What piercing artists need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Acuity Scheduling covers the booking side of a piercing studio well. It has online booking, custom intake forms, deposits, cancelation policies, coupons, gift certificates, and text reminders and a waitlist on its higher plans. It also syncs with Google Calendar and QuickBooks, and it takes payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo. It does not list any way to track each piercer's bloodborne pathogen training dates, to flag studio license renewal due dates, or to file notarized parental consent for minors with the client record. Intake forms can collect consent information, but a notarized document and a dated certificate record per piercer need a place to live that Acuity does not describe.
Nexa also has a public booking page with intake forms, plus reschedule and cancel links, and it has notes with tick-box checklists linked to a client. Those could serve for a consent or training checklist, though a checklist is not attached to a job. Its bookkeeping lets you record expenses, so a license renewal fee can be booked as a licensing cost. It does not list dedicated certificate tracking or renewal reminders, so those would be manual habits. It has no text messages or calls, no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file), no QuickBooks sync, and no waitlist. Its automated emails 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 Acuity at $34 a month costs $408 a year, or $1,224. Nexa costs $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), or $458.64 over three years if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month to use it across devices. If your clients rely on text reminders, a waitlist or a calendar that syncs with Google, stay with Acuity. A studio that only needs bookings, forms and simple books, and can live with email-only reminders sent while the app is open, could save money with Nexa. Neither tool replaces a proper record of training certificates, license dates and signed minor consents, so keep those in a dedicated records system or a locked paper file either way.
Our read for piercing artists: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if text reminders, a waitlist or Google Calendar sync matter to your studio, since Nexa has none of them; Nexa suits a studio that can do without them and wants to pay $279 once.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Acuity Scheduling costs piercing artists $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.
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 piercing artists: 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.
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.
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.
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 | 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.
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.
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.
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)
What people outside Acuity Scheduling 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 your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every piercing artist: 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.
A new client finds you and books a time — no phone tag, no double-booking.
The session itself — with the client history, notes, packages, and add-ons right there instead of in three different places.
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 your clients. (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 piercing artist'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.
Acuity Scheduling plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median piercing artist earns $42,000/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 piercing artists. You own it like you own your Autoclave and sterilization equipment.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small piercing artists 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 6 piercings booked today at $40-80 each (service fee only). Jewelry sales add $25-200 per client. One no-show wasted a 30-minute slot. A client from last month needs a downsize — free follow-up but they'll probably buy new jewelry. Your booth rent is $600/month at the tattoo shop. Between service fees and jewelry markup, you need to track two revenue streams with different margins.
Real piercing artists near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a piercing artist? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every piercing artist 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 piercing artist'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 piercing artist — 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 piercing artists 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.
Acuity Scheduling has features like Intake forms and Package and subscription billing that some businesses rely on. For most solo piercing artists, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $34/month, Nexa pays for itself in 8.2 months. After that: $408 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