QuickBooks vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Excavation Contractors
QuickBooks
$38/mo ($456/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 7.3 months at QuickBooks's current price.
Bottom Line
QuickBooks costs excavation contractors $456/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 7.3 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 excavation contractors: QuickBooks is solid software, but at $38/month it costs $1,368 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what QuickBooks does for $279 once. For solo excavation contractors 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 QuickBooks if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in QuickBooks's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
What QuickBooks Actually Costs Excavation Contractors
Today's list price is $38/month — $456 a year, from QuickBooks's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$456
Year 2$456
Year 3$456
Three years of QuickBooks$1,368
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $1,089 less.
If QuickBooks 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.
What QuickBooks has actually done to its price
Today's sticker price only tells you what a subscription costs today. These are dated changes, each linked to the announcement or report it comes from. Tap one for the numbers.
Feb 2026QuickBooks — QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus renewals rise from $999 to $1,149 a year↓
$999/year→$1,149/year
For renewals on or after February 1, 2026, Pro Plus and Mac Plus went from $999 to $1,149 a year for one user, and each extra seat from $200 to $230.
Since launchNexa — $279 once. No annual hike, no per-seat creep, no "your plan is changing" email.
Only changes we can link to a vendor announcement or a named publication are listed. Plans, add-ons and discounts vary, so check the vendor's current pricing page before you decide.
Feature-by-Feature
Feature
QuickBooks
Nexa
Invoicing
—
✓
Scheduling
✗
✓
CRM
✗
✓
Time Tracking
—
✓
Full Accounting
—
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
✗
✓
Works offline
—
✓
Price
$38/mo
$279 once or 3 × $99
3-Year Total
$1,368
$279
You own it?
No — stop paying, lose access
Yes — forever
✓ and ✗ for QuickBooks come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as QuickBooks 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.
QuickBooks'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 QuickBooks Does Better
Straight from QuickBooks's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Industry standard - accountants know it
800+ app integrations
Comprehensive reporting
Bank feed reconciliation
Multi-currency support
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $20/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
QuickBooks is the better call if you need industry standard - accountants know it specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Where business tools fit — for an excavation contractor
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every excavation contractor: 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
QuickBooks plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from QuickBooks
1
Export your data — Go to Reports → export to CSV. Download clients, invoices, expenses.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your clients and expense categories.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 1-2 weeks. Verify everything transferred.
4
Cancel QuickBooks — Cancel subscription. Download final backup. You're done.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
Sound Familiar?
We can't break ground until I confirm the 811 marks are still good and I've located the private lines the ticket doesn't cover - the propane run and the well line that aren't the utility's problem but become mine if I clip them. Today is a foundation dig and a sewer lateral. I set grade with the laser, start the excavator on the footprint, and immediately the bucket pulls up shale ledge that the soils report soft-pedaled - so now I'm hammering rock on a price I quoted for clay. The sewer trench goes past five feet, so the trench box goes in before anybody steps down to lay pipe; that's not optional, that's a life. By mid-day I'm balancing the math in my head: this cut is making more spoil than the site can use, so I'm scheduling trucks to haul off instead of stockpiling fill I won't need. Afternoon is fine-grading the building pad, compacting in lifts with the plate so the slab doesn't settle and crack, and proof-rolling. I shoot grades to make sure the pad drains away from where the house goes. Last hour is the part that decides if I made money: tallying truck loads, photographing the ledge for a change order, and writing up the rock and dewatering as extras. Then invoicing, scheduling tomorrow's tracks, and calling the customer about the change order before they see it on a bill.
Hitting unmarked utilities despite an 811 ticket - a clipped gas line or fiber bundle is a shutdown, a fine, and a repair bill, and private lines past the meter aren't on the locate
Unknown soil and rock conditions on a fixed-price dig - quoting topsoil-and-clay and finding ledge rock or a high water table that needs a hammer, dewatering, and trucking that blows the bid
OSHA trench safety and cave-in liability - any trench over five feet needs a box or sloping, and skipping it to save time is the kind of shortcut that buries a worker
Spoil and import logistics - estimating cut-and-fill balance wrong leaves you either paying to haul off excess dirt or paying to import fill, with truck time eating the margin either way
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. QuickBooks solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What This Means for Excavation Contractors
The median Excavation Contractor earns $55,000/year. At $456/year, QuickBooks 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 excavation contractors. You own it like you own your Excavator and a compact track loader.
Is Nexa actually right for an excavation contractor?
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 excavation contractors 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 Excavator and a compact track loader.
Look elsewhere if
You run a 20+ excavation contractor 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 excavation contractors 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.
Excavation Contractors 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 excavation contractors actually deal with
Hitting unmarked utilities despite an 811 ticket - a clipped gas line or fiber bundle is a shutdown, a fine, and a repair bill, and private lines past the meter aren't on the locate
Unknown soil and rock conditions on a fixed-price dig - quoting topsoil-and-clay and finding ledge rock or a high water table that needs a hammer, dewatering, and trucking that blows the bid
OSHA trench safety and cave-in liability - any trench over five feet needs a box or sloping, and skipping it to save time is the kind of shortcut that buries a worker
Spoil and import logistics - estimating cut-and-fill balance wrong leaves you either paying to haul off excess dirt or paying to import fill, with truck time eating the margin either way
A day in the life of a excavation contractor
We can't break ground until I confirm the 811 marks are still good and I've located the private lines the ticket doesn't cover - the propane run and the well line that aren't the utility's problem but become mine if I clip them. Today is a foundation dig and a sewer lateral. I set grade with the laser, start the excavator on the footprint, and immediately the bucket pulls up shale ledge that the soils report soft-pedaled - so now I'm hammering rock on a price I quoted for clay. The sewer trench goes past five feet, so the trench box goes in before anybody steps down to lay pipe; that's not optional, that's a life. By mid-day I'm balancing the math in my head: this cut is making more spoil than the site can use, so I'm scheduling trucks to haul off instead of stockpiling fill I won't need. Afternoon is fine-grading the building pad, compacting in lifts with the plate so the slab doesn't settle and crack, and proof-rolling. I shoot grades to make sure the pad drains away from where the house goes. Last hour is the part that decides if I made money: tallying truck loads, photographing the ledge for a change order, and writing up the rock and dewatering as extras. Then invoicing, scheduling tomorrow's tracks, and calling the customer about the change order before they see it on a bill.
The tools a working excavation contractor actually owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Excavator
$50,000–$250,000
Core kitEssential
Skid steer or track loader
$25,000–$90,000
Core kitEssential
Laser or GPS grade control
$3,000–$30,000
Core kitEssential
Plate compactor and rammer
$1,500–$4,000
Core kitEssential
Trench box / shoring
$3,000–$20,000
Core kitEssential
Transit or builder's level
$150–$700
Core kitEssential
Utility locator
$300–$2,000
Core kitEssential
Hand tools: shovels, bars, rakes
$80–$300
Upgrade
Equipment trailer
$6,000–$20,000
Upgrade
Dump truck
$40,000–$150,000
The core kit, bought once$83,030–$397,000
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $83,030–$397,000 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.
Where Nexa wins for an excavation contractor — and where it doesn't
The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to an excavation contractor — 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 excavation contractors
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 jobThe usual rentalThe verdict
The whole connected stack3 subscriptions · ~$1,044/yrNexa wins big One tool, $279 once — Nexa carries one dig from the 811 and private-line locate through the rock surprise and the safe trench to the invoice and the books as one record, so the ledge rock under a clay price never has to be re-typed between separate apps. without re-typing. That handoff is the part separate tools can't buy at any price.
Job & project trackingJobber →Nexa wins When you quoted a clay-and-topsoil dig off the soils report and the bucket grinds into ledge rock two feet down needing a hammer and dewatering, that lands on the same job, so the condition change and the private propane and well lines you located stay on record where a scheduler alone could never hold the OSHA box-or-slope requirement.
InvoicingFreshBooks →Nexa wins The dig you actually performed, plus the hammer, dewatering, and trucking the ledge rock forced, flows off the job into the invoice, so a fixed-price bid that hit rock bills exactly as worked without re-keying it into separate billing software.
Books & accountingQuickBooks →Nexa wins Because every clipped-line risk, soil surprise, and trench-safety setup rides the same record into the books, your real margin when a clay price meets ledge rock is right there without re-entering line items from a billing app.
If you run real payroll for a team—Not Nexa Use Gusto → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you than pretend.
If you run big email campaigns & automations—Not Nexa Use ConvertKit → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you 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.
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 QuickBooks'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 QuickBooks'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 excavation contractors we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — QuickBooks 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 QuickBooks itself. We list a tool when it is the honest pick for the job, not because of the payout.
Check the price yourself:QuickBooks'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 an excavation contractor'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 excavation contractor — 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 excavation contractor 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 QuickBooks replacement?
For solo excavation contractors and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. QuickBooks may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
What does QuickBooks do that Nexa doesn't?
QuickBooks has features like Industry standard - accountants know it and 800+ app integrations that some businesses rely on. For most solo excavation contractors, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $38/month, Nexa pays for itself in 7.3 months. After that: $456 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.