Our water softener is going or IS kaput

My dumb water softener has been running now for 10 hours… A replacement water softener will run at the very least $399 (for some reason the link won’t come up, so I won’t link to it at the moment) on up to $979 or more, and that is from a budget source (I’ve priced them out before). At the $979 level or even $799 and up level, the system goes with me short of there being a better one at the next house, I would just put the old one to the side and reinstall it when I move… oh to dream. The $979 unit on their page of complete water treatment systems, would be my ideal one, then down the line to their $399 unit, the $1299 and $1799 units on that page are more then this house would need. I wonder how much one saves dropping the drinking filter?
Anyhow, perhaps there is a fix for my current system… and we’ve been using unfiltered water for a couple months now as I ran out of salt in the brine tank, so if I have to bypass it, no big deal.