As the foundation and primary driver of digital-real industry integration, digital-real industrial technology integration contributes to the high-quality development of the real economy. However, the realization of its enabling effect is not immediate and involves uncertainties and risks. Whether auditors can incorporate such integration into their risk assessment process and accordingly adjust audit pricing decisions warrants attention. Based on the empirical data from China’s A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2022, this paper examines whether auditors’ pricing decisions vary with the extent of clients’ digital-real industrial technology integration. The findings reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between such integration and audit fees: As the degree of integration increases, audit fees first rise and then decline. Heterogeneity analysis based on the TOE framework indicates that this nonlinear effect is more pronounced in firms with lower managerial technical capability and venture capital ownership, and located in regions with less-developed digital infrastructure. Moreover, the effect weakens as auditors’ industry expertise increases. Path analysis shows that digital-real industrial technology integration exerts an inverted U-shaped influence on firms’ business risk and internal control risk, as well as on auditors’ investments in digital human capital and time commitment, which represent important channels through which such integration leads to nonlinear changes in audit fees. Further analysis reveals that digital-real industrial technology integration also has an inverted U-shaped influence on the negative tone of key audit matters. These findings offer valuable insights for promoting the integration of digital-real industrial technology at the micro-enterprise level, optimizing auditors’ pricing decisions, and advancing the digital and intelligent transformation of audit firms.