Font Designers on FreshBooks pay $33/month — $396/year. Over three years, that's $1,329. Nexa is $279 once. Break-even runs about 8.5 months. The median Font Designer earns $45,000/year, so FreshBooks's annual cost is roughly 0.9% of typical revenue — every year, forever.
That's $1,329 gone. And you don't own anything. Stop paying, lose access.
You're not the only one who's had enough.
Font Designers face unique challenges: Clients commission 'a logo font' and then expect a full character set with accents, numerals, and punctuation for the same price, not understanding that a working typeface is hundreds of drawn glyphs. Kerning and spacing is the bulk of the labor and completely invisible to clients, who see 'the letters are already drawn' and balk at the time it takes to make them sit right. Licensing models (desktop, web, app, broadcast, by number of users or installs) confuse clients who expect to buy the font once and use it everywhere forever. Extending an existing family with italics, weights, or language coverage (Cyrillic, Greek, extended Latin) is a months-long undertaking that clients assume is a quick add-on. On top of all that, FreshBooks charges $33/month ($396/year) — money that comes directly from your revenue. The median Font Designer earns $45,000/year. Software at $396/year is a meaningful percentage of that income, every year, forever. And you do not own anything.
Your Glyphs 3 or FontLab is yours. You bought it once. Nexa works the same way — $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, and full accounting. All connected. All offline-capable. You own it like you own your tools.
FreshBooks is just one piece. What else are you losing money on?
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Your exact FreshBooks cost, full stack total, and what switching saves. 10 seconds.
| Feature | FreshBooks | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✗ | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✗ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Price | $33/mo forever | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Cost | $1,329 | $279 |
| Stop paying? | Lose everything | Keep everything forever |
Most font designers are fully switched before the weekend.
Go to Settings → Export Data. Download clients, invoices, expenses, and time entries.
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The day starts with proofing prints from yesterday taped to the wall, reading the lowercase at text size to catch rhythm problems the screen hides, and the 'n' to 'h' relationship is off so you note it. Morning is drawing in Glyphs, working through the lowercase because the lowercase sets the voice of the whole typeface, refining the bowl of the 'a' and making sure the stem weights stay consistent across the alphabet. Around ten you switch to interpolation, checking that the masters between light and bold generate clean intermediate weights without kinks. Late morning is the part nobody sees: spacing. You set the sidebearings, then work through kerning pairs with test strings, because a beautifully drawn 'A' and 'V' look broken until you pull them together. Lunch is reading specimens of other typefaces for reference. Afternoon a client emails wanting to know if the font 'just comes with' Cyrillic, which is several hundred more glyphs and months of work, so you flag it as a separate project. You return to diacritics, placing accents consistently across the accented vowels. Late day you generate a test build, install it, type a full proof, and update the tracker noting the spacing pass and the Cyrillic inquiry so the project scope and licensing stay clear.
Real font designers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a font designer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every font designer on Nexa →
For solo operators and small teams (1-5), yes. Nexa includes invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting. FreshBooks may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
It's $7.75/month over 3 years. FreshBooks is $33/month — that's $1,329 over 3 years. Which is more? And if you'd rather split it, Nexa is also available as 3 payments of $99.
Yes. Nexa is $279 as a one-time payment, or 3 payments of $99 ($297 total). Either way it's a one-time purchase — no subscription, no recurring fees ever.
30-day money-back guarantee. Full refund. If Nexa doesn't save you $500 in year one, you get every penny back.
Export your data from FreshBooks as CSV, import into Nexa in about 5 minutes.
The average solo operator there spends about $2,880/year on software — and Font Designer face their own version of that math. MD state licensing requirements apply.
Numbers reflect typical solo operators in the Silver Spring metro. Your situation will vary.
Specific gaps Font Designers run into with FreshBooks, and what Nexa does instead.
$1,329 over 3 years. Or $279 once (or 3 × $99). Own your tools.
Get Nexa — $279 Once