What mediators need from their software, from sources outside FreshBooks and outside Nexa:
Full disclosure first: the company that publishes this page makes Nexa, so weigh this read accordingly. It is written to tell you to keep what you have if that is the better answer. Mediators bill in ways that ordinary freelance invoicing does not. Published fee schedules charge the first two hours at one rate and later hours at the mediator's own rate. They set a 4-hour minimum and ask for a deposit before the date is secured. Fees are split equally or by agreement between parties, and one party's filing share is credited to the other. Late-cancellation and continuance fees apply, and file retention is often left to the mediator's own judgment. FreshBooks handles the general side well. It has built-in time tracking, professional invoice templates, a client portal, and an interface that non-accountants find easy. The $43 monthly plan is the one that does the core job, and Plus covers 50 clients, with archived clients counting toward that limit. Its published feature list does not show a way to split one invoice across parties and track who owes what, a rate that changes partway through a session, fixed cancellation or continuance fees, or per-case retention and disposal settings. You would likely work around those with manual line items and a separate record.
Nexa has the same general billing tools: invoices, quotes and proposals, payment plans, time tracking, a client pay portal, and full bookkeeping with expenses, bank reconciliation and profit and loss. It does not list any of the four mediator needs above either. It has no multi-party invoice splitting, no rate that changes mid-session, no cancellation-fee rules, and no configurable retention or disposal per case. A client record in its CRM is one person. It also has no sync with outside accounting software, no hosted support desk and no vendor-run onboarding, because it is software you own and run yourself. Any reminder or other automated email sends only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. Without the optional Cloud Sync, it runs on a single device. FreshBooks does offer a 30-day free trial and free phone and email support during it, which Nexa cannot match.
Over three years FreshBooks costs $1,548 ($516 a year). Nexa costs $279 once, or $458.64 if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for all 36 months. The price gap is real, but it only matters if the tool does your job. A mediator who bills plain hourly invoices to a single payer could save money with Nexa. A mediator who splits fees between parties, records cancellation fees and sets retention per case will not get that from either one. That mediator should look at case-management and practice software built for mediators and arbitrators, and in the meantime keep the splits and retention schedule in a separate record. Staying with FreshBooks is reasonable if you already use it, since switching would not fix the gap.
Our read for mediators: Neither FreshBooks nor Nexa lists multi-party invoice splitting, mid-session rate changes, cancellation-fee handling or per-case retention, so a mediator who needs them should look at case-management software built for mediators.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
FreshBooks costs mediators $516/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 6.5 months it has cost less than FreshBooks, 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 FreshBooks 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 mediators: Neither FreshBooks nor Nexa is the main system for this work; start with software built for it. Nexa only makes sense beside it, at $279 once against $1,548 for FreshBooks over three years.
Scheduling, invoicing, client records 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. FreshBooks solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $43/month — $516 a year, from FreshBooks'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 $1,269 less.
If FreshBooks 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 | FreshBooks | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✓ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $43/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,548 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for FreshBooks come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as FreshBooks lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from FreshBooks's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
FreshBooks is the better call if you need very user-friendly for non-accountants specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
FreshBooks says it is "perfect for everyone from self-employed professionals to growing business owners." It lists four audiences: freelancers, solopreneurs, businesses with employees, and businesses with contractors. (freshbooks.com)
What people outside FreshBooks 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 mediator: 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.
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed engagement — the terms and the retainer set.
The work you're paid for — with the hours, tasks, and expenses tracked against the engagement instead of reconstructed at month-end.
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 mediator'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.
FreshBooks plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median mediator earns $55,000/year. At $516/year, FreshBooks 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 mediators. You own it like you own your Zoom (with separate breakout rooms for caucus sessions).
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small mediators 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.
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 →Scheduling, invoicing, client records 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.
Most of my cases are divorces, business disputes and workplace conflicts, and the work begins before anyone is in the same room. I speak with each side separately to understand what's really at stake, which is often different from what they're arguing about, and I explain how mediation works: I don't decide anything, they do. Sessions can run a full day. I set ground rules, let each person be heard, and then work toward options, often moving between separate rooms when tension runs high, carrying proposals back and forth. My job is keeping the conversation productive, testing whether proposals are realistic, and noticing when someone has agreed out of exhaustion rather than conviction. When there's agreement, I draft a memorandum of understanding that their attorneys review before it becomes binding. Confidentiality protects the whole process. Many cases settle in one or two sessions; some need several. I charge an hourly rate split between the parties, with a retainer up front, and time for preparation and drafting is billed too.
Real mediators near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a mediator? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every mediator 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 mediator'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 mediator — 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 mediators and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. FreshBooks may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
FreshBooks has features like Very user-friendly for non-accountants and Built-in time tracking that some businesses rely on. For most solo mediators, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $43/month, Nexa pays for itself in 6.5 months. After that: $516 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