Housecall Pro vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Waste Haulers
Housecall Pro
$79/mo ($948/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 3.5 months at Housecall Pro's current price.
Does Housecall Pro Fit Waste Haulers? Our Read
What waste haulers need from their software, from sources outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa:
Hauling licenses are issued by cities and districts, not one national body. Each truck usually needs its own permit and decal, and the permits renew on a fixed local date. In Saline County, Arkansas, the fee is $25 per vehicle of 1 ton or less and $50 per vehicle over 1 ton, and fees are not prorated. Initial licenses and vehicle permits must be in hand before the business starts. All licenses and permits expire on December 31, and renewals are due before that date. The licenses and permits cannot be transferred. The business therefore needs a per-vehicle record of permits, decals and expiry dates. (law.cornell.edu)
Local hauler licenses require proof of liability insurance that names the city and identifies each truck. In St. Paul, MN, general and auto liability must each be at least $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident for bodily injury, plus $50,000 for property damage. The policy must give 30 days' notice of cancellation, and the certificate must list each vehicle's VIN and plate. The license expires one year after application, or when the insurance expires if that comes first. Each truck also has to pass a city inspection, and the licensee's name must be on it in block letters at least 2 inches high. The business needs to keep insurance certificates and vehicle details current and renew on time. (stpaul.gov)
Hauler licensing fees and vehicle details differ by city and are paid by the year. Grand Rapids, MI charges $478 for a new hauler license and $208 for a renewal, and the fees are non-refundable. Licenses are valid for one year. The application needs a vehicle list with year, make, VIN and Michigan plate for each truck, and a certificate of insurance with $1,000,000 combined single limit that names the city as additional insured. Collection is allowed only after 7:00 am on weekdays and 9:00 am on weekends. Three or more verified complaints about noise at one location, or about operating in prohibited hours, can lead to license revocation. A hauler working in several jurisdictions has to track each jurisdiction's fee, vehicle list and renewal date separately. (grandrapidsmi.gov)
Large trucks used on public highways can trigger the federal Heavy Highway Vehicle Use Tax, filed on IRS Form 2290. It applies to vehicles with a taxable gross weight of 55,000 pounds or more, which would cover heavy roll-off and tractor-trailer rigs but not pickups or light trucks. A vehicle expected to be used 5,000 miles or less during the period (7,500 for agricultural vehicles) can claim a suspension. The business needs to track each heavy truck's weight class and annual mileage to know whether it owes the tax or can claim the suspension. (irs.gov)
Housecall Pro covers the day-to-day running of a hauling route well. It has scheduling and dispatching, vehicle GPS, 'On My Way' texts, invoicing, online payments, time tracking and payroll, and QuickBooks Online sync on the higher plans. Nothing in its listed features covers the licensing side of the trade. That means a per-vehicle record of permits, decals, insurance certificates with VINs and plates, and renewal dates, or a heavy-truck weight and mileage record for Form 2290. A hauler would need to keep those records separately.
Nexa covers invoicing, estimates, recurring invoices and jobs, job costing, time tracking, a payroll CSV of hours times rate, and bookkeeping with expenses, reconciliation and profit and loss. It also sends today's job stops to Google Maps in time order. It has no GPS or fleet tracking, no route optimization or dispatch board, no text messages, and no QuickBooks or Xero sync. It does not run payroll, and it has no per-vehicle permit or insurance tracking either. Its automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, and it is software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk.
Over three years Housecall Pro at $79 a month comes to $2,844. Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. Keep Housecall Pro if you dispatch several trucks and rely on GPS, texting or accounting sync, since Nexa has none of these. Consider Nexa only if you are a one-truck or one-device operator who mostly needs invoices, job costing and bookkeeping, and you are comfortable tracking permits and insurance elsewhere.
Our read for waste haulers: Stay with Housecall Pro if you dispatch trucks and use GPS, texting or QuickBooks sync, because Nexa lacks all three.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Housecall Pro costs waste haulers $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.
Can it pay for itself?
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 waste haulers: 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.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need time tracker, invoicing and task manager in one tool
You're tired of price increases
You want to own your tools like you own your equipment
Choose Housecall Pro if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Housecall Pro's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
This is a route-density business before it's anything else: the truck runs the same line three or four days a week, and every account either tightens the route or loosens it, so a customer three miles off the path costs me more in fuel and time than their monthly bill pays. Most of my revenue is recurring contracts, commercial dumpsters and cart routes on negotiated frequencies, which makes it a subscription business where the product is showing up reliably, and a single missed pickup is an angry call and a service credit that erases the day's margin. At the transfer station every load gets weighed, and tipping fees climb every year while my contracts are locked, so the only way I keep margin is tracking tonnage per account and pricing renewals against what they actually throw away. The thing that ruins a good day is contamination: one customer tosses a bag of garbage into the recycling dumpster and the whole truckload gets rejected and billed as trash, wiping out the recycling rebate for everyone on the route. I service the line, tip the dumpsters, watch for overfilled cans that mean someone upgraded their volume without upgrading their contract, and bring back the scale tickets. The whole business is reliability times density, and the office work is keeping both honest.
My money is in route density, so a new commercial account three miles off the line costs more to service than it pays unless I can re-sequence the whole route
Contracts are recurring monthly with negotiated pickup frequencies, so it's a subscription business where a missed pickup means an angry call and a service credit
Contamination ruins a recycling load, so when a customer throws garbage in the recycle dumpster the whole truckload gets charged as trash at the landfill
Tipping fees rise every year and contracts are locked, so margin gets squeezed unless I track tonnage per account and price the renewal right
Time tracking, invoicing, job tracking and the books are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. 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.
What Housecall Pro Actually Costs Waste Haulers
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.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$948
Year 2$948
Year 3$948
Three years of Housecall Pro$2,844
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-by-Feature
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.
What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy
It buys the software, not a service contract. You install Nexa and it runs on your machine. There is no seat count, and nothing stops working if you stop paying, because there is nothing to stop paying.
Housecall Pro's monthly fee is not only rent. It pays for their hosting, their support desk, and their engineers shipping changes every week. If those matter to how you work, that is a real thing you would be giving up.
Cross-device sync is the one optional extra — $4.99/month if you want your data mirrored between machines. Skip it and Nexa still works; you just sync manually.
The honest risk of buying once: you are betting on us still being here to improve it. The honest risk of renting: the price is theirs to raise, and the graveyard section below is a record of tools that did exactly that.
What Housecall Pro Does Better
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.
Online booking for home services
GPS tracking
Postcard marketing campaigns
Professional invoicing
Review collection
A smaller bill up front: plans start at $79/month, against $279 paid once for Nexa.
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.
What Housecall Pro Is Built For
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)
Three plans: Basic at $59/mo billed annually ($79 monthly) for 1 user, Essentials at $149/mo annual ($189 monthly) for 5 users, and Max at $299/mo annual ($329 monthly) for 8 users. Extra Max users cost $35/mo each. (housecallpro.com)
Every plan includes live phone and chat support, a free iOS and Android app in English and Spanish, offline viewing, AI team members, and card processing rates 'as low as 2.59%'. (housecallpro.com)
The free trial lasts 14 days with no credit card required, and the FAQ says it includes full access to the Max plan. The page says long-term contracts are not required. (housecallpro.com)
Essentials adds routes, flat-rate pricing, checklist automations, photo reports, employee GPS tracking, commissions and QuickBooks Online sync. Max adds a sales proposal tool, recurring service plans, route optimization, open API access, a dedicated onboarding specialist and escalated phone support. (housecallpro.com)
The feature set covers scheduling and dispatching, estimates, a price book, online booking, invoicing, online payments, financing, time tracking, payroll, job costing, vehicle GPS and 'On My Way' texts. It also has a CSR AI that answers calls and books jobs. (housecallpro.com)
Support and learning resources include a Help Center, a Pro Community, webinars, a Mastermind program and a Trade Academy. Housecall Pro lists 4.7 stars on Capterra from 2,700+ reviews, though that figure is its own claim. (housecallpro.com)
What people outside Housecall Pro and outside Nexa say:
SoftwareConnect rates Housecall Pro 4.5/5 from 10 reviews. Its editorial pros are full QuickBooks integration, a large library of training tutorials, and texting customers and employees from the app. A user review calls it an 'Amazing all in one platform for running a service provider company.' (softwareconnect.com)
SoftwareConnect's editorial cons are limited CRM functionality, some reported lag, and some users needing multiple programs. Users say scheduling is 'rigid' and multi-day jobs can't be extended. One reviewer says invoices don't produce usable internal reports and had to move away from the program. Another says it does not let them add many jobs or locations to one customer. (softwareconnect.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for a waste hauler
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every waste hauler: 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.
1
Find the work
Win the job
↓
A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Do the job
↓
The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.
Job / project tracking
Time tracking
Expenses, materials & add-ons
then ↓
3
Bill for it
Send the bill
↓
The work becomes the invoice — the hours, the add-ons, the materials, the deposit credited — totaled and sent, instead of re-typed at 9pm.
Invoicing
Deposits & credits
then ↓
4
Get paid
Collect payment
↓
Paid by card or link, the deposit credited, and what's overdue chased — without you doing it by hand.
Card / online payments
Automatic reminders
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.)
Watch a job become an invoice
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A waste hauler'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.
The job Monthly commercial dumpster service, 4-yard
Housecall Pro plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Housecall Pro
1
Export your data — Go to Settings → export customers, job history, and invoices as CSV files.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your customer list by CSV; re-enter your core services.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 2 weeks. Transition dispatching and booking to Nexa.
4
Cancel Housecall Pro — Cancel subscription (check for early termination fees). Download all records.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Waste Haulers
The median Waste Hauler earns $55,000/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 waste haulers. You own it like you own your Rear or front-load garbage truck with packer blade.
Is Nexa actually right for a waste hauler?
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
Right for you if
You run solo or a small crew — like the 15,000 waste haulers in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for a monthly subscription stack and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
You want to invoice, schedule, and track from the field — not from a back office.
You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your Rear or front-load garbage truck with packer blade.
Look elsewhere if
You run a 20+ waste hauler fleet that needs enterprise dispatch and multi-crew routing — Nexa is built for 1–5, and a fleet platform will serve you better.
You need full payroll for a large team or deep, SKU-level inventory — that's not what Nexa is for.
You're genuinely happy paying monthly and don't mind stitching tools together. No tool fixes a workflow you already like.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small waste haulers 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.
Waste Haulers by the numbers — by place
Tax, licensing & seasonality where you operate
1-13.3%income tax
CSLB (Contractors State License Board)licensing
Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.
DBPR (Dept of Business and Professional Regulation)licensing
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.
Time tracking, invoicing, job tracking and the books are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. The sections below price both routes honestly.
What waste haulers actually deal with
My money is in route density, so a new commercial account three miles off the line costs more to service than it pays unless I can re-sequence the whole route
Contracts are recurring monthly with negotiated pickup frequencies, so it's a subscription business where a missed pickup means an angry call and a service credit
Contamination ruins a recycling load, so when a customer throws garbage in the recycle dumpster the whole truckload gets charged as trash at the landfill
Tipping fees rise every year and contracts are locked, so margin gets squeezed unless I track tonnage per account and price the renewal right
A day in the life of a waste hauler
This is a route-density business before it's anything else: the truck runs the same line three or four days a week, and every account either tightens the route or loosens it, so a customer three miles off the path costs me more in fuel and time than their monthly bill pays. Most of my revenue is recurring contracts, commercial dumpsters and cart routes on negotiated frequencies, which makes it a subscription business where the product is showing up reliably, and a single missed pickup is an angry call and a service credit that erases the day's margin. At the transfer station every load gets weighed, and tipping fees climb every year while my contracts are locked, so the only way I keep margin is tracking tonnage per account and pricing renewals against what they actually throw away. The thing that ruins a good day is contamination: one customer tosses a bag of garbage into the recycling dumpster and the whole truckload gets rejected and billed as trash, wiping out the recycling rebate for everyone on the route. I service the line, tip the dumpsters, watch for overfilled cans that mean someone upgraded their volume without upgrading their contract, and bring back the scale tickets. The whole business is reliability times density, and the office work is keeping both honest.
The tools a working waste hauler actually owns
Rear or front-load garbage truck with packer blade
Cart and dumpster inventory for commercial accounts
Route tablet or RFID cart-reader system
Landfill and transfer-station scale account
Spill kit and broom for dropped loads
Cart-tipper or dumpster-fork attachment
Local waste haulers on Nexa
Real waste haulers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a waste hauler? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every waste hauler on Nexa →
The kit a working waste hauler owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Rear or front-load packer truck
$120,000–$350,000
Core kitEssential
Cart and dumpster inventory
$20,000–$150,000
Core kitEssential
Route tablet and RFID cart reader
$400–$2,500
Core kitEssential
Cart tipper or dumpster fork attachment
$3,000–$15,000
Core kitEssential
Spill kit and route broom
$100–$500
Core kitEssential
High-visibility PPE and gloves
$80–$350
Core kitEssential
Backup camera and route safety cameras
$200–$1,200
Core kitEssential
Scale account and manifest book
$60–$300
The core kit, bought once$143,840–$519,850
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $143,840–$519,850 on tools that last for years, and never thought twice. So why should the software cost more than your whole kit — every single year? Hold it to the same standard as a good tool: $279, once.
How To Read This Page
We make Nexa. It is one of the two options compared here, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to make Housecall Pro's case the way we would want ours made — their strengths above are their own published feature list, not our summary of it.
The prices are Housecall Pro's published list prices, checked on the date shown in the sources below. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.
No customer quotes appear on this page because we do not have any from waste haulers we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Housecall Pro on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Housecall Pro's own pricing page is the source for every figure above, read on the date shown in the sources section below.
We are not neutral about subscriptions, and that is the argument, not a hidden assumption: software you pay for once is cheaper over three years than software you rent, unless you need something only the rented one does.
How we put this guide together
We build a waste hauler'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 waste hauler — 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.
Where the numbers come from
Vendor pricingJobber $588/yr, Housecall Pro $948/yr, QuickBooks $456/yr, Square — taken from each company's published plans, last verified September 2026. Pricing moves; each name above links straight to that vendor’s own pricing page so you can confirm it before you decide.
Income contextThe $55,000 median we cite for the typical waste hauler is occupational median annual pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics), compiled April 2026. We use it only to show software spend as a share of real income — your own numbers will differ.
Three-year mathMulti-year totals are today's list price multiplied by the number of years. No price rise is projected, so the figure can be checked against the vendor's own pricing page; if they raise it, the real cost is higher.
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.
FAQ
Is Nexa really a Housecall Pro replacement?
For solo waste haulers 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.
What does Housecall Pro do that Nexa doesn't?
Housecall Pro has features like Online booking for home services and GPS tracking that some businesses rely on. For most solo waste haulers, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $79/month, Nexa pays for itself in 3.5 months. After that: $948 saved every year.
Can I pay in installments?
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.