You want a straight number. Everyone does. Unfortunately, code cleanup is the one service on this list where a straight number would actually mislead you more than it would help you. A website build has a template you can compare against. A codebase does not. Two apps that look identical from the outside, same features, same rough size, can be in completely different states underneath, and the one built across six separate AI prompting sessions by three different people is a fundamentally different job from the one built carefully by a single developer who just ran out of time to tidy up.
Here is what actually decides the price, since a fixed number cannot.
Why a Flat Price Does Not Work Here
When you ask what a website costs in Kenya, there is a real answer, because a website has a rough shape you can size up front: how many pages, how much custom design, whether there is a booking system. Code cleanup does not work that way. The starting condition of the codebase is the entire variable, and you genuinely cannot see it from the outside. A five-page app built cleanly by one developer might need almost nothing. A five-page app assembled across a dozen AI chat sessions, each one forgetting what the last one built, can need far more work than a much bigger, cleanly-built system.
What Actually Drives the Price Up or Down
The size of the codebase matters, obviously, but not as much as its history. How many different tools or sessions built it. Whether tests exist at all, since no tests means every change has to be manually verified rather than automatically checked. How many genuine security issues turn up once someone actually looks, a hardcoded API key is a five-minute fix, a broken authentication system is not. And whether the honest recommendation, once someone has actually read the code, is to restructure what exists or rebuild a specific part from scratch, which happens sometimes but is far less common than founders fear going in.
What This Costs Elsewhere, for Context
It is worth knowing what this looks like at the top end of the market, mostly so you know what you are not paying for. Specialist firms overseas doing this kind of work for funded startups and enterprise clients charge in the region of 250 US dollars an hour, with full codebase audits and rescues quoted anywhere from 8,000 to 60,000 US dollars. That is enterprise due-diligence pricing, built for a very different scale of problem and a very different client. A small Kenyan business with a single AI-built app is not that client, and should not expect, or be quoted, anywhere near that range.
How We Actually Price It
Our own code cleanup service is deliberately not sold in tiers, for the same reason a flat number would mislead you above. We read through the actual codebase first, work out what genuinely needs doing, and give you a fixed quote before anything starts. No hourly guesswork, no open-ended clock running while you wait nervously for an invoice. You will know the number before you commit to it, and it will be based on your specific code, not a guess about codebases in general.
The Cheapest Fix Is the Early One
The single biggest cost driver, more than anything listed above, is simply how long a problem has been left alone. A hardcoded secret caught early is a quick fix. The same secret, left in place for eight months while the app gained real users, can turn into an actual incident, and incidents cost far more than cleanup ever does. If you are trying to work out whether what you have qualifies as a problem yet, our look at everything AI-generated code usually gets wrong is the place to check before the price of waiting goes up.
If you already know your codebase needs a proper look, get in touch and describe what you have. You will get an honest assessment and a fixed quote, not a guess.