Who do I hire to fix the app I built with AI?
Hire by the shape of the problem, not by the title. One broken feature: a freelancer or a rescue shop, at $50 to $200 an hour or a fixed price of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Every fix breaking something else: someone who reads the whole codebase, fixes the structure, and stays. A fundraise or one large technical decision: a fractional CTO at $4,000 a month and up.
This page lists the five kinds of help with their published 2026 rates, what to send before anyone quotes so the quote means something, and five questions that separate people who have run production software from people who have built demos.
In founders’ words
“Quotes get priced by screens. Real cost lives in the things that aren't screens.”
“I've built a working prototype of a web app using AI, but I don't have enough experience in web development, programming, or cybersecurity to confidently turn it into a secure, production-ready product.”
The five kinds of help and what they cost
- Freelance developer: $50 to $150 an hour on the open marketplaces, defined projects at $5,000 to $15,000, small fixes from a few hundred dollars (a September 2026 hiring guide). A senior US engineer on a vetted network is $130 to $200 an hour; Eastern Europe $80 to $140 (A.Team, June 2026).
- Rescue shop: $49 to $499 for an audit in about 48 hours, $1,500 to $3,999 for a fixed-price sprint, rebuilds from $4,000, or $70 an hour with a five-hour minimum. Fixed scope, fast, narrow.
- Agency: $150 to $350 an hour blended in the US, $55 to $110 in Eastern Europe (Pangea, March 2026); a full production build of a Lovable app at $13,000 to $25,000. A team, with minimums.
- Fractional CTO: $4,000 to $10,000 a month for 10 to 15 hours of direction. Judgment, not hands.
- Ongoing partner: $499 a month for monitoring and small fixes, up to $3,499 a month for 40 hours, at the shops that publish prices. Someone responsible every month.
What to send before anyone quotes
A quote is only as good as what the person saw. Send read-only access to the repository, not production keys. Send the name of the hosting and database services and who holds the logins. Send what breaks, in your words, with the last three times it happened. Send how many people use the app and whether they pay. Say which coding tool built it and what the last five changes were.
Then watch what comes back. A quote priced by screens, so much per page or feature, was written from the outside. A developer on r/EntrepreneurRideAlong put it this way in October 2026: quotes get priced by screens, and the real cost lives in the things that are not screens, the admin side, the error states, the permissions. A quote that names those, and says what it found in your code rather than what it assumes, came from someone who read it.
Five questions that find someone who has run production
- Have you been on call for software that customers paid for? What broke, and what did you do at 2 a.m.?
- When a deploy goes wrong, how do you roll it back, and how long does that take?
- Will you work in my accounts, GitHub, hosting, domain, with a seat I can remove?
- What tests will exist when you are done, and will they run before every change?
- What happens when I change something with my coding agent next week?
Red flags: a full rebuild quoted before anyone has read the code; hosting that would move into their account; no mention of backups; and the phrase production-ready with no list of what that means. The founder on r/startups who wrote in September 2026 that he could not confidently make his AI-built prototype secure and production-ready was asking the right question. The answer is a list, not a promise.
Freelancer, agency or rescue shop: the honest trade-offs
A freelancer is the cheapest and the most variable. You get one person, their availability and their habits. For a defined fix with a clear end, a good one is the best value on this page. For an app that needs watching, you are buying hours from someone who has other clients.
An agency brings a team and a process, and a bias toward rebuilding, because a rebuild is a larger project and because reading someone else's AI-generated code is slow work nobody enjoys. Agencies suit a whole build with a budget to match. They are a poor fit for a working app that needs its structure repaired and then run.
A rescue shop is fast and fixed-price and stops when the sprint ends. The right choice for one broken thing. Pair it with someone who stays if customers depend on the app.
A fractional CTO is the right call when the problem is a decision, and the wrong one when the problem is the code.
Keep the keys
Whoever you hire, the repository stays on your GitHub, the hosting and database stay in accounts in your name and paid from your card, the domain is registered to you, and the person works through a seat you can remove. Ask for a written note at the end: what changed, where it runs, and how to turn it off. The ops lead who posted on r/nocode in September 2026 that the one person who understood their AI-built tool was leaving in three weeks, and that nobody knew how to turn it off, was describing what happens when that note does not exist.
If a candidate wants the app in their accounts, the answer is no, whatever the price. It is the one condition that costs nothing and protects everything.
| Who | Typical cost | Good at | Weak at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelance developer | $50 to $150 an hour on marketplaces; $130 to $200 for a senior US engineer on a vetted network; $80 to $140 in Eastern Europe | One defined fix, fast and cheap | Availability; nobody on call; quality varies with the person |
| Rescue shop | $49 to $499 audit; $1,500 to $3,999 fixed sprint; $70 an hour with a 5-hour minimum | Finding what is wrong in 48 hours at a fixed price | The next bug; the structure; anything after the sprint |
| Agency | $150 to $350 an hour blended (US); $55 to $110 (Eastern Europe); $13,000 to $25,000 for a full production build | A whole build with a team | Minimums; a bias toward rebuilding; who runs it after |
| Fractional CTO | $4,000 to $10,000 a month for 10 to 15 hours | Decisions, hiring, investors | Hands-on fixes; being on call |
| Ongoing partner | $499 to $3,499 a month at the shops that publish prices | Keeping it running and reviewing what the agent writes | Not a full team; get hours and response time in writing |
Questions
How much does it cost to fix a Lovable, Bolt or Replit app?
A single bug: a few hundred dollars from a freelancer, or $299 for a 48-hour triage at a rescue shop. A list of problems: $1,500 to $3,999 for a fixed sprint, or $5,000 to $15,000 as a freelance project. A full production cleanup from an agency: $13,000 to $25,000. The spread is wide because nobody can price what they have not read; pay for the reading first.
Should I hire on Upwork or Fiverr?
For a small, defined fix, a marketplace freelancer at $50 to $150 an hour can be the best value. Give read-only access, ask the five questions above, and start with a paid two-hour task before anything larger. For an app customers depend on, you want someone with a track record of running production, and marketplaces make that hard to verify.
Will a developer tell me to rebuild everything?
Often, and sometimes they are right. Ask what specifically cannot be repaired and why, before agreeing. A rebuild quoted before the code was read is a sales answer. A rebuild of one part after a full read is engineering.
Can I ask Claude or Cursor to fix it instead of hiring?
For a bug you can describe precisely, yes. Try that first. What an agent will not do is tell you about the alerts, backups, fallbacks and tests it was never asked to build, and those are what hurt you when customers are on the app. More agent-written code is how the structure got tangled; a person reading all of it is how it gets untangled.
How do I protect my code and accounts when I hire?
Keep the repository on your GitHub and the hosting in accounts you pay for. Give access through a seat you can remove, read-only at first. Never share production secrets in chat. Ask for a written handover at the end. If someone needs the app in their accounts to do the work, hire someone else.
First look, $750. After a free call, we read your whole product and tell you what is finished, what is not, and what to do first.
Setup, $3,000 fixed. We make it ready for real customers, in accounts you own.
Partner, $2,500 a month. We review what your coding agent writes and keep the checks and tests current. Month to month.