What software does a permanent makeup artist actually need?

An honest look at the tools permanent makeup artists use — what to rent, what to own, and what's free.

What a permanent makeup artist actually needs from software

Strip away the marketing and the real list is short. For most solo and small permanent makeup artist operations it comes down to:

  • Scheduling & booking
  • CRM & client management
  • Invoicing & billing
  • Accounting & bookkeeping

You can buy a separate subscription for each, run free/open-source tools you host yourself, buy a few once, or use one suite that covers the lot. There's no single right answer — it depends on how much you'd rather own than rent. The sections below lay out the honest options for each.

Sound familiar?

You have 3 appointments today: ombre brows initial ($500, 3 hours), lip blush touch-up ($150, 1.5 hours), and a consultation for eyeliner ($0, 30 min). Supplies per procedure: $40 in needles, pigment, and disposables. Your suite costs $1,400/month. The touch-up is half price but full supply cost. The consultation might not convert. You need to track per-procedure profitability but you're just checking your bank account.

Where business tools fit — for a permanent makeup artist

Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every permanent makeup artist: find the work, manage it, bill for it, get paid. Each step has a tool — and the right single tool runs the whole loop, so the handoffs are automatic and you get back to your clients. Tap a step to see what gets automated.

  1. 1
    Find the work

    Get booked

    ↓

    A new client finds you and books a time — no phone tag, no double-booking.

    • CRM / contacts
    • Estimates & proposals
    • Booking / scheduling
    then ↓
  2. 2

    The session itself — with the client history, notes, packages, and add-ons right there instead of in three different places.

    • Job / project tracking
    • Time tracking
    • Expenses, materials & add-ons
    then ↓
  3. 3

    The work becomes the invoice — the hours, the add-ons, the materials, the deposit credited — totaled and sent, instead of re-typed at 9pm.

    • Invoicing
    • Deposits & credits
    then ↓
  4. 4

    Paid by card or link, the deposit credited, and what's overdue chased — without you doing it by hand.

    • Card / online payments
    • Automatic reminders

You can stitch four separate subscriptions across these four steps, or run one tool that does the whole flow so a booking becomes a job becomes an invoice becomes a payment without re-typing. Either way the goal is the same: less time on the business of the business, more on your clients. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)

Where Nexa wins for a permanent makeup artist — and where it doesn't

The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a permanent makeup artist — here's where it wins, where the integration wins it anyway, and the things it genuinely doesn't do, with who to use instead. (No tool is best at everything; a guide that pretends otherwise is just an ad.)

Compare the essential business tools for permanent makeup artists

The usual subscriptions vs. Nexa, side by side. Drag the time slider — every year you keep renting, the gap widens. Nexa is $279, one time.

The jobThe usual rentalThe verdict
The whole connected stack 4 subscriptions · ~$1,356/yr Nexa wins big One tool, $279 once — The consult, the consent form, the 3-hour initial, and the discounted 6-to-8-week touch-up all hang on one client record so the supplies, the reduced rate, and the liability paperwork flow into invoicing and books without re-entry. without re-typing. That handoff is the part separate tools can't buy at any price.
Scheduling & booking Calendly → Nexa wins Your 3-hour ombre brows, the 1.5-hour lip touch-up, and the free 30-minute eyeliner consult block very different chair times, so one calendar keeps them from colliding and protects the long initial procedures.
CRM & clients HubSpot → Nexa wins Each client record carries their signed consent and the date of the initial procedure, so the 6-to-8-week touch-up is scheduled proactively and the liability documentation is right there.
Invoicing FreshBooks → Nexa wins The $500 initial bills full, and the reduced-rate touch-up 6 to 8 weeks later bills off the same client record, so the discount is intentional and not a mistake re-keyed into Vagaro or HoneyBook.
Books & accounting QuickBooks → Nexa wins Because the $40 in needles and disposables is logged on each procedure, your true per-procedure cost shows up in the books instead of you guessing margin against $1,400 suite rent.
If you run real payroll for a team — Not Nexa Use Gusto → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you than pretend.
If you run big email campaigns & automations — Not Nexa Use ConvertKit → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you than pretend.

Prefer to own a piece outright instead of renting? Free and open-source tools (GnuCash, Invoice Ninja and the like) each handle one job if you'll self-host them — a real option, listed because it's true.

These are affiliate links — if you sign up through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We list them because they're the honest best pick for the job, Nexa included. Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.

The software a permanent makeup artist rents only moves one way on price

This isn't our opinion — it's a dated record of what the subscriptions a permanent makeup artist would rent have actually done to their prices, pulled from the vendors' own announcements and what their users said when it happened. Tap any one to see the jump.

Since launch Nexa — $279 once. No annual hike, no per-seat creep, no "your plan is changing" email.

Prices and dates tracked from public vendor announcements, billing changes, and user reports. We add new entries as they happen — that's why this list grows.

Bottom line

A typical permanent makeup artist stack — booking, a CRM, invoicing, accounting — rents for about $1,356/year, roughly $6,780 over five years and climbing. The same jobs, owned in one suite, are $279 once. On a median permanent makeup artist income of $55,000/year, that's a recurring slice you don't get back.

The kit a working permanent makeup artist owns

The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.

PMU machine and needles

Pigment inventory

Consent forms and documentation

Sterilization equipment

You paid for these once because good tools last. That's the bar your software should clear too — priced like a tool you own, $279 once, not a subscription that costs more than your kit every year.

Need to replace a piece of the kit? Here's where permanent makeup artists get it

PMU machine and needlesAmazon → Pigment inventoryAmazon → Consent forms and documentationAmazon → Sterilization equipmentAmazon →

Affiliate links — we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Where permanent makeup artists actually talk shop

Your people are already online — swapping real numbers, tool picks, and war stories. Here's where to find them.

Recent in r/sweatystartup · Where solo service businesses swap real numbers and hard-won lessons.
Quit my six-figure corporate sales job to buy a home service franchise. On pace to do $2M+ this year. AMA. Three years ago I posted about starting a company with no construction experience. Here's what I've learned since. I run my business — it doesn't run me. I think AI search is about to change how local service businesses get found. Anyone else seeing this? Update: $12k/mo revenue after 1.5 years. What I'd do differently from day one.

Subreddits worth your time

r/microblading

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/PermanentMakeup

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →

Facebook groups to join

Permanent Makeup Artists PMU Business Owners Microblading & PMU Professionals
YouTube
▶ Eye Design University▶ PMU Artist Academy
TikTok
#pmu#permanentmakeup#microblade#lipblush#pmubrows
Podcasts
🎧 PMU Business Podcast
Forums
PMU Hub ForumSociety of Permanent Cosmetics

What's moving for permanent makeup artists near you

Real, current, local — the news in your trade and the suppliers you actually buy from. It changes every week, which is exactly the point.

Where permanent makeup artists stock up — and this week's deals

Sally Beauty

pro hair color, nail, lash/brow, barber supplies

This week's deals → Find your store

Pro program: ProCard

CosmoProf

wholesale salon brands, color, tools, equipment (licensed pros)

This week's deals → Find your store

Pro program: Pro account + Rewards

SalonCentric

L'Oreal wholesale pro hair, color, skin, nail brands

This week's deals → Find your store

Pro program: Pro account

Armstrong McCallregional

franchised pro beauty distributor (licensed pros)

This week's deals → Find your store

Pro program: Licensed-pro account

Why permanent makeup artists leave the big platforms

Local permanent makeup artists on Nexa

Real permanent makeup artists near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a permanent makeup artist? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every permanent makeup artist on Nexa →

Permanent Makeup Artists by the numbers — by place

Tax & registration where you operate

1-13.3%income tax

Register a business in California →

Noneincome tax

Register a business in Texas →

Noneincome tax

Register a business in Florida →

4-10.9%income tax

Register a business in New York →

Is Nexa actually right for a permanent makeup artist?

An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.

Right for you if

  • You run solo or a small team — like the 25,000 permanent makeup artists in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
  • You're tired of paying every month for vagaro and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
  • You want invoicing, scheduling, and client tracking in one place — not scattered across five apps.
  • You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your PMU machine and needles.

Look elsewhere if

  • You have a large team that needs enterprise seats, granular roles, and dedicated admin staff — Nexa is built for solo and small operators (1–5), and a bigger platform will serve you better.
  • You need full payroll for a large team or deep, SKU-level inventory — that's not what Nexa is for.
  • You're genuinely happy paying monthly and don't mind stitching tools together. No tool fixes a workflow you already like.

The honest fit: if you're a solo or small permanent makeup artists business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling into a large team with dedicated admin staff, a bigger platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.

How we put this guide together

We build a permanent makeup artist's guide the same way every time, and we'd rather you trust it than take it on faith. Nexa is our product, so the test we hold ourselves to is simple: a tool only "wins" a job here when it genuinely does that job better for a permanent makeup artist — and where something free, open-source, or buy-once does it better, we say so and link you to it. Where Nexa falls short (payroll is the honest example), we name the alternative outright.

Where the numbers come from

Found something out of date? Prices change and we don't catch every move the day it happens. This guide is published and maintained by the Nexa team; if a figure here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — getting it right matters more to us than the sale.

FAQ

Free and open-source tools (listed above) cost nothing but your own time to host and maintain. If your time is worth more than that, a one-time purchase or a single suite usually wins over a stack of monthly subscriptions within the first year or two.

Yes — the modules are designed to work the way permanent makeup artists actually work, all connected, $279 once. Whether that beats the free/self-hosted or buy-once options above depends on how much you want handled for you.

Export your data as CSV and import it in about 15 minutes. Run the old and new side by side for a week, then cancel the subscriptions you're replacing once you're confident.

Own your tools instead of renting them

If owning one connected suite sounds better than renting a stack — or self-hosting one — Nexa is $279 once for everything above.

See Nexa — $279 once

30-day money-back guarantee. Or use the free and buy-once options above — we listed them for a reason.

Your next step

Best invoicing for permanent makeup artists → Best scheduling for permanent makeup artists → How to start a permanent makeup artist business → Cost calculator → Solopreneur Toolkit →
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