What lactation consultants need from their software, from sources outside Wave and outside Nexa:
Wave covers the money side of a lactation practice well. It handles invoices, bookkeeping, receipt capture, and bank transaction import on its paid plan. It also sends late-payment reminders and has a free plan for basic invoicing and bookkeeping. It does not cover what an IBCLC's credential depends on. It has no way to log the 250 practice hours, CERPs, WHO Code education or basic life support education that each five-year recertification needs. It also has no way to track state renewal, such as New Mexico's 24 contact hours of continuing education and renewal application due 30 to 60 days before expiry.
Nexa covers more of the practice-running side: invoices and estimates, a booking page with intake forms and group-class capacity, a client CRM, time tracking, a task board, expenses and receipt scanning, and profit and loss reports. Its time tracking could stand in for a practice-hours log, but it has no field or report for CE credits, CERPs or licence renewal dates. Its automated emails (reminders, sequences) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It also has no text messaging, no QuickBooks or Xero sync, no Google Calendar sync, and no vendor support desk. Card payments go only through your own payment-processing account.
Over three years Wave's paid plan costs $684 ($19 a month, $228 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or 3 payments of $99. With optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month it comes to $458.64 over three years. If you already use Wave and it works for billing, stay put. If you want booking, a client pipeline and one-time pricing, Nexa is a reasonable alternative, but it solves a different problem from recertification. Whichever you pick, track hours, CE credits and renewal deadlines in a dedicated credential and continuing-education tracker.
Our read for lactation consultants: Neither Wave nor Nexa tracks IBCLC recertification hours, CE credits or state licence renewals, so use a dedicated credential and continuing-education tracker alongside whichever billing tool you already have.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Wave costs lactation consultants $228/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 14.7 months it has cost less than Wave, 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 Wave 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 lactation consultants: Neither Wave nor Nexa is the main system for this work; start with software built for it. Nexa only makes sense beside it, at $279 once against $684 for Wave over three years.
Scheduling, client records and invoicing are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. 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. Wave solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $19/month — $228 a year, from Wave'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 $405 less.
If Wave 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 | Wave | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✗ | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✓ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Works offline | ✗ | ✓ |
| Price | $19/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $684 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Wave come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Wave lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Wave's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Wave is the better call if you need free plan covering unlimited invoices and bookkeeping specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Wave says it is built for small business owners and solopreneurs at every stage, not accountants. Its page names freelancers, contractors and consultants. (waveapps.com)
What people outside Wave 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 lactation consultant: 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.
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed engagement — the terms and the retainer set.
The work you're paid for — with the hours, tasks, and expenses tracked against the engagement instead of reconstructed at month-end.
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.)
Wave plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median lactation consultant earns $45,000/year. At $228/year, Wave 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 lactation consultants. You own it like you own your Clinical assessment tools.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small lactation consultants 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 →Scheduling, client records and invoicing are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. The sections below price both routes honestly.
You have 4 visits today: 2 home visits ($200 each, 90 min plus 30 min travel), 1 office visit ($150, 60 min), and 1 telehealth ($125, 45 min). A new mom called in tears at 6am — you squeezed her in. One client wants to file insurance for reimbursement and needs a superbill. You rent breast pumps ($30/month) and sell supplies. Between consultations, insurance paperwork, and supply management, your systems are a calendar app and a notepad.
Real lactation consultants near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a lactation consultant? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every lactation consultant 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 lactation consultant'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 lactation consultant — 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 lactation consultants and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Wave may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Wave has features like Free plan covering unlimited invoices and bookkeeping and Bank transaction import on Pro that some businesses rely on. For most solo lactation consultants, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $19/month, Nexa pays for itself in 14.7 months. After that: $228 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