What chimney sweeps need from their software, from sources outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa:
We make Nexa, and we haven't tested either product with real CSIA records or NFPA 211 files, so this comes from the vendors' own feature lists. Housecall Pro's 4.7-star Capterra figure is also its own claim. Housecall Pro covers the truck-and-calendar half of a seasonal trade well. It has scheduling and dispatching, online booking, vehicle GPS, 'On My Way' texts, and a CSR AI that answers calls and books jobs. Those matter when late summer through early winter fills the calendar and homeowners book once the first cold snap hits. The pieces closest to a sweep's paperwork sit above the $79 plan. Photo reports, the nearest thing listed to inspection evidence, need a higher plan. Recurring service plans, which suit the once-a-year NFPA 211 cycle, are on Max at $329 a month. Its list says nothing about CSIA three-year renewal dates, Level 1/2/3 recording, video findings per chimney, or local licensing rules. A sweep would cover those with checklists and notes.
Nexa has the same gap on certification and inspection records. It has no renewal tracker, no inspection-level field and no per-chimney video storage. What it offers is manual: tags and notes on a client, recurring jobs for the annual visit, and job costing so a Level 2 can be billed differently from a Level 1. A client record has no street-address field, which is awkward when every job is at a customer's house. It has no GPS, dispatch board, route optimization, texts or calls, and it doesn't run payroll or sync with QuickBooks. Its yearly reminders are emails, and automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, so a reminder can silently fail to go out. It is software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk or onboarding. The office side is where it holds up: invoices and estimates, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, time tracking, bookkeeping, offline use, and today's stops sent to Google Maps in time order.
Over three years, Housecall Pro at $79 a month is $948 a year, or $2,844. Nexa at $279 once plus $4.99 a month for Cloud Sync is $458.64. Without Cloud Sync it is $279 but runs on one device. The saving is real, but it buys a narrower tool. A solo sweep who works from one device, keeps CSIA certificates on paper and mainly needs invoicing and books could reasonably choose Nexa. A crew with several trucks, a fall rush to dispatch, or customers who expect texts should stay with Housecall Pro, since Nexa has none of that. Don't move in the middle of peak season either way. Before committing, ask either vendor to show one chimney's Level 2 video, a technician's CSIA expiry date, and the next year's reminder, all on your own data.
Our read for chimney sweeps: Stay with Housecall Pro if you run trucks, dispatch or text customers, since Nexa has none of that; only a solo, single-device sweep who mainly needs invoicing and books should consider Nexa, and neither tracks CSIA or NFPA 211 records out of the box.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Housecall Pro costs chimney sweeps $948/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 3.5 months it has cost less than Housecall Pro, 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 Housecall Pro 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 chimney sweeps: Stay with Housecall Pro 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 $2,844 for Housecall Pro over three years.
Scheduling, client records and invoicing 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. Housecall Pro solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $79/month — $948 a year, from Housecall Pro'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 $2,565 less.
If Housecall Pro 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 | Housecall Pro | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | — | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $79/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $2,844 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Housecall Pro come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Housecall Pro lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Housecall Pro's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Housecall Pro is the better call if you need online booking for home services specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Housecall Pro describes itself as 'Tailored for teams of 1 to 100+' and aimed at home service pros across 50+ industries, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cleaning, lawn care and pest control. (housecallpro.com)
What people outside Housecall Pro 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 chimney sweep: 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.
A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.
The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.
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 chimney sweep'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.
Housecall Pro plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median chimney sweep earns $40,000/year. At $948/year, Housecall Pro 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 chimney sweeps. You own it like you own your Chimney sweep rods and brushes.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small chimney sweeps business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling past a handful of crews, a fleet 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.
Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.
Extreme summer heat drives HVAC demand. Hurricane risk on Gulf Coast. Year-round construction. Rapid population growth in DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio creates sustained demand. Freeze events (like 2021) create emergency plumbing/HVAC surge.
Hurricane season June-November creates massive restoration demand. Snowbird season November-March boosts service volume 30-40%. Year-round construction. Pool service is year-round industry. Pest control peaks in summer humidity.
Harsh winters in upstate, moderate in NYC. Construction limited in winter upstate. NYC market is enormous but hypercompetitive. Brownstone/pre-war building maintenance is specialized trade. NYC licensing is notoriously complex.
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, client records and invoicing 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.
Fall is my busy season, when everyone wants their fireplace or wood stove ready for winter. Every job starts with protecting the room, drop cloths and a vacuum with a HEPA filter running, because soot gets everywhere. Then I inspect the firebox, damper, smoke chamber and the flue, often with a camera run up the chimney, looking for creosote build-up, cracked flue tiles, missing mortar and anything nesting in there. Sweeping means running brushes sized to the flue from the top or the bottom, then vacuuming it all out. Creosote is the fire risk, and glazed creosote needs special treatment to remove. On the roof I'm checking the crown, the cap and the flashing, because water damage is the other big enemy of chimneys. I give the homeowner a written report with photos, and I'm honest when something needs repair and when it doesn't. Repairs, caps, dampers and relining, are quoted separately. Most customers book annual sweeps, and I schedule the rest of the year around repairs.
Real chimney sweeps near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a chimney sweep? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every chimney sweep 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 chimney sweep'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 chimney sweep — 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 chimney sweeps and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Housecall Pro may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Housecall Pro has features like Online booking for home services and GPS tracking that some businesses rely on. For most solo chimney sweeps, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $79/month, Nexa pays for itself in 3.5 months. After that: $948 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