Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Scalp Micropigmentation Artists
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 Scalp Micropigmentation Artists? Our Read
What scalp micropigmentation artists need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Track licence terms and renewal dates, and the extra fees tied to them. Maine requires a state micropigmentation licence to practise or advertise. It lasts 2 years from issue and can be renewed every two years. The department must give at least 30 days' notice before expiry. Renewal can also carry late fees, extra inspection fees or fines. A conditional licence is possible if an inspection finds problems. (mainelegislature.org)
Keep proof of bloodborne pathogens training and pay per-state fees. In Florida, SMP-type pigment work counts as tattooing. A new artist licence needs a Department-approved bloodborne pathogens course, passed at 70% or higher. The work also needs a Biomedical Waste Generator Permit ($85 state fee). The artist licence costs $60, and reactivating an expired one costs $85. Local county fees may also apply. (floridahealth.gov)
Log continuing education and certificate dates for the industry credential. The SPCP's CSMP credential renews every 2 years. Renewal needs an updated bloodborne pathogens certificate and proof of 12 hours of continuing education within the past 2 years, at least 4 of them SMP-specific. The renewal fee is $150 for members and $250 for non-members. Missing the renewal means losing the CSMP logo and retaking the exam. (spcp.org)
Keep client-level documentation (consent forms, applications, photos of work) and practitioner credentials, because regulators ask for them. New Jersey treats SMP under permanent cosmetics rules. It requires OSHA-compliant bloodborne pathogen training (29 CFR 1910.1030) and a 100-hour course with procedures performed. Credentials are verified by the local health department, not a state licence. For tattooing and piercing practitioner status, it asks for consent forms from 3 clients, 10 client applications and 10 photos of the practitioner's work. (nj.gov)
Acuity Scheduling covers the booking side of an SMP practice well. It has online booking, custom intake forms, packages and subscriptions, deposits, gift certificates, coupons, cancelation policies and text reminders on the higher plans. It also syncs with Google Calendar and Apple Calendar and takes payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo. Intake forms can hold consent and health questions. A Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA is available on its top plan. What its feature list does not describe is tracking licence terms, renewal dates, bloodborne pathogens certificates or continuing education for credentials such as the CSMP. Nor does it describe storing before-and-after photos of your work. The regulatory paperwork this trade needs would have to live somewhere else.
Nexa covers more of the record-keeping side. Its public booking page has intake forms, reschedule and cancel links, and email reminders. Clients get a CRM record with tags and notes, and notes can be tick-box checklists linked to a client. Photos taken on the phone (before, after, progress) stay with the job record, and invoices, estimates and payment plans run through your own Stripe account. It works offline. It has no text messaging, no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file) and no waitlist. Its automated emails, including reminders, send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years, Acuity Scheduling on the $34/month plan costs $408 a year, or $1,224. Nexa is $279 once (or 3 payments of $99). With the optional $4.99/month Cloud Sync for three years, it comes to $458.64. If your calendar lives in Google Calendar, or clients rely on text reminders and a waitlist, stay with Acuity Scheduling. Nexa's lower cost does not make up for those gaps. If you mainly want a cheaper way to take bookings, keep client notes and job photos, and bill clients, and you can leave Nexa open for emails to go out, Nexa is a reasonable fit. Either way, keep your licence and certificate renewal dates in a separate record.
Our read for scalp micropigmentation artists: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if you depend on text reminders or Google Calendar sync; Nexa is cheaper but lacks both.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling costs scalp micropigmentation 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.
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 scalp micropigmentation 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.
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?
The morning starts with a consultation, not a needle. Someone who has been losing hair for years sits down, and the first 30 minutes is listening, then sketching a hairline with a washable pencil, checking it against their face shape and how far back they actually want to go. Trust gets built here or not at all. Once they approve the design, you mix pigment to match their natural depth and undertone, dilute it for the first pass so it lands soft, and set the machine shallow. Then the real work: hours of placing thousands of tiny dots between existing follicles, varying angle and pressure so it reads as stubble and not a solid line, stepping back under the lamp every few minutes to check density and symmetry. The room is quiet except for the machine. Clients often talk about why they came, and you keep the mood steady and unsentimental. When the session ends you photograph every angle in the same light as the intake shots, walk them through aftercare, no sweating, no sun, no scrubbing for several days, and book the next pass two weeks out, because the color settles and lightens before you add the next layer. Between clients you wipe down, swap barrier film, log the pigment batch, and confirm tomorrow's deposits.
Selling and tracking multi-session packages (typically 3+ passes spaced 7-14 days apart) and knowing which session each client is on without flipping through paper notes
Capturing before/after photos at every angle plus signed consent and pigment-batch records the client expects and licensing requires
Staying compliant with bloodborne-pathogen training, local body-art licensing, and inspection-ready logs while running a one-person studio
No-shows and late cancels that vaporize a half-day 3-to-5-hour slot that can't be backfilled, when deposits weren't collected up front, and quoting fairly by scalp area and Norwood scale instead of one flat price
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 Scalp Micropigmentation Artists
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 scalp micropigmentation artist
Software doesn't do your clients — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every scalp micropigmentation 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.
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 scalp micropigmentation 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.
The job Full scalp micropigmentation, 3 sessions
ServiceSMP treatment session3 × $900$2,700
ServiceHairline design consultation1 × $75$75
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$2,820
Deposit credited−$500
Invoice total$2,320
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 Scalp Micropigmentation Artists
The median scalp micropigmentation artist 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 scalp micropigmentation artists. You own it like you own your Rotary permanent-makeup/SMP machine with adjustable needle depth and voltage control.
Is Nexa actually right for a scalp micropigmentation artist?
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 scalp micropigmentation artists 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 Rotary permanent-makeup/SMP machine with adjustable needle depth and voltage control.
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 scalp micropigmentation 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.
Scalp Micropigmentation Artists 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 scalp micropigmentation artists actually deal with
Selling and tracking multi-session packages (typically 3+ passes spaced 7-14 days apart) and knowing which session each client is on without flipping through paper notes
Capturing before/after photos at every angle plus signed consent and pigment-batch records the client expects and licensing requires
Staying compliant with bloodborne-pathogen training, local body-art licensing, and inspection-ready logs while running a one-person studio
No-shows and late cancels that vaporize a half-day 3-to-5-hour slot that can't be backfilled, when deposits weren't collected up front, and quoting fairly by scalp area and Norwood scale instead of one flat price
A day in the life of a scalp micropigmentation artist
The morning starts with a consultation, not a needle. Someone who has been losing hair for years sits down, and the first 30 minutes is listening, then sketching a hairline with a washable pencil, checking it against their face shape and how far back they actually want to go. Trust gets built here or not at all. Once they approve the design, you mix pigment to match their natural depth and undertone, dilute it for the first pass so it lands soft, and set the machine shallow. Then the real work: hours of placing thousands of tiny dots between existing follicles, varying angle and pressure so it reads as stubble and not a solid line, stepping back under the lamp every few minutes to check density and symmetry. The room is quiet except for the machine. Clients often talk about why they came, and you keep the mood steady and unsentimental. When the session ends you photograph every angle in the same light as the intake shots, walk them through aftercare, no sweating, no sun, no scrubbing for several days, and book the next pass two weeks out, because the color settles and lightens before you add the next layer. Between clients you wipe down, swap barrier film, log the pigment batch, and confirm tomorrow's deposits.
The tools a working scalp micropigmentation artist actually owns
Rotary permanent-makeup/SMP machine with adjustable needle depth and voltage control
Single-use sterile cartridge needles (1-point and 3-point round liners for follicle dots)
Carbon-based SMP pigments in graded shades, mixed for skin tone and Norwood stage
Magnification lamp or loupes for placing consistent micro-dots between existing follicles
Autoclave or barrier-film setup plus a covered medical sharps disposal container
Reclining hydraulic treatment chair with adjustable headrest for multi-hour sessions
The kit a working scalp micropigmentation artist owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Rotary permanent-makeup/SMP machine with adjustable needle depth and voltage control
Single-use sterile cartridge needles (1-point and 3-point round liners for follicle dots)
Carbon-based SMP pigments in graded shades, mixed for skin tone and Norwood stage
Magnification lamp or loupes for placing consistent micro-dots between existing follicles
Autoclave or barrier-film setup plus a covered medical sharps disposal container
Reclining hydraulic treatment chair with adjustable headrest for multi-hour sessions
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 scalp micropigmentation artists 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 scalp micropigmentation 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 scalp micropigmentation 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.
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 scalp micropigmentation artist 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 scalp micropigmentation 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.
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 scalp micropigmentation artists, 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.