Housecall Pro vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Window Cleaners
Housecall Pro
$79/mo ($948/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 3.5 months at Housecall Pro's current price.
Does Housecall Pro Fit Window Cleaners? Our Read
What window cleaners need from their software, from sources outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa:
Window cleaners need a way to reschedule jobs lost to rain and track make-up work. Practitioners describe several approaches. They book a partial clean of the key exterior glass on a nearby open day. They keep a day such as Friday empty or half-booked as a weather buffer. They keep a list of rain-proof jobs, such as interiors or commercial interior work, to fill wet days. One poster does not book 100% of capacity, comparing it to airlines overbooking flights. (community.windowcleaner.com)
Recurring quarterly programs are common, so the software has to handle repeat visits and per-window pricing tiers. One practitioner prices one-off cleans at $7 exterior, $11 exterior and interior, and $15 with tracks and screens, and offers $5 per window on a quarterly plan. Another offers a flat $25 off a quarterly inside-and-outside plan, because a percentage discount adds up across four visits. If the customer is not at home, the crew removes the exterior screens and sends the invoice after the work. (community.windowcleaner.com)
Sales tax on window cleaning depends on the state, so invoicing needs tax handling that varies by jurisdiction and customer type. The District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue lists window cleaning under taxable real property maintenance services. In the same thread, a California operator noted that California does not allow tax on services. (otr.cfo.dc.gov)
High-rise and building-maintenance window cleaning on permanent powered platforms needs records. OSHA 1910.66 lists window cleaning as building maintenance. The building owner must give the employer written assurance that the installation has been inspected, tested and maintained, and that the anchorages meet § 1910.140(c)(13). The employer may not let employees use it until that assurance is received. Platforms need a competent-person maintenance inspection every 30 days, or before each work cycle if the cycle is shorter. Structural supports need a competent-person inspection at least every 12 months. Platforms must not be operated in winds above 25 mph. (osha.gov)
Commercial and high-rise bids often require proof of workers' compensation and general liability insurance, and requirements vary by state, city and building. In a practitioner thread, one cleaner carried $2 million in general liability, and another said coverage should fit the building's height. The cleaner's agency also said their insurer would not cover high-rise work, so they would need a different carrier. Practitioners suggested asking about a high-rise addendum, so the software should store certificates and coverage per client. (community.windowcleaner.com)
Housecall Pro covers the day-to-day running of a window-cleaning business well. It has scheduling and dispatching, a price book, online booking, invoicing and payments, 'On My Way' texts and vehicle GPS. Essentials adds routes and flat-rate pricing, which suit per-window tiers. Recurring service plans, which quarterly programs rely on, are a Max feature at $329 a month on monthly billing, not on the $79 plan. Nothing in its feature list covers the paperwork for powered-platform high-rise work: the 30-day and 12-month inspection records, the building owner's written assurance, or insurance certificates stored per client. Nothing in it specifically addresses rain make-up tracking either, beyond general scheduling.
Nexa covers the office side. It has invoices, estimates and recurring invoices. It has recurring jobs with profit per job and assigning jobs to team members, who get a crew view of their own jobs. Clients get a public booking page with reschedule and cancel links, which helps with rain days, and a pay portal through your own Stripe account. It also has sales tax tracking, expenses, and today's stops sent to Google Maps in time order. It has no text messaging, no GPS or fleet tracking, no route optimization or dispatch board, and no QuickBooks sync. It does not run payroll, only a CSV of hours times rate. Its automated emails and reminders send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you run yourself, with no vendor support desk or onboarding. It has no inspection logs or per-client insurance certificate storage either.
Over three years, Housecall Pro at $79 a month comes to $2,844, or $948 a year. Nexa is $279 once, and with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month it comes to $458.64 over three years. If you dispatch crews, text customers, track trucks, or run quarterly plans through its recurring service tool, stay with Housecall Pro. The savings don't replace those. Consider Nexa if you mostly need invoicing, booking, job costing and bookkeeping, and can live without texting and GPS.
Our read for window cleaners: Stay with Housecall Pro if you rely on texting, dispatch, GPS or route tools, since Nexa has none of them; Nexa fits mainly if your needs are invoicing, booking and bookkeeping.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Housecall Pro costs window cleaners $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.
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 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 window cleaners: 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.
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 Housecall Pro if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Housecall Pro's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
Most of my work is homes on a twice-a-year schedule and storefronts every two to four weeks. On a house I start with a walk around to note broken seals, screens and anything already damaged, then work outside and inside: scrubbing each pane, squeegeeing it clean with a detail cloth for the edges, and wiping the sills. Screens are removed, washed and replaced, and tracks get vacuumed and wiped. Second-storey windows mean ladders, set up carefully on level ground, or a water-fed pole with purified water for the high glass, which dries spot-free without a squeegee. Hard-water stains and construction debris need specialist products and a lot of care not to scratch the glass. Storefront routes are fast, early-morning work, done before the shops open. Weather moves my schedule, since rain and freezing temperatures push jobs back. I price homes by the window with add-ons for screens and tracks, and commercial accounts are on a regular schedule billed monthly. Most of my new work comes from neighbours seeing my ladder.
Scheduling recurring cleans (quarterly, biannual) across hundreds of clients
Quoting window counts sight-unseen from phone calls
Rain cancellations cascading through the week
Tracking which homes are due for their next clean
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. Housecall Pro solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Housecall Pro Actually Costs Window Cleaners
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.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$948
Year 2$948
Year 3$948
Three years of Housecall Pro$2,844
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-by-Feature
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.
What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy
It buys the software, not a service contract. You install Nexa and it runs on your machine. There is no seat count, and nothing stops working if you stop paying, because there is nothing to stop paying.
Housecall Pro's monthly fee is not only rent. It pays for their hosting, their support desk, and their engineers shipping changes every week. If those matter to how you work, that is a real thing you would be giving up.
Cross-device sync is the one optional extra — $4.99/month if you want your data mirrored between machines. Skip it and Nexa still works; you just sync manually.
The honest risk of buying once: you are betting on us still being here to improve it. The honest risk of renting: the price is theirs to raise, and the graveyard section below is a record of tools that did exactly that.
What Housecall Pro Does Better
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.
Online booking for home services
GPS tracking
Postcard marketing campaigns
Professional invoicing
Review collection
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $79/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
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.
What Housecall Pro Is Built For
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)
Three plans: Basic at $59/mo billed annually ($79 monthly) for 1 user, Essentials at $149/mo annual ($189 monthly) for 5 users, and Max at $299/mo annual ($329 monthly) for 8 users. Extra Max users cost $35/mo each. (housecallpro.com)
Every plan includes live phone and chat support, a free iOS and Android app in English and Spanish, offline viewing, AI team members, and card processing rates 'as low as 2.59%'. (housecallpro.com)
The free trial lasts 14 days with no credit card required, and the FAQ says it includes full access to the Max plan. The page says long-term contracts are not required. (housecallpro.com)
Essentials adds routes, flat-rate pricing, checklist automations, photo reports, employee GPS tracking, commissions and QuickBooks Online sync. Max adds a sales proposal tool, recurring service plans, route optimization, open API access, a dedicated onboarding specialist and escalated phone support. (housecallpro.com)
The feature set covers scheduling and dispatching, estimates, a price book, online booking, invoicing, online payments, financing, time tracking, payroll, job costing, vehicle GPS and 'On My Way' texts. It also has a CSR AI that answers calls and books jobs. (housecallpro.com)
Support and learning resources include a Help Center, a Pro Community, webinars, a Mastermind program and a Trade Academy. Housecall Pro lists 4.7 stars on Capterra from 2,700+ reviews, though that figure is its own claim. (housecallpro.com)
What people outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa say:
SoftwareConnect rates Housecall Pro 4.5/5 from 10 reviews. Its editorial pros are full QuickBooks integration, a large library of training tutorials, and texting customers and employees from the app. A user review calls it an 'Amazing all in one platform for running a service provider company.' (softwareconnect.com)
SoftwareConnect's editorial cons are limited CRM functionality, some reported lag, and some users needing multiple programs. Users say scheduling is 'rigid' and multi-day jobs can't be extended. One reviewer says invoices don't produce usable internal reports and had to move away from the program. Another says it does not let them add many jobs or locations to one customer. (softwareconnect.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for a window cleaner
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every window cleaner: 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.
1
Find the work
Win the job
↓
A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Do the job
↓
The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.
Job / project tracking
Time tracking
Expenses, materials & add-ons
then ↓
3
Bill for it
Send the bill
↓
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
Get paid
Collect payment
↓
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 the actual work. (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 window cleaner'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 Two-storey house, inside + out
ServiceWindow (in + out)24 × $12$288
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$336
Invoice total$336
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
Calculate Your Full Stack
Housecall Pro plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Housecall Pro
1
Export your data — Go to Settings → export customers, job history, and invoices as CSV files.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your customer list by CSV; re-enter your core services.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 2 weeks. Transition dispatching and booking to Nexa.
4
Cancel Housecall Pro — Cancel subscription (check for early termination fees). Download all records.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Window Cleaners
The median window cleaner earns $35,000/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 window cleaners. You own it like you own your Squeegees (multiple sizes, Ettore/Unger).
Is Nexa actually right for a window cleaner?
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
Right for you if
You run solo or a small crew — like the 40,000 window cleaners in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for jobber and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
You want to invoice, schedule, and track from the field — not from a back office.
You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your Squeegees (multiple sizes, Ettore/Unger).
Look elsewhere if
You run a 20+ window cleaner fleet that needs enterprise dispatch and multi-crew routing — Nexa is built for 1–5, and a fleet 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 window cleaners 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.
Window Cleaners by the numbers — by place
What window cleaners charge, city by city
$258 /homeavg local price
+43%vs national
moderatesaturation
~5,151operators
7%growth
$301 /homeavg local price
+67%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,525operators
7%growth
$244 /homeavg local price
+36%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,291operators
6%growth
$261 /homeavg local price
+45%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,829operators
11%growth
$257 /homeavg local price
+43%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,719operators
7%growth
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
Tax, licensing & seasonality where you operate
1-13.3%income tax
CSLB (Contractors State License Board)licensing
Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.
DBPR (Dept of Business and Professional Regulation)licensing
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.
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 window cleaners actually deal with
Scheduling recurring cleans (quarterly, biannual) across hundreds of clients
Quoting window counts sight-unseen from phone calls
Rain cancellations cascading through the week
Tracking which homes are due for their next clean
A day in the life of a window cleaner
Most of my work is homes on a twice-a-year schedule and storefronts every two to four weeks. On a house I start with a walk around to note broken seals, screens and anything already damaged, then work outside and inside: scrubbing each pane, squeegeeing it clean with a detail cloth for the edges, and wiping the sills. Screens are removed, washed and replaced, and tracks get vacuumed and wiped. Second-storey windows mean ladders, set up carefully on level ground, or a water-fed pole with purified water for the high glass, which dries spot-free without a squeegee. Hard-water stains and construction debris need specialist products and a lot of care not to scratch the glass. Storefront routes are fast, early-morning work, done before the shops open. Weather moves my schedule, since rain and freezing temperatures push jobs back. I price homes by the window with add-ons for screens and tracks, and commercial accounts are on a regular schedule billed monthly. Most of my new work comes from neighbours seeing my ladder.
The tools a working window cleaner actually owns
Squeegees (multiple sizes, Ettore/Unger)
Water-fed pole system
Extension ladders
Scraper and detail tools
Why window cleaners leave the big platforms
jobber: I clean windows — I don't need GPS tracking and route optimization for $69/month. I know where my customers live.
housecall-pro: Overkill for window cleaning. I need recurring scheduling and simple invoicing, not a CRM empire.
square: Can't manage recurring schedules. I need to know which 200 clients are due this month.
Where window cleaners actually talk shop
r/WindowCleaning (Reddit)
r/sweatystartup (Reddit)
r/Entrepreneur (Reddit)
WindowCleaningResource.com Forum (Forum)
The WCR (Forum)
The Window Cleaner (YouTube)
Squeegee Life (YouTube)
Chris from WCR (YouTube)
Local window cleaners on Nexa
Real window cleaners near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a window cleaner? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every window cleaner on Nexa →
The kit a working window cleaner owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Professional squeegee set
$40–$150
Core kitEssential
Washer sleeves and T-bar
$25–$80
Core kitEssential
Bucket on a belt
$25–$70
Core kitEssential
Scraper and replacement blades
$15–$50
Core kitEssential
Extension ladder (24-28 ft)
$250–$500
Core kitEssential
Ladder standoff / stabilizer
$40–$120
Core kitEssential
Scrim and microfiber towels
$20–$60
Upgrade
Water-fed pole system
$400–$2,000
Upgrade
DI filter / purification unit
$200–$900
Upgrade
Fall protection harness (high work)
$150–$500
The core kit, bought once$415–$1,030
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $415–$1,030 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.
How To Read This Page
We make Nexa. It is one of the two options compared here, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to make Housecall Pro's case the way we would want ours made — their strengths above are their own published feature list, not our summary of it.
The prices are Housecall Pro's published list prices, checked on the date shown in the sources below. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.
No customer quotes appear on this page because we do not have any from window cleaners we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Housecall Pro on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Housecall Pro's own pricing page is the source for every figure above, read on the date shown in the sources section below.
We are not neutral about subscriptions, and that is the argument, not a hidden assumption: software you pay for once is cheaper over three years than software you rent, unless you need something only the rented one does.
How we put this guide together
We build a window cleaner'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 window cleaner — 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
Vendor pricingJobber $588/yr, Housecall Pro $948/yr, Square — taken from each company's published plans, last verified September 2026. Pricing moves; each name above links straight to that vendor’s own pricing page so you can confirm it before you decide.
Income contextThe $35,000 median we cite for the typical window cleaner is occupational median annual pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics), compiled April 2026. We use it only to show software spend as a share of real income — your own numbers will differ.
The field's own bodiesWe anchor what window cleaners actually need to the people who set the standards — UBC. We don't speak for them; we point you to them so you can weigh this guide against the profession's own.
Three-year mathMulti-year totals are today's list price multiplied by the number of years. No price rise is projected, so the figure can be checked against the vendor's own pricing page; if they raise it, the real cost is higher.
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 Housecall Pro replacement?
For solo window cleaners 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.
What does Housecall Pro do that Nexa doesn't?
Housecall Pro has features like Online booking for home services and GPS tracking that some businesses rely on. For most solo window cleaners, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $79/month, Nexa pays for itself in 3.5 months. After that: $948 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.