What senior companions need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Acuity Scheduling covers the scheduling side of this trade well. Clients can book themselves, and companion work is irregular and arranged around client needs. The Standard plan adds text reminders, a waitlist, memberships and packages, which suit recurring visits and older clients who may not read email. Intake forms and cancelation policies are included. A HIPAA Business Associate Agreement is available on the Premium plan. What it does not show in its feature list is what a care business must prove: hours split by task type (to watch the 20 percent care limit), all hours worked for payroll, and each aide's license, registry and background-check status. It is a booking tool, not a home care records tool.
Nexa covers more of the back office. It has time tracking, a payroll CSV that totals each employee's hours x rate, jobs assigned to team members with a crew view, a public booking page with intake forms and reschedule and cancel links, recurring invoices, payment plans and expense bookkeeping. It does not run payroll (no payroll taxes, pay stubs or direct deposit). It has no text messages or calls, no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file) and no waitlist. Its automated emails, including booking 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 a month plan costs $1,224 ($408 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or $458.64 with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. Nexa is cheaper, but the saving does not make up for losing text reminders and calendar sync if clients and aides depend on them. Keep Acuity Scheduling for booking and reminders. If you are a licensed agency, you will also need dedicated home care management software for task-type hours, license status and registry records, because neither tool is built for those.
Our read for senior companions: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if text reminders and calendar sync matter to your clients and aides, and add dedicated home care compliance software if you run a licensed agency.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Acuity Scheduling costs senior companions $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 senior companions: 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, invoicing and time 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. 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 the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every senior companion: 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 actual work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.
The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.
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 actual 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 senior companion'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 senior companion earns $28,000/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 senior companions. You own it like you own your Reliable vehicle.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small senior companions business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling past a handful of crews, a fleet platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.
Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.
Extreme summer heat drives HVAC demand. Hurricane risk on Gulf Coast. Year-round construction. Rapid population growth in DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio creates sustained demand. Freeze events (like 2021) create emergency plumbing/HVAC surge.
Hurricane season June-November creates massive restoration demand. Snowbird season November-March boosts service volume 30-40%. Year-round construction. Pool service is year-round industry. Pest control peaks in summer humidity.
Harsh winters in upstate, moderate in NYC. Construction limited in winter upstate. NYC market is enormous but hypercompetitive. Brownstone/pre-war building maintenance is specialized trade. NYC licensing is notoriously complex.
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Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
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Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Scheduling, client records, invoicing and time 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.
I spend my days with four regular clients, most of them in their eighties and living at home, and my job is to make those days safer and less lonely. A visit might mean driving someone to a doctor's appointment and taking notes for their family, picking up prescriptions and groceries, preparing a simple meal, or just sitting over coffee and a crossword. I'm watching the whole time: whether they're eating, taking their medication on schedule, moving steadily, and whether their memory seems different from last week, because I'm often the first to notice when something is wrong. I don't provide medical care, and I'm clear with families about where companionship ends and a nurse or home-health aide is needed. Families live far away more often than not, so after every visit I send a short update. Trust is everything; I'm in people's homes, with their keys and sometimes their money for errands, so I keep receipts and records of everything. Most clients book a set number of hours a week, and I bill families monthly.
Real senior companions near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a senior companion? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every senior companion 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 senior companion'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 senior companion — 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 senior companions 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 senior companions, 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