What upholstery cleaners need from their software, from sources outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa:
Housecall Pro covers the field-service core of an upholstery business well: scheduling and dispatching, estimates, a price book, online booking, professional invoicing, online payments, 'On My Way' texts, vehicle GPS and route optimization on the higher plans, and QuickBooks Online sync from Essentials up. It also has live phone and chat support. The material I have doesn't show it covering the trade's specific paperwork. It lists no per-state taxable flag on each invoice line and no tracking of IICRC renewals or continuing-education hours. It lists no job records tied to the S300 upholstery standard, such as fabric type and method used. A cleaner working across state lines or holding certifications would need to check how far its price book and notes can stretch.
Nexa covers the office side: invoices, estimates and proposals that convert to invoices, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, a CRM, a public booking page with intake forms, jobs with costing and profit per job, time tracking, and bookkeeping that includes sales tax tracking. It has no texting or calls, no GPS, route optimization or dispatch board, no card reader, no QuickBooks or Xero sync, and no payroll taxes or direct deposit. It also doesn't list certification-renewal tracking or S300 job records, so it doesn't fill the trade-specific gaps either. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding. Its automated emails (reminders, sequences, workflows) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices.
Over three years, Housecall Pro on the $79 a month plan comes to $2,844. Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 with the optional $4.99 monthly Cloud Sync for 36 months. If you rely on texting customers, dispatching crews, GPS or QuickBooks sync, stay with Housecall Pro, because Nexa has none of those. A solo cleaner or very small shop that mainly needs invoicing, quotes, booking and bookkeeping, and that is comfortable without vendor support, could reasonably switch and save a lot. Either way, keep certification dates and per-state tax treatment in a separate tracker or checklist.
Our read for upholstery cleaners: Stay with Housecall Pro if you depend on dispatch, texting, GPS or QuickBooks sync; consider Nexa only if you're a solo or very small shop that needs invoicing and bookkeeping and can do without them.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Housecall Pro costs upholstery cleaners $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 upholstery cleaners: 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, job tracking, invoicing and client records 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 upholstery cleaner: 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.)
Housecall Pro plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median Upholstery Cleaner earns $38,000/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 upholstery cleaners. You own it like you own your Hot-water-extraction machine with an upholstery hand tool.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small upholstery cleaners 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.
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.
Scheduling, job tracking, invoicing and client records 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.
First job is a sectional with a big coffee stain, and before I spray anything I find the manufacturer's tag and read the cleaning code, because it's marked 'S' for solvent only, which means hot-water extraction would water-stain the whole thing. So I switch to a dry-solvent method and a low-moisture tool. I do a quick colorfastness test in a hidden spot to make sure the dye won't bleed, then work the stain from the edges in. Second stop is a microfiber couch that's fine for water-based extraction, so I run the hot-water tool, pre-treating the arms and headrest where body oils have darkened the fabric. After lunch I'm at a home with a linen-look chair the customer wants 'like new,' but it's a delicate natural fiber prone to browning, so I keep the moisture low, use the right pH cleaner, and manage her expectations because an old set-in stain may lighten but not vanish. There's also a cat-urine problem on an ottoman, so I treat it with an enzyme and warn her the odor takes time and may need a second pass. I set up air movers on every piece I clean because the fastest way to ruin good work is a watermark ring from slow, uneven drying. I tell each customer how long to keep off the furniture, photograph the before-and-after of the tough stains, and note the fabric type so next time I already know how to treat their pieces.
Real upholstery cleaners near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you an upholstery cleaner? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every upholstery cleaner 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 an upholstery cleaner'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 an upholstery cleaner — 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 upholstery cleaners 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 upholstery cleaners, 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