What remote start installers need from their software, from sources outside Jobber and outside Nexa:
Jobber covers the quoting and invoicing side of an install shop well. Quotes and invoices take line items, so a bypass module and extra parts can be listed per vehicle. Customers can book online, pay online and get reminders, and the mobile app helps if installers work in the field. Two things this trade needs are not on the $49 plan, though. Time and expense tracking starts on Connect, and job costing starts on Grow. Without those, you can't easily compare real hours against a flat install price or see what each contractor job paid out. Neither Jobber nor the facts here describe a per-vehicle warranty record, so that would still be notes or attached photos. Checking local idling rules also stays your job.
Nexa covers the flat-price-versus-time problem directly. It has jobs with costing and profit per job, time tracking, assignment of jobs to team members, and quotes and estimates that convert to invoices. It also has 1099 summaries and expense tracking, which help with contractor payouts. Clients can pay by card through your own Stripe account. Its payroll CSV totals hours times rate, but it does not run payroll, taxes or direct deposit. It does not sync with QuickBooks or Xero. It has no text messaging, no route optimization or dispatch board, and no app marketplace. Its automated emails, reminders and workflows 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 onboarding. Nothing in its facts mentions per-vehicle parts or warranty records.
Over three years Jobber at the $49 plan costs $1,764. The higher plans that add time tracking and job costing cost more, and this page gives no figure for them. Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 over three years if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99/month to use more than one device. If you already run on Jobber with QuickBooks, text-based customer contact or field scheduling, stay. Those are the things Nexa lacks. A solo or very small shop that mainly wants job profit and time against flat prices, and is comfortable keeping Nexa open for emails to go out, could save real money by switching.
Our read for remote start installers: Stay with Jobber if you rely on QuickBooks sync, texting or field dispatch; Nexa is a cheaper option only for a small shop that mostly needs job costing and time tracking.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Jobber costs remote start installers $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 remote start installers: Stay with Jobber 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 $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 remote start installer: 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 remote start installer'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 Remote Start Installer 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 remote start installers. You own it like you own your Vehicle-specific T-harness and bypass module for the immobilizer.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small remote start installers 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.
Winter is your season, and the first car is a newer push-to-start model that needs a bypass module flashed to the exact year and trim before the remote start will ever crank it. You confirm the vehicle, pull the right T-harness, and start mapping the ignition and brake wires behind the column with a test light because no two dashes are the same. The immobilizer is the whole game now, and you spend real time getting the transponder bypass to handshake with the car's security. A walk-in shows up with a twenty-dollar universal kit he bought online and wants it installed; you explain that his car's data bus won't play nice with it and that a vehicle-specific module is the difference between a clean install and a security light forever. After lunch you solder into the ignition harness, integrate with the factory keyless entry, and program the start sequence and runtime. You test it a dozen times, cranking and confirming the climate kicks on, because a no-crank in January is the comeback that hurts your reputation. The afternoon brings exactly that, a start from last week that won't fire below freezing, and you re-check your wire taps and reflash the module. You close by ordering bypass modules for next week's bookings and confirming tomorrow's appointments.
Real remote start installers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a remote start installer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every remote start installer 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 remote start installer'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 remote start installer — 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 remote start installers 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 remote start installers, 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