What grant writers need from their software, from sources outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa:
Toggl Track covers the hours side of grant writing well, and that side is where pricing mistakes get made. Professional codes and grantmakers rule out pay based on a percentage of the award. They also rule out pay that depends on winning. That leaves hours, a fixed fee per deliverable, or a monthly retainer, and Toggl Track's records fit all three. It has a one-click timer, background tracking, grouping by project and client, billable rates, and profitability reports by project and client. The feature that matters most for this trade is estimated vs. actual time. On a flat-fee proposal it shows whether the fee covered the drafting, revision and submission hours. That is the evidence for quoting the next one. Toggl Track also lists invoicing, but its product page does not list a scope-of-work agreement, a payment schedule with an up-front portion, or income-and-expense records for a one-person business. The last gap matters because federal wage data excludes self-employed workers, so a freelancer's own books are the only record of what the practice earns.
Nexa is made by the publisher of this page, so weigh this paragraph accordingly. It covers more of the paperwork around the writing. Proposals and estimates convert to invoices, and clients can sign estimates. Payment plans can split a fee into a deposit and installments. Clients can pay by card through your own Stripe account. Expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, and 1099 summaries are built in. None of this is built for grant writers, and nothing in Nexa prices or bills by award amount. Nothing in its feature list covers agreement terms such as work-product ownership, who contacts the funder, confidentiality or a handover list, so you would write those terms yourself. Its time tracking is plainer and has no estimated-vs-actual comparison. It also lacks background tracking, an integration library, and sync with accounting software. Without the optional Cloud Sync it runs on one device. Any automated emails, such as reminders, 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.
Over three years Toggl Track at $12 a month costs $432 ($144 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or $99 in three payments. With Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month it comes to $458.64. Nexa is cheaper only on a single device, so price should not decide this. If you already track hours in Toggl Track and have some way to send invoices and keep books, stay. Estimated vs. actual time on fixed-fee work is the part of this trade's workflow that Nexa's listed features do not replace. Consider Nexa only if your real gap is deposits, installments and income-and-expense records, and you can accept a plainer timer. Even then, a reasonable setup is to keep Toggl Track for hours and add Nexa for billing and books. Neither tool supplies the agreement itself.
Our read for grant writers: Keep Toggl Track: its estimated-vs-actual time tracking is what a flat-fee grant writer needs to price the next proposal, and Nexa has nothing equivalent.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Toggl Track costs grant writers $144/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 23.3 months it has cost less than Toggl Track, 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 Toggl Track 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 grant writers: Stay with Toggl Track 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 $432 for Toggl Track over three years.
Invoicing, client records, job tracking and time tracking 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. Toggl Track solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $12/month — $144 a year, from Toggl Track'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 $153 less.
If Toggl Track 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 | Toggl Track | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✗ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $12/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $432 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Toggl Track come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Toggl Track lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Toggl Track's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Toggl Track is the better call if you need simple time tracking specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Toggl Track's product page lists agencies and professional services teams, software and IT teams, law firms, and accounting and finance teams. It also names three sizes of customer: freelancers and solo users, growing teams, and large organizations. (toggl.com)
What people outside Toggl Track 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 creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every grant writer: 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 creative work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed project — with the scope and the deposit locked in.
The work itself — tracked against the project: hours, milestones, revisions, and expenses, so nothing bills late or goes uncounted.
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 creative work. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)
Toggl Track plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median grant writer earns $52,000/year. At $144/year, Toggl Track 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 grant writers. You own it like you own your Grant research databases.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small grant writers 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 →Invoicing, client records, job tracking and time tracking 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.
You're managing 5 active grants across 3 clients. Two federal grants due in 10 days. One foundation grant in review. Two state grants in research phase. The federal grants need budget narratives, logic models, and 15-page proposals. You charge $5,000 per federal grant and $2,000 per state grant. Research takes 20 hours per grant but you quoted flat rate. One client wants a success fee arrangement (5% of award). Your deadline tracker is a wall calendar.
Real grant writers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a grant writer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every grant writer 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 grant writer'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 grant writer — 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 grant writers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Toggl Track may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Toggl Track has features like Simple time tracking and Desktop and mobile apps that some businesses rely on. For most solo grant writers, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $12/month, Nexa pays for itself in 23.3 months. After that: $144 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