About
A repair company that answers the phone
Sprocket is a New York appliance repair company built around the part everyone else drops. The phone is answered on the first ring, day or night, in Spanish, Russian and seven other languages. The job is looked up before anyone drives out. The price is published before you call — and if you approve the repair, the visit itself costs you nothing.
Choosing between us and someone else? See how we compare — including the jobs where we are not your best option.
What we saw
The problems we set out to fix
Calls go unanswered
Industry data shows ~75% of BBB complaints in this space go unanswered. We pick up — every time, in the caller's own language.
The visit that fixes nothing
New Yorkers have a name for it — a service charge collector: the one who turns up, declares the machine dead and leaves with the trip fee. We say the same verdict for free: approve a repair and the visit costs nothing, decline and the diagnostic is all you pay.
A price that moves while the machine is open
Quoted one way on the phone, invoiced another once the panel is off. Our rates are flat, published on the site, and named before any work starts.
Wrong parts, multiple visits
Bad diagnosis = three trips for one job. The job is looked up before dispatch, the technician confirms it on-site, and the exact part is ordered the same day — installed on the return visit, with no second trip charge.
How we work differently
What happens between your call and the warranty
Four steps, and the fourth one is the question people actually ask on the phone: will you fix it today, or come back?
- 1
The call is answered
On the first ring, day or night, in your language. The receptionist is automated and says so — taking the appliance, the symptom and the address and booking the visit, often for the same day, is the whole of its job. From the booking onwards you are dealing with people.
- 2
The job is prepared before anyone drives out
Your model and symptom go through our repair library — about 10,000 indexed passages from service manuals, repair journals and a 60-part video course — and then a senior expert's review. The technician leaves with a short list of what to check first, not with a blank work order. That preparation is why most jobs end in one visit.
- 3
Diagnosis, then the price — before any work
The technician confirms what is actually wrong and names the price from the published book. Approve it and the visit costs you nothing: the $100 diagnostic is credited in full. Decline, and the diagnostic is all you pay — we do not invent a repair to justify the trip.
- 4
Fixed on the spot — or the exact part, same day
Most jobs end here, in that one visit. If a new part is needed, you approve the price, we order it the same day from local NYC distributors and install it on the return visit — no second trip charge. Then photos of the finished work and a 90-day warranty.
The same visit, broken down step by step and set against a national chain and a marketplace handyman, is on the comparison page.
Team
Meet the people behind Sprocket
Started Sprocket Appliance Repair (operated by TANNU LLC) after seeing too many neighbors get burned by opaque pricing and bad diagnoses. Built the AI-receptionist + senior-expert dispatch model that gets appliances diagnosed before a technician even shows up.
Trust signals
- ✓ Operated by TANNU LLC — registered NY entity
- ✓ General Liability insurance — $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate (Berkshire Hathaway Direct)
- ✓ Google Guaranteed
- ✓ Licensed by NYC DCWP as a home appliance service dealer — #2135840-DCWP
- ✓ 90-day warranty on every repair
- ✓ No cancellation fee — move or cancel a visit for free
- ✓ Serving NYC since 2023
Insurance certificate available on request — call us.
Why we build it this way
What the software does, and where it stops
I didn't come to this business from a repair shop. I came from software, and I started Sprocket because I could see what the tools I use every day could do for a trade that still runs on missed calls and handwritten invoices.
So AI isn't a badge on this website, and it isn't a wall between you and us either. I have read what people write about the big chains that put a robot in front of everything — “you call for a repair, never get a person” — and that is not a company I would want to call. Here the software does four specific jobs, and I'd rather name them than hint at them:
- It answers the phone — and that is where it stopsOur receptionist picks up 24/7 and says it's an AI at the start of the call. It holds the conversation in Spanish, Russian and seven other languages; for any other language we text you a WhatsApp link and answer there in yours. It takes the job and books the visit. It does not diagnose, it does not quote, and it is not who you deal with after the booking. No queue, no voicemail at 11pm.
- It confirms your booking by textYour name, your address, the time of the visit — in writing, within a minute. We stopped using robocalls for this in 2026.
- It searches our repair libraryAbout 10,000 indexed passages from service manuals, repair journals and a 60-part video course — the fault another technician solved last winter is in front of us during your visit.
- It prices from a published bookFlat rates per job from one source, the same numbers you see on the pricing page — not a figure invented at your kitchen table.
The part I'm proudest of: the library
Every appliance fault has been seen before by someone. The problem in this trade is that the answer lives in one technician's head, or in a manual nobody can find at 7pm in your kitchen.
So we built a searchable one. Around 10,000 passages: manufacturer service manuals, our own repair journals from finished jobs, and the transcripts of a 60-part repair video course. It searches in English and Russian at the same time, which matters more than it sounds — half the good material in this trade was never written in English, and it would otherwise be unreachable.
The practical effect on your visit is simple. Before the technician rings your bell, the same symptom on the same model has already been looked up: what it usually turns out to be, which part fails first, what a previous job on that fault actually took. Fewer guesses in your kitchen, fewer second trips, and the right part ordered the first time.
And what it doesn't do: it never touches your appliance, and it is never the last thing you can reach. A person diagnoses the machine, a person repairs it, and a person photographs the finished work before you pay anything. From the moment the visit is booked you are in a thread with people — the same thread you write in if something goes wrong afterwards. The software takes away the waiting and the paperwork. The craft stays human, and so does the responsibility.
Why we do it
Every repair is one appliance that doesn't become trash
I started Sprocket because I don't like throwing things away. A washer with a dead pump isn't garbage — it's a machine that needs one part.
In 2018 Americans discarded 5.3 million tons of major appliances. Scrap processors recovered 3.1 million tons of ferrous metal from them, and the remaining 2.1 million tons went to landfill — the EPA's own number.
Every appliance we bring back is one that doesn't get replaced and one that doesn't end up on that pile. It's a drop in the ocean. It's also the part of this work I care about beyond the invoice — and it decides how we run the job:
We repair first
If one part brings the machine back, you don't need a new machine. We don't sell appliances, so we have nothing to gain from talking you into one. Most failures are a single part: a pump, a valve, a door lock. Replacing a washer's water inlet valve, for example, is $290 all-in from our published price book, parts, labor and the visit included, with a 90-day warranty.
We tell you when it isn't worth it
When the repair costs more than the appliance is worth, we say so on the spot — even though we earn nothing that day. Same when the machine is still under manufacturer warranty, or when the fault is sealed-system refrigerator work that belongs in a certified shop. An honest no is cheaper for you than a pointless repair.
We fix it once, properly
The job is reviewed before dispatch and the technician brings the right part, so the machine keeps working instead of coming back to us in a month. Every visit carries a 90-day warranty, and its conditions are the short part: any day we work, no exclusion for a fault that needs a part, no list of components left out.
We don't sell memberships
No maintenance plan, no annual package, no priority tier. You pay for the repair you needed, once, and nothing renews afterwards. The 90-day warranty comes with every repair instead of being sold as an extra, and the $100 diagnostic is credited in full when you approve the work. Every rate in our price book is a one-time price for one job.
Why open prices?
Industry hides numbers. We don't. You see typical price ranges before you call, and no surprise appears at checkout. Approve the repair and the visit costs you nothing — the diagnostic is credited against it in full.
Four common jobs go further still — $100 for the whole visit, travel and diagnostic included. They are listed on the offers page.