At Master Samurai Tech, we help novices to the trade get into appliance repair through online training. But before you start training to become an appliance repair technician, it’s important to know whether appliance repair is the right career for you.
Is Appliance Repair the Right Career for You?
The Joys of the Job
The greatest thing about the appliance repair trade is the freedom it gives you. You can scratch your entrepreneurial itch and start your own operation, or let your team player skills shine by working for a company. There’s flexibility in work days and hours—especially if you are self-employed. And rarely will you ever have a boss breathing down your neck. You work by yourself at the pace you need to solve the customer’s problem.
It also offers an endless variety. You’re never stuck doing the same thing day-in, day-out. Every day presents new problems to solve, new customers to interact with, and plenty of mechanical tinkering. Better yet, you’re not stuck in an office all day. Your office is the many different homes in your community, where you can work in comfort (and sometimes, if you’re lucky, in absolute luxury). And in between jobs, you’ll be on the move, with the sunshine on your face and the road beneath your wheels.
Appliance repair is also a trade that can be done into your later years, as it is not as hard on your body like many other trades. In fact, it is a popular “retirement” business for many folks, who lower the amount of days they work, but still have a reliable cash flow to count upon.
Sure, But Does it Pay Well?
How much you earn depends on whether you run your own business or work for what is called a multi-tech operator (MTO). Both have their own benefits and limitations—you can earn far more running your own business, but you have to run the whole show, worrying about drumming up business, paying expenses, etc. It’s a risk-reward venture, whereas working for an MTO offers simpler schedules, more stability, if less pay. We recommend brand-new techs get into appliance repair by working for another company before considering striking out on their own.
As of 2023, the average salary for appliance repair technicians who weren’t self-employed was between $39,017 and $58,807. Even without years of experience, you could quickly be earning toward the higher end of that range, if not more. Shockingly few appliance repair technicians have received actual training for their job, so with the right appliance repair training under your belt, your skills will be nearly unmatched. Add in the fact that there are too few appliance repair technicians for the amount of broken appliances out there, and you will be in high demand starting out. Employers pay more for talent, which is true of any industry, because they know it makes customers happy and puts money in everyone’s pockets.
A number of other factors can influence how much you earn. Certain markets have a higher demand for appliance repairmen, giving you a strong negotiating position. Strong appliance repair outfits that specialize in high-end brands and high-quality service tend to pay more (because they can). Many MTOs also offer bonuses and commissions on top of an hourly salary to incentive their techs. Finally, as always, experience does lead to raises.
Add it all up and we’ve known many seasoned appliance repair technicians who earned more than $100,000. But again, it’s faster to hit numbers like that if you strike out on your own and accept the challenges of running your own business (which we have courses to help you with).
Qualities You’ll Need as a Tech
To become a good appliance repair tech and get the most out of the trade, you do need to have a few characteristics even before you start training.
- First of all—and probably most important—you need to enjoy problem-solving. Appliance repair is all about being able to tackle a problem and arrive at a logical solution. The skills for how to troubleshoot a problem can be taught (and we do teach it), but if puzzles frustrate and annoy you, so will the job.
- You will need some basic mechanical skills, such as being handy with common tools and having a good eye for how things work. If you can easily follow a YouTube video on how to disassemble and reassemble items in your home, you’ve likely got what it takes.
- You should be comfortable with, or better yet enjoy interacting with people. As an appliance repair tech, you will interact with loads of customers over your career, and your success relies on not just your technical skills, but your ability to make customers feel happy and at ease (remember: they’ve just invited a stranger into their home). Again, as with troubleshooting, customer service skills can be taught. As long as you can be friendly and considerate of others, you can learn the rest.
- Finally, a good tech is someone who’s always willing to learn. Especially when starting out, each new job is an opportunity to learn something new about appliances and the trade. Technologies can change, so can customers, you need to be willing to adapt with them to remain at the top of your game.
When it comes to our appliance repair training, there are a few other basic skills that students should possess.
- First and foremost, you must be able to read and write basic English. Plenty of our students are non-native speakers of English and they do well. You’ve also got ready access to your teachers if you need any extra help or explanations.
- You will also need basic high-school-level science and math skills. Appliance repair is a technical trade. We have worked hard to make the courses easy to understand for students of all types of academic readiness, but you will need some basic math and science skills.
How to Become an Appliance Repair Technician
Lucky for you, learning the skills to become an appliance repair technician is neither expensive, time-consuming, nor especially difficult. Our Core Appliance Repair Training course, which is enough to get you started taking appliance repair jobs, costs only $795 and can be taken and finished online in as little as a few weeks. Our entire appliance repair training program can be purchased for only $2245, which you can return to time and again to train at your leisure. Here are a few things to know about the training process.
How Training Works for New Techs
To enroll at the Master Samurai Tech Academy, you don’t need to fill out an application or meet any educational requirements. And you don’t have to set aside weeks of your life to travel cross-country to attend school. The courses are all online and self-paced, allowing you to study whenever or wherever you are. When you’re ready to start training, pay the one-time tuition fee and you will have instant access to the courses you enrolled in.
The MST Academy provides an interactive, classroom experience—ask your teachers questions if you’re struggling with a concept, take quizzes and exams to test your knowledge—but on your schedule and without time restrictions. Plus, from the moment you enroll, you will be welcomed into a global fraternity of appliance repairmen through a free membership to our sister site, Appliantology.org, where you can swap tips with other appliance repairmen, download resources, continue your education, and search for jobs.
Hands-on Practice
When people think of the trades, they think of working with their hands. But as an appliance repair technician, the part of your body that will do the most work is actually your brain, since it’s your brain that’s responsible for problem recognition, troubleshooting, and problem solving. This is why we focus on giving our students ‘brains-on’ training. Of course, there will come a point when you need to put what’s going on in your head into practice, whether that’s testing real electrical circuits, disassembling a motor, or replacing a part during your troubleshooting and problem-solving process. We recommend finding ways to work on appliances as you go through the coursework. This will help you to practice what you are seeing in the videos, building both your hands-on skills and cement your understanding of what you’ve been learning.
There are a lot of free or inexpensive ways to get this hands-on practice (so you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars and set aside weeks of your life to attend an in-person training workshop). Work on your own home appliances, enlist the help of friends and family by working on their appliances, or look for used appliances (such as on Craigslist) to fix up. If you’re lucky enough to have been hired by an appliance repair company, ask to ride along with another tech at your company to watch them work and get in some supervised practice. Plenty of new techs who are starting their own business start scheduling jobs as soon as possible and continue to practice and learn while they earn. With proper preparation, which we will teach you, this is very doable.
Why Master Samurai Tech Training
Master Samurai Tech training emphasizes two skills: (1) understanding appliance technology and (2) mastery of the troubleshooting process. This training is necessary for all techs, but is especially helpful for new techs who don’t have experience to draw on.
There are hundreds of types of appliances out there, but that’s not an issue if you understand the technology on which all appliances run, can read the appliance’s technical documentation, and can devise a troubleshooting strategy based on the issue with the appliance. It’s a repeatable process that works every time, regardless of your skill level, and it’s only taught here.
To learn more about how we stack up with our competitors in online appliance repair training, click here.
Licensing and Certification
One of the nice things about the appliance repair trade is that, when it comes to getting started, there are far fewer regulatory hurdles compared to other trades. There are currently no national certification or licensing requirements, and most states do not require any particular licensing. There are a few exceptions, particularly when it comes to working on gas appliances. For the most part, you don’t need a gas-fitters license as long as you are only working on the appliance itself and not installing a new gas line. However, be sure to check the requirements of the state you live in.
After successfully completing a course at Master Samurai Tech and meeting our certification criteria, you will receive a Certificate of Achievement and can call yourself an MST Certified Tech. This is a highly respected certification throughout the industry and can open doors for you if you’re looking to get started in appliance repair. We offer printed certificates, uniform patches and website badges to our certified grads to help them boost their industry cred.
Post-Graduation Support
From your job search to on-the-job support, we have you covered after graduation. We’ve trained more techs than any other appliance repair school, and continue to train multitudes, so we’ve teamed up with the other Master Samurai Techs of the world to support our thousands of alums. All Master Samurai Tech graduates are eligible to receive free or discounted memberships to Appliantology, the original online community of appliance repair experts. As a member of Appliantology, you’ll enjoy access to these amazing benefits:
- Peer-to-peer support from trained appliance repair experts, moderated by the MST team, so you always receive the best advice.
- Unlimited downloads of over 7,000 appliance manuals, tech sheets and schematic diagrams—plus more added every day.
- Over 70+ hours of new webinar content from the Master Samurai to continue your training and help you stay up-to-date on the latest technology.
- Job boards and networking with other techs and appliance repair company owners to help you find the perfect fit for your new career.
All of our members love Appliantology and the friends they make there, so you won’t find a busier, more helpful or more fun place to shoot the s*** and grow as a technician. Grads with a certification in Core Appliance Repair Training will receive a free one-year membership (a $197 value FREE), and that’s just for starters. Even if you don’t get certified, you will receive a lifetime discount on membership (currently $100 off every year).
Equipment You’ll Need
There is some equipment you should get before starting to work full-time as a tech. This includes:
- A strategic selection of tools (we’ll tell you our favorites in our Core course)
- A laptop or tablet to bring on jobs (you can download any tech sheets or schematic diagrams onto the device and have it with you on the job)
- And, of course, you need a vehicle, which aside from transporting you between jobs can be used to store tools and a selection of common parts
And that’s it. If you’re still interested in getting into appliance repair, we’ve got the training to get you started on a better career.