Jobber vs Nexa
The Real Comparison for Antique Restoration Specialists

Jobber
$49/mo ($588/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 5.7 months at Jobber's current price.

Bottom Line

Jobber costs antique restoration specialists $588/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 5.7 months it has cost less than Jobber, 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 Jobber 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 antique restoration specialists: Jobber is solid software, but at $49/month it costs $1,764 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what Jobber does for $279 once. For solo antique restoration specialists and small teams, Nexa is the better deal.

Choose Nexa if:

  • You're done paying monthly forever
  • You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
  • You need time tracker, invoicing and task manager in one tool
  • You're tired of price increases
  • You want to own your tools like you own your equipment

Choose Jobber if:

  • You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
  • You're deeply invested in Jobber's specific workflow
  • You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet

Sound Familiar?

Antique restoration is the opposite of fast trades — the first decision on any piece is how little to do. A client brings in a Victorian chest or a Federal card table, and before any tool comes out you're deciding whether this is a museum-grade conservation where you preserve every bit of original surface, or a working restoration where the owner wants to use it. Strip the wrong finish and you can wipe out a century of patina and a chunk of the value in an afternoon, so the reversible methods are the rule: hide glue, not modern adhesives, because the next restorer in fifty years has to be able to undo your work. A lifting veneer gets relaid with the heated veneer hammer and hide glue; a missing chunk gets patched with period-correct stock you may have to hunt down from a specialist or saw from a salvaged piece, grain and figure matched. Finish work is French polishing — building shellac in countless thin pads over days, never to be hurried, feeding patience into a surface that finally glows the way no spray gun can. Loose joints come apart, the old glue is cleaned, and they're re-fit with the same techniques the original maker used. The hardest conversations are about money and worth: people watch the TV shows and assume Grandma's dresser is a treasure, and a real restoration often costs more than the piece is worth, which you have to say plainly before you start.

Time tracking, invoicing, job tracking and the books are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. 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. Jobber solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.

What Jobber Actually Costs Antique Restoration Specialists

Today's list price is $49/month — $588 a year, from Jobber's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.

Three years at today's price

Year 1$588
Year 2$588
Year 3$588
Three years of Jobber$1,764

Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $1,485 less.

If Jobber 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

FeatureJobberNexa
Invoicing✓✓
Scheduling✓✓
CRM✓✓
Time Tracking—✓
Full Accounting—✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management—✓
Works offline—✓
Price$49/mo$279 once
or 3 × $99
3-Year Total$1,764$279
You own it?No — stop paying, lose accessYes — forever

✓ and ✗ for Jobber come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Jobber lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.

What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy

What Jobber Does Better

Straight from Jobber's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.

Jobber is the better call if you need built for home services specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.

What Jobber Is Built For

Jobber is built for home and commercial field service businesses. Its homepage names 12 trades, including cleaning, HVAC, landscaping, plumbing, roofing and tree care, and says it serves service pros in over 50 industries. (getjobber.com)

Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.

Where business tools fit — for an antique restoration specialist

Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every antique restoration specialist: 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. 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. 2

    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. 3

    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. 4

    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 antique restoration specialist'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 Conserve a Victorian walnut chest of drawers
Service Condition assessment and treatment report 1 × $95 $95
Time Labor — tracked on the job 12 hrs × $75/hr $900
Materials Hide glue, shellac, wax and period-matched hardware $85
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$1,260
Deposit credited−$400
Invoice total$860

You didn't write this invoice — the job did.

Calculate Your Full Stack

Jobber plus whatever else you're paying for:

Email yourself this comparison?

Switching from Jobber

1
Export your data — Go to Settings → Data Export. Download clients, jobs, and invoices as CSV.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your client list by CSV; re-enter your services and upcoming jobs.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 1-2 weeks. Finish scheduled jobs in Jobber; book new ones in Nexa.
4
Cancel Jobber — Cancel subscription before your next billing cycle. Download final export.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.

What This Means for Antique Restoration Specialists

The median antique restoration specialist earns $55,000/year. At $588/year, Jobber 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 antique restoration specialists. You own it like you own your hide glue pot and veneer hammer.

Is Nexa actually right for an antique restoration specialist?

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 15,000 antique restoration specialists in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
  • You're tired of paying every month for a monthly subscription stack 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 hide glue pot and veneer hammer.

Look elsewhere if

  • You run a 20+ antique restoration specialist 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 antique restoration specialists 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.

Antique Restoration Specialists by the numbers — by place

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.

Register a business in California →

Noneincome tax
TDLR (Texas Dept of Licensing and Regulation)licensing

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.

Register a business in Texas →

Noneincome tax
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.

Register a business in Florida →

4-10.9%income tax
NYC DCA + NYS DOS + specialty boardslicensing

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.

Register a business in New York →

Time tracking, invoicing, job tracking and the books are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. The sections below price both routes honestly.

What antique restoration specialists actually deal with

A day in the life of a antique restoration specialist

Antique restoration is the opposite of fast trades — the first decision on any piece is how little to do. A client brings in a Victorian chest or a Federal card table, and before any tool comes out you're deciding whether this is a museum-grade conservation where you preserve every bit of original surface, or a working restoration where the owner wants to use it. Strip the wrong finish and you can wipe out a century of patina and a chunk of the value in an afternoon, so the reversible methods are the rule: hide glue, not modern adhesives, because the next restorer in fifty years has to be able to undo your work. A lifting veneer gets relaid with the heated veneer hammer and hide glue; a missing chunk gets patched with period-correct stock you may have to hunt down from a specialist or saw from a salvaged piece, grain and figure matched. Finish work is French polishing — building shellac in countless thin pads over days, never to be hurried, feeding patience into a surface that finally glows the way no spray gun can. Loose joints come apart, the old glue is cleaned, and they're re-fit with the same techniques the original maker used. The hardest conversations are about money and worth: people watch the TV shows and assume Grandma's dresser is a treasure, and a real restoration often costs more than the piece is worth, which you have to say plainly before you start.

The tools a working antique restoration specialist actually owns

Local antique restoration specialists on Nexa

Real antique restoration specialists near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you an antique restoration specialist? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every antique restoration specialist on Nexa →

The kit a working antique restoration specialist owns

The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.

Core kitEssential

Hide glue pot and veneer hammer

$150–$700
Core kitEssential

Shellac and French-polishing supplies

$80–$400
Core kitEssential

Hand planes and cabinet scrapers

$200–$1,200
Core kitEssential

Fine chisels and marquetry knife

$150–$700
Core kitEssential

Steam box and clamping set

$300–$1,500
Core kitEssential

Reproduction veneer stock and period hardware

$300–$2,000
Core kitEssential

Sharpening stones and honing setup

$100–$500
Core kitEssential

Workbench with vise and holdfasts

$300–$2,000
Upgrade

Vacuum press for veneer work

$600–$3,000
The core kit, bought once $1,580–$9,000

Here's the bar that matters: you spent $1,580–$9,000 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.

Is Nexa the right call for an antique restoration specialist?

The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to an antique restoration specialist — here's where it wins, where the integration wins it anyway, and the things it genuinely doesn't do, with who to use instead. (No tool is best at everything; a guide that pretends otherwise is just an ad.)

Compare the essential business tools for antique restoration specialists

The usual subscriptions vs. Nexa, side by side. Drag the time slider — every year you keep renting, the gap widens. Nexa is $279, one time.

On the work an antique restoration specialist actually lives in — job & project tracking, invoicing and books & accounting — Nexa holds its own against the usual rentals (Jobber →, FreshBooks →, QuickBooks →). Head-to-head on any single one it's competitive; what tips it is the thing none of them can copy: Nexa carries one piece from the preserve-or-restore decision through sourcing and the work to the invoice and the books as one record, so the patina conversation that set the scope never has to be re-typed between separate apps. in one record, no re-typing between four apps. One tool, $279 once, against 3 subscriptions · ~$1,044/yr. Concretely: on job & project tracking, When you decide how little to do and talk a client out of stripping a hundred years of patina off her great-grandfather's oak secretary, that preserve-versus-restore call lands on the same job, so the scope is on record and a standalone scheduler can never hold the judgment that protects the piece's value.

Where it's not the answer: if you run real payroll for a team (use Gusto →), or run big email campaigns & automations (use ConvertKit →). Those tools are better at their one thing, and we'd rather point you to them than pretend.

Prefer to own a piece outright instead of renting? Free and open-source tools (GnuCash, Invoice Ninja and the like) each handle one job if you'll self-host them — a real option, listed because it's true.

Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.

How To Read This Page

How we put this guide together

We build an antique restoration specialist'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 antique restoration specialist — 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

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 Jobber replacement?

For solo antique restoration specialists and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Jobber may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.

What does Jobber do that Nexa doesn't?

Jobber has features like Built for home services and Mobile app for field teams that some businesses rely on. For most solo antique restoration specialists, these aren't dealbreakers.

How fast does Nexa pay for itself?

At $49/month, Nexa pays for itself in 5.7 months. After that: $588 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.

$1,764 Over 3 Years. Or $279 Once (or 3 × $99).

Own your tools. Stop renting your software.

Get Nexa — $279 Once
or 3 payments of $99
✓ 30-day money-back — save $500 or full refund

More Comparisons for Antique Restoration Specialists