What custom exhaust shops need from their software, from sources outside Jobber and outside Nexa:
Jobber handles the general shop workflow well: online booking and scheduling, quotes, invoices with online payments, reporting, a mobile app and QuickBooks Online integration. Higher plans add checklists (Connect), job costing (Grow) and unlimited photo and video storage (Plus). A custom exhaust shop also has to keep records Jobber's listed features don't cover. Each job needs the replacement converter's part number and certification (EPA) number. Any configuration change, such as a single-to-dual swap or a converter removal, needs a note of what changed and why, because those can count as tampering. Each estimate needs the vehicle's California or CARB status and the EO number. New Jersey VIN engraving and the bill of sale, buyer and seller names, title and purchase date for removed converters have to be logged. Stainless welders need exposure and safety records. Jobber is built for home services, so none of these records are structured fields. The nearest fit is a Connect checklist that stops a job from closing until someone has entered the numbers, plus job photos of the emissions label and the engraved converter. That is a discipline aid, and it won't let you search by certification number or EO number.
Nexa covers invoicing, estimates that convert to invoices, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, a CRM with notes and tags, jobs with costing and profit per job, time tracking, expenses, sales tax tracking, purchase orders, a simple stock count, and offline use. Missions with sub-steps and templates could serve as a per-job compliance checklist. It has no fields for converter certification numbers, EO numbers, tampering notes, VIN engraving or removed-converter paperwork, so it shares Jobber's main gap. It also lacks QuickBooks or Xero sync, text messages, route optimization, dispatch, full inventory management and an app marketplace, and it has no photo-storage tier. Its automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices, and there is no hosted support desk or vendor onboarding, so you run it yourself.
Over three years Jobber's $49-a-month plan costs $1,764 ($588 a year). Nexa costs $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), or $458.64 over three years with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. Nexa is much cheaper, but a lower price does not close the compliance gap. A shop already on Jobber has no strong reason to move for compliance and should stay put for now. It should use checklists and photos as a stopgap and keep the certification, EO-number and removed-converter log in a separate system. A shop with no tool yet can run on either one the same way. The shop that has to prove each job's paperwork needs a different kind of tool: auto-repair or exhaust shop management software with parts lookup, vehicle certification fields, job-level compliance records and a log for removed converters.
Our read for custom exhaust shops: Neither tool stores converter certification numbers, EO numbers, tampering notes or removed-converter paperwork, so a shop that must prove those records needs auto-repair or exhaust shop management software with parts and compliance fields.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Jobber costs custom exhaust shops $588/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 5.7 months it has cost less than Jobber, 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 Jobber 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 custom exhaust shops: Neither Jobber nor Nexa is the main system for this work; start with software built for it. Nexa only makes sense beside it, at $279 once against $1,764 for Jobber over three years.
Invoicing, time tracking, 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. Jobber solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $49/month — $588 a year, from Jobber'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 $1,485 less.
If Jobber 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 | Jobber | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | — | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | — | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $49/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,764 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for Jobber come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Jobber lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from Jobber's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Jobber is the better call if you need built for home services specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
Jobber is built for home and commercial field service businesses. Its homepage names 12 trades, including cleaning, HVAC, landscaping, plumbing, roofing and tree care, and says it serves service pros in over 50 industries. (getjobber.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 custom exhaust fabricator: 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.)
Jobber plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median Custom Exhaust Fabricator earns $48,000/year. At $588/year, Jobber 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 custom exhaust shops. You own it like you own your Mandrel tube bender for kink-free pipe radii.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small custom exhaust shops 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.
Invoicing, time tracking, 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.
A custom exhaust shop builds, it does not just bolt on. A car goes up on the lift and the job is read from underneath: where the stock system runs, where the obstacles are, where the customer wants the tips to exit. The craft is in the mandrel bender and the welder. Lengths of stainless or aluminized tube get measured, marked, and bent to clear the subframe and the rear axle without kinking, then tacked together piece by piece under the car, checking clearance to the floor pan and the heat shields as it goes. Once the geometry is right, it comes down for final TIG or MIG welding, the mufflers and resonators chosen as much for sound as for flow. Then it goes back up, gets hung on rubber isolators so it does not rattle, and finally the moment of truth: starting the car and listening. Sound is the whole point and the whole problem, because 'aggressive but not droney' means something different to every customer, and a system that sounds great at idle can drone miserably at 70 mph. The recurring frictions are pricing a one-off build with no catalog number, managing the subjective sound expectation, and handling the customer who shows up with aftermarket headers or a turbo that changes everything about the fit. Underneath is the regulatory line on emissions and noise that the shop has to walk carefully.
Real custom exhaust shops near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a custom exhaust fabricator? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every custom exhaust fabricator on Nexa →
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $7,860–$36,300 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.
We build a custom exhaust fabricator'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 custom exhaust fabricator — 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 custom exhaust shops and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Jobber may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
Jobber has features like Built for home services and Mobile app for field teams that some businesses rely on. For most solo custom exhaust shops, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $49/month, Nexa pays for itself in 5.7 months. After that: $588 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