Jobber vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Scrap Metal Haulers
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 scrap metal haulers $588/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so it pays for itself in 5.7 months 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.
The verdict for scrap metal haulers: 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 scrap metal haulers 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, task-manager in one purchase 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
What Jobber Actually Costs Scrap Metal Haulers
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
Feature
Jobber
Nexa
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 access
Yes — 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
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.
Jobber'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 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.
Built for home services
Mobile app for field teams
Route optimization
Client hub for self-service
QuickBooks Online integration
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $49/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
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.
Where business tools fit — for a scrap metal hauler
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every scrap metal hauler: 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.)
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 and job categories.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 1-2 weeks to verify scheduled jobs transfer cleanly.
4
Cancel Jobber — Cancel subscription before your next billing cycle. Download final export.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
Sound Familiar?
Every morning starts by checking where scrap prices landed, because copper, aluminum, brass, and steel each move on their own daily market, and the whole business is the spread between what I pay to pick it up and what the yard pays me to drop it. I run pickups off Craigslist calls, demolition sites, and standing accounts with shops that generate offcuts, and the magnet on the truck is constantly working because ferrous and non-ferrous have to be separated before they ever hit the yard scale. The money is entirely in sorting: a trailer of mixed steel pays pennies a pound, but if I pull the copper wire, the brass fittings, and the clean aluminum out and bin them separately, the same load is worth three times more. I'll torch down an oversized I-beam in the yard so it fits the trailer and grades right. At the scrap yard everything crosses a certified scale and each metal grade gets its own ticket, and reconciling those tickets against what I paid the seller is where I find out if a load actually made money. Certain material, catalytic converters and bulk copper especially, needs documented sourcing and seller ID because the yards and the law watch it for theft. I get home and the office work is matching tickets to pickups so I know my real margin per load.
Scrap prices swing daily by metal type, so what I pay a customer and what the yard pays me has to track a moving market or I lose money on a load I bought yesterday
The margin is entirely in sorting, because mixed steel pays pennies while clean copper pays dollars, and a load dumped unsorted at the yard throws away the spread
Yards pay by the truck scale ticket and weight grade, and reconciling what I bought against what I got paid per metal type is where money quietly disappears
Some material needs a chain of custody, since catalytic converters and bulk copper draw theft scrutiny and yards demand ID, so I have to document sourcing on certain loads
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 This Means for Scrap Metal Haulers
The median Scrap Metal Hauler 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 scrap metal haulers. You own it like you own your Flatbed or dump trailer with a magnet or grapple.
Is Nexa actually right for a scrap metal hauler?
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 scrap metal haulers 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 Flatbed or dump trailer with a magnet or grapple.
Look elsewhere if
You run a 20+ scrap metal hauler 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 scrap metal haulers 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.
Scrap Metal Haulers 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.
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.
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 scrap metal haulers actually deal with
Scrap prices swing daily by metal type, so what I pay a customer and what the yard pays me has to track a moving market or I lose money on a load I bought yesterday
The margin is entirely in sorting, because mixed steel pays pennies while clean copper pays dollars, and a load dumped unsorted at the yard throws away the spread
Yards pay by the truck scale ticket and weight grade, and reconciling what I bought against what I got paid per metal type is where money quietly disappears
Some material needs a chain of custody, since catalytic converters and bulk copper draw theft scrutiny and yards demand ID, so I have to document sourcing on certain loads
A day in the life of a scrap metal hauler
Every morning starts by checking where scrap prices landed, because copper, aluminum, brass, and steel each move on their own daily market, and the whole business is the spread between what I pay to pick it up and what the yard pays me to drop it. I run pickups off Craigslist calls, demolition sites, and standing accounts with shops that generate offcuts, and the magnet on the truck is constantly working because ferrous and non-ferrous have to be separated before they ever hit the yard scale. The money is entirely in sorting: a trailer of mixed steel pays pennies a pound, but if I pull the copper wire, the brass fittings, and the clean aluminum out and bin them separately, the same load is worth three times more. I'll torch down an oversized I-beam in the yard so it fits the trailer and grades right. At the scrap yard everything crosses a certified scale and each metal grade gets its own ticket, and reconciling those tickets against what I paid the seller is where I find out if a load actually made money. Certain material, catalytic converters and bulk copper especially, needs documented sourcing and seller ID because the yards and the law watch it for theft. I get home and the office work is matching tickets to pickups so I know my real margin per load.
The tools a working scrap metal hauler actually owns
Flatbed or dump trailer with a magnet or grapple
Magnet to separate ferrous from non-ferrous on the spot
Truck scale ticket book from the scrap yard
Torch or sawzall to cut down oversized steel
Bins for sorting copper, brass, aluminum, and steel
Tarp and chains for securing the load
Local scrap metal haulers on Nexa
Real scrap metal haulers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a scrap metal hauler? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every scrap metal hauler on Nexa →
The kit a working scrap metal hauler owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Flatbed or dump trailer
$6,000–$20,000
Core kitEssential
Grapple or magnet attachment
$4,000–$25,000
Core kitEssential
Handheld separation magnet
$20–$90
Core kitEssential
Torch and reciprocating saw for oversize steel
$300–$1,500
Core kitEssential
Sorting bins for copper, brass, aluminium, steel
$200–$900
Core kitEssential
Tarps, chains and binders
$200–$900
Core kitEssential
Platform scale for pre-weighing
$300–$1,500
Core kitEssential
Cut-resistant gloves and PPE
$60–$300
Upgrade
Skid steer or loader
$25,000–$70,000
The core kit, bought once$11,080–$50,190
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $11,080–$50,190 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.
What Nexa does for a scrap metal hauler — and what it doesn't
The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a scrap metal hauler — 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 scrap metal haulers
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.
The reason it wins the set: From the priced buy to the sorted payout to the books, one record follows each load so what you paid and what the yard paid per metal type reconcile without re-entry. in one record — $279 once vs 3 subscriptions · ~$1,044/yr.
What Nexa takes off your plate
Job & project trackingvs Jobber →What you paid a demo crew for a trailer of mixed metal on yesterday's copper price lives on the job record, so when prices dip you can still see the spread you bought against, sorted by metal type.
Invoicingvs FreshBooks →Because the margin is entirely in sorting clean copper from penny steel, the job carries the sorted weights into invoicing so what you pay the customer is set against a moving market without re-keying.
Books & accountingvs QuickBooks →When the yard pays by truck-scale ticket and weight grade, reconciling what you bought against what you got paid per metal flows job to invoice to books so the spread stops quietly disappearing.
When you run big email campaigns & automations→ ConvertKit →
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.
These are affiliate links — if you sign up through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We list them because they're the honest best pick for the job, Nexa included. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.
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 Jobber'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 Jobber'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 scrap metal haulers we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Jobber on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Some links on this page earn us money. Tool links may be affiliate links paying us a commission at no extra cost to you, including links to Jobber itself. We list a tool when it is the honest pick for the job, not because of the payout.
Check the price yourself:Jobber'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 scrap metal hauler'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 scrap metal hauler — 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, QuickBooks $456/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 $55,000 median we cite for the typical scrap metal hauler 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.
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 Jobber replacement?
For solo scrap metal haulers 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 scrap metal haulers, 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.