Blockchain Penetration Testing Cost: Web3 Pentest Prices

Video transcript

There is no credible public price list for a Web3 pentest. But there are checkable data points, and clear drivers behind every quote.

Firms quote in tester-days, credits, endpoints or targets. Generic pricing pages rarely account for wallet login, withdrawal flows, or keepers that sign unattended.

Vendor starting prices are only floors. The public anchors: a 2026 Zcash grant pays 750 dollars a tester-day, and Halborn told Lido DAO an average infrastructure audit costs about 50 thousand dollars.

At the federal median rate, one eight-hour tester-day comes to about twelve hundred forty six dollars. That shows how quotes are built. It is not a quote.

Six things move the number: surfaces, roles, every environment and chain, source access, retest rounds, and compliance frameworks.

Compare retest terms, not just headline prices. Rounds and windows differ widely, and they decide whether your report shows findings as fixed.

To get an accurate quote, send repository access, test credentials for every role, API documentation, the cloud accounts in scope, and your compliance frameworks.

Guardian does not publish pentest prices. We scope from your system, and Vanguard returns half the package cost as offchain pentest credits. Read the full guide, or get a quote at guardian.security.

Ask five firms for a blockchain penetration testing cost and you get five quotes in different units.

They price in tester-days, credits, endpoints, targets or lines of code.

Generic pricing pages rarely account for wallet login, withdrawal flows, keepers that sign unattended, or SDKs your integrators ship.

So we looked for prices anyone can check: price pages, public procurement data, and DAO and grant proposals.

Here is what we found, where the data runs out, and what moves a quote.

Public Price Points

The Zcash total is up to 12 days a month, plus 20% administrative overhead and $4,000 a month for AI tooling and compute.

What we did not find: a reputable survey of crypto pentest prices, or a Web3 security firm that publishes them.

The pentest pages we read at CertiK, Halborn and Cyberscope list no price. Each sends buyers to a quote or contact form.

So the three Web3 figures are a grant budget, a vendor's average and a wallet team's estimate. They are anchors, not a market rate.

What the Numbers Tell You

Pentests are priced in tester-days. Cobalt sells 8-hour credits, the Zcash grant budgets days, and federal schedules list hourly rates.

At the federal median, an 8-hour tester-day is about $1,246. Ten days come to about $12,460 before retesting, or $7,500 at the Zcash rate.

That arithmetic shows how quotes are built. It is not a quote.

Starting prices are floors. Software Secured's $10,800 and Astra's $5,999 cover one app or target at the low end of their scoping.

A crypto app with wallet login, a withdrawal flow, an admin panel and several roles sits above that floor.

Infrastructure can cost much more. Halborn's $50,000 average is several times the starting price of a single-app test.

Continuous work is priced by the month. The Zcash grant funds six months across an ecosystem, so its budget is large while its day rate is modest.

How Each Scope Is Sized

No public source prices a web app, API, cloud account, extension, keeper and SDK separately. Inventing ranges would mislead you.

What is public is how each scope is sized, and that is what a quote is built from.

The units come from Guardian's engagement pages, Software Secured (accounts, services, regions) and Astra (mobile targets).

For what each surface should cover, see our Web3 pentesting firms guide and crypto wallet pentesting guide.

What Drives the Price

Six things move the number:

• Surfaces. Each is its own test, with its own skills, and adds tester-days.
• Roles. Good testers try every function at every privilege level, so more roles cost more.
• Environments and chains. Production, staging and each region or chain deployment add targets.
• Source access. It costs reading time, but is the only way to be certain nothing user-reachable was missed.
• Retest rounds. Terms differ widely, and decide whether your report shows findings as fixed.
• Compliance reporting. Software Secured's entry package maps to SOC 2 only; Standard Plus and Premium add HIPAA, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS.

Source is effectively required for extensions, and required for offchain automation.

Speed can be a tier feature too. Cobalt's plans list start times of 3, 2 or 1 business days.

EU financial entities should read our guide to DORA penetration testing requirements before they scope.

Compare Retest Terms

Compare the number of rounds and the window, not just the headline price.

How to Get an Accurate Quote

Send the scoping facts before the first call:

• Repository access, or the repository list, for everything in scope.
• Every user role, with test credentials for each.
• API documentation, such as a Swagger file or Postman collection.
• The cloud accounts and platforms in scope, including CI/CD and DNS.
• Store listings for extensions and registry names for SDKs.
• What each keeper, relayer or signer is supposed to guarantee.
• The environments and chains in scope.
• The compliance frameworks your report must map to.
• The retest rounds you expect, and your launch date.

How Guardian Scopes a Pentest

Guardian does not publish pentest prices. We scope each engagement from the system itself, using the units in the scope table above.

Engagement pages: web app, API, infrastructure, browser extension, SDK and offchain automation.

Every Vanguard engagement returns half of the package cost as credits toward Guardian's offchain assessments.

Those credits can be spent on web app, API, infrastructure and offchain automation pentests. See every engagement type on the audits and pentests page.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a penetration test cost for a crypto company?

There is no reliable public price list. Public anchors include $750 per tester-day in a 2026 Zcash grant, a federal median of $155.78 an hour, and Halborn's average of about $50,000 for an infrastructure audit.

What makes a Web3 pentest harder to scope than a generic web test?

Crypto systems add surfaces a generic test does not price: wallet login, withdrawals, trading API keys, key-holding extensions, transaction-building SDKs, and unattended keepers and signers. Some, such as keepers, can only be reviewed from source.

Is retesting included in a pentest price?

It depends on the provider. Software Secured lists three rounds over 12 months, Astra two expert re-scans within 30 days, and Cobalt unlimited retesting during the term. Get the rounds and window in writing.

Does a Web3 pentest need source code access?

Not always, but it changes what the test can prove. Source access lets testers confirm every user-reachable function was covered. It is effectively required for extensions, and required for keepers, relayers and other offchain automation.

Sources

• Zcash Community Grants: Grant Application, Offensive Security, issue #340 (June 30, 2026)
• Zcash Community Forum: Grant Application, Offensive Security #340, with ZCG approval (June 30 to July 20, 2026)
• Zcash Community Forum: ZCG meeting minutes 7/20/2026 (July 21, 2026)
• Lido Governance Forum: Proposal, Infrastructure Security Audit, by Halborn (November 20, 2023)
• Project Catalyst: VESPR Wallet, Security Audit / Penetration Test, Fund10 (2023)
• US General Services Administration: CALC+ labor ceiling rates, search “penetration tester” (retrieved November 4, 2026)
• Software Secured: Pricing (accessed November 4, 2026)
• Astra Security: Pricing (accessed November 4, 2026)
• Cobalt: Pricing (accessed November 4, 2026)
• Cobalt: Financial services pentesting (accessed November 4, 2026)
• Halborn: Web application penetration testing (accessed November 4, 2026)
• CertiK: Web3 penetration testing (accessed November 4, 2026)
• Cyberscope: Penetration testing (accessed November 4, 2026)
• Guardian: Audits and pentests
• Guardian: Avantis offchain review case study
• Guardian: Vanguard