Contrast

Contrast (usecontrast.com) is a beautifully focused Mac app for checking color contrast against WCAG accessibility standards — built by Sam Soffes (long-time indie Mac developer, ex-Square, ex-GitHub, who's been shipping high-quality Mac apps for over a decade). The pitch is dead simple: live menu-bar app, pick two colors, instantly see the WCAG contrast ratio + pass/fail for AA/AAA on regular + large text. If you do any digital design work and accessibility matters to you (or your clients), this is the tool to have menu-bar-available at all times. What you get: native Mac menu-bar app, color pickers for foreground + background, instant WCAG contrast ratio calculation, pass/fail indicators for WCAG AA + AAA at normal + large text sizes, eyedropper to pick colors from anywhere on screen, color blindness simulation (sometimes), keyboard shortcuts, dark mode support. Sam Soffes builds Mac-native, fast, beautiful — Contrast follows the same pattern. Where Contrast shines: design system work where you need to verify color combinations pass accessibility audits, brand work where you're locking in palette decisions and need to know the body-text-on-background contrast will work, ongoing UI design where you reach for the contrast checker constantly. Vs web-based contrast checkers (WebAIM Color Contrast Checker, Contrast Ratio by Lea Verou, the one built into Chrome DevTools), the menu-bar accessibility is the killer feature — no tab-switching, no opening browser. Where it's not for you: if you're not on Mac (Windows + Linux users can use the web-based checkers — WebAIM is the standard). If you do design work occasionally and don't need a menu-bar tool, the free web checkers work fine. If you want contrast checking inside Figma directly, the Stark plugin (free + paid) is purpose-built for that. If you want full accessibility auditing across colors + structure + ARIA, Stark or axe DevTools cover that scope. Pricing: one-time purchase, modest price (verify on usecontrast.com — around $10-20 last I checked, Mac App Store distribution). Indie app, fair pricing, no subscription. Honest take: I keep Contrast in my menu bar permanently. Three keypresses to verify a color pair, no friction, no browser. If you're a designer on Mac who cares about accessibility — and you should — buy this app. It's $15 once and pays back the first time you catch a failing color combo before shipping. Sam Soffes builds the kind of Mac apps that feel right at home in macOS, which is becoming rarer as Electron apps proliferate. Recommended without hesitation.