I Charged a Client $40,000 to Fix an App an "AI Coder" Built for $5,000
Last month, a founder called me in a panic.
His SaaS product, built by a freelancer he found on a popular platform, was live. It looked great. It clicked. But when a real customer tried to sign up, the whole thing crashed. And then it got worse. While poking around, I found the freelancer had pushed the entire development environment to production.
Secret keys, API tokens, database passwords… all sitting in a public folder.
I had to tell him his “finished” app wasn't just broken. It was a wide-open invitation for every hacker on the planet to steal his customer data.
He wasn’t the first founder to make this call. I see it every week now. Someone gets sold the dream: "Build your entire app with AI for a fraction of the cost!" They hire a cheap, confident-sounding "developer" who promises the world.
Three months later, they’re calling me to clean up the digital dumpster fire.
The Dirty Secret About "AI-Powered Development"
Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear in the middle of this AI gold rush: you're being sold a spaceship made of cardboard.
These new "vibe coders"—builders with zero engineering background who just stitch together AI prompts—are the modern-day snake oil salesmen. They operate on a feeling. Does it look cool? Does it feel like a real app? Ship it.
They are, as someone on a forum perfectly put it, the "microwave oven chefs" of the software world. They can heat something up, but they have no idea how to cook.
The real kicker? They’re creating a generation of ticking time bombs, and charging you for the privilege.
That's not a business strategy. That's playing Russian Roulette with your customers' trust.
What Actually Works (Based on Rescuing Real-World Disasters, Not Hype)
I decided to create a playbook for founders who want to use AI without getting scammed. No more hiring charlatans. No more building apps that are one security flaw away from total collapse.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Your "Lead Developer" Should Be a Real Developer
This is non-negotiable. An experienced engineer uses AI like an exosuit—it makes them stronger, faster, and more efficient. They know when the AI is being lazy, naive, or dangerously wrong. They give it specific tasks, scrutinize the output, and provide the architectural backbone.
A vibe coder treats AI like a magic black box. They are the director, but AI is the entire film crew, cast, and editor. They have no idea how the sausage gets made, and when it comes out tasting like a security disaster, their only move is to ask the AI to "fix it."
The test? If your developer can't explain why their code is secure without using the word "AI," run.
2. Build Your "AI Specialist Squad"
Instead of letting one unsupervised AI build your entire house, you use specialized tools for specific jobs—all under the watchful eye of a human expert.
Here's how pros use AI:
Boilerplate & Scaffolding - AI is incredible at this. Spinning up basic file structures, generating HTML layouts, writing basic CSS. This is the easy stuff it was born to do.
Unit Tests & Documentation - This is the tedious work that AI can eat for breakfast. It’s like having a junior developer dedicated to doing the grunt work, freeing up your senior talent to solve the hard problems.
A Smarter Rubber Duck - Got an idea? Stuck on a problem? Bouncing ideas off an AI is a fantastic way to explore solutions, especially for solo developers who don't have a coworker to talk to.
But you would NEVER let an unsupervised AI handle the critical stuff. Like...
Security & Authentication (This is like letting a robot design the vault at Fort Knox.)
Backend Architecture & Database Design (The entire foundation of your business.)
Core Business Logic (The unique secret sauce that makes you money.)
Using AI for those things is like asking your intern to perform open-heart surgery because they watched a YouTube tutorial.
3. The "AI-Generated" Reality Check
Can we talk about the elephant in the room? A "fully AI-generated app" is a myth.
I saw this perfectly last week. A hacker posted that they’d breached over 20 of these "lovable" AI-built apps and siphoned all their data. Why? Because the vibe coders who built them left the digital front door wide open. Passwords were being stored improperly. API routes were completely unprotected.
The lesson? If a developer's main selling point is "I build with AI," what they're really saying is "I don't know how to build it myself." The best developers use AI to go faster, not to fill a knowledge gap they don't know they have.
How We Fixed That Founder's App (And What It Actually Cost)
For that client who called me in a panic, here’s what we had to do:
The "Vibe Coder" Bill: $5,000 (for a fragile, insecure mess)
Our Cleanup Process:
Took the site offline immediately.
Hired a senior engineer to conduct a full security audit.
Threw out the entire backend and database. It was unsalvageable.
Kept the frontend UI (the only part that was decent).
Rebuilt the entire application logic on a secure, scalable foundation.
The Final Bill to Fix It: $40,000
Result: A secure, maintainable app that actually works. All for 8x the price of the "cheap" option. And he was lucky—no data had been breached yet. Another client of mine in the trade sector wasn't so lucky. His entire business was wiped out overnight.
The 1-Hour Vet That Will Save You Thousands
Here's your homework before you hire ANYONE to build your product:
Ask them HOW they use AI, not IF.
Bad answer: "I use it for everything! It makes me super fast."
Good answer: "I use it for autocompletion and to write tests, but I review and refactor every line for our core logic and security components."
Give them a tiny, real-world security challenge.
Ask them to review a single piece of code and find the vulnerability. A vibe coder will plug it into ChatGPT. An engineer will explain why it's vulnerable and discuss the trade-offs of different fixes.
Listen for talk of architecture and trade-offs.
If they only talk about features and speed, that's a red flag. A pro talks about scalability, maintainability, and why they chose one database over another.
Trust your gut.
If a deal sounds too good to be true—a complex app built for a fraction of the market rate—it is. You're not getting a bargain; you're buying a future catastrophe.
The Truth About Building a SaaS That Actually Works
The best product isn't the one that was built the fastest or for the cheapest price. It's the one that customers can trust with their data, their money, and their own businesses.
Your SaaS is an asset, not a vibe. It needs a foundation of solid, secure, professional engineering.
The real question isn't "Can AI build my app?"
It's "Can I trust what AI built with my entire business?"
Start there. Your future self will thank you.