Wave vs Nexa
The Real Comparison for Refurbished Phone Sellers

Wave
$19/mo ($228/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 14.7 months at Wave's current price.

Bottom Line

Wave costs refurbished phone sellers $228/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 14.7 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 refurbished phone sellers: Wave is solid software, but at $19/month it costs $684 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what Wave does for $279 once. For solo refurbished phone sellers 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 financial-suite, 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 Wave if:

  • You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
  • You're deeply invested in Wave's specific workflow
  • You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet

What Wave Actually Costs Refurbished Phone Sellers

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.

Three years at today's price

Year 1$228
Year 2$228
Year 3$228
Three years of Wave$684

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-by-Feature

FeatureWaveNexa
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 accessYes — 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.

What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy

What Wave Does Better

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.

Where business tools fit — for a refurbished phone seller

Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every refurbished phone seller: 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. 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. 2

    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. 3

    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. 4

    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.)

Watch a job become an invoice

This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A refurbished phone seller'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.

The job Refurbished iPhone 13, new battery and screen
Service Refurbished iPhone 13, 128GB, unlocked 1 × $340 $340
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$0
Invoice total$0

You didn't write this invoice — the job did.

Calculate Your Full Stack

Wave plus whatever else you're paying for:

Email yourself this comparison?

Switching from Wave

1
Export your data — Go to Settings → Data Export. Download customers, invoices, transactions, and accounts.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your client list and chart of accounts from CSV.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 1-2 weeks. Verify bank connections and recurring invoices work.
4
Cancel Wave — Cancel paid features. Your free account data stays accessible for records.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.

Sound Familiar?

The first thing he does with any phone, before a screwdriver touches it, is run the IMEI, because a gorgeous handset that's blacklisted, still financed, or carrier-locked is a paperweight, and he's not sinking a screen and a battery into a dead end. Cleared phones go on the bench for triage: battery health, screen response across the whole panel, Face ID or fingerprint, cameras front and back, every button and the charge port. The common jobs are a screen swap and a battery replacement, and here the trap is parts, a cheap aftermarket screen that ghosts or loses touch sensitivity is a return waiting to happen, so he pays up for quality and watches his margin shrink on the cheaper models where the repair cost is a big slice of the resale price. Cosmetic grading is a discipline: an A is genuinely clean, a B has light wear, a C is functional but scuffed, and he photographs the actual scratches so a buyer who wanted pristine isn't surprised. The thin-margin reality is that a mid-tier phone might only clear forty dollars after a sixty-dollar battery-and-screen job, so he has to choose which devices are even worth refurbishing. He boxes them clean, with a protector on and a tested cable, like a retail unit, because presentation closes the sale.

The books and job 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. Wave solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.

What This Means for Refurbished Phone Sellers

The median refurbished phone seller earns $32,000/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 refurbished phone sellers. You own it like you own your a phone repair toolkit (pentalobe drivers, suction cup, spudgers, picks).

Is Nexa actually right for a refurbished phone seller?

An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.

Right for you if

  • You run solo or a small team — like the 40,000 refurbished phone sellers 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 invoicing, scheduling, and client tracking in one place — not scattered across five apps.
  • You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your a phone repair toolkit (pentalobe drivers, suction cup, spudgers, picks).

Look elsewhere if

  • You have a large team that needs enterprise seats, granular roles, and dedicated admin staff — Nexa is built for solo and small operators (1–5), and a bigger 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 refurbished phone sellers 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.

Refurbished Phone Sellers by the numbers — by place

Tax & registration where you operate

The books and job 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.

What refurbished phone sellers actually deal with

A day in the life of a refurbished phone seller

The first thing he does with any phone, before a screwdriver touches it, is run the IMEI, because a gorgeous handset that's blacklisted, still financed, or carrier-locked is a paperweight, and he's not sinking a screen and a battery into a dead end. Cleared phones go on the bench for triage: battery health, screen response across the whole panel, Face ID or fingerprint, cameras front and back, every button and the charge port. The common jobs are a screen swap and a battery replacement, and here the trap is parts, a cheap aftermarket screen that ghosts or loses touch sensitivity is a return waiting to happen, so he pays up for quality and watches his margin shrink on the cheaper models where the repair cost is a big slice of the resale price. Cosmetic grading is a discipline: an A is genuinely clean, a B has light wear, a C is functional but scuffed, and he photographs the actual scratches so a buyer who wanted pristine isn't surprised. The thin-margin reality is that a mid-tier phone might only clear forty dollars after a sixty-dollar battery-and-screen job, so he has to choose which devices are even worth refurbishing. He boxes them clean, with a protector on and a tested cable, like a retail unit, because presentation closes the sale.

The tools a working refurbished phone seller actually owns

Local refurbished phone sellers on Nexa

Real refurbished phone sellers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a refurbished phone seller? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every refurbished phone seller on Nexa →

The kit a working refurbished phone seller owns

The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.

a phone repair toolkit (pentalobe drivers, suction cup, spudgers, picks)

a hot plate or heat mat and screwdriver organizer for screen swaps

battery-health and IMEI-check diagnostic apps

stock of replacement screens, batteries, and charge-port flex cables

calibrated screen protectors, cleaning kit, and retail-style boxes for shipping

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.

Is Nexa the right call for a refurbished phone seller?

The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a refurbished phone seller — 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 refurbished phone sellers

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.

On the work a refurbished phone seller actually lives in — books & accounting, job & project tracking and invoicing — Nexa holds its own against the usual rentals (QuickBooks →, Jobber →, FreshBooks →). Head-to-head on any single one it's competitive; what tips it is the thing none of them can copy: Nexa carries each phone from the IMEI check through the screen and battery refurb and grading into the sale and books as one record, so the disclosed grade, the parts cost, and your margin all come from the same place. in one record, no re-typing between four apps. One tool, $279 once, against 3 subscriptions · ~$1,044/yr. Concretely: on books & accounting, Because you refuse to sink a screen and a battery into a blacklisted or financed handset, Nexa ties each phone's parts cost to its sale so you know the real margin after the screen and battery you put in, not a guess on a paperweight.

Where it's not the answer: if you run real payroll for a team (use Gusto →), or run big email campaigns & automations (use ConvertKit →), or sell through a full online store (use Shopify →). Those tools are better at their one thing, and we'd rather point you to them 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

How we put this guide together

We build a refurbished phone seller'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 refurbished phone seller — 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

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 Wave replacement?

For solo refurbished phone sellers 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.

What does Wave do that Nexa doesn't?

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 refurbished phone sellers, these aren't dealbreakers.

How fast does Nexa pay for itself?

At $19/month, Nexa pays for itself in 14.7 months. After that: $228 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.

$684 Over 3 Years. Or $279 Once (or 3 × $99).

Own your tools. Stop renting your software.

Get Nexa — $279 Once
or 3 payments of $99
✓ 30-day money-back — save $500 or full refund

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