A code audit of one web or mobile app costs from about $250 for a narrow review by one engineer to $7,500 for an investor-ready review, and $20,000 or more for full due diligence. Most of the fixed prices we found for a human review of one small codebase sit between $1,500 and $4,500, or £1,500 to £3,500 in the UK. Ours is US$399 for one app and one repository.
The spread is wide because "code audit" covers very different jobs: an automated scan, one engineer looking at one area, a full read of every important file, or a report written for investors. Below are the prices providers publish, what each one buys, and how to tell which kind you need.
Code audit prices published in October 2026
These are the eleven firms we found that publish a price for an audit of application code, ourselves included, read from their own pages on 25 October 2026. Smart contract audits, penetration tests and compliance audits are left out, because they are different services. Prices are as each provider states them.
| Provider | Published price | What the page says it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Mursalin's Desk | $249 | A focused review by one senior engineer of a JavaScript or TypeScript web app and its API |
| Acefina (us) | US$399 fixed | One app and one repository: security, architecture, data, tests, performance and deployment; written report in 3 business days |
| auditcode.co.uk | £499 fixed | A security-focused code review, report within 7 days |
| Krononsoft | $599 / $2,500 | Standard: a 2–3 page PDF in about 1 business day. Custom: a 10–15 page report in about a week |
| elvt.io | $1,500 fixed | A codebase health check in 5 business days |
| SoftKraft | $1,500–$2,500 | Code audit; a full system audit is $2,000–$4,000 |
| Mobibean | $1,800 | Codebases under 50,000 lines, 3 days |
| Vanguard Systems | £1,500 / £3,000 | Focused audit of one area in 3–5 business days; full audit in 5–7 business days |
| Hyper Pixel | £2,500–£3,500 + VAT | Fixed fee, 7–14 days, for an existing iOS or Android app |
| SpeedMVPs | $3,500 / $7,500 | "Sanity Check" from $3,500; "Investor-Ready" $7,500 |
| thoughtbot | $4,500 | "Code Audit: Health Check" |
Two things stand out. Below $1,000, check the scope closely: one stack, one area or a short report is common at that price. And several firms, us included, quote larger or multi-service systems separately, so a published number is for one small-to-medium codebase.
Price bands from code audit cost guides
Some firms publish bands instead of a single price. These are estimates from their own guides, not quotes.
| Source | Type or size | Price band |
|---|---|---|
| Variant Systems | Automated scan only | Free to $500 |
| Variant Systems | Focused audit, one lens, 3–5 days | $2,000–$5,000 |
| Variant Systems | Comprehensive audit, 1–2 weeks | $5,000–$10,000 |
| Variant Systems | Investment-grade due diligence | $10,000–$20,000+ |
| Fora Soft | MVP or single service, about 30,000 lines | $2,000–$8,000 |
| Fora Soft | Mid-size SaaS, about 150,000 lines | $8,000–$25,000 |
| Fora Soft | Enterprise platform, 500,000+ lines | $25,000–$60,000 |
| Synavos | Under 20,000 lines of code | $1,000–$5,000 |
| Synavos | 20,000 to 100,000 lines | $5,000–$15,000 |
The guides agree on the shape even where the numbers differ: price rises with the size of the codebase and with how much of it a person actually reads.
What moves the price up or down
- Size. More code, more services and more integrations mean more hours. Every band above is tied to size.
- Depth. An automated scan finds known patterns in minutes. A person reading the code finds the problems a tool cannot see, such as one customer being able to reach another customer's data. That reading time is most of the cost.
- Scope. One lens (only security, or only performance) costs less than a review of every area.
- Who reads the report. A report for your own developers can be plain and short. One written for investors or a buyer has to stand on its own, and costs more.
- Speed. Variant Systems adds a 30–50% premium for rush work.
- Access. An auditor who can run the app on a staging copy usually finds more than one who only reads the repository.
Which kind of audit you need
| Kind | What you get | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Automated scan | A list of known issues from static analysis and dependency checks | A free first look; it will not judge your design or business logic |
| Focused review | One engineer, one area or one stack, a short written report | A specific worry, such as security before launch |
| Full audit | Every area reviewed, findings ranked by risk, a fix list | An AI-built app before launch, inherited code, or a developer who left |
| Due diligence | A report written for a buyer or investor, with remediation estimates | Buying a company or raising on the strength of the product |
If a developer or agency has left mid-project, a full audit is usually the right first step, because you need the whole picture before deciding what to keep. Our guide on how to take over a software project explains where the audit fits in the first two weeks.
What the report should contain
Whatever you pay, the deliverable should be something you can act on without the auditor in the room:
- A one-page summary: the overall verdict and the few findings that matter most.
- A verdict per area: keep it, fix it in place, or rebuild that part.
- Findings with a severity and the file or area each one affects.
- One prioritised fix list a developer can start at the top of.
- What the review did not cover, so silence is not read as a clean bill of health.
You can see this structure in our sample code audit report, from a real audit of one of our own sites.
How to compare quotes
- Compare scope before price. Check which areas are covered, whether a person reads the code, and how long the report is.
- Ask what happens if the codebase is bigger than expected. A good answer is a fixed quote before work starts, or a refund.
- Check whether the price is credited to the fixes. We credit ours if you book the fix within 30 days; ask whether others do.
- Be wary of a firm price for code nobody has seen. A fixed price needs a defined scope, such as one app and one repository.
What a code audit does not include
The fixes themselves are separate work, quoted after the report. A code audit is also not a penetration test, which attacks a running system, and not a compliance certificate. In the UK, Cyber Essentials is a separate certification assessed by a certification body. If you need one of those, budget for it on top.
UK prices and VAT
UK providers often publish prices in pounds, and some quote them before VAT: Hyper Pixel's £2,500–£3,500 is "+VAT". The standard VAT rate in the UK is 20% (GOV.UK), so check whether a quote includes it. Our audit is priced in US dollars, US$399, and paid by card; your card provider converts it to pounds. More on how the audit fits UK GDPR and due diligence is on our code audit page for UK teams.
Our price, and why it is fixed
We charge US$399 for one app and one repository. The code audit covers security basics, architecture, data, tests, performance and deployment, and the written report arrives 3 business days after we have access. If the app turns out to be more than one app and one repository, we refund in full before starting. If you then want us to do the fixes, you get a separate fixed quote, and the US$399 is credited to it if you book within 30 days.
The audit is led by Rai Ansar, a developer and DevOps engineer since May 2019, and draws on Acefina's record of more than 300 projects.
Sources
All prices read from each provider's own page on 25 October 2026.
- Mursalin's Desk, code audit cost: mursalinsdesk.com
- auditcode.co.uk: auditcode.co.uk
- Krononsoft, code audit services: krononsoft.com
- elvt.io, code audit: elvt.io
- SoftKraft, code audit: softkraft.co
- Mobibean, codebase audit: mobibean.com
- Vanguard Systems, code audit: vanguard-systems.co.uk
- Hyper Pixel, technical code audit: hyperpixel.co.uk
- SpeedMVPs, MVP codebase audit: speedmvps.com
- thoughtbot, Code Audit: Health Check: thoughtbot.gumroad.com
- Variant Systems, code audit cost: variantsystems.io
- Fora Soft, what is a code audit: forasoft.com
- Synavos, code audit cost: synavos.com
- GOV.UK, VAT rates: gov.uk
- IASME, Cyber Essentials: iasme.co.uk