QA audit: know what to fix first, in 5 working days

A QA audit tells you, in 5 working days and for a fixed €1,000 excl. VAT, where your testing really stands, which risks are not covered and what to fix first. You get a written report, a costed action plan and a debrief with your team.

What is a QA audit?

A QA audit is a short, structured review of how a product is tested: the risks it carries, the tests that cover them, the state of the automation and of the CI/CD pipeline, and the way the team works. It ends with a target test strategy and a prioritised plan, so you know where each euro of testing effort pays off.

At AutomationDataCamp, the audit is the first step of our QA testing and test automation services. It is sold on its own: you can stop after the report, or build on it.

When do you need a QA audit?

Quality problems rarely announce themselves. These signs usually mean the test setup needs a fresh look:

• Your releases keep slipping: defects are found at final sign-off instead of during the sprint, and reports stay green while production incidents go up.
• Nobody trusts the automated tests: flaky tests get rerun until they pass, so a real regression can no longer be told apart from noise.
• Your pipeline is too slow: the full suite runs on every change, and CI runtime sets the pace of your releases.
• Traceability is rebuilt by hand: requirements, tests and evidence are pulled together in a rush before every review.

If you recognise at least two of them, an audit is the cheapest way to decide what to do next.

What does the QA audit include?

• Two 45-minute interviews with your technical and product leads, plus read access to your repository and CI.
• A risk and coverage map, and an assessment of your CI and test framework.
• A target test strategy and a prioritised, costed action plan.
• A written report and a 1-hour debrief with your team.
• One simple critical flow automated as a proof of feasibility, if the environment is accessible and stable; otherwise, a documented prototype or an equivalent implementation plan.

Not included: implementing the plan, which gets its own written proposal. To see what the report looks like, read our sample QA audit report (fictional project).

How much does a QA audit cost?

€1,000 excl. VAT, fixed price, delivered in 5 working days. Scope, deliverables and price are written down before the work starts, and everything produced stays with you, in your format.

What happens after the audit?

The action plan tells you what to build and in which order. Two options follow, each with its own proposal:

• QA industrialisation, from €4,500 excl. VAT fixed price: framework architecture (Playwright or Cypress), automation of priority end-to-end journeys and APIs, CI/CD integration and skills transfer. A first phase usually takes around fifteen days. See our Playwright test automation services.
• Embedded QA support, €300 excl. VAT per day: manual, exploratory and regression testing inside your sprints, plus maintenance of existing suites. It is the simplest way to outsource QA capacity without hiring.

Two engagements show what the plan can lead to: a regression campaign cut from 10 days to 2 hours, and a PDF specification turned into a first Playwright test base in one day instead of three weeks. Results depend on context and are not a promise for every project.

Who runs the audit?

Oussama Belakhdar, ISTQB CTAL-TM certified QA architect and founder of AutomationDataCamp, with the AutomationDataCamp team. Audits are delivered 100% remotely, in English or French. We have tested software in healthcare, finance, e-invoicing, blockchain, logistics, e-commerce and document management.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a QA audit take?

5 working days from the start date set in the proposal, debrief included.

What access do you need?

Read access to your repository and CI, and two 45-minute interviews with your technical and product leads. No production access is required.

Is the audit useful if we have no automated tests yet?

Yes. The risk and coverage map and the target strategy are built from your product and your risks, not from existing scripts. The plan then tells you what to automate first.

Do we have to continue with you after the audit?

No. The report and the plan are yours. You can implement them in-house, with us, or with another provider.