Champaign is home to about 88,000 people. The moderate cost of living means competitive pricing — and software savings hit different on tight margins.
Jewelry Makers in Illinois need a Business License. Requirements vary — contact your city or county business licensing office for current details.
Insurance: $500K-$1M general liability
Continuing Education: Check with state licensing board
Illinois has a 4.95% flat income tax. Flat 4.95% income tax. Chicago has additional taxes and licensing requirements. High property taxes statewide. Cook County has specific contractor requirements.
When evaluating software costs, factor in your effective tax rate. A $456/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 app for jobs, or a invoicing system — most jewelry makers in Champaign stitch together QuickBooks, Wave, Square, FreshBooks and other tools. That's $456/year in monthly software fees. Across five years at today's prices, you're looking at $2,280.
Switching to Nexa lets you exit the subscription trap. Your CRM, invoicing, calendar tool, jobs, time tracking, and financial tools — combined into one app. One tap books a client. One tap generates an invoice. No bouncing between tools. No integration hacks. No per-connection charges. It's a one-time purchase — keep more revenue starting today. For jewelry makers in Champaign 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.
Most of my pieces are made to order, so every week is a queue of rings, necklaces and earrings with a customer waiting on each. I work mostly in sterling silver and gold-filled wire, with some stone setting, and each piece moves through the same steps: cutting and shaping the metal, soldering, filing, setting stones, then polishing through several compounds until it shines. Soldering and pickling mean ventilation and careful handling of the torch and chemicals. Custom orders start with a sketch and a conversation about budget, metal and sizing, and ring sizes have to be right the first time, because resizing a set piece is real work. Metal prices move every week, so I price materials at today's cost plus my time, and I keep a record of what each design costs me to make. I photograph every finished piece in natural light for my shop, pack it in a box with a care card, and ship it insured. A few times a year I sell at markets and trunk shows, which means building inventory ahead.
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 jewelry maker 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 jewelry makers in Champaign — licensing requirements, local competition, startup costs, pricing strategy, and a 90-day action plan. $19.99 once.
Champaign jewelry makers: exit the subscription trap.
Get Nexa — $279 OnceTry it risk-free for 30 days · one-time purchase · Works offline
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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 jewelry maker'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 jewelry maker — 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.