How much does a code audit cost for an AI-built app?

For a small or mid-sized app built with Lovable, Bolt, Cursor or v0, a code audit usually costs a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. When I compared published prices for this kind of audit in October 2026, they ran from about $200 to $3,000, and most sat between $500 and $1,500. Mine is $500 – $1,500, fixed before I start.

The range is wide because "audit" means different things. Some are an automated scan with a summary. Others are a person reading your code, your database rules and your live app, and writing up what to fix first. Both have their place, but they aren’t the same thing at different prices.

What moves the price

• ✓SizeThe number of screens, tables, integrations and user roles. A five-screen app with one kind of user is quicker to read than a marketplace with buyers, sellers and admins.
• ✓DepthA scan finds known patterns. Reading the access rules against how the business works, and testing them on the live app, takes longer and finds the problems scans can’t.
• ✓Money and personal dataPayments, health data or anything regulated mean more paths to check, and higher stakes if one is wrong.
• ✓The stackSupabase or Firebase with a React front end is well-trodden. A custom backend, several services or native mobile apps take longer to cover.

What you should get for it

• A written report in plain words, ranked by risk, so you know what to fix this week and what can wait.
• For each finding: what it is, why it matters to your business, how to fix it, and a rough estimate.
• Database access rules read against who should see what, and tested.
• Secret keys, payment webhooks and sign-in flows checked.
• Outdated packages with known security holes.
• The basics of speed and search: whether a mid-range phone can load it, and whether Google can see it.
• The report is yours. You can take it to any developer, including your own.

You can see the format in my sample audit report, written for a made-up app.

Scans versus an audit

Run the automated checks; they’re quick and often free, and the security checks built into AI tools and Supabase catch common holes like a table without row-level security. What a scan can’t know is your business: whether a team member should see another team’s invoices, whether a discount can be applied twice, what happens when a payment fails halfway.

An audit is a person reading the app as a whole, the way an attacker or an unlucky user would use it. It is most worth paying for before you take real money or real personal data, or before an investor or a large customer asks how your app is built.

What I charge, and why it’s fixed

My audit is $500 – $1,500, set by the size of the app, with the report in 3 to 5 days. The price is agreed in writing before I start, so finding more problems doesn’t cost you more. The first call is free: you send the link, I tell you whether an audit is what you need.

If you want me to make the fixes too, I quote them from the audit, usually $1,500 – $6,000, again fixed before I start. You don’t have to: plenty of founders take the report to their own developer, and that’s the point of writing it clearly.

When you don’t need an audit yet

• You have no real users or real data yet. Ship, learn, and check the basics yourself with my Supabase checklist.
• It's a prototype for a demo or a pitch, and it won't hold anyone's data.
• You're about to throw it away. Then read fix or rewrite first, because you may not need to.