Acuity Scheduling vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Trivia Hosts
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 Trivia Hosts? Our Read
What trivia hosts need from their software, from sources outside Acuity Scheduling and outside Nexa:
Hosts paid per night by venues are usually self-employed, so they need to track net self-employment earnings and make quarterly estimated tax payments. The IRS says you must file a return if net self-employment earnings were $400 or more, and that self-employed people generally pay estimated taxes quarterly using Form 1040-ES. (irs.gov)
Trivia hosts are commonly paid a flat fee per night, so invoicing and income records need to be per-event and per-venue. Trade press from 2014 reports DJ Trivia typically charging $150 per night and one Orlando bar paying Earth Trivia $185 per night. Some venues decline to disclose what they pay. (fsrmagazine.com)
Hosts often work with several venues on recurring weekly slots, and venues judge them on turnout. A trivia company co-owner quoted in FSR Magazine says a host who isn't bringing in 40–60 people every week shouldn't be at the venue. That makes per-venue attendance and schedule records useful for keeping or renegotiating a slot. (fsrmagazine.com)
Hosts who use their own recorded music, such as music rounds or walk-in playlists, need to check music licensing. A law firm article says bars and restaurants need public performance licenses from the performing rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) for recorded music whatever the source. It says playing music without a license is copyright infringement. Hosts should confirm the venue holds the licenses and record that they asked. (payorplay.foxrothschild.com)
Prize costs are a recurring expense that needs tracking and reimbursement or invoicing. FSR Magazine reports that many restaurants give winners cash, gift cards or free food. It says many DJ Trivia restaurants pay $30 for first place, $20 for second and $10 for third. (fsrmagazine.com)
Acuity Scheduling does well at what it was built for: clients booking time with you. It has online booking, class scheduling, intake forms, packages, deposits, payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo, Google Calendar sync, and a QuickBooks integration. It also sends text reminders on the Standard plan and up. A trivia host mostly doesn't need most of that, because venues hire you for a recurring slot and players don't book you. The listed features include no expense tracking, no profit-and-loss report and no per-venue or per-event invoicing. Those are what a self-employed host needs for flat nightly fees, prize costs and quarterly estimated tax records.
Nexa covers the records side. It has invoices (including recurring ones), expense tracking, profit and loss, 1099 summaries and receipt scanning. Its jobs track costing and profit per job, so each night at each venue can be its own job with prizes logged against it. Its CRM holds notes per venue. It also has a public booking page with group-class capacity and works offline. Nexa has no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file) and no QuickBooks or Xero sync. It has no text messages, and it has no waitlist or recurring booking series. Its automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk.
Over three years Acuity costs $1,224 ($34 a month, $408 a year). Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for 36 months. Without sync it runs on one device. If your main need is tracking nightly fees, prize costs and income by venue, Nexa fits better and costs less. If you already depend on Acuity's Google Calendar sync, QuickBooks link or text reminders, stay with Acuity, since Nexa has none of those.
Our read for trivia hosts: Switch to Nexa if you mainly need per-venue invoicing and expense records and can live without Google Calendar sync, QuickBooks sync and text reminders; if you rely on those, stay with Acuity Scheduling.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Acuity Scheduling costs trivia hosts $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 trivia hosts: Acuity Scheduling is solid software, but at $34/month it costs $1,224 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what Acuity Scheduling does for $279 once. For solo trivia hosts and small teams, Nexa is the better deal.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need scheduler, invoicing and connect crm 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?
Most weeks I run four or five nights at bars and breweries, and every night is a show I wrote. Writing is the real job: seven or eight rounds, general knowledge, a picture round, a music round and a themed round, and every question has to be checked, because one wrong answer and a table full of regulars will let you know about it for a month. I write questions that are fair to a mixed room, hard enough that the winners feel they earned it, and with answers people half-know so they argue about them at the table. On the night I arrive an hour early to set up the speaker and microphone, hand out answer sheets and pencils, and talk to the bar manager about specials and any big tables coming in. Hosting is the performance: reading clearly over the noise, keeping the pace up so the bar sells drinks between rounds, teasing the team names without being mean, and marking sheets fast while the music round plays. Scores go up on a board after every round. At the end I hand out the bar's gift cards to the winners, pack up, and log the scores for the season leaderboard. Each venue pays me a flat fee per night, and a few private bookings, corporate parties and fundraisers, pay much better.
Multiple weekly venue residencies with different payment terms
Writing new questions every week takes hours of unpaid prep
Bars canceling on slow nights with little notice
Growing from 2 nights to 5+ nights means managing a complex schedule
Scheduling, invoicing, client records and the books 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 Trivia Hosts
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 trivia host
Software doesn't do the creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every trivia host: 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 trivia host'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 Weekly bar trivia night, one month (4 nights)
ServiceHosted trivia night4 × $200$800
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$850
Invoice total$850
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 Trivia Hosts
The median trivia host 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 trivia hosts. You own it like you own your PA system and microphone.
Is Nexa actually right for a trivia host?
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 trivia hosts in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for wave 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 PA system and microphone.
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 trivia hosts 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.
Scheduling, invoicing, client records and the books 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 trivia hosts actually deal with
Multiple weekly venue residencies with different payment terms
Writing new questions every week takes hours of unpaid prep
Bars canceling on slow nights with little notice
Growing from 2 nights to 5+ nights means managing a complex schedule
A day in the life of a trivia host
Most weeks I run four or five nights at bars and breweries, and every night is a show I wrote. Writing is the real job: seven or eight rounds, general knowledge, a picture round, a music round and a themed round, and every question has to be checked, because one wrong answer and a table full of regulars will let you know about it for a month. I write questions that are fair to a mixed room, hard enough that the winners feel they earned it, and with answers people half-know so they argue about them at the table. On the night I arrive an hour early to set up the speaker and microphone, hand out answer sheets and pencils, and talk to the bar manager about specials and any big tables coming in. Hosting is the performance: reading clearly over the noise, keeping the pace up so the bar sells drinks between rounds, teasing the team names without being mean, and marking sheets fast while the music round plays. Scores go up on a board after every round. At the end I hand out the bar's gift cards to the winners, pack up, and log the scores for the season leaderboard. Each venue pays me a flat fee per night, and a few private bookings, corporate parties and fundraisers, pay much better.
The tools a working trivia host actually owns
PA system and microphone
Trivia software or question database
Laptop and projector
Prize inventory
Why trivia hosts leave the big platforms
wave: Free but entering 16 bar payments a month with different amounts and terms is tedious.
freshbooks: $33/month for invoicing 4 bars. That's 2 bar payments worth of software.
Where trivia hosts actually talk shop
r/trivia (Reddit)
r/Trivianight (Reddit)
r/bartenders (Reddit)
Trivia Host Academy (YouTube)
Local trivia hosts on Nexa
Real trivia hosts near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a trivia host? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every trivia host on Nexa →
The kit a working trivia host owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
PA system and microphone
Trivia software or question database
Laptop and projector
Prize inventory
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.
Where Nexa wins for a trivia host — and where it doesn't
The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a trivia host — here's where it wins, where the integration wins it anyway, and the things it genuinely doesn't do, with who to use instead. (No tool is best at everything; a guide that pretends otherwise is just an ad.)
Compare the essential business tools for trivia hosts
The usual subscriptions vs. Nexa, side by side. Drag the time slider — every year you keep renting, the gap widens. Nexa is $279, one time.
The jobThe usual rentalThe verdict
The whole connected stack4 subscriptions · ~$1,356/yrNexa wins big One tool, $279 once — A booked trivia night becomes a hosted gig, becomes an invoice against that venue's terms, becomes a tracked payment in your books, so the bar that is three months behind cannot hide inside a stack of separate apps. without re-typing. That handoff is the part separate tools can't buy at any price.
Scheduling & bookingCalendly →Nexa wins Nexa keeps your Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday residencies straight in one calendar, so when Saturday's bar tries to move you or a slow night gets canceled you see the conflict instead of double-booking.
InvoicingFreshBooks →Nexa wins Each night's 150 to 250 dollar fee bills against the venue automatically, so Monday's bar that is three months behind shows up as an overdue invoice you can chase, not a number you are carrying in your head.
CRM & clientsHubSpot →Nexa wins Every venue's different payment terms and history sit on its own record, so you know at a glance which bar pays on time and which one is the problem before you book another residency there.
Books & accountingQuickBooks →Nexa wins Your four nightly fees and the hours of unpaid question-writing prep land in your books together, so you can finally see what each residency actually nets instead of guessing across Wave and FreshBooks.
If you run real payroll for a team—Not Nexa Use Gusto → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you than pretend.
If you run big email campaigns & automations—Not Nexa Use ConvertKit → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you than pretend.
If you design graphics & marketing assets—Not Nexa Use Canva → — it's better at that, and we'd rather tell you than pretend.
Prefer to own a piece outright instead of renting? Free and open-source tools (GnuCash, Invoice Ninja and the like) each handle one job if you'll self-host them — a real option, listed because it's true.
Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.
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 trivia hosts 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 trivia host'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 trivia host — 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 pricingWave $228/yr, FreshBooks $516/yr, Acuity Scheduling $408/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 $28,000 median we cite for the typical trivia host 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 trivia hosts 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 trivia hosts, 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.