Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Massage Therapists
Acuity Scheduling
$34/mo ($408/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 8.2 months at Acuity Scheduling's current price.
Does Acuity Scheduling Fit Massage Therapists? Our Read
What massage therapists need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Session notes must be kept for a set period and be ready for a licensing board inspection. Mississippi requires a massage therapist to keep client documentation of sessions for two years, including SOAP notes, the appointment schedule book and client evaluations, and to make it available to the Board on request. Software needs SOAP-style notes with retention and retrieval. (law.cornell.edu)
Retention periods differ by state and can depend on the client's age. In Washington, records for clients 18 and older must be kept at least three years from the last treatment. Records for clients under 18 must be kept at least three years after the client turns 18. Record-keeping therefore needs a per-client retention rule, not a single fixed period. (lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov)
License renewal depends on tracking continuing education and keeping proof. Connecticut requires at least 24 hours of qualifying continuing education every 4 years, and licensees must keep course completion certificates for at least 6 years and provide them if asked. A licensing and CE tracker with stored certificates and renewal dates fits this. (portal.ct.gov)
Tips are common in massage and must be recorded as income. The IRS says tips received by self-employed workers are income, are generally included in gross receipts, are reported on Schedule C and are subject to self-employment tax. Self-employed workers must keep records sufficient to substantiate any qualified tips deduction claimed. The deduction cannot exceed net income from the business where the tips were earned. Payment and bookkeeping tools need to log tips separately from service fees. (irs.gov)
Business and personal expenses should be kept separate. AMTA's tax guidance (a 2016 article that notes some information may be outdated) says accurate records kept through the year save time and are essential in an IRS audit. It also notes that a home-office deduction lowers profit, and with it income tax and self-employment tax. This points to expense tracking by category for a sole practitioner. (amtamassage.org)
Acuity Scheduling covers the booking side of a massage practice well. It has custom intake forms, packages, gift certificates, deposits, cancelation policies and text reminders. It also has a waitlist, payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo, and a QuickBooks integration. It lists HIPAA compliance, and a Business Associate Agreement comes with its top plan, which matters if you hold health details. The gaps are in the record-keeping this trade needs for a licensing board. Nothing in its feature list covers SOAP-style session notes, per-client retention rules (for example, by client age), or a continuing-education tracker with stored certificates. Nothing in the list covers logging tips apart from service fees, or expense tracking either. A therapist using Acuity would need a separate place for those records.
Nexa covers more of the back-office side. It has a public booking page with intake forms, reschedule and cancel links and email reminders. Notes can be linked to a client and can be checklists. It has expenses, receipt scanning, profit and loss, and 1099 summaries, which helps keep business and personal spending apart. Clients can pay by card through your own Stripe account. It does not have text messages, Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file), a waitlist, recurring booking series, or sync with QuickBooks or Xero. It has no card reader. Its automated emails, including reminders, send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years Acuity at $34 a month costs $408 a year, or $1,224. Nexa is $279 once (or 3 payments of $99). With optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for the same three years, it comes to $458.64. Without sync it runs on one device. If you already use Acuity's text reminders, waitlist or Google Calendar link, or you want its HIPAA coverage, stay. Those are things Nexa lacks or does not state. A solo therapist who mainly wants bookkeeping and client payments, and who will work from one device, could reasonably move to Nexa. Either way, keep SOAP notes and CE certificates somewhere you can produce them for the board.
Our read for massage therapists: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if you rely on its text reminders, waitlist, calendar sync or HIPAA coverage, since Nexa has none of those; switch only if you mainly want low-cost bookkeeping on one device.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling costs massage therapists $408/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 8.2 months it has cost less than Acuity Scheduling, and you own it after that. What it is not: hosted-for-you software with a support desk and a roadmap you can lobby. That is the trade, and the rest of this page is the detail behind it.
Can it pay for itself?
Nexa is $279 once, about $23 a month over its first year. Its Drain Guard reads your expenses (from a linked bank, an imported statement, or ones you type in), finds the charges that repeat, and adds them up by the month. Keep or Cut then walks you through them one at a time. Cancel $23 a month of charges you'd forgotten about and Nexa has paid for itself inside the first year, before you count the Acuity Scheduling bill you'd stop paying.
It depends on what you find and what you cancel, so we don't promise a number. In our demo data, Drain Guard finds 5 subscriptions adding up to $110.13 a month. That is sample data, not a customer's.
The verdict for massage therapists: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if the needs in our read above apply to you. If they don't, Nexa covers the core invoicing, scheduling and books for $279 once against $1,224 for Acuity Scheduling over three years.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need scheduler, connect crm and invoicing in one tool
You're tired of price increases
You want to own your tools like you own your equipment
Choose Acuity Scheduling if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Acuity Scheduling's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
I do five or six massages a day, and that's about the physical limit if I want to still be doing this in ten years. Each session starts with an intake: what hurts, what's changed since last time, medications and conditions that change what's safe, like pregnancy or blood thinners. Then I adapt: deep work on a runner's calves, gentle work for someone recovering from surgery, trigger points for the desk worker whose shoulders live up by their ears. Between clients I'm changing linens, sanitising the table and face cradle, and writing short session notes so I remember what we did. Laundry is a quiet second job. I rent a room in a wellness centre, so I pay the rent whether my book is full or not, and a no-show is lost income I can't recover, which is why I take a card to book. My steadiest income is regulars on monthly packages. I keep my licence current with continuing-education hours and look after my own hands and back, because my body is the equipment.
Mindbody costs $139+/month for features designed for yoga studios and gyms
Managing package sessions and gift certificate tracking
SOAP notes and client health history documentation
Back-to-back scheduling without buffer time leads to burnout
Scheduling, client records and invoicing are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. The sections below price both routes honestly.
None of that is a software problem you can buy your way out of in one click — it is why the tool you pick matters more than what it costs. Acuity Scheduling solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Acuity Scheduling Actually Costs Massage Therapists
Today's list price is $34/month — $408 a year, from Acuity Scheduling's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$408
Year 2$408
Year 3$408
Three years of Acuity Scheduling$1,224
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $945 less.
If Acuity Scheduling raises its price, the three-year cost goes up; if it cuts it, the cost comes down. We don't guess which. Add-ons, extra seats and card-processing fees are not included, on either side.
Feature-by-Feature
Feature
Acuity Scheduling
Nexa
Invoicing
✗
✓
Scheduling
✓
✓
CRM
✗
✓
Time Tracking
✗
✓
Full Accounting
✗
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
✗
✓
Works offline
—
✓
Price
$34/mo
$279 once or 3 × $99
3-Year Total
$1,224
$279
You own it?
No — stop paying, lose access
Yes — forever
✓ and ✗ for Acuity Scheduling come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Acuity Scheduling lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy
It buys the software, not a service contract. You install Nexa and it runs on your machine. There is no seat count, and nothing stops working if you stop paying, because there is nothing to stop paying.
Acuity Scheduling's monthly fee is not only rent. It pays for their hosting, their support desk, and their engineers shipping changes every week. If those matter to how you work, that is a real thing you would be giving up.
Cross-device sync is the one optional extra — $4.99/month if you want your data mirrored between machines. Skip it and Nexa still works; you just sync manually.
The honest risk of buying once: you are betting on us still being here to improve it. The honest risk of renting: the price is theirs to raise, and the graveyard section below is a record of tools that did exactly that.
What Acuity Scheduling Does Better
Straight from Acuity Scheduling's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Intake forms
Package and subscription billing
Gift certificates
HIPAA compliance (Powerhouse)
Squarespace integration
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $20/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
Acuity Scheduling is the better call if you need intake forms specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
What Acuity Scheduling Is Built For
Acuity says it is for "anyone in the business of time," from solo practitioners to multi-location teams. It lists beauty, business services (consulting, coaching), wellness, fitness, visual and performing arts, and education. (acuityscheduling.com)
The Starter plan costs $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly) and includes 1 calendar, client self-scheduling, email reminders, custom client forms and automatic time zone conversion. (acuityscheduling.com)
Payments run through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo on all plans. The Standard plan ($27/month annual, up to 6 calendars) adds text reminders, an appointment waitlist, memberships and packages, and gift certificates. (acuityscheduling.com)
The Premium plan ($49/month annual, up to 36 calendars) adds an AI Booking Assistant, a Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA compliance, removal of the Acuity logo, multiple time zones for staff or locations, and custom API and CSS access. Unlimited calendars require the Enterprise team. (acuityscheduling.com)
All plans have a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. There is no free plan beyond the trial. (acuityscheduling.com)
The site lists 15 integrations, including Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Stripe, Square, PayPal, QuickBooks, Zoom, Google Meet, Zapier, Mailchimp and Squarespace. (acuityscheduling.com)
Named features include online booking, class scheduling, packages, subscriptions, gift certificates, coupons, deposits, custom intake forms, cancelation policies, a mobile app and a website builder. The site is offered in 6 languages. (acuityscheduling.com)
What people outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa say:
Software Finder shows a 4.5 rating from 25 reviews, with category scores of 9/10 for ease of use, value for money, customer support and functionality. The most-cited strengths are ease of use, integrations, automated email and text reminders that reviewers credit with reducing no-shows, and customizable emails and calendar views. (softwarefinder.com)
Software Finder reviewers also raise drawbacks. Some small businesses find it expensive, and one reported unresolved booking issues and slow support replies. Booking form appearance is limited, and add-ons are checkboxes only, so customers can't choose quantities. Stripe refunds need a separate login to Stripe. One business said it lacked features as its staff and resources grew, and a healthcare reviewer said it isn't suited to HIPAA-regulated practices. (softwarefinder.com)
Secret's page has no user reviews. Its editorial text calls the product user-friendly, customizable and affordable. It also lists as cons that pricing may be expensive for tight budgets, advanced features are limited, and some third-party integrations may be lacking. (joinsecret.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for a massage therapist
Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every massage therapist: 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
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
Manage the work
Deliver the service
↓
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
Bill for it
Send the bill
↓
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
Get paid
Collect payment
↓
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.)
Watch a job become an invoice
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A massage therapist's job already holds the services, the hours, the add-ons, and the materials — so the invoice builds itself from the work instead of you re-typing it at 9pm. Toggle an add-on or nudge the hours and watch it recompute.
The job Monthly package, 4 sessions
ServiceTherapeutic massage (60 min)4 × $90$360
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$380
Deposit credited−$90
Invoice total$290
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
Calculate Your Full Stack
Acuity Scheduling plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Acuity Scheduling
1
Export your data — Go to Settings → Export. Download your client list and appointment history.
2
Set up Nexa Scheduler — 15-minute setup. Import clients and recreate your appointment types.
3
Update your links — Replace your Acuity booking link everywhere — website, email, social.
4
Cancel Acuity — Cancel Squarespace subscription. Download a final backup of your data.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Massage Therapists
The median massage therapist earns $49,000/year. At $408/year, Acuity Scheduling is a recurring slice of that — paid again every year, whether the year was good or not. Owning the same jobs outright is $279 once, and the slice stops.
Nexa is $279 once. Invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, accounting — all connected, built for massage therapists. You own it like you own your Massage table (portable and/or stationary).
Is Nexa actually right for a massage therapist?
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 160,000 massage therapists in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for mindbody 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 Massage table (portable and/or stationary).
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 massage therapists 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.
Massage Therapists by the numbers — by place
What massage therapists charge, city by city
$149 /hravg local price
+49%vs national
moderatesaturation
~4,552operators
4%growth
$165 /hravg local price
+65%vs national
moderatesaturation
~3,767operators
3%growth
$118 /hravg local price
+18%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,701operators
4%growth
$131 /hravg local price
+31%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,806operators
8%growth
$140 /hravg local price
+40%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,600operators
5%growth
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
🎧 The Massage Business Blueprint Podcast🎧 Massage Therapy Radio
Forums
MassageNerd.com Forum
Scheduling, client records and invoicing are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. The sections below price both routes honestly.
What massage therapists actually deal with
Mindbody costs $139+/month for features designed for yoga studios and gyms
Managing package sessions and gift certificate tracking
SOAP notes and client health history documentation
Back-to-back scheduling without buffer time leads to burnout
A day in the life of a massage therapist
I do five or six massages a day, and that's about the physical limit if I want to still be doing this in ten years. Each session starts with an intake: what hurts, what's changed since last time, medications and conditions that change what's safe, like pregnancy or blood thinners. Then I adapt: deep work on a runner's calves, gentle work for someone recovering from surgery, trigger points for the desk worker whose shoulders live up by their ears. Between clients I'm changing linens, sanitising the table and face cradle, and writing short session notes so I remember what we did. Laundry is a quiet second job. I rent a room in a wellness centre, so I pay the rent whether my book is full or not, and a no-show is lost income I can't recover, which is why I take a card to book. My steadiest income is regulars on monthly packages. I keep my licence current with continuing-education hours and look after my own hands and back, because my body is the equipment.
The tools a working massage therapist actually owns
Massage table (portable and/or stationary)
Hot stone set and warmer
Massage oils, lotions, and creams
Bolsters, pillows, and face cradle covers
Why massage therapists leave the big platforms
mindbody: $139/month designed for yoga studios with class schedules. Solo massage therapists get bloated class-management features at enterprise prices.
vagaro: Better price than Mindbody but the marketplace sends clients to other LMTs in the area. You're advertising for your competition.
acuity: Scheduling only. No SOAP notes, no session package tracking, no health history intake. You need three apps total.
Where massage therapists actually talk shop
r/massage (Reddit)
r/MassageTherapists (Reddit)
r/massagetherapy (Reddit)
MassageNerd.com Forum (Forum)
Massage Sloth (YouTube)
Massage Nerd (YouTube)
Mark Perren-Jones (YouTube)
Local massage therapists on Nexa
Real massage therapists near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a massage therapist? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every massage therapist on Nexa →
The kit a working massage therapist owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Portable massage table
$250–$700
Core kitEssential
Bolsters and face cradle
$50–$180
Core kitEssential
Linens: sheets, blankets, covers
$60–$200
Core kitEssential
Hydraulic stool
$60–$200
Core kitEssential
Table warmer / fleece pad
$50–$150
Core kitEssential
Carry case and cart
$50–$180
Upgrade
Hot stone set and warmer
$80–$300
Upgrade
Electric lift stationary table
$1,200–$3,500
Upgrade
Portable massage chair (events)
$150–$500
Upgrade
Percussion massager
$150–$600
Upgrade
Cupping set
$30–$150
The core kit, bought once$520–$1,610
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $520–$1,610 on tools that last for years, and never thought twice. So why should the software cost more than your whole kit — every single year? Hold it to the same standard as a good tool: $279, once.
How To Read This Page
We make Nexa. It is one of the two options compared here, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to make Acuity Scheduling's case the way we would want ours made — their strengths above are their own published feature list, not our summary of it.
The prices are Acuity Scheduling's published list prices, checked on the date shown in the sources below. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.
No customer quotes appear on this page because we do not have any from massage therapists we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Acuity Scheduling on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Acuity Scheduling's own pricing page is the source for every figure above, read on the date shown in the sources section below.
We are not neutral about subscriptions, and that is the argument, not a hidden assumption: software you pay for once is cheaper over three years than software you rent, unless you need something only the rented one does.
How we put this guide together
We build a massage therapist'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 massage therapist — 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
Vendor pricingMindbody $948/yr, Vagaro $600/yr, Acuity Scheduling $408/yr, Square — taken from each company's published plans, last verified September 2026. Pricing moves; each name above links straight to that vendor’s own pricing page so you can confirm it before you decide.
Income contextThe $49,000 median we cite for the typical massage therapist is occupational median annual pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics), compiled April 2026. We use it only to show software spend as a share of real income — your own numbers will differ.
The field's own bodiesWe anchor what massage therapists actually need to the people who set the standards — AMTA. We don't speak for them; we point you to them so you can weigh this guide against the profession's own.
Three-year mathMulti-year totals are today's list price multiplied by the number of years. No price rise is projected, so the figure can be checked against the vendor's own pricing page; if they raise it, the real cost is higher.
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
Is Nexa really a Acuity Scheduling replacement?
For solo massage therapists and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Acuity Scheduling may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
What does Acuity Scheduling do that Nexa doesn't?
Acuity Scheduling has features like Intake forms and Package and subscription billing that some businesses rely on. For most solo massage therapists, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $34/month, Nexa pays for itself in 8.2 months. After that: $408 saved every year.
Can I pay in installments?
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.