How much does AC repair cost?

The averages, six dollars apart

$6 between the two published averages, our subtraction, from guides nearly three years apart. The ranges differ more than the averages do, which is the pattern across this whole cluster.

Where they differ is the bottom. Fixr starts at $250; the other two start at $100. Our reading, marked as ours: Fixr also states that you pay a minimum of $75 in most cases just for the service call, so the gap is probably about which small jobs each publisher counts, not about what a technician charges.

What each fix costs

This Old House by unit type:

Bob Vila prices individual jobs: a faulty thermostat $60 to $440, a refrigerant recharge $100 to $350, a window unit repair $50 to $125, a central unit $100 to $500.

Note that Bob Vila's central figure, $100 to $500, sits below This Old House's $150 to $650 for the same thing. Three years apart, and neither comments on the other.

The compressor is a different conversation

Every source separates one repair from the rest. This Old House puts compressor replacement at $1,000 to $3,000 and says outright that it often makes replacement the better financial choice for older units. Fixr's component table runs to $2,000 at the top for its dearest line and notes prices can climb as high as $3,000 when a major component goes.

Our arithmetic, marked as ours. A compressor at $1,000 to $3,000 is roughly a ninth to a third of the $8,460 to $8,750 that a whole new central system costs, as our central air page sets out. On a unit with years left, that can be worth doing. On a unit near the end of its life, you are spending a third of a new system to keep an old one.

Fixr gives the context that makes this concrete: major components like compressors last 10 to 15 years and blower motors about 20, so an older system that needs one is usually not far from needing others.

The rule for when to stop repairing

This Old House publishes a specific test, and it is the most useful single line on this page:

Replace rather than repair if your AC is over 10 years old and the repair cost multiplied by its age exceeds $5,000.

Worked through, our arithmetic. On a 12-year-old unit the threshold repair is about $417, because 12 times $417 is just over $5,000. On a 15-year-old unit it is about $333. On a 20-year-old unit it is $250.

So on anything over about 12 years old, the average repair already fails the test. Both published averages, $375 and $369, exceed the 15-year threshold of $333 and sit close to the 12-year one.

Our reading: the rule is more aggressive than it first sounds, and that is probably deliberate. It is not telling you that repairs are bad value; it is telling you that on an old unit, the money is better spent on the replacement you are going to buy anyway. Our central air page has what that costs, and our furnace page covers the heating side, which is often replaced at the same time to share the labor.

The cheaper thing to do first

A tune-up costs $65 to $200 against repairs averaging $370, and our maintenance page works out whether a service contract is worth it. The cheapest part that causes the most expensive-looking symptoms is on our AC capacitor page, and it is the first thing worth asking about.

Before you call

1. Ask the service call fee and whether it comes off the repair. Fixr's $75 minimum is a floor, not a quote.
2. Get the fault named before the price. The table above turns a diagnosis into an expected range.
3. Ask the unit's age. It decides the rule above, and it is usually on the data plate.
4. If the answer is "compressor", stop and price a replacement too. At $1,000 to $3,000 it is no longer a repair decision, and a heat pump is worth pricing alongside a like-for-like replacement because it covers the heating too.

If it runs but will not cool, start with our AC not cooling page, which puts a price against each named cause, and if the complaint is noise our noise page explains why most of it is airflow rather than a part. An older system needing refrigerant is a separate question, on our Freon page. A heat pump is repaired on a different price list again, which our heat pump repair page sets out. A unit that short cycles or freezes may never have been the right size, which our sizing page and our frozen AC page cover, and whether a repair is worth making at all depends on the age figures on our lifespan page.