Home Warranty Cost Calculator

Is a home warranty worth paying for, or are you better off banking the money and covering repairs yourself? That trade-off sits at the heart of this tool, which sets a warranty's typical price against the number of repairs it would have to cover to pay for itself.

You pick a plan type and enter the service call fee. A basic plan (appliances only) is priced at $300 to $450 a year and a comprehensive plan (appliances plus systems) at $450 to $600, and the calculator works with the midpoint. It assumes an average repair costs $300, so each covered call saves you $300 minus the service fee; the break-even is the number of calls a year it takes for those savings to cover the average premium, rounded up. The self-insure figure is the average premium divided by 12, the amount you would set aside each month instead. For context it lists $150 to $500 for a typical appliance repair and $1,500 to $5,000 for a replacement.

The deductible, or service call fee, charged on every claim is easy to underestimate and changes the math considerably. Looking only at the headline premium hides those per-incident charges, which accumulate fast once you file a few claims. Read each plan's covered items and exclusions closely too, since two warranties at the same price can protect very different things.