Dubsado vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Wedding Planners
Dubsado
$35/mo ($420/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 8.0 months at Dubsado's current price.
Does Dubsado Fit Wedding Planners? Our Read
What wedding planners need from their software, from sources outside Dubsado and outside Nexa:
Sales tax treatment of planning fees and vendor pass-through payments can depend on documentation. In a 2018 Virginia Tax Commissioner ruling, a wedding planner was assessed as a caterer but was found to be providing a nontaxable service. The planner acted as a conduit, and clients contracted directly with vendors. To remove catering and cake charges from the audit, the planner had to show no markup, show that clients contracted directly with vendors, and show client deposits, retainer holdings and distributions to vendors against vendor invoices, plus copies of the client service agreements. Software therefore needs to track client retainer funds and vendor payments per client, and keep the signed contracts alongside them. This is one state's ruling, and other states differ. (tax.virginia.gov)
Planners often hold client retainers or deposits before the work is done, so the tax timing of advance payments matters. IRS Publication 538 says an accrual-method business can elect to postpone including an advance payment in income until the next year, but not beyond that. Otherwise income is reported in the year it is received or made available without restriction. Because weddings are booked many months ahead, deposits often arrive in a different tax year than the event. Records should show the date received, the event date, and what has been earned. (irs.gov)
Most independent planners are self-employed and have no employer withholding. The IRS says self-employed people generally make quarterly estimated tax payments (Form 1040-ES) covering income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and owe self-employment tax in addition to income tax. Bookkeeping for planners should therefore track net income through the year to support quarterly estimates. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook lists self-employed workers at 10 percent of employment for event planners. (irs.gov)
Workload for event planners is uneven and tied to event dates. BLS says most event planners work full time and many work more than 40 hours a week, often adding hours to finalize preparations as major events approach, and may work weekends and travel to events and sites. Scheduling and time tracking need to handle clustered event-week workloads, weekend work, and site-visit travel, not a standard weekday calendar. The median annual wage was $61,160 in May 2025. (bls.gov)
Dubsado covers the sales side of planning well. Proposals, contracts with e-signature and invoices can go out together. Payment plans, payment reminders and payment tracking are included, and so are client portals, questionnaires, discovery-call scheduling and a calendar connection. That suits the signed-agreement-plus-deposit workflow a planner needs, and its workflows run on its own servers. It also has time tracking and a mobile app, and email and live chat support on both plans. What its feature list does not show is a per-client ledger of retainers held and vendor payments made, or any support for quarterly estimated-tax figures. Its bookkeeping integration is on Premier only, so planners would likely keep their books elsewhere.
Nexa covers more of the money side in one place. It has estimates and proposals that convert to invoices, payment plans, and a client pay portal where clients pay by card through your own Stripe account and sign estimates. Its bookkeeping includes expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, a balance sheet, cash flow, 1099 summaries and sales tax tracking. Job costing shows profit per job. It also has a CRM with a pipeline and a public lead form, a booking page with intake forms, time tracking, and jobs you can assign to team members. Its limits matter for a planner: there is no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file), no QuickBooks or Xero sync, no text messaging and no integration library. Its automated emails, sequences, workflows and 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 is $420 a year, or $1,260. Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and that runs on one device. If you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for the full three years, the total is $458.64. A planner who relies on Dubsado's hosted automations, calendar connection and support should stay. A solo planner who wants built-in books and a lower cost, and who is fine with keeping Nexa open for emails to go out, could reasonably move.
Our read for wedding planners: Stay with Dubsado if hosted automations, calendar connection and vendor support matter to you. Nexa's built-in bookkeeping and lower three-year cost fit only a solo planner who can keep it open for emails to send.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Dubsado costs wedding planners $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.
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 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 wedding planners: 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.
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 Dubsado if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Dubsado's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
A wedding is a year of work that comes together over one day. I start with the couple's budget, guest count and vision, then help them choose a venue and assemble a vendor team: catering, florist, photographer, music, rentals and hair and makeup, reviewing every contract for deposits, cancellation terms and overtime rates. Over the months I'm running the planning timeline: design decisions, tastings, invitations, the seating chart that's rewritten six times, and the budget tracker that keeps everyone honest. In the final weeks I confirm every vendor, build a minute-by-minute timeline for the day, and run the rehearsal. On the wedding day I'm there from vendor arrival to the last guest: making sure the setup matches the plan, cueing the ceremony, managing the timeline, fixing problems before anyone notices, and handing out tips and final payments. Something always goes wrong, and the job is making sure the couple never knows. I'm paid a planning fee in stages, and I never hold vendor money, which goes directly from the couple to each vendor.
Managing 8-15 active weddings at different planning stages simultaneously
HoneyBook and Dubsado both take payment processing cuts on large retainers
Vendor coordination across 10+ vendors per wedding
Scope creep when 'month-of coordination' turns into 6 months of hand-holding
Client records, scheduling, invoicing and job 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. Dubsado solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Dubsado Actually Costs Wedding Planners
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.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$420
Year 2$420
Year 3$420
Three years of Dubsado$1,260
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-by-Feature
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.
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.
Dubsado'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 Dubsado Does Better
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.
All-in-one CRM for creatives
Contract and proposal templates
Workflow automation
Client portal
Scheduler integration
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $35/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
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.
What Dubsado Is Built For
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)
Proposals, contracts with e-signature, and invoices can be sent together. Payment plans, automated payment reminders and payment tracking are included. (dubsado.com)
Both plans include unlimited projects and clients, client portals, invoicing and payment plans, form and email templates, a calendar connection, an email integration, and mobile app access. (dubsado.com)
Annual pricing is $335 a year for Starter and $525 a year for Premier. Premier adds automated workflows, advanced scheduling, public proposals, a bookkeeping integration and Zapier integration. It also allows unlimited active lead capture forms, where Starter allows 1. (dubsado.com)
Three additional users are free. Beyond that, 4–10 users cost $25 a month, 11–20 cost $45 a month, and 21–30 cost $60 a month. Extra brands cost $10 a month each. (dubsado.com)
The free trial lasts 21 days with full Premier access and needs no credit card. Support by email and live chat is included on both plans. (dubsado.com)
The homepage lists lead capture with branded intake forms, scheduling for discovery calls, questionnaires, time tracking and reports, and a mobile app with Tap to Pay. It also points to a help center, live webinars, and Certified Specialists you can hire. (dubsado.com)
What people outside Dubsado and outside Nexa say:
Praise from a blogger: "The customer service is also top-notch," custom workflows have "saved me countless hours," and client portals make the author look organized. I found no disclosed affiliate link on the page, but the page links to Dubsado repeatedly and has a call to action. (jilliandolberry.com)
Criticism from the same blogger: "The learning curve can be a bit steep at first," and the author says you will likely need the more expensive premium plan. (jilliandolberry.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 wedding planner
Software doesn't do the creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every wedding planner: 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 wedding planner'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 planning, 150 guests
ServicePlanning fee1 × $5,500$5,500
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$5,900
Deposit credited−$1,800
Invoice total$4,100
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
Calculate Your Full Stack
Dubsado plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Dubsado
1
Export your data — Go to Settings → export your client list, project data, and invoice history.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your client list. Recreate key workflow templates.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 2 weeks. Complete active projects in Dubsado, start new ones in Nexa.
4
Cancel Dubsado — Cancel subscription. Download contract templates and client data as backup.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Wedding Planners
The median wedding planner earns $42,000/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 wedding planners. You own it like you own your Planning binders and timeline templates.
Is Nexa actually right for a wedding planner?
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 30,000 wedding planners in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for honeybook 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 Planning binders and timeline templates.
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 wedding planners 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.
Wedding Planners by the numbers — by place
What wedding planners charge, city by city
$5,945 /weddingavg local price
+70%vs national
moderatesaturation
~4,060operators
6%growth
$5,865 /weddingavg local price
+68%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,086operators
4%growth
$4,682 /weddingavg local price
+34%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,167operators
7%growth
$4,557 /weddingavg local price
+30%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,636operators
11%growth
$4,823 /weddingavg local price
+38%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,253operators
7%growth
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
🎧 The Wedding Planner Podcast🎧 Wed & Prosper🎧 Weddings for Real
Forums
WeddingWire Forums
Client records, scheduling, invoicing and job 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.
What wedding planners actually deal with
Managing 8-15 active weddings at different planning stages simultaneously
HoneyBook and Dubsado both take payment processing cuts on large retainers
Vendor coordination across 10+ vendors per wedding
Scope creep when 'month-of coordination' turns into 6 months of hand-holding
A day in the life of a wedding planner
A wedding is a year of work that comes together over one day. I start with the couple's budget, guest count and vision, then help them choose a venue and assemble a vendor team: catering, florist, photographer, music, rentals and hair and makeup, reviewing every contract for deposits, cancellation terms and overtime rates. Over the months I'm running the planning timeline: design decisions, tastings, invitations, the seating chart that's rewritten six times, and the budget tracker that keeps everyone honest. In the final weeks I confirm every vendor, build a minute-by-minute timeline for the day, and run the rehearsal. On the wedding day I'm there from vendor arrival to the last guest: making sure the setup matches the plan, cueing the ceremony, managing the timeline, fixing problems before anyone notices, and handing out tips and final payments. Something always goes wrong, and the job is making sure the couple never knows. I'm paid a planning fee in stages, and I never hold vendor money, which goes directly from the couple to each vendor.
The tools a working wedding planner actually owns
Planning binders and timeline templates
Emergency kit (sewing kit, stain remover, tape)
Walkie-talkies for day-of coordination
Laptop and mobile office setup
Why wedding planners leave the big platforms
honeybook: $39/month plus 2.9% payment processing. With 15 clients paying $3,000 retainers, that's $1,305 in processing plus $468 in subscription. Nearly $1,800/year.
dubsado: Powerful but the setup took 40+ hours. Every time I need to change a workflow, it's another hour of configuration.
17hats: Dated interface that hasn't meaningfully improved in years. Feels like software from 2016.
Where wedding planners actually talk shop
r/weddingplanning (Reddit)
r/WeddingPhotography (Reddit)
r/Weddingsunder10k (Reddit)
WeddingWire Forums (Forum)
Jamie Wolfer (YouTube)
Weddings by Kelley (YouTube)
The Wedding Planner School (YouTube)
Local wedding planners on Nexa
Real wedding planners near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a wedding planner? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every wedding planner on Nexa →
The kit a working wedding planner owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Planning binders and timeline templates
Emergency kit (sewing kit, stain remover, tape)
Walkie-talkies for day-of coordination
Laptop and mobile office setup
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 Dubsado'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 Dubsado'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 wedding planners we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Dubsado on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Dubsado'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 wedding planner'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 wedding planner — 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, Dubsado $420/yr, 17hats $720/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 $42,000 median we cite for the typical wedding planner 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.
The field's own bodiesWe anchor what wedding planners actually need to the people who set the standards — MPI. We don't speak for them; we point you to them so you can weigh this guide against the profession's own.
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 Dubsado replacement?
For solo wedding planners 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.
What does Dubsado do that Nexa doesn't?
Dubsado has features like All-in-one CRM for creatives and Contract and proposal templates that some businesses rely on. For most solo wedding planners, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $35/month, Nexa pays for itself in 8.0 months. After that: $420 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.