A code audit for a small codebase, under 15,000 lines, typically runs from around $1,000 to $1,500. A mid-sized codebase, between 15,000 and 80,000 lines, lands somewhere between $3,000 and $7,000. Past that point, pricing stops being a formula and becomes a conversation, because a codebase that size needs a human to look at it before anyone commits to a number. None of these figures come from a flat day rate applied to a rough headcount guess. They come from a formula: how much code there is, multiplied by how complicated that code actually is to put right.
The formula behind the price
Every quote at vibeharbor.io is generated the same way, before a human ever opens the repository. First, an automated scan counts lines of code, excluding anything that isn't really code: vendored dependencies, generated files, lockfiles, build output. Second, it checks for a handful of signals that predict how hard the fix will actually be: whether the dependencies are current, whether a CI pipeline exists, whether the codebase spans more than one language, and how thin the test coverage looks. Those signals combine into a complexity multiplier, and the multiplier is what separates a fair quote from a guess.
GitHub alone hosted 630 million repositories across 180 million developers in 2025, according to GitHub's Octoverse report, and no two of them need the same amount of work to reach production-ready. A pricing model that ignores that variation either overcharges the clean repositories or underprices the messy ones. The formula itself reads like this:
estimated_days = (lines of code ÷ 1,000) × days_per_1k_loc × complexity_multiplier
fixed_price = estimated_days × day_rate
Two of those variables are fixed by us and shown before you pay: a baseline of 0.15 engineer-days for every 1,000 lines of code, and a day rate of $500. The third, the complexity multiplier, starts at 1 and climbs based on what the scan finds: stale or vulnerable dependencies add 0.35, a missing CI/CD pipeline adds 0.20, and a codebase split across more than one primary language adds 0.15. Test coverage is tracked as well, though it currently sits at a neutral weighting rather than a penalty, since thin coverage is close to the default for the repositories that reach us in the first place.
What that looks like by codebase size
| Tier | LOC range | Estimated days | Fixed price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | Up to 15,000 | ~2.2 days | ~$1,100 |
| Medium | 15,000 to 80,000 | ~9.5 days | ~$4,750 |
| Large | 80,000+ | Scoped manually | Custom |
These are illustrative bands drawn from the same formula, not separate pricing plans someone negotiated by hand. The gap between the small and medium tiers is wide because complexity, not just line count, tends to compound as codebases grow: bigger repositories are more likely to touch multiple languages, more likely to be missing a pipeline somewhere, and more likely to have a dependency nobody's looked at in a year.
Why lines of code alone is a bad way to price an audit
Line count is easy to measure and weak on its own as a proxy for effort. An 800-line repository with no tests, no CI and a pile of unpatched dependencies can take an engineer longer to make production-ready than an 8,000-line repository that already has reasonable coverage and a working pipeline. Pricing purely by line count punishes the second repository and lets the first one through underpriced, which is the wrong way round. That's the entire reason the complexity multiplier exists: it's what stops a messy small codebase and a clean large one from being quoted as if they were the same job.
What happens if the audit takes longer than quoted
Every estimate is generated automatically, which makes it directional rather than exact. Sometimes the assigned engineer opens the repository and finds it's worse than the scan suggested: a dependency that looked current is pinned to a fork with known issues, or a test suite that exists on paper never actually runs in CI. When that happens, the answer isn't to quietly absorb the extra cost, and it isn't to stop halfway through and hand back an unfinished job either. The engineer flags the overage as early as possible, usually within the first day of active work, with a specific revised day count and price attached to the additional scope. Nothing past the original quote happens until that revision is approved. If it isn't approved, whatever's already finished is still delivered as a pull request, clearly marked as partial.
See your own number
The live estimator on the homepage runs the same formula described above against your own repository's size and complexity signals. No email, no sales call, just the number.
Get a real quote →What determines the price of a code audit?
Two things: how much code there is, and how complex it is to fix. Complexity is measured by scanning the repository for signals like dependency freshness, the presence of a CI/CD pipeline, and how many languages the codebase spans, then applying those as a multiplier on top of a base rate per 1,000 lines of code.
What happens if a code audit takes longer than quoted?
The engineer flags it as soon as the extra scope is found, typically within the first day of work, and a revised price is sent for approval. Work beyond the original quote doesn't start until that revision is accepted, and anything already finished is still handed back as a pull request either way.
Is a bigger codebase always more expensive to audit?
Not necessarily. A smaller codebase with stale dependencies, no CI pipeline and no tests can cost more to fix than a much larger one that's already well maintained, because price is driven by complexity as much as by size.