What presentation designers need from their software, from sources outside HoneyBook and outside Nexa:
HoneyBook covers the client-facing side of this trade well. Presentation designers need ownership and licence terms settled in a signed writing and kept with each client. HoneyBook's contracts, proposals, templates and client portal are built for that, and they work as licence-based quotes and reusable clauses. Its automations, scheduler and unlimited clients and projects suit a studio that runs many decks at once. Bookkeeping is the weaker side. Its own feature list doesn't include a profit and loss or vendor 1099 tracking, so those would rely on the QuickBooks Online integration on its higher plans.
Nexa covers the money side more fully. It has invoices, 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. For the tax needs it has expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, 1099 summaries and receipt scanning. That fits software subscriptions, stock assets, fonts and subcontractor payments. It has no QuickBooks or Xero sync and no Google Calendar sync, and it 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 HoneyBook at $36/month is $1,296 ($432 a year). Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99/month, which you need only to use more than one device. If your main need is signed contracts and licence terms kept with each client, and you already work comfortably in HoneyBook, stay. If your pain is bookkeeping, expense tracking and 1099 summaries, and you can run a single device or pay for sync, Nexa is far cheaper for that part.
Our read for presentation designers: Stay with HoneyBook if signed contracts and licence terms per client are your core need; Nexa is a cheaper option mainly for bookkeeping and 1099 tracking.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
HoneyBook costs presentation designers $432/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 7.8 months it has cost less than HoneyBook, 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 HoneyBook 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 presentation designers: Stay with HoneyBook 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 $1,296 for HoneyBook over three years.
Time tracking, invoicing, client records and scheduling 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. HoneyBook solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $36/month — $432 a year, from HoneyBook'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 $1,017 less.
If HoneyBook 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 | HoneyBook | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | — | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $36/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,296 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for HoneyBook come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as HoneyBook lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from HoneyBook's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
HoneyBook is the better call if you need beautiful proposals and contracts specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
HoneyBook describes itself as built for anyone with clients, aimed at small businesses that work with clients. Its categories are event services, marketing, design and creative, professional services, personal services, and home and real estate. (honeybook.com)
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 presentation designer: 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.)
HoneyBook plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median Presentation Designer earns $45,000/year. At $432/year, HoneyBook 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 presentation designers. You own it like you own your Microsoft PowerPoint (with the Slide Master built out).
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small presentation designers 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.
Time tracking, invoicing, client records and scheduling 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.
My day is paced by other people's meetings. First thing, a consulting client drops a 58-slide strategy deck that's all bullet walls and three different fonts, and the partner presents to a board tomorrow morning, so I triage hard: which slides carry the argument, which can become a single chart, which get cut. I rebuild the Slide Master so every title, color, and margin is consistent, then I work slide by slide turning paragraphs into one clear takeaway with supporting visuals. Midday is the dance of restraint, the client wants every word on screen and I'm fighting to give each idea room to breathe. I build a few animated reveals so a complex framework appears one piece at a time, then immediately test them in an older version of PowerPoint because corporate IT is always a release behind and my smooth fade can turn into a jarring jump. Late afternoon I'm doing the executive's inevitable last-minute edits, swapping a stat, adding a logo, fixing the one bullet they 'absolutely need,' all without letting it break the grid I built. Before I send the final, I make a clean PDF backup of every slide in case the presenter's laptop chokes on the live file mid-meeting.
Real presentation designers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a presentation designer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every presentation designer 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 presentation designer'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 presentation designer — 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 presentation designers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. HoneyBook may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
HoneyBook has features like Beautiful proposals and contracts and Client portal that some businesses rely on. For most solo presentation designers, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $36/month, Nexa pays for itself in 7.8 months. After that: $432 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