The Short Answer
A professional technical due diligence engagement typically costs $8,000–$12,000 for a project-based review of a software company or tech-enabled business. The range reflects the size of the codebase and team, not billing hours.
That price covers a structured assessment of the target's architecture, codebase quality, security posture, infrastructure, and technical debt — delivered as a written report with findings prioritized by business impact. It does not cover legal or financial due diligence. Those are separate engagements.
What Does Technical Due Diligence Typically Cost in 2026?
For an independent or boutique technical DD firm, $8,000–$12,000 fixed-price is the standard range for a complete engagement on a small-to-mid-market acquisition target. Most of these engagements close in two to three weeks.
Large consulting firms and Big Four advisory practices charge $50,000–$100,000+ for the same scope. The difference is not depth — it is overhead. You are paying for a four-person staffing model and a brand name. The report that comes out the other side is usually longer and no more actionable.
There are also interview-only reviews at $2,500–$5,000 — two to four calls with engineering leadership and a brief summary. For a small acquisition under $1M where you need a sanity check, that may be enough. For a deal where the technology is a material component of value, a $3,000 phone-call review is not technical due diligence.
What Is Included in a $8k–$12k Technical DD Engagement?
A complete engagement at this price point covers five areas:
Architecture review. How the system is built, what the dependencies are, how the components communicate, and where the structural debt is concentrated. This is the part most buyers care about most, because it determines what it costs to change anything after the deal closes.
Codebase assessment. Quality, maintainability, test coverage, documentation, and whether the team has been paying down technical debt or deferring it. If the target has a meaningful codebase, this requires actual code access — not a slideshow of screenshots.
Infrastructure and security posture. How the system is deployed, whether access controls are in place, what the backup and recovery posture looks like, and whether there are known vulnerabilities in the stack. This is not a penetration test — it is a review of whether basic security hygiene is present and whether there are obvious exposure risks.
Team and process evaluation. How the engineering team is organized, what the retention risk looks like, and whether the processes can scale. Three engineers holding undocumented institutional knowledge is a different risk profile than ten engineers with documented runbooks.
Findings report. A written document with findings categorized by severity and business impact. Every finding answers two questions: what is the problem, and what does it cost to fix. The buyer needs to know what they are inheriting and whether the deal price reflects it — not a technical dissertation.
What Drives Cost Higher or Lower?
Three factors move the number.
Codebase size and complexity. A single-product SaaS with one codebase and ten engineers is a simpler engagement than a company with four products, a monolith in partial migration, a mobile application, and twenty-five engineers. The latter takes longer to assess and carries more surface area for findings.
Access quality. Technical DD goes faster when the target provides repository access, system documentation, and responsive engineering contacts. When access is restricted to high-level conversations and sanitized exports, the consultant works harder to verify claims. That takes more time.
Deal timeline. Most acquisitions allow two to three weeks. If the deal requires a full assessment in five business days, expect a rush premium of 25–40 percent. Compressed timelines reduce the ability to follow threads and increase the chance of missing findings.
Scope additions that move the price above $12,000 include multiple codebases, data privacy compliance review (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2), and active security events requiring deeper investigation.
What Is the Alternative to Hiring an External Technical DD Firm?
The primary alternative is using an internal engineering leader to evaluate the target. This works when that person has free time, relevant domain experience, and no conflicts of interest. That combination is rare.
The risk with internal reviews is anchoring. An engineer who wants the deal to close will frame findings as solvable rather than as risks. An external consultant with no stake in the outcome does not have that problem.
The second alternative is a large consulting firm. The output is more expensive ($50,000–$100,000+), takes longer, and is staffed primarily by people who are excellent at process but may not have hands-on engineering experience with the target's stack. For deals where the technology is secondary to the value thesis, that may be acceptable. For deals where you are primarily buying a technical asset, it is not.
How Do You Choose a Technical Due Diligence Provider?
Four questions narrow the field.
Have they worked with your deal type before? Pattern recognition built across similar acquisitions matters more than engagement length. Ask for examples.
Do they talk directly to the target's engineers? Any firm doing technical DD without direct engineering access is working with incomplete information. That is a process gap, not a cost-saving feature.
What does the deliverable look like? Ask for a sample report before you engage. Findings should be prioritized, risk levels explained in business terms, and remediation guidance included. A summary of what the consultant observed is not the same as an actionable findings report.
Are they independent? A firm that also does integration work for the acquirer, or has a relationship with the target, has a conflict. Ask directly before you engage.
Rates reflect who actually does the work. A senior practitioner reading the code, running the interviews, and writing the report is worth more than a team aggregating findings through layers of staffing. At $8,000–$12,000, you should be getting the former.
Learn more about our Technical Due Diligence service to see what a complete engagement includes and how to initiate a review on a timeline that fits your deal.