Billings is home to about 117,000 people. The moderate cost of living means competitive pricing — and software savings hit different on tight margins.
Hair Stylists in Montana need a Cosmetology License. Requirements vary — contact your city or county business licensing office for current details.
Insurance: $100K-$500K general liability
Continuing Education: Most states require 5-16 hours biennially
Montana has a 1-6.75% income tax. Progressive income tax up to 6.75%. No sales tax. Low population density. Tourism (Glacier, Yellowstone) drives seasonal service demand. Remote work migration increasing Bozeman/Missoula growth.
When evaluating software costs, factor in your effective tax rate. A $600/year software expense is partially deductible — but Nexa at $279 once is a one-time deduction that eliminates the recurring expense entirely.
Whether you call it invoicing, a program for clients, or a collecting tips system — most hair stylists in Billings stitch together Vagaro, Booksy, Square, boulevard plus other subscriptions. That's $600/year in monthly software fees. Over the next 5 years at today's prices, the total damage is $3,000.
With Nexa, you own your tools. Your CRM, invoicing, calendar tool, clients, time tracking, and financial tools — wrapped into one program. One move books a client. One move generates an invoice. No switching tabs. No third-party glue. No add-on costs. It's a lifetime license — eliminate recurring fees from the first day. For hair stylists in Billings weighing the switch, the 30-day money-back guarantee covers the migration window — you can run Nexa in parallel with your existing subscriptions, verify the workflow handles your real client load, and only cancel the monthly tools once you are confident the data and processes have settled in.
You're a suite renter paying $350/week. Your 10am cancels last-minute — that's a $120 color appointment gone. You've got back-to-back clients until 7pm, but you need to reorder color and you can't remember what formula you used on your 2pm's balayage last time. You check Vagaro, your notebook, and your texts — it's in none of them. Meanwhile two new clients are trying to book through Instagram DMs and you haven't responded since yesterday.
That is the work Nexa is built around: the job, the client, the hours and the invoice live in one place, so the paperwork side of the day doesn't need a second shift.
Every one of those was bought once and earns its keep for years. Nexa is priced the same way: $279 once, and it keeps working whether business is busy or slow.
Dated changes to the subscriptions a hair stylist might rent. Each one links the announcement or report it comes from. Tap one for the numbers.
For renewals on or after February 1, 2026, Pro Plus and Mac Plus went from $999 to $1,149 a year for one user, and each extra seat from $200 to $230.
Source: SWK Technologies, Insightful Accountant (Dec 2, 2025)
From July 1, 2025: Simple Start $35 to $38, Essentials $65 to $75, Plus $99 to $115, Advanced $235 to $275 a month.
Source: Woodard Report (May 27, 2025)
Only changes we can link to a vendor announcement or a named publication are listed. Plans, add-ons and discounts vary, so check the vendor's current pricing page before you decide.
Biz Wiz creates a personalized business plan for hair stylists in Billings — licensing requirements, local competition, startup costs, pricing strategy, and a 90-day action plan. $19.99 once.
Billings hair stylists: own your tools.
Get Nexa — $279 Once30-day full refund guarantee · lifetime license · Works offline
Your people are already online — swapping real numbers, tool picks, and war stories. Here's where to find them.
Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →We build a hair stylist'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 hair stylist — 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.
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.