What music producers need from their software, from sources outside Wave and outside Nexa:
Wave covers the self-employed side of this trade well. Unlimited invoices and bookkeeping are on its free Starter plan. Pro adds automatic bank import, receipt capture and late-payment reminders, which help with variable income and doing your own books without an accountant. Wave does not cover the producer-specific records. Nothing in its feature list tracks SoundExchange Letters of Direction, the per-recording Repertoire Chart share, or a separate LOD from each featured artist. It also has no field for points or the royalty base, such as a 4 point deal on a 16-point artist royalty. It has no payee records with a Taxpayer Identification Number either.
Nexa covers the same business basics: invoices, estimates, expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, 1099 summaries and receipt scanning. It adds a CRM with a pipeline board and time tracking, and it works offline. It does not cover the core producer need either. Nothing in what we can say about it tracks LODs, points or royalty shares. It also has no QuickBooks or Xero sync, and it comes with no hosted support desk. Without Cloud Sync it runs on one device.
Over three years Wave Pro costs $684 ($19 a month, or $228 a year). Wave's free Starter plan costs nothing if you only need invoicing and bookkeeping. Nexa costs $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and $458.64 over three years with Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. Nexa is cheaper if you want Pro-level features, but price is not the deciding factor here. Whichever you pick, keep LODs, points and payee TINs in a separate royalty and rights-tracking tool. Use Wave or Nexa only for invoices and books. Stay on Wave if you rely on its bank import, since Nexa's facts don't include that. Move to Nexa only if you want a one-time purchase and its CRM.
Our read for music producers: Neither tool tracks Letters of Direction, points or payee TINs, so producers need royalty and rights-management software for that, with either Wave or Nexa left to handle invoices and books.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Wave costs music producers $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 music producers: 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.
Invoicing, client records, time 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. 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 creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every music producer: 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.)
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A music producer'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.
Wave plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median music producer earns $35,000/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 music producers. You own it like you own your DAW (Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton).
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small music producers 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, time 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.
Most of my work is producing songs for independent artists. A project starts with the artist sending a rough demo, a voice memo and a guitar, and a few reference tracks for the sound they want. From there I'm building the arrangement: drums, bass, chords and the parts that make the chorus lift, then recording vocals, often over several sessions, directing takes until the performance is right. Editing is detailed work, comping the best takes, tuning where it's needed without making it robotic, and tightening the timing. Then the mix: balancing every part, EQ and compression, effects, and making it sound good on headphones, in a car and on a phone. I send versions, the artist sends notes, and we revise. Mastering is sometimes me and sometimes a specialist. Everything is agreed up front: my fee, how many revisions, and who owns what, including any royalty points on the master. I also sell beats and sample packs online. I take a deposit before the session and the balance before I send the final files.
Real music producers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a music producer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every music producer 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 music producer'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 music producer — 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 music producers 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 music producers, 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