Champaign is home to about 88,000 people. The moderate cost of living means competitive pricing — and every dollar saved on software goes further.
Storyboard Artists 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 $1,356/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 invoice management, a program for jobs, or a invoicing system — most storyboard artists in Champaign string together HoneyBook, FreshBooks, Toggl Track, Harvest along with other platforms. That's $1,356/year in monthly software fees. Within 5 years at today's prices, that stack costs $6,780.
Nexa means you own your business software. Your CRM, invoice management, booking, jobs, time tracking, and financial tools — in a single program. One drag books a client. One drag generates an invoice. No duplicate data entry. No middleware. No integration tax. It's a buy once — eliminate recurring fees the moment you switch. For storyboard artists 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.
The morning starts with the latest script revision dropped in the shared drive overnight, so the first hour is reading the new pages and flagging which sequences changed. By 9:30 the director wants thumbnails for the chase sequence, so you rough small panels fast, blocking eyelines and screen direction before any detail. Mid-morning is a notes call: the director wants the reveal held one beat longer, which means inserting two new panels and renumbering the whole sequence. You work in Storyboard Pro because the timeline lets you slap rough timing under each panel and export an animatic the editor can drop into Premiere. Lunch is at the desk, scrubbing the animatic to check whether the action reads. Afternoon is cleanup on yesterday's approved panels: tightening perspective, adding arrows for camera moves, marking which shots are on ones and which hold. Around four the production coordinator asks for a panel count for the budget, and you realize you've drawn forty more panels than the original quote. You note it to raise on the next invoice. The day ends exporting a fresh PDF of the act, labeled with the date and revision letter so nobody boards off a stale version again.
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 storyboard artist 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)
From February 4, 2025: Starter $19 to $36 (89%), Essentials $39 to $59, Premium $79 to $125 a month.
Source: Fstoppers (Jan 24, 2025)
From October 27, 2024: Early $15 to $20, Growing $42 to $47, Established $78 to $80 a month.
Source: Insightful Accountant
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 storyboard artists in Champaign — licensing requirements, local competition, startup costs, pricing strategy, and a 90-day action plan. $19.99 once.
Champaign storyboard artists: own your business software.
Get Nexa — $279 Once30-day full refund guarantee · buy once · Your data stays local
We build a storyboard 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 storyboard 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.
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.