What wedding planners need from their software, from sources outside 17hats and outside Nexa:
17hats covers the client-facing side of planning well. Quotes, contracts and invoices sit in one document, and clients can initial and sign online. That helps when a planner has to show signed service agreements next to deposits. Invoicing supports payment schedules, saved cards and auto-pay, with Stripe handling card and ACH payments, so retainers and staged payments are covered. It also has 14 lead and client pipelines, built-in texting, online scheduling with payments at booking, workflow automation, a client portal, and onboarding with a 1:1 walkthrough. Its bookkeeping is described only as basic. Nothing in its feature list shows per-client tracking of retainers against vendor payments, which is the documentation a sales tax audit may ask for. Nothing shows quarterly tax estimate support either, so check both before relying on it.
Nexa covers more of the accounting side than 17hats lists. It has expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, 1099 summaries and sales tax tracking, which can help a self-employed planner follow net income through the year. It also has quotes and proposals that convert to invoices, payment plans, a client pay portal where clients pay by card and sign estimates (through the planner's own Stripe account), a CRM pipeline, a public booking page, time tracking, and jobs with costing and profit per job. Today's job stops can be sent to Google Maps in time order, which helps on site-visit days. Nexa has no text messaging or calls, no QuickBooks or Xero sync, and no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file). Its automated emails, including sequences, workflows and 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 17hats at $60 a month is $2,160 ($720 a year). Its page shows inconsistent discount figures, so confirm current prices. Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99. With the optional $4.99 a month Cloud Sync for 36 months, it comes to $458.64. Without Cloud Sync it runs on one device. A planner who relies on texting clients, on signed contracts with initials kept beside payment schedules, or on a vendor-run support desk and onboarding should stay with 17hats. A planner who works from one device, doesn't need SMS, and wants the bookkeeping and sales tax tracking in the same tool could reasonably move to Nexa and save the difference.
Our read for wedding planners: Stay with 17hats if you text clients, rely on its signed contracts and hosted support, or need automations that run without your device open; Nexa fits a one-device planner who mainly wants lower cost and built-in bookkeeping.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
17hats costs wedding planners $720/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 4.7 months it has cost less than 17hats, 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 17hats 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 wedding planners: Stay with 17hats 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 $2,160 for 17hats over three years.
Client records, scheduling, invoicing and job tracking 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. 17hats solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $60/month — $720 a year, from 17hats'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 $1,881 less.
If 17hats 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 | 17hats | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | — | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $60/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $2,160 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for 17hats come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as 17hats lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from 17hats's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
17hats is the better call if you need all-in-one for service businesses specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
17hats says it is for service-based small businesses and solopreneurs. It names balloon artists, photographers, coaches and designers among "100+ different industries", and says it serves businesses "just getting started or 100K in". (17hats.com)
What people outside 17hats 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 wedding planner: 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 wedding planner'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.
17hats plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median wedding planner earns $42,000/year. At $720/year, 17hats 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 wedding planners. You own it like you own your Planning binders and timeline templates.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small wedding planners 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.
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
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 →Client records, scheduling, invoicing and job tracking 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.
A wedding is a year of work that comes together over one day. I start with the couple's budget, guest count and vision, then help them choose a venue and assemble a vendor team: catering, florist, photographer, music, rentals and hair and makeup, reviewing every contract for deposits, cancellation terms and overtime rates. Over the months I'm running the planning timeline: design decisions, tastings, invitations, the seating chart that's rewritten six times, and the budget tracker that keeps everyone honest. In the final weeks I confirm every vendor, build a minute-by-minute timeline for the day, and run the rehearsal. On the wedding day I'm there from vendor arrival to the last guest: making sure the setup matches the plan, cueing the ceremony, managing the timeline, fixing problems before anyone notices, and handing out tips and final payments. Something always goes wrong, and the job is making sure the couple never knows. I'm paid a planning fee in stages, and I never hold vendor money, which goes directly from the couple to each vendor.
Real wedding planners near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a wedding planner? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every wedding planner 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 wedding planner'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 wedding planner — 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 wedding planners and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. 17hats may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
17hats has features like All-in-one for service businesses and Strong workflow automation (chain triggers) that some businesses rely on. For most solo wedding planners, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $60/month, Nexa pays for itself in 4.7 months. After that: $720 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