How much does a Laravel security audit cost?
The short answer: most Laravel security audits land between roughly $2,000 and $10,000. A focused, fixed-price review of a small-to-mid app built with an AI assistant is typically a few thousand dollars. A deep audit plus active penetration testing for something heading to scale, or facing an enterprise security questionnaire, runs higher. Everything in between comes down to two levers: how much code there is to read, and whether you want a pentest on top of the review.
That is the honest range. The rest of this article explains what actually moves the number, so you can predict your own quote before you ask for one, and spot an audit that is priced suspiciously low.
What you are actually paying for
A real audit is a senior engineer reading your application by hand: routes, controllers, models, authorization, config, uploads and dependencies. The cost is that person's time and judgement, not a tool licence. You can buy a $99 automated scan today, and it will dutifully flag some outdated packages and a missing header. What it cannot tell you is whether this invoice should be visible to that user, because authorization is business logic and a scanner has no idea what your business rules are. That gap, the one between "the code runs" and "the code is safe against a motivated user," is what you are paying a human to close.
For the money, a proper engagement delivers a prioritised report with severity, exact file and line, a plain-language explanation, and a concrete fix for every finding, plus a walkthrough call. If a quote does not include the fixes, be careful: a list of flags with no remediation is the cheap part.
The five things that move the price
- Codebase size. The biggest driver. More routes, controllers and models mean more risk surface to review by hand. A single-feature app quotes very differently from a multi-module SaaS.
- Scope: audit only, or audit plus pentest. A code audit reads the source. Active penetration testing attacks the running application. Adding the pentest roughly doubles the effort, and the price.
- Turnaround. A standard slot is cheaper than a rush. If you need it before a launch on Friday, that urgency has a cost.
- Remediation. A report you implement yourself is one price. Having the fixes implemented and the app hardened for you is another.
- One-off or ongoing. A single audit is a fixed engagement. A retainer that reviews every release is priced monthly and works out differently over a year.
Typical price bands
Here is how those levers translate into concrete packages. These are our own fixed prices; use them as a market reference point.
- Secure Code Review — scoped on request. The lightest option: a focused, manual pass over a specific feature or a quick pre-launch sanity check. Best when you do not need the whole app audited. See what a secure code review covers.
- AI-Code Audit Sprint — $2,500 fixed. The most-booked package. A full review of an AI-generated Laravel app: routes, controllers, models, auth, config and dependencies, a prioritised report with a fix for every finding, a 45-minute walkthrough, delivered in five working days.
- Full Audit + Pentest — from $6,000. The deep code audit plus active penetration testing, a CVSS-scored report, and a retest after you have applied the fixes. For apps going to scale or answering a security questionnaire.
- Security Retainer — $1,800 per month. Ongoing reviews on every release for teams shipping continuously, with priority turnaround and a quarterly deep audit.
- Fix & Harden and custom scope — quoted from the work. Large or multi-tenant codebases, compliance requirements and agency white-label engagements are scoped individually.
The full comparison is on the pricing page. If you are not sure which band you fall into, that is normal: size and scope are exactly what the scoping call is for.
Why fixed price beats hourly
Plenty of consultants bill security work by the day. The problem for you is that a day rate hides the total: you find out what the audit cost when the invoice arrives. A fixed price flips the risk. We scope from a short call and read-only repo access, quote one number, and that is the number. It also aligns incentives, because we are not paid more for taking longer. For a defined piece of work like an audit, there is no good reason to accept open-ended hourly billing.
What a cheap audit quietly leaves out
If a quote looks far below the ranges above, it is usually missing one of these:
- The human pass. "Automated scan" often means a tool ran and nobody read the results in the context of your app. That misses the entire class of authorization and business-logic bugs, which is where AI-generated code fails most.
- The fixes. A CSV of flags is not remediation. The valuable output is a specific, Laravel-idiomatic change for each finding.
- The retest. Without a re-check after you apply fixes, you never confirm the criticals are actually closed.
How to keep your own cost down
You have real control over the number:
- Have read-only repo access ready so no time is lost on logistics.
- Scope tightly to the risky surface first: authentication, payments, file uploads, admin actions and anything multi-tenant.
- Clear the obvious findings yourself before the audit, so the paid hours go to the hard problems. A quick triage pass catches a surprising amount:
Each hit deserves thirty seconds of attention. For the full list of what to check, see the seven flaws we find most in AI-generated Laravel. If budget is tight, start with a Secure Code Review on your highest-risk feature rather than the whole app.
Is it worth it?
Weigh the price against what one missed bug costs. A single insecure direct object reference that leaks customer records is not just a code fix: it can be a breach notification, a lost enterprise deal, and, under GDPR, a reportable incident. Against that, a fixed-price audit is inexpensive insurance, and unlike insurance it also leaves your app measurably better. You can read a redacted sample report to see exactly what the deliverable looks like before you spend anything.
FAQ
How much does a Laravel security audit cost?
Most land between roughly $2,000 and $10,000. A focused, fixed-price audit of a small-to-mid AI-generated app is typically a few thousand dollars; a deep audit plus a penetration test for an app heading to scale runs higher. Codebase size and whether you add a pentest are the two biggest drivers.
Do you charge hourly or fixed price?
Fixed price. We scope from a short call and read-only repo access, then quote a single number up front, so you know the cost before you commit.
What is the cheapest option?
A focused Secure Code Review, scoped on request. It suits a single feature or a quick sanity check rather than a whole-app audit.
Does the price include fixing the issues?
Every finding in the report ships with a concrete fix you can apply. If you want the remediation implemented for you, the Fix and Harden package does that, quoted from the findings.
How long does an audit take?
The AI-Code Audit Sprint is delivered in five working days. Larger codebases and full audit-plus-pentest engagements are scoped and quoted individually.