What videographers need from their software, from sources outside Dubsado and outside Nexa:
Dubsado covers the paperwork side of a videography business well. Proposals, contracts with e-signature and invoices can go out together, and contract templates are built in. That matters because a commissioned video is a work made for hire only with a signed written agreement. Otherwise the videographer keeps the copyright and the client needs a license. Dubsado also has payment plans and payment tracking, which suit bursty, project-based income. Its CRM and lead forms cover bids and inquiries, and its client portal keeps signed documents in one place. The $35 a month plan does this core job. Dubsado's own materials don't describe a field for marking each job as a license or a work for hire, so you would record that in the contract wording. It also doesn't track camera, lens and drone purchases as items, though its bookkeeping integration and Zapier connection (both on the higher plan) can pass invoices to other tools.
Nexa covers the business-management side. It has estimates, quotes and proposals that convert to invoices, payment plans, a client pay portal where clients sign estimates and pay by card through your own Stripe account, and a CRM with a pipeline board and a public lead form. It also has jobs with costing and profit per job, which fits tracking income by project. Its bookkeeping covers expenses, receipt scanning, profit and loss, and 1099 summaries, so gear purchases can be logged with their receipts. A simple stock count per product could list equipment, but Nexa has no full inventory management. Nexa does not sync or import with QuickBooks or Xero, has no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file), and has no app marketplace or integration library. Its automated emails (sequences, workflows, 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 Dubsado at $35 a month costs $1,260 ($420 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and runs on one device. With optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month, three years comes to $458.64. If your work depends on e-signed contracts and templates, and you already have your Dubsado workflow running, stay: Nexa's facts cover signing estimates but don't describe contract templates. If you mostly need invoicing, a pipeline, job profit and bookkeeping in one low-cost tool you run yourself, and can accept no accounting sync, Nexa is the cheaper option.
Our read for videographers: Keep Dubsado if signed contracts and templates are central to your video work and you rely on its integrations; Nexa is the cheaper option only if you mainly need invoicing, job costing and bookkeeping.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Dubsado costs videographers $420/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 8.0 months it has cost less than Dubsado, 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 Dubsado 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 videographers: Stay with Dubsado 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 $1,260 for Dubsado over three years.
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. Dubsado solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $35/month — $420 a year, from Dubsado'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 $981 less.
If Dubsado 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 | Dubsado | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | — | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $35/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,260 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Dubsado come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Dubsado lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Dubsado's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Dubsado is the better call if you need all-in-one crm for creatives specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Dubsado says it is for creative, licensed, and event-based businesses. Its homepage names photographers, designers, copywriters, coaches, virtual assistants, accountants, legal professionals, event planners and wedding planners. (dubsado.com)
What people outside Dubsado 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 creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every videographer: 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.
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed project — with the scope and the deposit locked in.
The work itself — tracked against the project: hours, milestones, revisions, and expenses, so nothing bills late or goes uncounted.
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 creative 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 videographer'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.
Dubsado plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median videographer earns $48,000/year. At $420/year, Dubsado 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 videographers. You own it like you own your Camera bodies (Sony FX3/FX6, Canon C70, Blackmagic).
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small videographers 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.
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
Your people are already online — swapping real numbers, tool picks, and war stories. Here's where to find them.
Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.
Open on Reddit →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.
A two-minute brand film is two days of shooting and a week of editing. Pre-production is where it's won: a call to understand what the client wants people to feel, a script or at least an outline, a shot list, locations and permissions, and a schedule that fits the light. Shoot days mean hauling cameras, lenses, lights, stands, audio recorders, lav mics and batteries, and setting up every scene so the sound is clean, because bad audio can't be fixed later. Then the edit: syncing audio, selecting takes, building the story, colour grading, sound mixing, music licensing, captions, and exporting versions for the web, Instagram and a fifteen-second cut. The client gets two rounds of revisions in my contract, and the third one is billed, which I have to point out politely every time. Weddings follow the same pattern with a harder deadline. Money comes as a deposit to book, a payment on the shoot day and the balance on delivery. I'm backing up footage to two drives the same night, because losing a card means losing the job.
Real videographers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a videographer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every videographer 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 videographer'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 videographer — 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 videographers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Dubsado may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Dubsado has features like All-in-one CRM for creatives and Contract and proposal templates that some businesses rely on. For most solo videographers, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $35/month, Nexa pays for itself in 8.0 months. After that: $420 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