Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa
The Real Comparison for Red Light Therapy

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.

Bottom Line

Acuity Scheduling costs red light therapy $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 red light therapy: Acuity Scheduling is solid software, but at $34/month it costs $1,224 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what Acuity Scheduling does for $279 once. For solo red light therapy and small teams, Nexa is the better deal.

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?

She wipes down the LED panels, checks the irradiance meter to confirm the bed is putting out the dose it should, and lays out fresh eyewear. Red light therapy is a frequency game: the results are cumulative, so her best clients come several times a week, and sessions are short, ten to twenty minutes, which means the schedule has to turn over cleanly or the friction eats the appointment. First in is a client on an anti-aging facial protocol who lies under the panel with the goggles on while she sets the timer for the right dwell. Then an athlete on a recovery protocol who needs near-infrared for deeper tissue, a different setting and time than the skin clients. She coaches a newcomer that one session won't do much, that the magic is in showing up consistently for a few weeks, and steers him toward a package instead of a drop-in. Between sessions she sanitizes the bed, swaps goggles, and checks who's on a membership. A regular texts asking which protocol she's supposed to be on this month, and the tech wishes the answer were one tap away. She keeps the short sessions flowing, books people at the frequency their protocol calls for, and reminds the no-show-prone that the cumulative effect only works if they keep coming.

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 Red Light Therapy

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

FeatureAcuity SchedulingNexa
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 accessYes — 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

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.

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)

What people outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa say:

Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.

Where business tools fit — for a red light therapy technician

Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every red light therapy technician: 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.)

Watch a job become an invoice

This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A red light therapy technician'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 10-session red light therapy package
Service Red light session, 20 min 10 × $30 $300
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$320
Invoice total$320

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 Red Light Therapy

The median Red Light Therapy Technician earns $35,000/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 red light therapy. You own it like you own your Full-body red and near-infrared LED panel bed or standing array.

Is Nexa actually right for a red light therapy technician?

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 20,000 red light therapy in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
  • You're tired of paying every month for a monthly subscription stack 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 Full-body red and near-infrared LED panel bed or standing array.

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 red light therapy 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.

Red Light Therapy by the numbers — by place

Tax & registration where you operate

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 red light therapy actually deal with

A day in the life of a red light therapy technician

She wipes down the LED panels, checks the irradiance meter to confirm the bed is putting out the dose it should, and lays out fresh eyewear. Red light therapy is a frequency game: the results are cumulative, so her best clients come several times a week, and sessions are short, ten to twenty minutes, which means the schedule has to turn over cleanly or the friction eats the appointment. First in is a client on an anti-aging facial protocol who lies under the panel with the goggles on while she sets the timer for the right dwell. Then an athlete on a recovery protocol who needs near-infrared for deeper tissue, a different setting and time than the skin clients. She coaches a newcomer that one session won't do much, that the magic is in showing up consistently for a few weeks, and steers him toward a package instead of a drop-in. Between sessions she sanitizes the bed, swaps goggles, and checks who's on a membership. A regular texts asking which protocol she's supposed to be on this month, and the tech wishes the answer were one tap away. She keeps the short sessions flowing, books people at the frequency their protocol calls for, and reminds the no-show-prone that the cumulative effect only works if they keep coming.

The tools a working red light therapy technician actually owns

Local red light therapy on Nexa

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

The kit a working red light therapy technician owns

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

Full-body red and near-infrared LED panel bed or standing array

Targeted red-light face mask and handheld spot device

Wavelength-specific protective eyewear

Irradiance meter to verify panel output and dose

Session timer and skin-distance guide

Sanitizing wipes for panels and goggles

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.

Where Nexa wins for a red light therapy technician — and where it doesn't

The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a red light therapy technician — 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 red light therapy

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 3 subscriptions · ~$900/yr Nexa wins big One tool, $279 once — a booking becomes a client record becomes an invoice becomes a payment without re-typing. That handoff is the part separate tools can't buy at any price.
Scheduling & booking Calendly → Nexa wins Nexa lets you book the 3-to-5-times-a-week cadence red light actually needs as a standing series off one record, so the cumulative results your best clients chase get scheduled instead of trickling in as one-off first-timer visits.
CRM & clients HubSpot → Nexa wins The protocol a client is on, skin-and-anti-aging versus pain-and-recovery with their different wavelengths and dwell times, rides on the same record Nexa schedules from, so you never start a session on the wrong setting.
Invoicing FreshBooks → Nexa wins Since the membership or session pack lives on the booking record, the high-frequency repeat-visit model bills itself down automatically rather than you re-entering who is on which plan into a separate tool.
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.

Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.

How To Read This Page

How we put this guide together

We build a red light therapy technician'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 red light therapy technician — 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

Is Nexa really a Acuity Scheduling replacement?

For solo red light therapy 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 red light therapy, 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.

$1,224 Over 3 Years. Or $279 Once (or 3 × $99).

Own your tools. Stop renting your software.

Get Nexa — $279 Once
or 3 payments of $99
✓ 30-day money-back — save $500 or full refund

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