What metal fabricators need from their software, from sources outside Jobber and outside Nexa:
Jobber covers the general service-business side well: quotes, invoices with online payments, scheduling, a mobile app for field crews, QuickBooks Online sync, and job costing on the Grow plan. A fabricator can put labor and materials on separate invoice lines, which matters where fabrication labor is taxable and repair labor is taxable unless stated separately. Jobber is built for home services, though, and nothing in its feature list covers the records this trade is audited on. That means tagging material purchases as resale or consumed in production, keeping hot-work permits and fire-watch logs per job (29 CFR 1910.252), and linking each structural job to mill certs and heat numbers. The tax rules are also state-specific.
Nexa covers quoting and invoicing, with estimates that convert to invoices, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, jobs with costing and profit per job, time tracking, expenses, sales tax tracking, purchase orders, and a simple stock count per product. It has no QuickBooks or Xero sync, no SMS, no route optimization or dispatch board, and no app marketplace. It also has no full inventory management, so it can't carry per-heat material records. Nothing in its feature set covers hot-work permits or fire-watch logs either. Its automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years, Jobber at $49 a month is $588 a year, or $1,764. Nexa is $279 once, plus $4.99 a month for optional Cloud Sync, which comes to $458.64. Without Cloud Sync it runs on one device and costs $279. A shop already on Jobber, especially one using QuickBooks sync, texting, or field scheduling, should stay and keep permit, material-tag and heat-number records in a separate fabrication-specific tool. A very small shop that only needs invoicing, job costing and bookkeeping on one device could save money with Nexa. Either way, the compliance records at the core of this trade need a fabrication or job-shop management tool with material traceability and safety documentation.
Our read for metal fabricators: Neither tool covers fabrication's core compliance records (hot-work permits, resale vs. consumed material tagging, heat-number traceability), so pair whichever you use with a fabrication shop-management tool that has material traceability.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Jobber costs metal fabricators $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 metal fabricators: 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.
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. 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 metal 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.)
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A metal fabricator'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.
Jobber plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median metal fabricator earns $55,000/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 metal fabricators. You own it like you own your MIG welder (Miller, Lincoln, or Hobart).
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small metal fabricators 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.
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.
7am open the shop, fire up the compressor. 8am cut steel for a custom railing job — 40 linear feet, 1.25" tube. 10am MIG-weld the assembly. Noon press-brake a steel staircase stringer for another job. 2pm grind and prep for paint. 4pm quote review for an architect — three custom designs. 6pm load up, deliver yesterday's railing to a residential install.
Real metal fabricators near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a metal fabricator? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every metal 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 $8,800–$57,400 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 metal 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 metal 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 metal fabricators 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 metal fabricators, 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