Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Prenatal Fitness Instructors
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 Prenatal Fitness Instructors? Our Read
What prenatal fitness instructors need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Intake needs a pregnancy screening step that is repeatable and signed. The CSEP/SOGC 2019 guideline dropped blanket medical clearance. Clients now complete a self-administered questionnaire (GAQ-P). Clients who answer yes to any screening question are referred to a health care provider. The questionnaire should be completed again if the client's health changes during pregnancy. Page 2 carries a client signature and declaration to meet liability insurance requirements for exercise professionals. Client records therefore need dated, signed screening forms with re-screening and provider-referral flags. (csep.ca)
Some programs still require physician approval before a client starts. FIT4MOM, a prenatal and postpartum fitness franchise, recommends that clients obtain their doctor's approval before beginning. It also says postpartum clients can join class once their doctor clears them, typically around 6 weeks after birth. Records need to track whether physician approval is on file and the postpartum clearance date, and this affects when a client can be booked. (mcallen.fit4mom.com)
Instructors who are self-employed or work as contractors must plan for estimated tax. The IRS says sole proprietors generally must make estimated tax payments if they expect to owe $1,000 or more when their return is filed. The year is split into four payment periods, so income from each class or package needs to be tracked by period. (irs.gov)
Credential upkeep and continuing education need tracking. FIT4MOM states that most certifying bodies require trainers to renew their primary certifications periodically. Its prenatal and postnatal certificate offers CECs from ACE, AFAA and NASM. It also describes the certification as a step to reduce legal liability. Instructors need a record of certificates, renewal dates and continuing education credits. (fit4mom.com)
Acuity Scheduling covers the booking side of this trade well. It has class scheduling, packages, memberships, subscriptions, gift certificates, custom intake forms, cancelation policies, text reminders and an appointment waitlist on plans above Starter. It also has a mobile app, QuickBooks and Google Calendar integrations, and a Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA on its Premium plan. Its custom intake forms can hold a pregnancy screening questionnaire. Nothing in its feature list covers re-screening flags, a physician-approval or postpartum-clearance date, credential and continuing-education renewal tracking, or estimated-tax tracking by quarter. You would keep those records elsewhere.
Nexa covers a similar mix. It has a public booking page with intake forms and group-class capacity, plus reschedule and cancel links. It has a client pay portal through your own Stripe account where clients can sign estimates, a CRM with tags and notes, and checklist notes linked to a client. It also does bookkeeping, with expenses, profit and loss, and 1099 summaries, which helps with self-employed tax planning. It has no waitlist, no text messages, no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file) and no QuickBooks sync. Its automated emails, including reminders, send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, and it comes with no hosted support or onboarding.
Over three years, Acuity Scheduling at $34 a month costs $1,224 ($408 a year). Nexa is $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), which runs on one device. With optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month, three years comes to $458.64. If you teach group classes, rely on text reminders or a waitlist, or sync your calendar and accounting, stay with Acuity Scheduling and keep a separate record for signed screenings, clearances and credentials. If you are a solo instructor who mainly wants low cost, bookkeeping, and card payments through your own Stripe account, Nexa is worth a look. Check first that you can live with emails that send only while the app is open.
Our read for prenatal fitness instructors: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if you use its text reminders, waitlist, packages or calendar sync, since Nexa has no waitlist, no texts and no Google Calendar sync.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling costs prenatal fitness instructors $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 prenatal fitness instructors: 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?
My morning class is a circle of pregnant clients spanning first trimester to thirty-eight weeks, so before anyone arrives I'm reviewing who's where. The newly pregnant client can still do most things; the one near term needs everything off her back and a ball to sit on. I lead a gentle warm-up, cue pelvic-floor breathing, and run modified strength with light dumbbells, watching for anyone getting dizzy or overheated. I keep their due dates and any notes — gestational diabetes here, a doctor's clearance to exercise there — in mind as I adjust on the fly. One client mentions her OB flagged her blood pressure, so I scale her down and tell her to check back with her doctor. After class we talk babies and birth plans, and a client at thirty-nine weeks says today's probably her last session before delivery, so I let her know about the postpartum class and the pelvic-floor recovery series. Midday I'm programming next week, adjusting each woman's plan as her trimester advances, and noticing two clients are due within the month — I want to set up their return before they disappear into newborn fog. Afternoon admin is the usual tangle: who paid for the prenatal package, who's on a payment plan, and the client on bed rest whose remaining classes I'm holding rather than refunding. Evening, I send a check-in to a client who delivered last week, hoping to bring her back for postpartum when she's cleared.
Every client is at a different trimester, so the modifications change week to week as their bellies grow
Clients cycle out for childbirth, then I lose them unless I catch them for postpartum classes
I need each client's due date and any OB clearance or complications on hand before I program a session
Bed rest, early labor, or a doctor's hold cancels a regular with no notice and I refund or hold their package
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 Prenatal Fitness Instructors
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 a prenatal fitness instructor
Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every prenatal fitness instructor: 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.)
Watch a job become an invoice
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A prenatal fitness instructor'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 8-class prenatal strength and mobility pack
ServicePrenatal group class8 × $22$176
ServiceOne-on-one intake assessment1 × $60$60
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$261
Invoice total$261
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
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 Prenatal Fitness Instructors
The median Prenatal Fitness Instructor earns $40,000/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 prenatal fitness instructors. You own it like you own your Stability and birthing balls.
Is Nexa actually right for a prenatal fitness instructor?
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 12,000 prenatal fitness instructors 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 Stability and birthing balls.
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 prenatal fitness instructors 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.
Prenatal Fitness Instructors 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 prenatal fitness instructors actually deal with
Every client is at a different trimester, so the modifications change week to week as their bellies grow
Clients cycle out for childbirth, then I lose them unless I catch them for postpartum classes
I need each client's due date and any OB clearance or complications on hand before I program a session
Bed rest, early labor, or a doctor's hold cancels a regular with no notice and I refund or hold their package
A day in the life of a prenatal fitness instructor
My morning class is a circle of pregnant clients spanning first trimester to thirty-eight weeks, so before anyone arrives I'm reviewing who's where. The newly pregnant client can still do most things; the one near term needs everything off her back and a ball to sit on. I lead a gentle warm-up, cue pelvic-floor breathing, and run modified strength with light dumbbells, watching for anyone getting dizzy or overheated. I keep their due dates and any notes — gestational diabetes here, a doctor's clearance to exercise there — in mind as I adjust on the fly. One client mentions her OB flagged her blood pressure, so I scale her down and tell her to check back with her doctor. After class we talk babies and birth plans, and a client at thirty-nine weeks says today's probably her last session before delivery, so I let her know about the postpartum class and the pelvic-floor recovery series. Midday I'm programming next week, adjusting each woman's plan as her trimester advances, and noticing two clients are due within the month — I want to set up their return before they disappear into newborn fog. Afternoon admin is the usual tangle: who paid for the prenatal package, who's on a payment plan, and the client on bed rest whose remaining classes I'm holding rather than refunding. Evening, I send a check-in to a client who delivered last week, hoping to bring her back for postpartum when she's cleared.
The tools a working prenatal fitness instructor actually owns
The kit a working prenatal fitness instructor owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Stability and birthing balls
Light dumbbells and resistance loops
Yoga mats and bolsters
Pelvic-floor and breathing cue cards
Pregnancy pillows and blocks
Blood-pressure-friendly heart-rate guide chart
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.
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 prenatal fitness instructors 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 a prenatal fitness instructor'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 prenatal fitness instructor — 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 pricingAcuity Scheduling $408/yr, Vagaro $600/yr, Square, Calendly $144/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 $40,000 median we cite for the typical prenatal fitness instructor 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.
The field's own bodiesWe anchor what prenatal fitness instructors actually need to the people who set the standards — HFA. We don't speak for them; we point you to them so you can weigh this guide against the profession's own.
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 prenatal fitness instructors 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 prenatal fitness instructors, 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.