Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Stilt Walkers
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 Stilt Walkers? Our Read
What stilt walkers need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Stilt work needs a pre-job hazard check and equipment upkeep records. The CompSource Mutual safety guidance says a hazard assessment must be conducted. Stilts must be inspected before use. Damaged stilts must be repaired by someone qualified by the manufacturer, or replaced. Users need a rigid platform at least as tall as the stilts to mount and dismount. The work surface must be flat, without holes or obstructions. This supports per-venue site notes and an equipment inspection and repair log for each booking. (compsourcemutual.com)
Costumes and accessories are a main business expense for stilt walkers, so they need to be tracked for tax. IRS Publication 529 says musicians and entertainers can deduct the cost of theatrical clothing and accessories that are not suitable for everyday wear. (irs.gov)
Most stilt walkers are paid per gig as self-employed people. They owe self-employment tax of 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare) once net self-employment earnings reach $400, and they file Schedule SE with Form 1040. Bookkeeping needs per-gig income records and a way to set aside money for this tax. (irs.gov)
Acuity Scheduling covers the booking side of stilt work well. Clients self-schedule, get email reminders on every plan and text reminders from Standard up, and can pay through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo. Packages, gift certificates, deposits, cancelation policies and custom intake forms all suit event bookings. It does not give you a per-booking equipment inspection and repair log, a place for per-venue site notes on flat surfaces and mounting platforms, expense tracking for costumes and accessories, or per-gig income records with a way to plan for self-employment tax. Its intake forms can collect venue details, but nothing there is bookkeeping.
Nexa covers more of the record-keeping. Notes can be checklists linked to a client or contact, which fits venue site notes and pre-job hazard checks, though a checklist is not attached to a job. Photos taken on the phone stay with the job record. Expenses with receipt scanning, profit and loss, jobs with costing and profit per job, and 1099 summaries cover costume costs and per-gig income. It also has a public booking page with intake forms and reschedule and cancel links. Its limits matter here: it has no text messages or calls, no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file), no waitlist, and no sync or import with QuickBooks or Xero. Its automated emails, including booking, payment and review reminders, send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. Online card payments go only through your own Stripe account. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk.
Over three years Acuity Scheduling at $34 a month is $408 a year, or $1,224. Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 with Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month if you want it across devices. Stilt walkers who mainly need expense tracking, per-gig income records and site notes, and who can live without text reminders, should move to Nexa. Those who rely on text reminders, Google Calendar sync or a waitlist for bookings should stay with Acuity Scheduling.
Our read for stilt walkers: Stay with Acuity Scheduling if text reminders, Google Calendar sync or a waitlist matter to your bookings, because Nexa has none of them and its automated emails send only while Nexa is open.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling costs stilt walkers $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 stilt walkers: 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 connect crm, scheduler 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 day starts checking the venue specs before anything else, because at eight feet tall a low doorway, a chandelier, or a soft patch of grass is the difference between a great gig and a trip to the ER. You strap into the drywall stilts using a mounting chair, take the first careful steps to find your balance, and let the costume's extra-long legs fall right so the illusion of a ten-foot person holds. The gig is a festival, so you're parading through crowds that immediately press in for photos, and you're constantly reading the ground, scanning for gravel, a curb, a slope, a cable taped to the floor, anything that could catch a stilt. A spotter walks with you because a bumped stilt at that height is no small fall. You work the crowd, wave, pose, maybe juggle a few clubs, all while there's nowhere to sit, so the set length you agreed to actually matters to your body. Between sets you find the one chair tall enough to rest against without dismounting. Indoor jobs are a gamble you can't take blind, so you turn down or modify any booking where the ceiling won't clear your headpiece. The day ends checking the stilt straps and joints for wear, because the equipment is the only thing between you and the ground.
Walking eight feet up means surfaces matter enormously, so grass, gravel, slopes, and indoor thresholds are fall hazards a generic event planner never warns you about in advance
Most venues have height limits, low ceilings, doorways, and chandeliers that make indoor stilt work impossible, so a site check has to happen before you commit
Crowds press in for photos and a bumped stilt at that height is a serious-injury risk, so you need a spotter or a clear performance zone the client must arrange
Getting up on stilts requires a mounting chair and a few minutes, and there's nowhere to sit during a long shift, so set duration has to be negotiated and built in
Client records, scheduling 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 Stilt Walkers
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 stilt walker
Software doesn't do the creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every stilt walker: 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 creative work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
1
Find the work
Land the project
↓
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed project — with the scope and the deposit locked in.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Do the work
↓
The work itself — tracked against the project: hours, milestones, revisions, and expenses, so nothing bills late or goes uncounted.
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 the creative work. (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 stilt walker'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 Stilt walker at a summer festival, 2 hours
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 Stilt Walkers
The median Stilt Walker 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 stilt walkers. You own it like you own your Drywall or peg stilts with foot straps.
Is Nexa actually right for a stilt walker?
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 10,000 stilt walkers 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 Drywall or peg stilts with foot straps.
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 stilt walkers 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.
Client records, scheduling 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 stilt walkers actually deal with
Walking eight feet up means surfaces matter enormously, so grass, gravel, slopes, and indoor thresholds are fall hazards a generic event planner never warns you about in advance
Most venues have height limits, low ceilings, doorways, and chandeliers that make indoor stilt work impossible, so a site check has to happen before you commit
Crowds press in for photos and a bumped stilt at that height is a serious-injury risk, so you need a spotter or a clear performance zone the client must arrange
Getting up on stilts requires a mounting chair and a few minutes, and there's nowhere to sit during a long shift, so set duration has to be negotiated and built in
A day in the life of a stilt walker
The day starts checking the venue specs before anything else, because at eight feet tall a low doorway, a chandelier, or a soft patch of grass is the difference between a great gig and a trip to the ER. You strap into the drywall stilts using a mounting chair, take the first careful steps to find your balance, and let the costume's extra-long legs fall right so the illusion of a ten-foot person holds. The gig is a festival, so you're parading through crowds that immediately press in for photos, and you're constantly reading the ground, scanning for gravel, a curb, a slope, a cable taped to the floor, anything that could catch a stilt. A spotter walks with you because a bumped stilt at that height is no small fall. You work the crowd, wave, pose, maybe juggle a few clubs, all while there's nowhere to sit, so the set length you agreed to actually matters to your body. Between sets you find the one chair tall enough to rest against without dismounting. Indoor jobs are a gamble you can't take blind, so you turn down or modify any booking where the ceiling won't clear your headpiece. The day ends checking the stilt straps and joints for wear, because the equipment is the only thing between you and the ground.
The tools a working stilt walker actually owns
Drywall or peg stilts with foot straps
Extra-long stilt costumes and stage pants
Knee and wrist pads for safety
Spotter rope and mounting block or chair
Themed headpieces and props (juggling clubs, LED accents)
Card reader for booking deposits
Local stilt walkers on Nexa
Real stilt walkers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a stilt walker? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every stilt walker on Nexa →
The kit a working stilt walker owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Drywall or peg stilts with foot straps
Extra-long stilt costumes and stage pants
Knee and wrist pads for safety
Spotter rope and mounting block or chair
Themed headpieces and props (juggling clubs, LED accents)
Card reader for booking deposits
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 stilt walkers 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 stilt walker'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 stilt walker — 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 pricingHoneyBook $432/yr, Acuity Scheduling $408/yr, FreshBooks $516/yr, Square — 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 $42,000 median we cite for the typical stilt walker 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 stilt walkers 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 stilt walkers, 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.