What speech writers need from their software, from sources outside HoneyBook and outside Nexa:
HoneyBook covers the client-facing side of a speechwriting practice well. It has proposals, contracts, invoices, payments, a client portal and templates, with unlimited clients and projects on every plan. That fits flat per-project fees. It also has 24/7 email and live chat support, and a QuickBooks Online integration on the higher plans. The listed features don't say how it handles a non-refundable reading fee credited against the final invoice, or monthly retainers and hourly billing for the same client, so check those in the 30-day free trial or the 60-day money-back guarantee. It also won't track self-employment tax or irregular income for you as a core feature.
Nexa covers the billing mix in the list. It has invoices, estimates, quotes and proposals that convert to invoices, recurring invoices (useful for retainers), payment plans, time tracking for hourly work, and a client pay portal where clients pay by card through your own Stripe account. It also has a CRM with a pipeline board and a public lead form. For irregular income it has expenses, profit and loss, cash flow and 1099 summaries. The gaps are that it has no sync or import with QuickBooks, no Google Calendar sync (calendar export is an .ics file), and no SMS. Its automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It's software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years, HoneyBook at $36 a month comes to $1,296 ($432 a year). Nexa is $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), and $458.64 if you add optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for the same period. Stay with HoneyBook if you rely on its QuickBooks or Google Calendar connections, want support you can reach any time, or want contracts and a client portal run for you. Consider Nexa if you're cost-conscious, work from one device or are happy to pay for sync, and want invoicing and basic bookkeeping in one tool you own.
Our read for speech writers: Both can handle flat fees, retainers and hourly billing, so choose HoneyBook for hosted support and its QuickBooks and Google Calendar links, or Nexa for a one-time $279 and built-in bookkeeping.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
HoneyBook costs speech writers $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 speech writers: Either can do the job, for the reasons in our read above. On price alone, that is $279 once against $1,296 for HoneyBook over three years.
Client records, scheduling, invoicing 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. 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 actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every speech writer: 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.)
HoneyBook plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median Speech Writer earns $55,000/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 speech writers. You own it like you own your Speaker voice-and-style guides built from past remarks.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small speech writers 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.
Client records, scheduling, invoicing 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.
You write words meant to be heard once and felt immediately. The morning starts with an event brief: who's speaking, to whom, for how long, and why this moment matters, because a commencement, a eulogy, and a keynote demand completely different instruments. You draft for the ear, not the eye, reading every paragraph aloud, timing it, cutting the clause that looks fine on the page but trips the tongue at the podium. The hardest craft is voice; the speech has to sound like the principal, their cadence, their humor, their convictions, so when they deliver it the audience hears them and not you. Midday brings the edits, and there are always edits, from the principal, the chief of staff, the comms lead, each pulling a different direction, and your job is to absorb the changes without letting the speech go limp and committee-flattened. Afternoons you're racing a fixed event date, because unlike most writing, a speech has a hard, public deadline and someone has to rehearse it. You polish the open and the close, the two things people remember, and you read it aloud one last time against the clock. The work is intimate and invisible: when it lands, no one thinks of the writer, and that's exactly the point.
Real speech writers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a speech writer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every speech writer 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 speech writer'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 speech writer — 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 speech writers 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 speech writers, 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