Hire a developer the moment your AI-built app has real users, real payments, or real data and you can no longer fix it by prompting. Before that point, AI tools plus patience are usually enough. After that point, every day of prompting in circles costs more than the fix would.
The honest threshold
Ask one question: what happens if this stays broken for two weeks? If the answer is "nothing, it is a side project," keep prompting, revert to old versions, and learn. If the answer involves losing users, losing sales, or exposing someone's data, you have crossed the line where a professional is cheaper than the damage.
Why can't the AI just fix its own code?
Because the AI only sees the code, not the system. It cannot log into your Supabase dashboard, read your Stripe webhook failures, check your DNS, or notice that your database rules block the query it just wrote. A human engineer debugs the whole system: code, database, services, deployment. That is why a bug that survived fifty prompts often falls in one hour of human review.
What should it cost?
- A diagnostic audit: a few hundred to $1,500 fixed. You get a written list of what is broken, what is risky, and what to fix first.
- A stabilization sprint: usually $1,500 to $5,000 depending on the mess. The app comes out working, secured, and deployable.
- A full rebuild: $15,000 and up. Rarely needed. Most vibe coded apps are salvageable, and anyone who leads with "this all has to be rewritten" before reading the code is selling, not diagnosing.
Avoid open-ended hourly arrangements for rescue work. A fixed price forces the engineer to scope the problem first, which is exactly the discipline your project has been missing.
What to ask before you hire anyone
- Have you worked with AI-generated codebases before? The failure patterns are specific, and someone who has seen fifty of them is faster.
- Will you tell me what you found in writing? The report matters more than the fix, because it tells you whether the next problem is a patch or a pattern.
- What do you need access to? The right answer includes read access to your repo and dashboards, not your passwords in a text message.
- Can it stay on Lovable or does it need to move? An honest answer is "it depends on what I find," not an instant yes or no.
The mistake to avoid
Do not hire a generalist agency that quotes a rebuild before reading your code. The economics of AI-built apps are different: the code is cheap to produce, so the value is in the diagnosis, the security review, and the handful of structural fixes that make it stable. Pay for judgment, not for lines of code.