Repair or Replace? How to Decide With the Numbers

A cracked screen, a battery that dies by lunchtime, a charging port that's given up — sooner or later every phone forces the question: fix it, or replace it?Most people answer by staring at the repair quote. That's the wrong number to start with. The right one is on the calendar: how much software supportthe phone has left. Here's a framework that turns an agonising judgement call into a quick, confident decision.

Step 1: Find out how long the phone can still be safely used

Before you price a repair, find the phone's end-of-support date on our Longevity Tracker. This is the ceiling on the decision: there is no point spending money to repair a phone that's about to become unsafe to use anyway. If the model is on the dying-soon list, the repair question is nearly answered for you — you'd be investing in a phone that's already entering the end-of-support danger zone.

Step 2: Compare the repair cost to the replacement's TrueCost

Now bring in the money — but the right way. Don't compare the repair bill to a new phone's sticker price; compare it to the new phone's TrueCost: its price spread over the months of safe support it buys. Then weigh the repair against how many moresafe months it buys your current phone.

A worked example. Say a battery replacement costs $80 and your phone has three years (36 months) of support left. That repair costs about $2.20 for each remaining safe month — almost certainly cheaper than any replacement's cost per month. Repair it. Now say the same $80 repair on a phone with only eight months of support left works out to $10 a month — and a long-supported new phone might cost less per safe month than that. Replace it. The TrueCost calculator does this sum for both sides in a few seconds.

Step 3: Factor in repairability (and what comes next)

Two more thumb-rules sharpen the call:

• Cheap, high-impact repairs on a well-supported phone are almost always worth it. A battery or screen on a phone with years of support left is the most cost-effective upgrade you can make — it restores the phone to like-new for a fraction of replacement.
• Expensive repairs (motherboard, multiple faults) on a short-support phone rarely are.When the fix approaches the replacement's value and the support window is short, replacing is the rational and often the greener choice.
• If repairability matters to you, it can be bought. Some phones — most famously the Fairphone — are designed for easy, cheap, user-done repairs and pair that with an eight-year support window, which is the ideal combination for keeping a phone for the long haul.

The one-line version

Repair when the phone still has plenty of safe life left and the fix is cheap per remaining month; replace when support is nearly out or the repair rivals a new phone's real cost. If you do land on “replace,” don't repeat the cycle too soon — start from the longest-supported phones so your next one stays repair-worthy for years to come.

What the common repairs actually cost

Rough figures help you sanity-check a quote before you accept it. Battery replacements at an authorised centre typically run $50–100 for a mid-range phone and $90–150 for a flagship. Screens are the expensive one: $80–150 on a budget phone, and $250–400 on a flagship with a curved OLED panel — sometimes more than half what the phone is worth used. Charging ports and speakers usually land in the $50–90 range.

The pattern is consistent: batteries are almost always worth replacing, screens are a genuine judgement call, and anything involving the mainboard is usually the end of the road. If a quote exceeds roughly 50% of what the phone would sell for working, treat that as a strong signal to replace — unless the support window is long enough to justify it, which is exactly the calculation in the steps above.

Third-party repair: when it makes sense

Independent repair shops are typically 30–50% cheaper than manufacturer service, and for a battery or a charging port on an out-of-warranty phone that is usually money well saved. Two things to check first. Ask what parts they use — genuine, refurbished-genuine, or aftermarket — because aftermarket screens frequently lose colour accuracy, brightness or the ambient light sensor. And check whether the repair affects water resistance, because reopening a sealed phone almost always does unless the shop replaces the adhesive gaskets properly.

On iPhones, be aware that some components are software-paired to the logic board, which can trigger warnings or disable features such as True Tone or Face ID after a third-party swap. Apple's Self Service Repair programme and the growing right-to-repair rules in the EU and several US states have improved this considerably, but it is still worth asking the shop directly what you will lose.

The case for repairing anyway

The framework above is financial, and it is the right starting point. It is not the only consideration. Manufacturing a smartphone accounts for the large majority of its lifetime carbon footprint — typically 75–85% — which means keeping an existing phone running for another two years is dramatically better environmentally than buying an efficient new one. Our guide on phone longevity and e-waste covers the numbers.

So if the money is close, repair. The financial case has to be clearly against repairing before replacing is the better answer, and a phone with three or more years of patches left is almost always worth fixing.