“How much to fix it?” is a fair question, and we wish the honest answer were a single number. After eleven years at the bench, we can tell you that two repairs that sound identical on the phone, “cracked screen” or “won’t charge,” can land at very different prices for reasons that have nothing to do with anyone padding a bill. The price of a repair is built from real, knowable things: the part, the exact device, how deep the fault goes, the skill the work demands, and what stands behind it afterward. This is our attempt to lay all of that out plainly, so you can read any quote, ours or anyone else’s, and know what you are actually paying for.
The part is the biggest single driver, and not all parts are equal
Most repairs start with a part, and the part is usually where the largest swing in price lives. There are roughly three tiers, and the gap between them is real, not marketing. Genuine parts come from the original manufacturer. OEM parts are made to the original spec, often on the same lines, without the brand stamp. Aftermarket parts are produced by third parties and vary enormously, from excellent to barely functional. A good aftermarket OLED and a bargain LCD are not the same product even when both are sold as a “screen.”
This is the single most useful thing to ask any shop: which tier are you quoting me, and why. A cheaper number often just means a cheaper part, and that is a legitimate choice as long as you are the one making it knowingly. We walk through the real differences in our screen replacement work, because display quality is where the tiers diverge the most.
The exact model matters more than the category
“Laptop screen” and “phone battery” are categories, not parts. The price hinges on the specific model in front of us. One generation of a laptop has a screen you can swap in minutes; the next bonds the panel to the glass and the frame, turning a quick job into a careful one. Two phones from the same maker, a year apart, can use completely different batteries with completely different adhesives and routing. When a shop quotes you before knowing the exact model, that number is a guess. The real price is model-specific, every time.
Severity: a clip-in part versus opening the board
Some parts simply unplug and clip back in. Others are soldered to the logic board with components smaller than a grain of rice, and reaching them means microscope work, controlled heat, and hours of careful labor. A charging port that connects by a cable is a different job from a charging circuit burned into the board itself, even though the symptom, “won’t charge,” reads the same to you.
Here is what that looks like in practice. A phone that “won’t charge” comes in; on the bench PSU it draws 0.00A on a known-good cable. We meter the lines and find the Tristar/Tigris U2 charging IC dead in diode-mode. That is not a port swap. It is pulling the shield, reballing or replacing a BGA chip under the microscope, and chasing whatever blown rail killed it. A device that instead sits at a hard short, drawing 0.7A on the main rail with the screen off, is usually a shorted PMIC or a failed cap, again board-level. This is the line between a parts swap and board-level microsoldering, and it is the honest reason quotes differ so widely. Most shops mail this work out to someone like us; we do it in house. Board repair costs more because it is genuinely harder and the failure rate of a careless job is high. It is also frequently the only path that saves your data when a board, not a part, has failed.
Parts pairing and calibration are now part of the price
This one is newer and worth understanding before you compare quotes in 2026. Modern phones, Apple’s especially, serialize major components. Screens, batteries, and cameras are tied to your device in software. Install a part that isn’t paired and calibrated and the phone notices: True Tone vanishes, Battery Health shows “Service Recommended” on a brand-new cell, Face ID may not work, and an “Unknown Part” notice lingers in settings.
Right-to-repair pressure has softened some of this. Newer iOS versions and Apple’s Repair Assistant now let many genuine and some quality third-party parts be calibrated and reused rather than rejected outright. But calibration is a step that takes tools, software access, and time, and it is part of doing a battery replacement correctly today. A quote that is cheap because it skips pairing is not really cheaper. It is incomplete.
Labor, skill, and warranty are the rest of the number
The remainder of any honest quote is the work itself and what backs it up. A clean repair takes trained hands, the right bench equipment, and the patience to test before handing the device back. And a warranty is not paperwork; it is a real cost the shop absorbs so you don’t carry the risk of an early failure. We stand behind our work with a one-year warranty on OEM and OEM-equivalent parts and 30 days on aftermarket parts, and that commitment is priced in honestly rather than hidden.
- Part tier: genuine, OEM, or aftermarket, with very different quality and cost.
- Exact model: bonding, adhesives, and access vary from one generation to the next.
- Severity: a clip-in part versus soldered, board-level repair under a microscope.
- Pairing and calibration: the software steps that keep features and warnings correct.
- Labor and warranty: skilled time, testing, and a real guarantee behind the fix.
Why the cheapest quote can cost you more
A suspiciously low number is not always a deal, and we say this knowing it sounds self-serving. Usually a price that undercuts everyone has given something up to get there. Maybe nobody actually diagnosed the device, so you are paying for a guess that may not fix the problem. Maybe it is the cheapest available part, which fails sooner. Maybe your data was never protected during the work. Very often it comes with no warranty at all, which means the moment you walk out, the risk is entirely yours.
The cheapest quote and the most expensive repair are frequently the same job. You just pay the difference later, when the bargain part fails or the guess turns out wrong.
How to compare quotes honestly, and where the diagnostic fits
To compare fairly, make sure every quote is answering the same question. Ask each shop: which part tier, is calibration included, what is the warranty, and was the device actually diagnosed or is this an estimate over the phone. Quotes are only comparable when those four answers line up.
That last point is why we charge $65 for a written diagnostic, and why it applies toward the repair if you proceed. A real diagnosis on the bench means the price you are quoted is grounded in a confirmed fault, not a hopeful guess that quietly grows into “we opened it, and now it’s more.” You leave with a written report stating exactly what is wrong and what the fix costs, before any work begins, whether you walk into our Arlington lab or use our tracked mail-in service from anywhere in the fifty states. Knowing the truth up front is the cheapest thing you can buy in this trade.