What mobile oil change need from their software, from sources outside QuickBooks and outside Nexa:
QuickBooks covers the money side of a mobile oil change business well: bank feed reconciliation, comprehensive reporting, 800+ app integrations, and an accountant who almost certainly already knows it. Phone support comes with a paid plan, and the plan that does the core job is $38 a month. It does not list what makes this trade unusual. That is a per-job record of where used oil came from and where it went, a vehicle log of oil on board against the 55-gallon threshold, drained-filter disposal records, dated spill write-ups, and mileage logged by date, since the IRS rate changes on July 1. Its listed features include no mileage log, so expect to add other tools or keep those records by hand.
Nexa covers the job and billing side: jobs with costing and profit per job, invoices and estimates, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, time tracking, expenses, receipt scanning, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, and today's stops sent to Google Maps in time order. It also works offline, which helps at customer sites. It has no used-oil, filter, spill or mileage log either. A client record has no street-address field, which is awkward when every job is at the customer's location. It has no GPS or route optimization, no sync or import with QuickBooks, and no hosted support desk. If you use its automated emails or reminders, they send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices.
Over three years QuickBooks at $38 a month costs $456 a year, or $1,368. Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, and with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month it comes to $458.64 over three years. Without sync it runs on one device. Neither one solves the compliance paperwork, so price should not decide this. If you already use QuickBooks and your accountant relies on it, keep it for the books and add a dedicated used-oil and mileage logging tool. A new, solo operator who mainly needs to quote, invoice and track job profit could run Nexa at lower cost. They would still need a separate compliance and mileage log, and should check their own state's rules, since this is Utah's wording of the federal rule.
Our read for mobile oil change: Neither covers the core need of per-job used-oil, filter, spill and dated mileage records, so look for a field-service compliance logging tool, and keep QuickBooks for the books if you already use it.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
QuickBooks costs mobile oil change $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 mobile oil change: Neither QuickBooks 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 $1,368 for QuickBooks 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. 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 mobile oil change technician: 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 Mobile Oil Change Technician earns $48,000/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 mobile oil change. You own it like you own your Service van with bulk oil tanks, a waste-oil recovery tank, and a pump.
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small mobile oil change 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.
Your shop is your van, and the whole business lives or dies on the route. You start the day with a list of stops across town and the first thing you do is sequence them so you're not crossing the city twice and burning the margin on fuel and windshield time. At each driveway you lay down mats so you don't leave a stain, slide under on the creeper, drain the old oil into the no-spill pan, swap the filter, and refill with the right weight for that car. You carry common oils and filters in the van because there's no parts store on a residential street, so guessing wrong on a stop means a delay or a return trip. Used oil and filters go into the recovery tank to be disposed of properly, and keeping that clean is part of the service. The big time-killer is the customer who booked a slot and isn't home, or whose car is boxed into the garage behind another vehicle, so you're calling ahead to confirm access before you roll up. You do a quick top-off and tire-pressure check as a courtesy, take payment on the spot, and move to the next stop. You close out the day by mapping tomorrow's route, restocking oil and filters, and confirming appointments so you don't drive across town to a no-show.
Real mobile oil change near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a mobile oil change technician? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every mobile oil change technician 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 mobile oil change technician'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 mobile oil change technician — 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 mobile oil change 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 mobile oil change, 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