What 3d printing services need from their software, from sources outside QuickBooks and outside Nexa:
Disclosure: the publisher of this page makes Nexa. This read works from each product's published feature list, not hands-on testing, so treat it as a checklist for your own trial and not a benchmark. The tax and depreciation duties of a made-to-order print shop are accounting practice, not features of either product. A shop that prints to a customer's special order generally taxes the whole job price, materials and labor included, unless the buyer gives a resale or exemption certificate. That is the Texas rule, and other states differ. The shop also needs a fixed-asset register with purchase and in-service dates for each printer and post-processing machine, so Form 4562 and any Section 179 election can be filed each year. QuickBooks' published list mentions neither certificates nor fixed assets, so don't assume it handles them. Use the 30-day free trial to invoice one job with materials and labor, see whether the full price is taxed, and find where a certificate would be stored. What QuickBooks does list is bank feed reconciliation, comprehensive reporting, 800+ integrations, accountant seats on higher plans and phone support on paid plans. Accountants also know it, which matters most at depreciation time. Plus adds inventory tracking and project profitability, the nearest fits for filament stock and per-job margins.
Nexa's list covers the front office of a small shop. It has quotes and estimates that convert to invoices, recurring invoices, payment plans, a client pay portal that takes cards through your own Stripe account, and jobs with costing and profit per job. Its bookkeeping side has expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, sales tax tracking and receipt scanning. We can't say from the list how its sales tax tracking treats a job priced as materials plus labor, so test that too. Where its list says no, the gaps matter for this trade. It has no manual journal entries, which leaves no obvious place for a year-end depreciation adjustment. Inventory is a simple stock count per product, with no reorder points or valuation, which is thin for bulk filament and resin. It has no sync or import with QuickBooks, so a move means starting fresh. Its automated emails (reminders, sequences, workflows) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding. Missouri's ruling that a custom machining and laser shop is not a manufacturer is one state's position, not a general rule. In either tool, check your own state before buying equipment tax-free, and record on each job whether it was custom or made for stock.
Over three years QuickBooks at $38 a month ($456 a year) costs $1,368. Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and runs on one device. Optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for all 36 months brings it to $458.64. Nexa costs less, but the two aren't like for like: one is a subscription with an accountant-friendly ecosystem, the other is software you run yourself. A missed tax or depreciation entry can cost more than the price gap, so price shouldn't decide this. Shops with an accountant, bulk material purchases or machines to depreciate should stay on QuickBooks, ask it directly about certificates and fixed assets, and keep a spreadsheet for whatever it can't hold. A very small or solo shop that mainly needs quotes, invoices and profit per job, and can support its own software, could trial Nexa. It should first confirm its accountant will work from Nexa's reports. Either way, keep a certificate file per client and a machine list with purchase and in-service dates.
Our read for 3d printing services: Most made-to-order print shops should stay on QuickBooks, because accountants work from it and Nexa has no manual journal entries or full inventory; only a very small shop with a flexible accountant should trial Nexa.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
QuickBooks costs 3d printing services $456/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 7.3 months it has cost less than QuickBooks, 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 QuickBooks 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 3d printing services: Stay with QuickBooks 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 $1,368 for QuickBooks over three years.
The books, job tracking and invoicing 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Source: SWK Technologies, Insightful Accountant (Dec 2, 2025)
From July 1, 2025: Simple Start $35 to $38, Essentials $65 to $75, Plus $99 to $115, Advanced $235 to $275 a month.
Source: Woodard Report (May 27, 2025)
After September 30, 2024, new US customers can no longer buy these Desktop editions. Existing subscribers can keep renewing.
Source: Intuit
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 | 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.
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.
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.
QuickBooks Online is aimed at freelancers and new businesses, small and mid-size businesses, product-based businesses, and nonprofits. Larger or more complex operations are pointed to Desktop Enterprise (up to 40 users) or Intuit Enterprise Suite (multi-entity). (quickbooks.intuit.com)
What people outside QuickBooks 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 3d printing operator: 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 3d printing operator'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.
QuickBooks plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median 3D printing operator earns $28,000/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 3d printing services. You own it like you own your FDM and/or resin 3D printers.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small 3d printing services business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling into a large team with dedicated admin staff, a bigger platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.
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 →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 →The books, job tracking and invoicing 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.
First thing I check the printers that ran overnight. The cosplay helmet on printer one is 11 of 14 hours in and looks clean. Printer two finished 20 board-game miniatures on the resin machine, so I pull the build plate, wash the minis in IPA, cure them under UV, and snip supports with flush cutters. Printer three is spaghetti: the print came off the bed eight hours into a twelve-hour job, and that's filament and machine time in the bin. I scrape the bed, re-level, wipe it with alcohol, add glue stick, check the nozzle for a clog and restart it. Late morning the helmet comes off and the finishing starts: sanding support marks down with 120 grit, filler primer, sanding again at 400 until the layer lines are gone, then masking for paint. The cosplay customer wants a quote for four more pieces, gauntlets and a chest plate, so I slice each model to get print time and grams of filament, add something for failures and sanding hours, and hope the numbers hold. The miniatures customer wants 100 more at a volume price, which means working out how many fit on a plate and how many resin runs that is. In the afternoon I dry a spool of PETG that's been soaking up humidity, swap a worn brass nozzle, and tighten a loose belt. In the evening I pack the minis in foam, print shipping labels, and send the invoice for the helmet with the finishing hours broken out.
Real 3d printing services near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a 3d printing operator? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every 3d printing operator 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 3d printing operator'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 3d printing operator — 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 3d printing services 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.
QuickBooks has features like Industry standard - accountants know it and 800+ app integrations that some businesses rely on. For most solo 3d printing services, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $38/month, Nexa pays for itself in 7.3 months. After that: $456 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