolded paragraph text pretending to be headings
- One clear H1 near the top, usually your main message
- Break long emails into short sections with descriptive subheads
- Use real bulleted lists instead of paragraphs with dashes typed in
Set the language attribute on your email so screen readers use the right pronunciation. Most email builders handle this, but it's worth checking if you've pasted in custom HTML.
Single-column layouts are your friend. They read correctly in almost every client and reflow cleanly on a phone.
Fix the parts nobody looks at
Preheader text. It's read out loud before the body. Write a real sentence, not leftover filler like "View this email in your browser."
Subject lines. Skip the emoji pileups. A screen reader announces every single one by name, so three fire emojis becomes an announcement all its own. One emoji, used on purpose, is fine. You can sanity-check phrasing with the Subject Line Tester.
Sender name. Consistent and recognizable. It's often the first thing announced.
Tables. If you're using tables for layout (most email HTML does), mark them as presentation so screen readers don't try to read them as data.
GIFs. Nothing that flashes more than three times per second. Fast flashing can trigger seizures. Also make sure the first frame carries the message, because animation doesn't play everywhere.
Test before you send
Reading your own email on your own laptop tells you almost nothing.
Do these four things:
- Turn images off and read what's left. Does it still make sense? Is the offer still clear?
- View it on a phone. Actually scroll it. Tap the buttons.
- Run the plain-text version. Most tools auto-generate one, and it's usually a mess of stripped links. Clean it up.
- Listen to it. Turn on VoiceOver on a Mac or iPhone, or NVDA on Windows (free). Two minutes of listening will teach you more than an hour of reading guides.
Preview across a few clients before you schedule anything. The Email Preview tool is a fast way to spot layout breaks that only show up in Outlook or Gmail's app.
A short pre-send list
Copy this and keep it next to your build process:
- Every image has meaningful alt text
- No text trapped inside images
- Body copy is 16px or larger, left-aligned
- Text passes 4.5:1 contrast
- No meaning carried by color alone
- Link and button text describes the action
- Buttons are 44px tall or more
- Real headings, in order
- Preheader is a real sentence
- Email tested with images off, on a phone, and read aloud
None of this takes long once it's habit. Most of it just makes the email clearer, which is the whole point of sending it.
Build the accessibility pass into your normal routine and you stop treating it as extra work. Set up your recurring sends with a weekly email plan and add the checklist as its own step.