Contrast Checker
Two colors in. A WCAG contrast ratio — and a pass/fail — out.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Big headline text
▶ RETRO PALETTES THAT PASS AA ON THIS BACKGROUND
About Contrast Checker
Checks the WCAG 2.1 contrast ratio between two colors using the real gamma-corrected relative luminance formula (not an approximation), then reports pass/fail against the standard accessibility thresholds.
Thresholds
AA: 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text.
AAA: 7:1 for normal text, 4.5:1 for large text.
Large text means 18pt (24px) regular weight or 14pt (18.66px) bold or larger.
The retro palette twist
Since this is a retro-tools site, the palette section shows which colors from real 8-bit hardware palettes (PICO-8, Game Boy, NES, C64, Terminal — see the Retro Palette DB) pass AA against your chosen background. Click any swatch to load it as your text color.