Smart contract audit cost: ranges and price drivers
What a smart contract audit costs, from small token contracts to large DeFi protocols, what drives the price, and how to lower it without cutting quality.
7 min read
Free tool
Smart contract audit cost calculator
An indicative price range and duration for your audit, for independent auditors and for established firms. The model is published below.
How the estimate is calculated
The calculator applies a simple, published model. Change a parameter above and the estimate follows these values.
Review pace
- Independent auditors and boutique firms
- 350 nSLOC per day
- Established audit firms
- 250 nSLOC per day
Day rate per auditor (USD)
- Independent auditors and boutique firms
- $900 to $1,500
- Established audit firms
- $2,000 to $3,800
Language and chain
- Solidity or Vyper (EVM)
- × 1
- Rust (Solana)
- × 1.3
- Move (Aptos, Sui)
- × 1.25
- Cairo (Starknet)
- × 1.3
- Other
- × 1.3
Type of project
- Token
- × 0.7
- NFT
- × 0.8
- Staking or vesting
- × 1
- DeFi (AMM, lending, derivatives)
- × 1.35
- Bridge or cross-chain
- × 1.6
- Other
- × 1
Readiness of the code
- Ready
- × 0.9
- Partly ready
- × 1
- Not ready
- × 1.2
Risk, urgency and re-audit
- External integrations
- +10%
- Upgradeable contracts
- +10%
- Custom math
- +20%
- Standard
- × 1
- Fast
- × 1.25
- Urgent
- × 1.5
- Include the re-audit of fixes
- +20%
- Minimum engagement
- 3 auditor-days
Formula
Auditor-days = nSLOC ÷ review pace × language × type of project × readiness × (1 + risk factors), with a minimum of three days. Price = auditor-days × day rate × urgency, plus the re-audit when included. The team size follows the effort, and the duration assumes five working days a week.
What the estimate does not cover
- The exact scope: the same number of lines can hide very different logic.
- Availability and demand, which move prices from one month to the next.
- A quote: only vendors can commit to a price, after reading your code and your brief.
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