What steamfitters need from their software, from sources outside Jobber and outside Nexa:
Jobber covers the office and field side of a steamfitting shop well. Core handles online booking and scheduling, quotes, and invoices with online payments. Connect adds time and expense tracking and QuickBooks Online sync. Grow adds job costing, and Plus adds crew scheduling. Route optimization and 1-on-1 support on Core, Connect and Grow help a small shop with no IT person. What its listed features do not cover is what separates federal or federally assisted work from private work. That work needs weekly certified payroll, due within 7 days after the regular payment date. Each payroll needs a signed Statement of Compliance and a WH-347 marking prime or subcontractor, and a prime must submit its subcontractors' payrolls too. It also needs prevailing wage and fringe tracked per worker, with fringe owed on overtime hours. Apprentices must be individually registered and kept within the ratio, or they are owed journeyworker wages. Licences and apprenticeship hours must be tracked by person and by state. Time tracking starts at Connect, not the $49 Core plan.
Nexa has the same gap on certified payroll, though it does give you some of the underlying records. It has time tracking, job costing with profit per job, crew assignment with each person's own jobs, a public booking page, Today's stops sent to Google Maps, estimates and invoices, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, and bookkeeping including expenses and 1099 summaries. Its payroll CSV totals each employee's hours x rate. That is a per-person total to hand to whoever prepares your payroll, not a certified payroll. Nexa does not run payroll, so it has no payroll taxes, pay stubs or direct deposit. Nothing in its listed features produces a Statement of Compliance or a WH-347, and it lists no fields for prevailing wage, fringe, apprentice ratios or licences. Compared with Jobber, it has no QuickBooks or Xero sync, no dispatch board or route optimization, no text messaging and no app marketplace. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding. If you use its automation, its emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. We make Nexa, so weigh this read with that in mind.
Over three years, Jobber Core costs $588 a year, or $1,764. Nexa costs $279 once, or 3 payments of $99. With optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month, its three-year total is $458.64. Without Cloud Sync it runs on one device. If you bid federal or prevailing-wage work, the cost gap is small next to the cost of a late or wrong certified payroll. What closes the gap is a separate certified payroll tool built for construction. It should produce the Statement of Compliance and WH-347, hold wage determinations and fringe by worker, and track apprentice registration, ratios and licences. Check its output against current DOL rules and your state licensing board. Keep Jobber for scheduling, dispatch and QuickBooks Online sync if you already rely on them, and run that tool beside it. Nexa suits a one-device shop doing private work that wants low cost and can do without Jobber's dispatch, QuickBooks sync and vendor support. Switching on its own does nothing for compliance.
Our read for steamfitters: Neither Jobber nor Nexa produces certified payroll, so pair whichever you keep with a construction payroll tool that handles the Statement of Compliance, WH-347, fringe, apprentices and licences.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Jobber costs steamfitters $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 steamfitters: 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 steamfitter: 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 steamfitter 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 steamfitters. You own it like you own your pipe threader and ratcheting die set.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small steamfitters 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.
The day starts cold and early, usually at a mechanical room or a plant that wants its steam loop touched while production is down. A steamfitter walks the run first, reading the isometric and confirming the line is depressurized and drained before anyone strikes an arc. Then it's measure, cut, thread or bevel, and fit-up: black pipe for high-pressure steam, copper for low-pressure returns, every joint sloped right so condensate drains and water hammer doesn't tear the line apart later. Brazing and welding take the middle of the day, with a tape measure constantly checking that the takeoff lands where the print says. By afternoon there's a hydro or pneumatic pressure test, watching the gauge for a half hour to prove the joints hold. Steam traps get set, expansion loops checked, and insulation crews are told what's ready. The frustrating part isn't the pipe; it's the paperwork waiting after. Weld logs, test certs, and the inspector's punch list all have to match, and a single missing line on a test record means coming back. Most steamfitters would rather thread one more joint than chase a signature, but the signature is what gets the job closed and paid.
Real steamfitters near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a steamfitter? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every steamfitter 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 $3,550–$17,500 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 steamfitter'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 steamfitter — 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 steamfitters 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 steamfitters, 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