Repair vs Replace Calculator
Compare a repair quote with a replacement on cost per remaining year.
What you provide
Around 7 for a laptop, 4 for a phone, 10 for a large appliance.
Result
PASSRepairing costs £60 a year against £100 to replace
Spread over the 3.0 years the device has left, the repair is comfortably cheaper per year than buying new. The half-the-replacement-cost rule of thumb would have said the same only by accident — what makes this repair worth doing is that the device still has life in it, not the size of the quote.
- Repair cost
- £180
- Replacement cost
- £700
- Repair as share of replacement
- 26%
- Expected life leftFrom a typical service life of 7 years
- 3.0 years
- Repair, per remaining year
- £60
- Replace, per year
- £100
What this cannot tell you
- Calculated in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded or logged.
- Compares costs on the assumptions you enter. It cannot know whether the fault will recur, whether the repair is guaranteed, or whether the replacement is genuinely equivalent.
- Expected remaining life is a straight-line estimate from typical service life, floored at one year. Real devices fail on their own schedule.
- Ignores the value of the time and disruption either option costs, which for a device you depend on is often larger than the difference in price.
Take this with you
How this calculation works
The rule of thumb people arrive with is "replace it if the repair costs more than half a new one", and it is wrong in both directions because it ignores age. A £200 repair on a five-year-old laptop with two years left costs £100 for each of them; the same repair on a one-year-old machine with six years left costs £33. So both options are converted to cost per remaining year — the repair over what the device has left, the replacement over a full service life — and compared on that. Where the two land within about 20% of each other, the tool says the cost comparison cannot settle it, because at that margin the error in any estimate of remaining life is larger than the difference.
What the results mean
- Cost per remaining year
- The comparison that survives a difference in age. Repairing an old device buys fewer years, so the same quote costs more per year.
- Expected life left
- Typical service life minus current age, floored at one year — a device past its typical life is not worth zero, it is on borrowed time.
- Repair as a share of replacement
- The traditional rule of thumb, shown for reference. It is the number most people use and the one that ignores age.
- Too close to call
- Within about 20%, cost cannot decide it. Whether the fault recurs, whether the repair is guaranteed, and what a failure would cost you all matter more at that point.
Common problems and fixes
- The repair quote seems high
- Get a second one. Prices for the same fault vary widely, and a diagnostic fee at one shop is sometimes deducted from the repair at another.
- The same fault came back
- That changes the arithmetic entirely — the effective repair cost is now double for the same remaining life. Recurring faults are usually a symptom of something the repair did not address.
- A replacement is better, not equivalent
- Then the comparison is not like for like. Subtract what you would pay for the upgrade anyway and compare the remainder.
Frequently asked questions
Is the 50% rule for repair versus replace any good?
Only by coincidence. "Replace if the repair costs more than half a new one" ignores how much life the device has left, which is the variable that decides it. A repair costing 40% of a replacement is a poor deal on a device with a year left and an excellent one on a device with five. Cost per remaining year captures both.
How long should a laptop last?
Around six to eight years for a well-made one before performance and software support become the limiting factors rather than hardware. Phones are shorter, typically four to five, and usually limited by software updates and battery rather than by anything breaking. Those are the figures to put in the service-life field.
What should I ask a repair shop?
What is guaranteed and for how long, whether the part is new or refurbished, and whether the diagnostic fee comes off the repair if you proceed. A twelve-month guarantee on parts and labour is worth materially more than the same quote without one, and it is the question that most often changes the comparison.
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