There is a term going around the tech world - “vibe coding.” The idea is simple: you describe what you want to an AI in plain English, and it writes the code for you. No programming knowledge required. No developer needed. Just vibes.
And the visible cost? Basically nothing. Maybe a monthly subscription to an AI tool. Maybe zero if you use a free tier. You can go from idea to working prototype in an afternoon without spending a penny.
That is the pitch, anyway. And the pitch is not wrong - it just leaves out everything that happens next.
The costs you can see
The upfront cost of vibe coding is genuinely low. The AI tools are cheap or free. You do not need to hire anyone. You can have something that looks like a real app by lunchtime. But building the thing is only the beginning.
The costs nobody mentions
Once you want real customers to use your vibe-coded app, a whole list of costs appear that were never part of the original plan.
Hosting. Your app needs to live somewhere on the internet. Free tiers exist, but they come with limits - and when your app outgrows those limits at the worst possible moment, you will be scrambling.
Domain and SSL. You need a proper web address and an SSL certificate so your customers’ data is encrypted. Not expensive individually, but another thing to set up, configure, and renew.
Database costs. Most useful business apps store data. Databases cost money to run, and they need backing up - another cost and another responsibility.
Backups. Who is backing up your data? How often? Where are the backups stored? Have you ever tested restoring from a backup? If the answer to any of these is “I don’t know,” your data is at risk.
Security patches. Software depends on other software - frameworks, libraries, packages. These get security updates regularly. Someone needs to apply those updates, test that nothing breaks, and deploy the changes. Ignore this for long enough and your app becomes a target.
Monitoring. How do you know if your app goes down at 2am? Monitoring tools exist, but someone needs to set them up and respond when they alert.
Debugging. Something will break. A customer will report a problem that you cannot reproduce. Fixing these issues requires understanding the code - code that an AI wrote and you may not fully understand.
The time cost - you become the IT department
This is the one that really catches small business owners off guard. When you vibe-code your own app, you become the person responsible for everything. You are the developer, the sysadmin, the security team, and the support desk - all in one.
Every hour you spend debugging a weird error or figuring out why the app is slow on mobile is an hour you are not spending on your actual business. Not meeting clients, not doing the work you are good at, not growing your revenue.
The opportunity cost
This is the hidden cost that does not show up on any invoice. It is the cost of your time and attention being pulled away from what you actually do.
If you run a landscaping business and you spend your evenings debugging code instead of quoting new jobs, that is revenue lost. If you run a consultancy and you spend your mornings wrestling with server configurations instead of working with clients, that is growth stalled.
The cheapest solution is not always the one with the lowest price tag. Sometimes the cheapest solution is the one that lets you focus on your business while someone else handles the technology.
When vibe coding makes sense
I am not saying vibe coding is bad. It makes a lot of sense in the right context.
Personal projects - absolutely. Build yourself a recipe tracker or a garden planner. If it breaks, no one suffers but you.
Prototyping - definitely. If you want to test an idea before investing real money, vibe coding is a brilliant way to explore what is possible.
When it does not make sense
Vibe coding stops making sense when other people depend on the software. When customers are booking appointments through it. When staff are logging work on it. When your business processes rely on it running correctly, reliably, every single day.
That is when the hidden costs start to outweigh the visible savings. That is when “free” becomes the most expensive option.
A different approach
When I build and manage software for small businesses, my monthly fee covers all of this. Hosting, security, backups, monitoring, updates, bug fixes - it is all included. You do not need to think about any of it.
That is not because these things are unimportant. It is because they are so important that they should be handled by someone whose job it is to handle them - not squeezed into your evenings and weekends on top of running a business.
Want to compare the real costs?
If you are weighing up whether to vibe-code something yourself or have it built and managed properly, I am happy to have an honest conversation about what each approach actually costs - in money, time, and peace of mind.
Get in touch and let’s talk through it.