Toggl Track vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Set Designers
Toggl Track
$12/mo ($144/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 23.3 months at Toggl Track's current price.
Does Toggl Track Fit Set Designers? Our Read
What set designers need from their software, from sources outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa:
Set designers mostly work as freelancers, so they need to invoice, track income, and handle self-employment tax themselves. BLS reports that 66% of set and exhibit designers are self-employed. It says they 'may be hired on a per-project or contract basis' by theater companies, museums, and film and TV studios. (bls.gov)
Pay varies a lot by client type, and income comes in irregular project-based amounts. BLS gives a May 2025 median of $75,240, with the lowest 10% under $41,750 and the highest 10% over $135,410. Median pay is $103,430 in motion picture and video and $65,050 in theater companies and dinner theaters. Designers therefore need to track income and fees separately by client type and project. The BLS page lists no licensing requirement, so tracking compliance paperwork is not a core need. The portfolio is the credential, so project records and images matter. (bls.gov)
Exhibition and scenography fees are billed in several different ways: a daily rate, phase packages (concept, design development, production drawings), a percentage of the build budget, or a monthly retainer plus billable extras. The percentage is typically 8–15% of scenographic spend. North American daily rates are cited at $600 to $1,000. The article recommends payment milestones tied to client sign-offs rather than calendar dates. It also recommends a separate rate schedule for out-of-scope requests and extra revisions. Billing tools therefore need to support phase or milestone invoices and extra-revision charges. (artfolio.com)
Theatrical design work may be governed by union agreements. The Off-Broadway League and United Scenic Artists Local USA 829 reached their first Off-Broadway designers' contract on March 4, 2017, a three-year agreement meant to formalize standard industry practices. Designers working under such contracts may need to track which agreement applies to each job. (playbill.com)
Tax treatment of production costs depends on production start dates. Under Sec. 181, producers of film, TV, and live theatrical productions could deduct qualified production costs in the year incurred, up to $15 million per production. The election applies only to costs incurred before 2026, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act did not extend it. Designers who work as production entities or on productions with budgets need records showing production start dates and cost categories. (thetaxadviser.com)
Scenery rentals involve fees beyond the base rental. A theatrical rental house lists a complete package at $15,000–$35,000 for a 2–4 week rental, with scenery at $8,000–$30,000. The listed prices exclude the deposit, transportation, and insurance. The deposit covers cleaning and restocking, and a royalty is owed to the scenic and/or costume designer 'if applicable.' Designers who rent out or reuse designs need to track royalties and deposits. (mtwrentals.org)
Toggl Track handles the hours side of a set designer's year well. A designer who bills a daily rate, or who wants to know whether the design-development phase took the days the quote assumed, gets that from its project and client time reports and its estimated-versus-actual comparison. It also has billable rates, basic invoicing, and apps on web, desktop and mobile. It does not list phase or milestone invoices tied to client sign-offs. It has no separate charge for out-of-scope revisions, no expense or income books, and nothing for self-employment tax records. About two-thirds of set and exhibit designers are self-employed, so they carry those jobs themselves. Fees can also be a flat phase package, a monthly retainer, or 8–15% of the build budget, and none of those depends on hours. The Gantt, workload and utilization features are built for teams, not for one freelancer with three clients.
Nexa covers more of the money side of a project. Estimates, quotes and proposals convert to invoices. Payment plans let you stage a fee across a project. Clients can sign an estimate and pay by card through your own Stripe account. Jobs show costing and profit per job, which helps when a theater client and a film client pay very differently for similar work. It also has time tracking, expenses, receipt scanning, profit and loss, and 1099 summaries. It has no task dependencies and no job templates. It also has no sync with QuickBooks or Xero, so a bookkeeper who works in either has to take exports. Its automated emails, such as payment reminders, send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. Without the optional cloud sync it runs on one device, and there is no hosted support desk. Neither tool has a field for which union agreement governs a job, for design royalties and rental deposits, or for the production start dates that matter for Sec. 181 records. Those would go in a spreadsheet or in notes on the job.
Over three years Toggl Track at $12 a month costs $432. Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for 36 months. A solo designer who works mostly from one computer, who needs to send phased invoices and keep expense and income records, comes out ahead on cost and fit with Nexa. Stay with Toggl Track if you work across several devices and don't want to pay for sync. Also stay if your clients ask for time reports and your invoices are plain hourly or daily ones, or if you rely on its integrations or on a bookkeeper already tied into another system.
Our read for set designers: A solo set designer who bills in phases and needs expense and income records should switch to Nexa on one computer, while someone who needs multi-device tracking or time reports for clients should stay with Toggl Track.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Toggl Track costs set designers $144/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 23.3 months it has cost less than Toggl Track, 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.
Can it pay for itself?
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 Toggl Track 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 set designers: Toggl Track is solid software, but at $12/month it costs $432 over 3 years. Nexa does most of what Toggl Track does for $279 once. For solo set designers and small teams, Nexa is the better deal.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need time tracker, invoicing and connect crm in one tool
You're tired of price increases
You want to own your tools like you own your equipment
Choose Toggl Track if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Toggl Track's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
Most days begin at the drafting station, refining a ground plan to the actual theater: I'm checking wing space for the storage of moving pieces, the fly-rail line set schedule for what can hang, and sightlines from the worst seat in the house so the back row isn't staring at a masking flat. The director loves the second-act reveal, but the scenic shop just sent labor hours that blow the build budget, so I spend the morning value-engineering — keeping the moment, losing the weight and the dollars. After lunch I'm in a production meeting with the lighting designer and the technical director: my upstage wall is exactly where she wants a backlight boom, so we negotiate a gap she can shoot through. I update the model in SketchUp so everyone's looking at the same thing. Late afternoon I cut a quick scale model of the tricky platform unit, because foamcore in my hand tells me things the screen won't — whether the stairs read, whether an actor can exit cleanly. I draft paint elevations for the scenic artist and note the door hardware. Tech week is coming, and I know the notes will pile up the moment real bodies move on real platforms.
Designing to a real stage's fixed dimensions, sightlines, wing space, and fly-rail capacity — a gorgeous set that doesn't clear the proscenium is useless
The build budget and the scenic-shop labor hours never match the director's vision, and the value-engineering conversation falls on the designer
Coordinating with lighting, sound, and the technical director so a set piece doesn't block an instrument, a speaker, or a quick scene change
Tech week changes — a set piece that's too heavy to move in the blackout, a door that doesn't latch, a platform that flexes — landing days before opening
Time tracking, invoicing, client records and scheduling are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. 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. Toggl Track solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Toggl Track Actually Costs Set Designers
Today's list price is $12/month — $144 a year, from Toggl Track's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$144
Year 2$144
Year 3$144
Three years of Toggl Track$432
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $153 less.
If Toggl Track 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-by-Feature
Feature
Toggl Track
Nexa
Invoicing
✗
✓
Scheduling
✗
✓
CRM
✗
✓
Time Tracking
✓
✓
Full Accounting
✗
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
✗
✓
Works offline
—
✓
Price
$12/mo
$279 once or 3 × $99
3-Year Total
$432
$279
You own it?
No — stop paying, lose access
Yes — forever
✓ and ✗ for Toggl Track come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Toggl Track lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy
It buys the software, not a service contract. You install Nexa and it runs on your machine. There is no seat count, and nothing stops working if you stop paying, because there is nothing to stop paying.
Toggl Track's monthly fee is not only rent. It pays for their hosting, their support desk, and their engineers shipping changes every week. If those matter to how you work, that is a real thing you would be giving up.
Cross-device sync is the one optional extra — $4.99/month if you want your data mirrored between machines. Skip it and Nexa still works; you just sync manually.
The honest risk of buying once: you are betting on us still being here to improve it. The honest risk of renting: the price is theirs to raise, and the graveyard section below is a record of tools that did exactly that.
What Toggl Track Does Better
Straight from Toggl Track's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Simple time tracking
Desktop and mobile apps
Pomodoro timer
Project-based tracking
Good free tier
A free plan to start on (with limits), so you can use Toggl Track before paying anything.
Toggl Track is the better call if you need simple time tracking specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
What Toggl Track Is Built For
Toggl Track's product page lists agencies and professional services teams, software and IT teams, law firms, and accounting and finance teams. It also names three sizes of customer: freelancers and solo users, growing teams, and large organizations. (toggl.com)
The product page lists cross-platform tracking on web, desktop (Windows, Mac), mobile (iOS, Android) and browser extensions. It also lists automated background tracking and a one-click timer. (toggl.com)
The product page lists timesheet and detailed time reports grouped by project, client or team. It also lists financial reports on project, client and team profitability, and estimated vs. actual time tracking. (toggl.com)
The product page lists billable rates, including 6-minute increments for law firms, and invoicing. (toggl.com)
The product page lists Boards, Gantt charts and a calendar planner. It also lists utilization and workload reports, and automatic planning around PTO and public holidays. (toggl.com)
The product page lists integrations with Jira, Asana, Notion and Slack, among others. It also lists an API and an MCP server, which can connect to Claude, Cursor and Codex. (toggl.com)
The pricing page shows a Free plan, with a stated limit of up to 3 users in its FAQ. Starter is $9 per user per month on annual billing, and Premium is $16 per user per month on annual billing. Enterprise is priced through sales. Paid plans and add-ons come with a 30-day trial. (toggl.com)
The product page says it does no screenshots, keystroke logging or webcam monitoring. It also states SOC Type 2 and ISO 27001 compliance and 99.99% uptime. It offers a free 30-day trial of all features with no credit card required. (toggl.com)
What people outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa say:
The Business Dive gives Toggl Track 4.4/5. It calls the interface "beautiful and straightforward" and says offline time tracking is supported. It also says the free version "includes all the basic features they need" for individuals and freelancers, and that invoicing is "quite valuable for agencies and consultancies." (thebusinessdive.com)
The Business Dive criticises the lack of GPS tracking, which it says rules Toggl Track out for construction, real estate and other location-dependent work. It also says "some advanced reporting and analytics tools are locked behind the more expensive plans." (thebusinessdive.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for a set designer
Software doesn't do the creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every set designer: 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 creative work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
1
Find the work
Land the project
↓
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed project — with the scope and the deposit locked in.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Do the work
↓
The work itself — tracked against the project: hours, milestones, revisions, and expenses, so nothing bills late or goes uncounted.
Job / project tracking
Time tracking
Expenses, materials & add-ons
then ↓
3
Bill for it
Send the bill
↓
The work becomes the invoice — the hours, the add-ons, the materials, the deposit credited — totaled and sent, instead of re-typed at 9pm.
Invoicing
Deposits & credits
then ↓
4
Get paid
Collect payment
↓
Paid by card or link, the deposit credited, and what's overdue chased — without you doing it by hand.
Card / online payments
Automatic reminders
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 creative work. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)
Watch a job become an invoice
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A set designer'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.
The job Scenic design for a community theater musical
Export your data — Go to Reports → Detailed → Export as CSV. Download your full time entry history.
2
Set up Nexa — 10-minute setup. Import your client list by CSV, then set up your projects.
3
Start tracking in Nexa — Use Nexa time tracker for new entries. Import historical data if needed.
4
Cancel Toggl — Cancel subscription. Download a final export for your records.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Set Designers
The median Set Designer earns $45,000/year. At $144/year, Toggl Track 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 set designers. You own it like you own your Vectorworks or AutoCAD.
Is Nexa actually right for a set designer?
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
Right for you if
You run solo or a small team — like the 25,000 set designers in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for a monthly subscription stack and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
You want invoicing, scheduling, and client tracking in one place — not scattered across five apps.
You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your Vectorworks or AutoCAD.
Look elsewhere if
You have a large team that needs enterprise seats, granular roles, and dedicated admin staff — Nexa is built for solo and small operators (1–5), and a bigger platform will serve you better.
You need full payroll for a large team or deep, SKU-level inventory — that's not what Nexa is for.
You're genuinely happy paying monthly and don't mind stitching tools together. No tool fixes a workflow you already like.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small set designers business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling into a large team with dedicated admin staff, a bigger platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.
Time tracking, invoicing, client records and scheduling are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot and carry their own booking link, with no per-appointment cut. The sections below price both routes honestly.
What set designers actually deal with
Designing to a real stage's fixed dimensions, sightlines, wing space, and fly-rail capacity — a gorgeous set that doesn't clear the proscenium is useless
The build budget and the scenic-shop labor hours never match the director's vision, and the value-engineering conversation falls on the designer
Coordinating with lighting, sound, and the technical director so a set piece doesn't block an instrument, a speaker, or a quick scene change
Tech week changes — a set piece that's too heavy to move in the blackout, a door that doesn't latch, a platform that flexes — landing days before opening
A day in the life of a set designer
Most days begin at the drafting station, refining a ground plan to the actual theater: I'm checking wing space for the storage of moving pieces, the fly-rail line set schedule for what can hang, and sightlines from the worst seat in the house so the back row isn't staring at a masking flat. The director loves the second-act reveal, but the scenic shop just sent labor hours that blow the build budget, so I spend the morning value-engineering — keeping the moment, losing the weight and the dollars. After lunch I'm in a production meeting with the lighting designer and the technical director: my upstage wall is exactly where she wants a backlight boom, so we negotiate a gap she can shoot through. I update the model in SketchUp so everyone's looking at the same thing. Late afternoon I cut a quick scale model of the tricky platform unit, because foamcore in my hand tells me things the screen won't — whether the stairs read, whether an actor can exit cleanly. I draft paint elevations for the scenic artist and note the door hardware. Tech week is coming, and I know the notes will pile up the moment real bodies move on real platforms.
Real set designers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a set designer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every set designer on Nexa →
The kit a working set designer owns
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.
What Nexa does for a set designer — and what it doesn't
The honest version. Nexa was built to beat the rented stack on the jobs that matter most to a set designer — here's where it wins, where the integration wins it anyway, and the things it genuinely doesn't do, with who to use instead. (No tool is best at everything; a guide that pretends otherwise is just an ad.)
Compare the essential business tools for set designers
The usual subscriptions vs. Nexa, side by side. Drag the time slider — every year you keep renting, the gap widens. Nexa is $279, one time.
The reason it wins the set: From the sightline-checked ground plan to the shop labor estimate to the value-engineered build to the invoice, the whole production moves through one record, so the coordination and revision hours you tracked are the ones that get billed. in one record — $279 once vs 4 subscriptions · ~$1,032/yr.
What Nexa takes off your plate
Job & project trackingvs Jobber →When the scenic shop's labor estimate comes back and the second-act wall mechanism is double the build budget, Nexa keeps the ground plan, wing space, and fly-rail line set schedule on the job, so the value-engineering happens against the real stage rather than a gorgeous set that will not clear the proscenium.
Invoicingvs FreshBooks →The coordination with lighting, sound, and the technical director so a piece does not block an instrument, a speaker, or a quick scene change attaches to the job and flows into the invoice, so that cross-department work is billed rather than buried.
CRM & clientsvs HubSpot →The director, the technical director, and the scenic shop stay on one record, so the value-engineering conversation that always falls on you is grounded in what each side actually said.
Scheduling & bookingvs Calendly →The drafting-station ground-plan pass and the shop-labor coordination sit with the job, so a build-schedule shift does not get re-entered into a separate calendar.
When you run big email campaigns & automations→ ConvertKit →
When you design graphics & marketing assets→ Canva →
Prefer to own a piece outright instead of renting? Free and open-source tools (GnuCash, Invoice Ninja and the like) each handle one job if you'll self-host them — a real option, listed because it's true.
Competitor pricing verified 2026-06-12.
How To Read This Page
We make Nexa. It is one of the two options compared here, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to make Toggl Track's case the way we would want ours made — their strengths above are their own published feature list, not our summary of it.
The prices are Toggl Track's published list prices, checked on the date shown in the sources below. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.
No customer quotes appear on this page because we do not have any from set designers we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Toggl Track on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Toggl Track's own pricing page is the source for every figure above, read on the date shown in the sources section below.
We are not neutral about subscriptions, and that is the argument, not a hidden assumption: software you pay for once is cheaper over three years than software you rent, unless you need something only the rented one does.
How we put this guide together
We build a set designer'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 set designer — 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.
Where the numbers come from
Vendor pricingHoneyBook $432/yr, FreshBooks $516/yr, Toggl Track $144/yr, Harvest $132/yr — taken from each company's published plans, last verified September 2026. Pricing moves; each name above links straight to that vendor’s own pricing page so you can confirm it before you decide.
Income contextThe $45,000 median we cite for the typical set designer is occupational median annual pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics), compiled April 2026. We use it only to show software spend as a share of real income — your own numbers will differ.
Three-year mathMulti-year totals are today's list price multiplied by the number of years. No price rise is projected, so the figure can be checked against the vendor's own pricing page; if they raise it, the real cost is higher.
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.
FAQ
Is Nexa really a Toggl Track replacement?
For solo set designers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Toggl Track may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
What does Toggl Track do that Nexa doesn't?
Toggl Track has features like Simple time tracking and Desktop and mobile apps that some businesses rely on. For most solo set designers, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $12/month, Nexa pays for itself in 23.3 months. After that: $144 saved every year.
Can I pay in installments?
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.