What storyboard artists need from their software, from sources outside HoneyBook and outside Nexa:
HoneyBook covers the paperwork side of storyboarding well. Its proposals and contracts, client portal and templates suit the main need, which is a signed agreement stored with each job saying who owns the boards. For a work-for-hire job, that signed paper is what decides who holds the copyright. Invoices and payments are on every plan, so a job can be split into stages such as thumbnails, revisions and final boards, with extra revision rounds billed as their own line. HoneyBook does not say it tracks union pay classifications or contract periods, and it does not say it works out quarterly estimated tax. Those would be kept in your own notes or with an accountant.
Nexa covers the money and job-tracking side. It has quotes, estimates and proposals that convert to invoices, payment plans, a client pay portal where clients sign estimates and pay by card through your own Stripe account, and jobs with costing and profit per job. It also has missions with one level of sub-steps, time tracking, and bookkeeping with expenses, profit and loss, and 1099 summaries. That is a reasonable base for phased quotes and for setting money aside for tax. Nexa does not have QuickBooks or Xero sync, Google Calendar sync, or text messages. Its automated emails (sequences, workflows and reminders) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you run yourself, with no vendor onboarding or hosted support desk.
Over three years HoneyBook at $36 a month comes to $1,296. Nexa is $279 once, and with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month it comes to $458.64 over the same period. If you already send signed work-for-hire agreements through HoneyBook, keep using it, since the cost saving does not replace a contract workflow you already rely on. Switch only if you mostly need phased quotes, job costing and bookkeeping and are comfortable keeping your signed agreements somewhere else.
Our read for storyboard artists: Stay with HoneyBook if signed work-for-hire contracts are your core need; Nexa is cheaper and strong on quotes, job costing and bookkeeping, but its documented signing covers estimates only.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
HoneyBook costs storyboard artists $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 storyboard artists: 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 storyboard artist: 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 Storyboard Artist 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 storyboard artists. You own it like you own your Toon Boom Storyboard Pro.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small storyboard artists 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.
The morning starts with the latest script revision dropped in the shared drive overnight, so the first hour is reading the new pages and flagging which sequences changed. By 9:30 the director wants thumbnails for the chase sequence, so you rough small panels fast, blocking eyelines and screen direction before any detail. Mid-morning is a notes call: the director wants the reveal held one beat longer, which means inserting two new panels and renumbering the whole sequence. You work in Storyboard Pro because the timeline lets you slap rough timing under each panel and export an animatic the editor can drop into Premiere. Lunch is at the desk, scrubbing the animatic to check whether the action reads. Afternoon is cleanup on yesterday's approved panels: tightening perspective, adding arrows for camera moves, marking which shots are on ones and which hold. Around four the production coordinator asks for a panel count for the budget, and you realize you've drawn forty more panels than the original quote. You note it to raise on the next invoice. The day ends exporting a fresh PDF of the act, labeled with the date and revision letter so nobody boards off a stale version again.
Real storyboard artists near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a storyboard artist? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every storyboard artist 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 storyboard artist'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 storyboard artist — 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 storyboard artists 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 storyboard artists, 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