What spray tan technicians need from their software, from sources outside Booksy and outside Nexa:
Booksy covers most of what a spray tan technician relies on to protect short appointments. It offers card-on-file processing, deposits, cancellation fees, free SMS reminders and an automated waitlist, and its marketplace, Google booking and Instagram and Facebook links bring in new clients. Those pieces handle the no-show and late-cancel problem and the search for new clients. The gaps are the trade-specific ones: the material says nothing about per-client allergy and health disclosure with a signed waiver, an automatic prep checklist sent with each booking, or a place to track a license, so a technician would keep those in separate documents or forms.
Nexa has a public booking page with intake forms, and reschedule and cancel links. That fits collecting allergy and health answers before a tan. It also has notes that can be checklists linked to a client, and email booking, payment and review reminders. Those automated emails, along with its sequences and workflows, send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, so a technician who doesn't keep it open can't count on them. Nexa has no text messages or calls, no point-of-sale or card reader, no waitlist, and no marketplace that brings you customers. Online card payments go only through your own Stripe account, and Nexa is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years Booksy costs $1,079.64 ($29.99 a month, $359.88 a year) before payment processing and hardware fees. Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and $4.99 a month for optional Cloud Sync, which comes to $458.64 over three years including the $279 (without Cloud Sync it stays $279). The saving is real, but a technician who depends on SMS reminders, deposits and marketplace discovery to fill short slots should stay with Booksy and keep their allergy forms and license records separately. A technician who gets clients mostly by referral, has little trouble with no-shows, and is comfortable keeping Nexa open for emails could reasonably switch.
Our read for spray tan technicians: Stay with Booksy if SMS reminders, deposits and marketplace bookings keep your short slots filled, because Nexa has none of them and its automated emails send only while Nexa is open.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Booksy costs spray tan technicians $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 spray tan technicians: 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 spray tan tech: 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.)
Booksy plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median spray tan tech earns $30,000/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 spray tan technicians. You own it like you own your HVLP spray gun and turbine.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small spray tan technicians 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.
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.
You're driving to your third mobile tan of the day. Client #2 wanted a darker shade than last time but you can't remember what you used — it's written on a Post-It somewhere. Your 4pm just cancelled via text when you're already halfway there with your tent and supplies loaded. You've collected payment from two clients via Venmo and one through Vagaro — three payment methods, zero unified record. Vagaro costs $25/month for a business that makes $30K/year. That's 1% of your gross just on booking software.
Real spray tan technicians near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a spray tan tech? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every spray tan tech on Nexa →
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
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.
We build a spray tan tech'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 spray tan tech — 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 spray tan technicians 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 spray tan technicians, 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