Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Electrolysis Technicians
Acuity Scheduling
$34/mo ($408/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 8.2 months at Acuity Scheduling's current price.
Does Acuity Scheduling Fit Electrolysis Technicians? Our Read
What electrolysis technicians need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Tracking continuing education against each state's license-renewal rules. North Carolina requires 10 CEUs per license year (10 every five years after 30 years of uninterrupted licensed practice). The board must approve CEUs at least 60 days in advance. Home study is capped at 10 per year. Up to 10 extra CEUs carry forward. Business-management credit is capped at 5 CEUs over two sequential license periods. (bbee.nc.gov)
Keeping CE records and renewal deadlines per license. Massachusetts requires 10 units of CE every two years for renewal. At least 3 must be in infection control, blood-borne diseases, universal precautions, HIV/AIDS, or sanitation and sterilization. Hours cannot be carried over, and licensees must keep CE records for three years. (law.cornell.edu)
Scheduling and invoicing by treatment length. Electrologists' fees are often based on quarter-hour appointments because treatment lengths vary. A 15-minute treatment may start at about $15 in some cities and about $40 in large urban regions. (legacy.vault.com)
Bookkeeping for self-employment. Self-employed electrologists usually must provide their own benefits. The American Electrology Association says full-time, established electrologists can earn between $25,000 and $50,000 per year. Electrologists working in a clinic or salon may owe part of their fees toward office space, utilities and support staff, so income and expenses need tracking by arrangement. (legacy.vault.com)
Acuity Scheduling covers the booking side of this trade well. Clients self-schedule online, fill in intake forms, and buy packages or subscriptions. Gift certificates, deposits and cancelation policies are included, and you can take payment through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo. The $34/month plan adds text reminders, a waitlist and HIPAA coverage. It also connects to Google Calendar and QuickBooks. That helps an electrologist who runs quarter-hour appointments and keeps books for self-employment. Its feature list has nothing for tracking continuing education against each state's renewal rules, such as North Carolina's 10 CEUs per license year or Massachusetts's 10 units every two years. It also has nothing for keeping CE records or renewal deadlines per license.
Nexa covers more of the back office. It has invoices, estimates and recurring invoices, a client pay portal, and a public booking page with intake forms and reschedule and cancel links. It also has expenses, profit and loss, 1099 summaries, mileage-free job costing, and notes with tick-box checklists linked to a client. Those notes could hold a CE checklist, but Nexa has no built-in license or CE tracker. Card payments go only through your own Stripe account. Nexa lacks text messages, a waitlist, Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file) and QuickBooks sync. Its automated emails, including booking, payment and review 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 Acuity Scheduling on the $34/month plan costs $1,224 ($408 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or $458.64 with Cloud Sync at $4.99/month, which is needed to use it on more than one device. If you rely on text reminders, a waitlist, Google Calendar sync or HIPAA coverage, stay with Acuity Scheduling. Nexa is the cheaper choice only if email reminders that send while Nexa is open are enough for you, and you want invoicing and bookkeeping in one place. Whichever you choose, you will still need a separate way to track CE and renewal dates.
Our read for electrolysis technicians: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if you use text reminders, a waitlist, Google Calendar sync or HIPAA coverage; choose Nexa only if email reminders that send while Nexa is open, plus built-in invoicing and bookkeeping, are enough for you.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling costs electrolysis technicians $408/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 8.2 months it has cost less than Acuity Scheduling, 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.
Can it pay for itself?
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 Acuity Scheduling 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 electrolysis technicians: Stay with Acuity Scheduling 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 $1,224 for Acuity Scheduling over three years.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need scheduler, connect crm and invoicing in one tool
You're tired of price increases
You want to own your tools like you own your equipment
Choose Acuity Scheduling if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Acuity Scheduling's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
She unwraps a fresh sterile probe, positions the magnifying lamp, and pulls up the chart that maps which sections of her client's chin she cleared last week. Electrolysis is patient, deliberate work: she inserts the probe into a single follicle to the depth of the dermal papilla, taps the foot pedal to deliver a blend of galvanic and high-frequency current, then slides the dead hair out with forceps and moves to the next one. A transgender client mid-way through a multi-year beard-clearing series sits for her standing forty-five-minute slot; the tech works the upper lip today because that's the zone on the rotation. She explains, again, that the regrowth he's seeing is from follicles that were dormant last visit, not failure. After lunch a woman comes for her chin and the tech notes how much finer the hair has gotten over six months. She times the session, logs which areas got worked and how the skin responded, and books the next standing appointment. Between clients she sterilizes forceps and disposes of used probes. The work is quiet, one follicle at a time, and her whole business depends on people keeping a long rhythm of appointments.
Billing fairly for treatment time that varies wildly hair-by-hair (galvanic can take 15+ seconds per follicle while thermolysis takes 1-4), making flat session pricing tricky
Booking the long recurring series electrolysis demands since it's the only true permanent removal and clients need standing weekly or biweekly slots for a year or more
Tracking which facial or body sections have been cleared versus which still need passes across dozens of micro-sessions
Reminding no-show-prone clients who, after a few clearings, think they're 'done' and stop coming before the follicles are fully treated
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. Acuity Scheduling solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Acuity Scheduling Actually Costs Electrolysis Technicians
Today's list price is $34/month — $408 a year, from Acuity Scheduling's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$408
Year 2$408
Year 3$408
Three years of Acuity Scheduling$1,224
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $945 less.
If Acuity Scheduling 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
Feature
Acuity Scheduling
Nexa
Invoicing
✗
✓
Scheduling
✓
✓
CRM
✗
✓
Time Tracking
✗
✓
Full Accounting
✗
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
✗
✓
Works offline
—
✓
Price
$34/mo
$279 once or 3 × $99
3-Year Total
$1,224
$279
You own it?
No — stop paying, lose access
Yes — forever
✓ and ✗ for Acuity Scheduling come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Acuity Scheduling lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy
It buys the software, not a service contract. You install Nexa and it runs on your machine. There is no seat count, and nothing stops working if you stop paying, because there is nothing to stop paying.
Acuity Scheduling's monthly fee is not only rent. It pays for their hosting, their support desk, and their engineers shipping changes every week. If those matter to how you work, that is a real thing you would be giving up.
Cross-device sync is the one optional extra — $4.99/month if you want your data mirrored between machines. Skip it and Nexa still works; you just sync manually.
The honest risk of buying once: you are betting on us still being here to improve it. The honest risk of renting: the price is theirs to raise, and the graveyard section below is a record of tools that did exactly that.
What Acuity Scheduling Does Better
Straight from Acuity Scheduling's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Intake forms
Package and subscription billing
Gift certificates
HIPAA compliance (Powerhouse)
Squarespace integration
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $20/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
Acuity Scheduling is the better call if you need intake forms specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
What Acuity Scheduling Is Built For
Acuity says it is for "anyone in the business of time," from solo practitioners to multi-location teams. It lists beauty, business services (consulting, coaching), wellness, fitness, visual and performing arts, and education. (acuityscheduling.com)
The Starter plan costs $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly) and includes 1 calendar, client self-scheduling, email reminders, custom client forms and automatic time zone conversion. (acuityscheduling.com)
Payments run through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo on all plans. The Standard plan ($27/month annual, up to 6 calendars) adds text reminders, an appointment waitlist, memberships and packages, and gift certificates. (acuityscheduling.com)
The Premium plan ($49/month annual, up to 36 calendars) adds an AI Booking Assistant, a Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA compliance, removal of the Acuity logo, multiple time zones for staff or locations, and custom API and CSS access. Unlimited calendars require the Enterprise team. (acuityscheduling.com)
All plans have a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. There is no free plan beyond the trial. (acuityscheduling.com)
The site lists 15 integrations, including Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Stripe, Square, PayPal, QuickBooks, Zoom, Google Meet, Zapier, Mailchimp and Squarespace. (acuityscheduling.com)
Named features include online booking, class scheduling, packages, subscriptions, gift certificates, coupons, deposits, custom intake forms, cancelation policies, a mobile app and a website builder. The site is offered in 6 languages. (acuityscheduling.com)
What people outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa say:
Software Finder shows a 4.5 rating from 25 reviews, with category scores of 9/10 for ease of use, value for money, customer support and functionality. The most-cited strengths are ease of use, integrations, automated email and text reminders that reviewers credit with reducing no-shows, and customizable emails and calendar views. (softwarefinder.com)
Software Finder reviewers also raise drawbacks. Some small businesses find it expensive, and one reported unresolved booking issues and slow support replies. Booking form appearance is limited, and add-ons are checkboxes only, so customers can't choose quantities. Stripe refunds need a separate login to Stripe. One business said it lacked features as its staff and resources grew, and a healthcare reviewer said it isn't suited to HIPAA-regulated practices. (softwarefinder.com)
Secret's page has no user reviews. Its editorial text calls the product user-friendly, customizable and affordable. It also lists as cons that pricing may be expensive for tight budgets, advanced features are limited, and some third-party integrations may be lacking. (joinsecret.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for an electrolysis technician
Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every electrolysis technician: 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 your clients. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
1
Find the work
Get booked
↓
A new client finds you and books a time — no phone tag, no double-booking.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Deliver the service
↓
The session itself — with the client history, notes, packages, and add-ons right there instead of in three different places.
Job / project tracking
Time tracking
Expenses, materials & add-ons
then ↓
3
Bill for it
Send the bill
↓
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
Get paid
Collect payment
↓
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 your clients. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)
Calculate Your Full Stack
Acuity Scheduling plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Acuity Scheduling
1
Export your data — Go to Settings → Export. Download your client list and appointment history.
2
Set up Nexa Scheduler — 15-minute setup. Import clients and recreate your appointment types.
3
Update your links — Replace your Acuity booking link everywhere — website, email, social.
4
Cancel Acuity — Cancel Squarespace subscription. Download a final backup of your data.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Electrolysis Technicians
The median Electrolysis Technician earns $35,000/year. At $408/year, Acuity Scheduling 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 electrolysis technicians. You own it like you own your Blend epilator delivering galvanic, thermolysis, and blend modalities.
Is Nexa actually right for an electrolysis technician?
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 20,000 electrolysis technicians 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 Blend epilator delivering galvanic, thermolysis, and blend modalities.
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 electrolysis technicians 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.
Electrolysis Technicians by the numbers — by place
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.
What electrolysis technicians actually deal with
Billing fairly for treatment time that varies wildly hair-by-hair (galvanic can take 15+ seconds per follicle while thermolysis takes 1-4), making flat session pricing tricky
Booking the long recurring series electrolysis demands since it's the only true permanent removal and clients need standing weekly or biweekly slots for a year or more
Tracking which facial or body sections have been cleared versus which still need passes across dozens of micro-sessions
Reminding no-show-prone clients who, after a few clearings, think they're 'done' and stop coming before the follicles are fully treated
A day in the life of a electrolysis technician
She unwraps a fresh sterile probe, positions the magnifying lamp, and pulls up the chart that maps which sections of her client's chin she cleared last week. Electrolysis is patient, deliberate work: she inserts the probe into a single follicle to the depth of the dermal papilla, taps the foot pedal to deliver a blend of galvanic and high-frequency current, then slides the dead hair out with forceps and moves to the next one. A transgender client mid-way through a multi-year beard-clearing series sits for her standing forty-five-minute slot; the tech works the upper lip today because that's the zone on the rotation. She explains, again, that the regrowth he's seeing is from follicles that were dormant last visit, not failure. After lunch a woman comes for her chin and the tech notes how much finer the hair has gotten over six months. She times the session, logs which areas got worked and how the skin responded, and books the next standing appointment. Between clients she sterilizes forceps and disposes of used probes. The work is quiet, one follicle at a time, and her whole business depends on people keeping a long rhythm of appointments.
The tools a working electrolysis technician actually owns
Blend epilator delivering galvanic, thermolysis, and blend modalities
Sterile single-use stainless and gold probes (0.002-0.006 inch)
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Blend epilator: galvanic, thermolysis, blend
$3,000–$12,000
Core kitEssential
Magnification lamp or microscope
$60–$250
Core kitEssential
Electric lift treatment bed
$500–$2,500
Core kitEssential
Rolling stool and trolley
$70–$250
Core kitEssential
Autoclave sterilizer
$200–$900
Core kitEssential
Sharps container and disposal
$20–$80
Core kitEssential
Tweezers and probe holders
$40–$200
The core kit, bought once$3,890–$16,180
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $3,890–$16,180 on tools that last for years, and never thought twice. So why should the software cost more than your whole kit — every single year? Hold it to the same standard as a good tool: $279, once.
How To Read This Page
We make Nexa. It is one of the two options compared here, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to make Acuity Scheduling's case the way we would want ours made — their strengths above are their own published feature list, not our summary of it.
The prices are Acuity Scheduling's published list prices, checked on the date shown in the sources below. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.
No customer quotes appear on this page because we do not have any from electrolysis technicians we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Acuity Scheduling on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Acuity Scheduling's own pricing page is the source for every figure above, read on the date shown in the sources section below.
We are not neutral about subscriptions, and that is the argument, not a hidden assumption: software you pay for once is cheaper over three years than software you rent, unless you need something only the rented one does.
How we put this guide together
We build an electrolysis technician'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 an electrolysis technician — 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
Vendor pricingVagaro $600/yr, Acuity Scheduling $408/yr, Square, HoneyBook $432/yr — taken from each company's published plans, last verified September 2026. Pricing moves; each name above links straight to that vendor’s own pricing page so you can confirm it before you decide.
Income contextThe $35,000 median we cite for the typical electrolysis technician is occupational median annual pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics), compiled April 2026. We use it only to show software spend as a share of real income — your own numbers will differ.
Three-year mathMulti-year totals are today's list price multiplied by the number of years. No price rise is projected, so the figure can be checked against the vendor's own pricing page; if they raise it, the real cost is higher.
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 Acuity Scheduling replacement?
For solo electrolysis technicians and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Acuity Scheduling may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
What does Acuity Scheduling do that Nexa doesn't?
Acuity Scheduling has features like Intake forms and Package and subscription billing that some businesses rely on. For most solo electrolysis technicians, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $34/month, Nexa pays for itself in 8.2 months. After that: $408 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.