Your website

Tell them when not to fix it.

Published 2026-08-22 5 min read

The short answer

Divide the repair by the years it likely buys, and the new machine by the years it likely lasts. Compare those two numbers rather than the two prices.

Yours is the only trade where the customer’s first question is whether to hire anyone at all. Nobody calls a roofer to ask whether the roof is worth having. They call you to ask whether the washer is worth saving.

Every shop answers that question on the phone, ten times a week, for free. Almost none of them answer it on their website — which is where the customer is standing when he asks it for the first time, at nine in the evening, in front of a machine full of wet clothes.

Why your phone answer lands badly

Because by the time he hears it, he has already worked out that you get paid if the answer is yes. That does not make him distrust you personally. It makes him discount whatever you say by some amount he cannot measure, and then call two more shops to see whether they say the same thing.

Written down, in public, before he has spoken to anyone, the same words read completely differently. Not because you are more honest in writing, but because you clearly wrote it before you knew whose machine it would be.

The arithmetic that settles it

The comparison people reach for is the wrong one: repair price against new price. Two hundred and eighty dollars looks obviously better than nine hundred, and that is exactly how people end up paying to keep something alive for one more winter.

The right comparison divides each price by the years it buys. A $280 repair on a machine you think has four years left is $70 a year. A $900 machine you expect to run twelve years is $75 a year. Almost the same — which means the decision is a close call, and he should be told that it is close, not steered.

Both prices divided by the years they buy. The years are an estimate; the arithmetic only works if you say so.

Now change one number. If that same machine has one year left in your judgment, the repair is $280 a year against $75, and there is no argument left to have. That is the case where you say so plainly and lose the job — and it is the single most valuable sentence on your website.

Why giving the job away brings work in

Because the person you told not to repair the dryer still has a refrigerator, a dishwasher and a range, and now has exactly one repair shop he believes. He also has a brother-in-law who will ask him who to call. You gave up a job worth a few hundred dollars and bought the only thing in this trade that is genuinely hard to buy.

It has to be real, though. A page that says “we will always tell you honestly” and never actually names a case where the answer is no is worth nothing, because everybody writes that sentence. Name the cases.

Five sections and what each prevents. Our own reasoning, from where repair calls actually break down.
What the page says	What it prevents
The arithmetic, worked through with numbers	The straight price comparison that makes every repair look cheap.
That the remaining years are your estimate, not a fact	The complaint eighteen months later that you promised four years.
Two or three specific situations where you say don’t repair it	The empty promise of honesty that every competitor also makes.
What you charge to come out and diagnose, and whether it comes off the repair	The call that ends the moment you mention a fee he did not expect.
Which brands or ages you no longer take on, if any	A wasted trip for you and a wasted evening for him.

The “is it worth fixing?” block — copy it and put your own numbers in the brackets

Heading, in his words: “Is it worth repairing?”
The honest framing: “Compare cost per year, not price against price. A repair that buys four years and a new machine that lasts twelve can cost almost the same per year.”
The worked example, with your prices: “A typical [appliance] repair here runs [$X]. If the machine has [Y] years left, that is [$X ÷ Y] a year. A comparable new one at [$Z] over [N] years is [$Z ÷ N] a year.”
The honesty that makes it usable: “The years left are our estimate from what we see, not a guarantee. We will tell you how confident we are.”
When we say don’t: “We will tell you to replace it if [your real cases — the part costs more than half a new machine, the machine is over N years old and the failure is the compressor, the parts are no longer made].”
What the visit costs: “Diagnosis is [$X], and it [comes off / does not come off] the repair if you go ahead. You will know the full price before we start.”
What we do not take: “We do not work on [brands or ages you have stopped taking], and we will say so on the phone rather than charge you for the trip.”

The fifth point is the one competitors will not copy, because copying it means naming their own limits. That is what makes it worth writing.

What this page does not claim

It does not pretend the arithmetic is certain. A repaired machine can fail again in a different place, and everybody who has owned one knows it. Saying that out loud costs you nothing you were going to keep, because the customer already suspects it — and a page that admits the obvious is read as true on everything else.