What virtual assistants need from their software, from sources outside FreshBooks and outside Nexa:
Disclosure first: the publisher of this page makes Nexa, so we have a stake in this comparison. That is why the read below leans on what each product is documented to do, and why it ends by telling many virtual assistants to keep FreshBooks. FreshBooks covers the part of the VA trade that is hardest to do without. Many VAs bill on retainer, meaning prepaid hours charged for the month ahead. The FreshBooks Plus plan at $43/month lists retainers, alongside time tracking, proposals, a client portal, financial reports, receipt scanning and accountant access. It is also easy for non-accountants to use, and it comes with a mobile app and free phone and email support during the trial. Its limits are client caps (5 billable clients on Lite, 50 on Plus), and archived clients count toward the cap until you delete them. For the tax side, the IRS expects a VA to pay 15.3% self-employment tax (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare) and to make quarterly estimated payments with Form 1040-ES. Neither product's feature list shows it calculating either one, so you would still need your accountant or a separate tax tool for that. Independent-contractor evidence (a written agreement, a record of how the work is directed) is also only partly covered, through proposals and invoices.
Nexa covers a lot of the invoicing and bookkeeping that a VA needs. It has invoices, estimates, quotes and proposals that convert to invoices, recurring invoices, payment plans, and a client pay portal where clients pay by card through your own Stripe account and sign estimates. It also has time tracking, expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, 1099 summaries and receipt scanning. Its feature list does not include a retainer feature for prepaid monthly hours. Recurring invoices or payment plans might approximate one, but we would not call that equivalent. It has no QuickBooks or Xero sync, and no app marketplace. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding. Any automated emails (sequences, workflows, reminders) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, and without the optional $4.99/month Cloud Sync it runs on one device. Like FreshBooks, it does not calculate self-employment tax or quarterly estimates.
Over three years FreshBooks Plus costs $1,548 ($516 a year). Nexa costs $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), or $458.64 with Cloud Sync for the same period. The savings are real, but they only matter if Nexa does the job. A VA who bills hourly or per project, uses one computer, has a small client list and doesn't need vendor support could reasonably choose Nexa. A VA who bills on retainer, relies on FreshBooks' phone and email support or its mobile app, or expects more than 5 clients should stay with FreshBooks. Whichever tool you use, plan separately for self-employment tax and quarterly estimates, and keep a written agreement with each long-term client.
Our read for virtual assistants: Stay with FreshBooks if you bill clients on retainer or want hosted support; Nexa is the cheaper choice only for a VA who bills hourly or per project and works from one device.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
FreshBooks costs virtual assistants $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 virtual assistants: Stay with FreshBooks 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 $1,548 for FreshBooks over three years.
Time tracking, invoicing, client records and job tracking are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. 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 creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every virtual assistant: 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 virtual assistant'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 virtual assistant earns $38,000/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 virtual assistants. You own it like you own your Home office setup (desk, chair, dual monitors).
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small virtual assistants 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 →Time tracking, invoicing, client records and job tracking are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. The sections below price both routes honestly.
I support five clients, and each one has handed me a different slice of their business. For one I manage the inbox and calendar, sorting what needs her attention from what I can answer myself. For another I run the back office: invoices out, bills logged, payments chased, and a weekly summary of where money stands. A third gets social media scheduling and newsletter formatting, and a fourth has me on customer service, answering enquiries within an hour. Every client has their own tools, logins and preferences, so I keep detailed notes and checklists for each one; the job is being reliable enough that they stop thinking about the task at all. I work in time blocks, and I track every hour because most of my clients are on monthly retainers for a set number of hours, and I have to flag it when the work outgrows the retainer. Confidentiality matters: I'm inside people's email, finances and client lists. I invoice at the start of each month and spend a couple of hours a week finding the next client.
Real virtual assistants near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a virtual assistant? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every virtual assistant 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 virtual assistant'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 virtual assistant — 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 virtual assistants 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 virtual assistants, 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