What blind & shade installers need from their software, from sources outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa:
Disclosure first: Nexa Industries makes Nexa and publishes this page, so weigh our read accordingly. We have not tested either product against the cord or tax needs below. Housecall Pro's details come from its own published feature list, and we don't rely on its 4.7-star Capterra figure, which is its own claim. The trade requirements come from outside sources: the CPSC cord rule (custom coverings made after May 30, 2023: cordless, inaccessible or 8 inches or shorter), the WCMA standard in force since June 1, 2024 (which makes the operating-system choice of cordless, wand or motorized a quote-time decision), and a 2003 Utah Tax Commission ruling on whether installation labor is taxable, which depends on product type and may differ in your state. Housecall Pro covers the field side of this trade well: scheduling and dispatching, estimates, a price book, invoicing, online payments, vehicle GPS, 'On My Way' texts and live phone and chat support. Essentials adds QuickBooks Online sync. Its list does not show the records this trade must keep: cord configuration and compliance per order, the operating-system choice per window, and a product-type tag on each invoice line. A feature missing from a list is not proof it is missing. During the 14-day trial, which needs no credit card, ask whether price-book items or custom fields can hold these records.
Nexa has quotes and proposals that convert to invoices, jobs with costing and profit per job, a crew view of assigned jobs, sales tax tracking, bookkeeping, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, a Spanish interface and offline use. It has no cord-compliance record, no per-window operating-system field and no per-line product-type tax tag that we know of. Its sales tax tracking does not decide which lines are taxable. It also lacks what a crew-based shop leans on: no GPS, route optimization or dispatch board (only a day's stops sent to Google Maps in time order), no text messages or calls, no QuickBooks or Xero sync, and no payroll runs, so no payroll taxes, pay stubs or direct deposit. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding. Its automated emails and reminders send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices.
Over three years, Housecall Pro at $79/month costs $2,844 ($948 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or 3 payments of $99; with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99/month it comes to $458.64 over three years. That gap only matters if you can do without what Housecall Pro does for crews. If you dispatch installers, text customers, want GPS or phone support, or sync to QuickBooks, stay with Housecall Pro. A solo installer who plans their own days on one device and mainly needs quotes, invoices and bookkeeping could reasonably try Nexa. Either way, neither product documents a cord-safety record. Until a vendor shows you in writing that it can hold them, keep cord configuration, operating-system choice and product type in your own form or spreadsheet, and test any tool against those three fields before you commit.
Our read for blind & shade installers: Stay with Housecall Pro if you run crews, since it covers dispatch, GPS, texting, phone support and QuickBooks sync that Nexa lacks. Neither tool documents cord-compliance records, so keep those separately.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Housecall Pro costs blind & shade installers $948/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 3.5 months it has cost less than Housecall Pro, 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 Housecall Pro 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 blind & shade installers: Stay with Housecall Pro 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 $2,844 for Housecall Pro over three years.
Scheduling, invoicing, client records and job tracking 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. Housecall Pro solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $79/month — $948 a year, from Housecall Pro'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 $2,565 less.
If Housecall Pro 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 | Housecall Pro | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | — | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $79/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $2,844 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Housecall Pro come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Housecall Pro lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Housecall Pro's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Housecall Pro is the better call if you need online booking for home services specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Housecall Pro describes itself as 'Tailored for teams of 1 to 100+' and aimed at home service pros across 50+ industries, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cleaning, lawn care and pest control. (housecallpro.com)
What people outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa say:
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every blind installer: 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 the actual work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.
The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.
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 the actual work. (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 blind installer'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.
Housecall Pro plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median blind installer earns $40,000/year. At $948/year, Housecall Pro 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 blind & shade installers. You own it like you own your Drill and mounting hardware.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small blind & shade installers business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling past a handful of crews, a fleet platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.
Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.
Extreme summer heat drives HVAC demand. Hurricane risk on Gulf Coast. Year-round construction. Rapid population growth in DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio creates sustained demand. Freeze events (like 2021) create emergency plumbing/HVAC surge.
Hurricane season June-November creates massive restoration demand. Snowbird season November-March boosts service volume 30-40%. Year-round construction. Pool service is year-round industry. Pest control peaks in summer humidity.
Harsh winters in upstate, moderate in NYC. Construction limited in winter upstate. NYC market is enormous but hypercompetitive. Brownstone/pre-war building maintenance is specialized trade. NYC licensing is notoriously complex.
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 →Scheduling, invoicing, client records and job tracking 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.
Morning: 2 in-home measurements and consultations (free, 45 min each). Afternoon: install job — 12 windows across 4 rooms. The order was placed 3 weeks ago and the client changed the master bedroom color after ordering. One blind arrived the wrong size — you need to reorder. The install that should have been 3 hours is now 2.5 hours plus a return trip next week. Your job tracking is a folder of paper order forms.
Real blind & shade installers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a blind installer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every blind installer 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 blind installer'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 blind installer — 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 blind & shade installers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Housecall Pro may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Housecall Pro has features like Online booking for home services and GPS tracking that some businesses rely on. For most solo blind & shade installers, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $79/month, Nexa pays for itself in 3.5 months. After that: $948 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