What estheticians need from their software, from sources outside Booksy and outside Nexa:
Booksy covers the client-facing and day-to-day side of an esthetician's work well. It has a 35M+ user marketplace with free listings, 24/7 online booking, Reserve with Google, and booking links for Instagram and Facebook. No-show protection includes free SMS reminders, deposits, cancellation fees and an automated waitlist. It also has automatic commission and tip tracking, which matters if you are an employee or pay staff and need tip records. For a solo practitioner, it adds inventory tracking with low-stock alerts, sales reports and rebooking reminders. What its feature list does not mention is the trade-specific part: storing a state licence number, tracking renewal dates on different cycles (annual in some states, 2 or 4 years in others), or logging CE hours. Confirm those details with your state board and keep that record somewhere else.
Nexa covers the business-records side. It has invoices and estimates, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, a CRM, a public booking page with intake forms and reschedule and cancel links, job costing, time tracking, expense and bookkeeping tools, and a simple stock count per product. It works offline and has a Spanish interface. It does not have text messages (SMS), a waitlist, or full inventory management with reorder points. It has no point-of-sale or card reader, and no marketplace that brings you customers. Its automated emails and reminders send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, and it is software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years Booksy costs $1,079.64 ($29.99 a month, or $359.88 a year), before payment processing and hardware fees and before any extra users. Nexa costs $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), plus $4.99 a month if you want Cloud Sync across devices, which comes to $458.64 over three years. If new clients find you through the marketplace, or you rely on SMS reminders, deposits, a waitlist or low-stock alerts, stay with Booksy. The Nexa saving would not make up for losing those. Consider Nexa only if you already get clients by referral, mainly want invoicing and bookkeeping, and are comfortable running your own software.
Our read for estheticians: Stay with Booksy if marketplace clients, SMS no-show protection, tip tracking or low-stock alerts matter to you, since Nexa lacks the marketplace, SMS and full inventory management.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Booksy costs estheticians $359.88/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 9.3 months it has cost less than Booksy, 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.
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 Booksy 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 estheticians: Stay with Booksy 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 $1,079.64 for Booksy over three years.
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. Booksy solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $29.99/month — $359.88 a year, from Booksy's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $800.64 less.
If Booksy 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 | Booksy | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✗ | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✗ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $29.99/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,079.64 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Booksy come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Booksy lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Booksy's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Booksy is the better call if you need strong consumer marketplace (35m+ users) specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Booksy's business site says it is for independent beauty and barber professionals and for salon and barbershop owners, including barbers, hair stylists, nail techs, brow and lash artists, braiders, massage and spas. It also says it supports multi-staff businesses. (biz.booksy.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every esthetician: 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.
A new client finds you and books a time — no phone tag, no double-booking.
The session itself — with the client history, notes, packages, and add-ons right there instead of in three different places.
The work becomes the invoice — the hours, the add-ons, the materials, the deposit credited — totaled and sent, instead of re-typed at 9pm.
Paid by card or link, the deposit credited, and what's overdue chased — without you doing it by hand.
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.)
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A esthetician'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.
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
Booksy plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median esthetician earns $38,000/year. At $359.88/year, Booksy 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 estheticians. You own it like you own your Facial steamer and magnifying lamp.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small estheticians 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.
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
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 →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.
A facial starts before I touch the client's skin: an intake about their routine, medications, allergies and recent treatments, because a retinoid or a recent peel changes what's safe to do. Then I analyse the skin under a magnifying lamp and choose the treatment: cleanse, exfoliation, steam, extractions where they're needed, a mask, and finishing products matched to what I saw. Advanced treatments like chemical peels, microdermabrasion and LED need careful protocols and aftercare instructions. Waxing fills the gaps in my day: brows, lips, bikini, with strict hygiene, no double-dipping and fresh supplies every client. Sanitation between clients takes real time. Much of my income comes from product sales and treatment series, six peels over twelve weeks, so I'm recommending a home routine and booking the next visit before the client leaves. I work on commission or rent a room, so slow weeks hit me directly, and I'm keeping up continuing education because the treatments and ingredients keep changing.
Real estheticians near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you an esthetician? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every esthetician on Nexa →
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $825–$3,910 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.
We build an esthetician'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 an esthetician — 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.
For solo estheticians and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Booksy may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Booksy has features like Strong consumer marketplace (35M+ users) and Mobile-first design that some businesses rely on. For most solo estheticians, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $29.99/month, Nexa pays for itself in 9.3 months. After that: $359.88 saved every year.
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.
Own your tools. Stop renting your software.
Get Nexa — $279 Once