AMC Cost Estimator for Dubai and the UAE

An annual maintenance contract is a fixed yearly price for a defined set of visits and a defined level of cover for things that go wrong.

It normally includes scheduled servicing, usually of the air conditioning and sometimes of other systems, plus a number of call outs for faults.

What is covered on those call outs varies. Labour is almost always included. Small parts often are. Large parts usually are not.

So the trade is straightforward. You pay a known amount instead of an unknown one, and in exchange the provider takes the risk of ordinary faults.

What it is not is insurance against everything. A compressor failing is generally outside any normal contract.

It comes down to how much equipment you have and how much you want to think about it.

Contracts vary far more than their prices suggest. These are the questions worth asking.

The arithmetic in this tool compares two numbers. Some of the real difference is not a number.

The first is that the scheduled work actually happens. Air conditioning serviced twice a year uses less electricity and lasts longer, and that saving does not show in the comparison above.

The second is response. In August, a household with a contract has somebody who has to come. A household without one is calling around competing with everybody else.

The third is that somebody is tracking condition over time. A provider who has serviced the same units for three years knows which one is struggling.

The fourth is that a fixed cost is easier to live with than a variable one, even when the average is similar. That matters more for a landlord than for an owner occupier.

None of that makes a contract right for everybody. It means the decision is not only about which number is smaller.

Put in what you actually spent last year rather than what you think a typical year looks like. People underestimate call outs consistently.

Count the servicing you should be doing, not the servicing you did. If the air conditioning has not been serviced in two years, the pay as you go figure is artificially low and the equipment is paying for it.

Be realistic about what the contract covers. Ask for an example of something recently refused under it.

If the two numbers are close, the non price factors decide it. If pay as you go is much cheaper and you genuinely keep up with the schedule, keep doing that.

And review it each year. What is right for a five year old property is not right for a twelve year old one.