The verdict for ux designers: HoneyBook is solid software, but at $39/month it costs $1,570 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what HoneyBook does for $279 once. For solo ux designers and small teams, Nexa is the better deal.
Nexa: $279. Once. You keep $1,291. And you own it — no more "we're updating our pricing" emails.
| Feature | HoneyBook | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✗ | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✗ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Price | $39/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,570 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
HoneyBook plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The math doesn't lie.
UX Designers deal with unique challenges that generic software was not built for: Scope quietly expands as research surfaces real user needs the original brief never accounted for, so the 'simple checkout redesign' becomes a flow rework no one budgeted for. Fixed-bid projects carry the estimation risk: price the deliverable too low and unbounded revision rounds eat the margin, but hourly billing punishes the speed that experience earned. Selling research findings to stakeholders who already 'know what users want', a founder or marketing lead dismisses interview evidence that contradicts their gut. Lumpy cash flow swinging between feast-and-famine project work and the steadier-but-capped income of a monthly retainer, with milestone payments arriving long after the work is done. HoneyBook charges $39/month on top of these daily realities. The median UX designer earns $65,000/year — $468/year in software subscriptions is a significant percentage of that income, paid every year, forever.
Nexa is $279 once. Invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, accounting — all connected, built for ux designers. You own it like you own your Figma (with Dev Mode and FigJam for wireframes, prototypes, and handoff specs).
The morning often opens with a moderated user interview over Zoom, recording running, discussion guide on the second monitor, probing why a participant abandoned a flow rather than what they clicked. Mid-morning is synthesis: pulling quotes into Dovetail or a Miro board, clustering observations into an affinity diagram until patterns emerge that the client's assumptions missed. By midday the designer is in Figma, translating those patterns into low-fidelity wireframes, then wiring screens into a clickable prototype that simulates the real navigation. Afternoons fill with reviews, a stakeholder call where the product manager weighs business constraints against the research, a design critique where a peer pokes at edge cases, or a tense moment defending a finding a founder doesn't want to hear. Then come revisions, often a second or third round, each one a quiet negotiation about whether it's covered by the contract. Late in the day is handoff work: annotating components in Dev Mode, marking frames ready for dev, exporting assets, and logging the reasoning behind decisions so engineers don't reinvent them. Threaded through all of it: tracking which deliverables a milestone payment is tied to, and which client still hasn't signed off on the last one.
Real ux designers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you an ux designer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every ux designer on Nexa →
For solo ux designers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. HoneyBook may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
HoneyBook has features like Beautiful proposals and contracts and Client portal that some businesses rely on. For most solo ux designers, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $39/month, Nexa pays for itself in 7.2 months. After that: $468 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