What mini split installers need from their software, from sources outside QuickBooks and outside Nexa:
Nexa is our product, so read this with that in mind. We have no independent testing or user data to offer. This read rests only on each tool's published feature list and on what EPA recordkeeping rules ask of installers. Neither tool lists what is specific to this trade. That includes a place to store EPA Section 608 certifications and a per-job log of refrigerant recovered, charged and disposed of. It also includes refrigerant type and quantity on the invoice, and fields for model number, serial number, install date and installer of record. Those fields matter for warranty questions and for customers who ask for details on 2025 heat pump credit jobs. QuickBooks covers the money side well. It has invoicing, bank feed reconciliation, reporting, 800+ integrations and phone support on paid plans, and accountants already know it. Plus adds project profitability and inventory tracking. QuickBooks also lists no refrigerant or certification records, and the higher tiers cost more than the $38 plan.
Nexa covers quoting and job work: estimates and proposals that convert to invoices, costing and profit per job, crew assignment with a crew view, and the day's stops sent to Google Maps. It also has time tracking, expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, sales tax tracking and receipt scanning, and it works offline. Its gaps are real, and several are the ones that matter most to an installer. It has no refrigerant logging and no certification storage. It has no sync or import with QuickBooks, so moving over means re-keying or starting fresh with your accountant. It has no app marketplace, no payroll taxes or pay stubs, no full inventory management, and no dispatch board or route optimization. Its automated emails and reminders 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. We have not confirmed that either tool handles labor-hour line items next to equipment and line set materials, so check that in a trial before you commit.
Over three years, QuickBooks at $38 a month costs $1,368 ($456 a year). Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and $458.64 if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. Nexa costs less. But with neither tool covering refrigerant and certification records, the saving buys you no compliance help. If you work with an accountant who uses QuickBooks, rely on its integrations, or want phone support, stay and keep refrigerant, certification and unit records in a separate log. Nexa is worth a look for a one-person shop with no accountant tied to QuickBooks, one that wants quotes, jobs and simple books on a device it controls and can live without a vendor support line.
Our read for mini split installers: Stay on QuickBooks if you have an accountant who uses it, because Nexa has no QuickBooks sync and no phone support. Neither tool handles refrigerant or certification records, so keep those in a separate log either way.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
QuickBooks costs mini split installers $456/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 7.3 months it has cost less than QuickBooks, 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 QuickBooks 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 mini split installers: Stay with QuickBooks 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 $1,368 for QuickBooks 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. QuickBooks solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
Today's list price is $38/month — $456 a year, from QuickBooks'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 $1,089 less.
If QuickBooks 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.
Today's sticker price only tells you what a subscription costs today. These are dated changes, each linked to the announcement or report it comes from. Tap one for the numbers.
For renewals on or after February 1, 2026, Pro Plus and Mac Plus went from $999 to $1,149 a year for one user, and each extra seat from $200 to $230.
Source: SWK Technologies, Insightful Accountant (Dec 2, 2025)
From July 1, 2025: Simple Start $35 to $38, Essentials $65 to $75, Plus $99 to $115, Advanced $235 to $275 a month.
Source: Woodard Report (May 27, 2025)
After September 30, 2024, new US customers can no longer buy these Desktop editions. Existing subscribers can keep renewing.
Source: Intuit
Only changes we can link to a vendor announcement or a named publication are listed. Plans, add-ons and discounts vary, so check the vendor's current pricing page before you decide.
| Feature | QuickBooks | Nexa |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| CRM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Time Tracking | — | ✓ |
| Full Accounting | ✓ | ✓ (SIMPL) |
| Task Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Works offline | — | ✓ |
| Price | $38/mo | $279 once or 3 × $99 |
| 3-Year Total | $1,368 | $279 |
| You own it? | No — stop paying, lose access | Yes — forever |
✓ and ✗ for QuickBooks come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as QuickBooks lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
Straight from QuickBooks's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
QuickBooks is the better call if you need industry standard - accountants know it specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
QuickBooks Online is aimed at freelancers and new businesses, small and mid-size businesses, product-based businesses, and nonprofits. Larger or more complex operations are pointed to Desktop Enterprise (up to 40 users) or Intuit Enterprise Suite (multi-entity). (quickbooks.intuit.com)
What people outside QuickBooks and outside Nexa say:
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 mini split 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.)
QuickBooks plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
The median Mini Split Installer earns $55,000/year. At $456/year, QuickBooks 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 mini split installers. You own it like you own your Vacuum pump and a digital micron gauge for pulling the lineset down below 500 microns.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small mini split 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.
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.
He loads the van before seven: the vacuum pump, nitrogen bottle, the recovery machine, and a fresh cylinder of R-410A on the scale. First stop is a single-zone in a bonus room, and he spends the morning mounting the indoor head dead level so the condensate drains, then drilling the wall pass-through at a slight downward pitch. He runs the lineset, flares both ends by feel, and torques the nuts to spec. Outside he sets the condenser on a pad, brazes the service valves under a trickle of nitrogen so no scale forms inside the copper, then pressure-tests and walks away to let it hold while he eats lunch in the cab. The afternoon is the part nobody sees: pulling a deep vacuum and watching the micron gauge to make sure it isn't creeping, which means moisture or a leak. He weighs in the charge, powers it up, and checks the delta-T at the head. A homeowner across town texts asking why their unit is icing over, and he knows before he gets there it's low on charge. He closes the day reconciling which jobs need a return trip and texting the electrician about tomorrow's whip.
Real mini split installers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a mini split installer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every mini split installer 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 $1,170–$4,930 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 mini split 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 mini split 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 mini split installers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. QuickBooks may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
QuickBooks has features like Industry standard - accountants know it and 800+ app integrations that some businesses rely on. For most solo mini split installers, these aren't dealbreakers.
At $38/month, Nexa pays for itself in 7.3 months. After that: $456 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