Search "free website audit" and you'll find dozens of tools. They're genuinely useful — and genuinely limited. Knowing which is which saves you from a false sense of security.
The HTML-level basics: missing page titles and meta descriptions, heading structure, missing alt text, viewport tags, robots.txt and sitemaps. These checks read your source code, they're cheap to run, and every serious tool gets them right.
If the free scan surfaces real issues, a paid report earns its price when it adds what the free tier can't: every page checked, every finding with a concrete fix, screenshots proving the problem, and a priority order. If a paid report just repeats the free findings with prettier formatting, skip it.
Run a free scan first — always. Fix the obvious items yourself. Pay only when you want the complete picture or proof to hand your developer.