Toggl Track vs Nexa
The Real Comparison for Video Editors

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 Video Editors? Our Read

What video editors need from their software, from sources outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa:

Toggl Track covers the hours side of editing, and covers it well. Its pages list project timesheets, billable rates, estimated vs. actual time, and profitability reports by project and client. For an editor, that means checking a cut against its hourly budget and seeing which revision round pushed a job over. It tracks on web, desktop and mobile, and it has a free plan and a 30-day trial. It does not list the paperwork a freelancer's income depends on. Its pages mention no expense records, no self-employment tax set-aside (15.3% on net earnings, and about 35% of film and video editors are self-employed), and no cash-flow view for the idle weeks between projects. They also mention no per-payee totals for 1099-NEC reporting on assistants, colorists or mixers you hire, and no place to record whether a client owns a cut or only licenses it. It does list invoicing, so billing is covered.

Nexa covers more of the money side. It lists invoices, estimates and proposals that convert to invoices, payment plans, expenses, profit and loss, cash flow, 1099 summaries, and jobs with profit per job. Clients can pay by card through your own Stripe account. Those features fit income that arrives in bursts, and they fit tracking what you pay hired help. Its gaps for this trade are real. It lists no estimated vs. actual time, so it can't check a cut against its hourly budget. Nothing in its list says it collects W-9s or estimates self-employment tax. It has no structured field for ownership or license terms. Its CRM has free-text notes, but that is a note, not a record tied to each job. It has no QuickBooks or Xero sync and no integration library. It runs on one device unless you add optional Cloud Sync. It is software you own and run yourself, with no hosted support desk or onboarding. We have not tested either product, and this page's publisher makes Nexa, so check both against a trial.

Over three years, Toggl Track at $12 a month ($144 a year) costs $432. Nexa is $279 once, or three payments of $99, on one device. With Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for all three years it comes to $458.64, which is more than Toggl Track. The deciding question is how you control revision rounds. If you bill hourly or against a time budget, Toggl Track does something Nexa doesn't, so stay and handle invoices, tax set-asides and 1099 records separately with a bookkeeping tool. Toggl's free plan may already be enough for the hours side. Consider Nexa only if your invoices, expenses and contractor payments are scattered across spreadsheets, you bill flat project fees, and you can give up time-budget reports. Whichever you choose, put cut ownership or license terms in writing in every client contract, because neither tool tracks them.

Our read for video editors: If you bill by the hour or budget revision rounds, keep Toggl Track, because Nexa has no estimated vs. actual time and costs more over three years once Cloud Sync is added.

Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.

Bottom Line

Toggl Track costs video editors $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 video editors: Stay with Toggl Track 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 $432 for Toggl Track over three years.

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?

A project lands as a folder of raw footage and a vague request, so the first job is organising: logging clips, syncing audio, labelling the good takes and building a rough structure before I touch the timeline. The rough cut is about story; I'm cutting interviews down to the strongest lines, finding the order that makes sense, and laying B-roll over the joins. Then the fine cut: pacing, transitions, music that fits and is properly licensed, and sound levelled so dialogue is clear on a phone speaker. Colour correction comes next, matching shots from different cameras so it looks like one piece. Captions and graphics go on last, and I export versions for each platform, landscape, square and vertical, each with its own crop. Revisions are where I protect my time; my agreement sets the number of rounds, and I timestamp every note so feedback is specific. I back up every project to two drives. I bill some clients per project and some monthly for a set number of videos, and I track my hours on both so I know which are worth keeping.

Time tracking, invoicing, client records and job tracking 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. 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 Video Editors

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

FeatureToggl TrackNexa
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 accessYes — 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

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.

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)

What people outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa say:

Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.

Where business tools fit — for a video editor

Software doesn't do the creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every video editor: 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. 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. 2

    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. 3

    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. 4

    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 video editor'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 Interview-led brand video (3 min)
Service Edit (rough + fine cut) 1 × $900 $900
Time Labor — tracked on the job 4 hrs × $65/hr $260
Materials Music licence $60
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$1,420
Deposit credited−$450
Invoice total$970

You didn't write this invoice — the job did.

Calculate Your Full Stack

Toggl Track plus whatever else you're paying for:

Email yourself this comparison?

Switching from Toggl Track

1
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 Video Editors

The median video editor earns $48,000/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 video editors. You own it like you own your Editing workstation (high-spec CPU/GPU, 64GB+ RAM).

Is Nexa actually right for a video editor?

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 80,000 video editors in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
  • You're tired of paying every month for freshbooks 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 Editing workstation (high-spec CPU/GPU, 64GB+ RAM).

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 video editors 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.

Video Editors by the numbers — by place

Tax & registration where you operate

Where video editors actually talk shop

Your people are already online — swapping real numbers, tool picks, and war stories. Here's where to find them.

Recent in r/sweatystartup · Where solo service businesses swap real numbers and hard-won lessons.
Quit my six-figure corporate sales job to buy a home service franchise. On pace to do $2M+ this year. AMA. Three years ago I posted about starting a company with no construction experience. Here's what I've learned since. I run my business — it doesn't run me. I think AI search is about to change how local service businesses get found. Anyone else seeing this? Update: $12k/mo revenue after 1.5 years. What I'd do differently from day one.

Subreddits worth your time

r/VideoEditing

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/editors

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/premiere

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →
r/davinciresolve

Active community — tool picks, pricing, and day-to-day questions.

Open on Reddit →

Facebook groups to join

Video Editors & Post Production Freelance Video Editors Premiere Pro Users
Podcasts
🎧 The Cutting Room Floor🎧 Art of the Cut
Forums
Creative COW ForumsLiftGammaGain.com

Time tracking, invoicing, client records and job tracking 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.

What video editors actually deal with

A day in the life of a video editor

A project lands as a folder of raw footage and a vague request, so the first job is organising: logging clips, syncing audio, labelling the good takes and building a rough structure before I touch the timeline. The rough cut is about story; I'm cutting interviews down to the strongest lines, finding the order that makes sense, and laying B-roll over the joins. Then the fine cut: pacing, transitions, music that fits and is properly licensed, and sound levelled so dialogue is clear on a phone speaker. Colour correction comes next, matching shots from different cameras so it looks like one piece. Captions and graphics go on last, and I export versions for each platform, landscape, square and vertical, each with its own crop. Revisions are where I protect my time; my agreement sets the number of rounds, and I timestamp every note so feedback is specific. I back up every project to two drives. I bill some clients per project and some monthly for a set number of videos, and I track my hours on both so I know which are worth keeping.

The tools a working video editor actually owns

Why video editors leave the big platforms

Where video editors actually talk shop

Local video editors on Nexa

Real video editors near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee. Are you a video editor? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time. Or browse every video editor on Nexa →

The kit a working video editor owns

The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.

Editing workstation (high-spec CPU/GPU, 64GB+ RAM)

Multiple monitors (color-calibrated)

NLE software licenses (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut)

External storage (RAID arrays, NAS)

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.

How To Read This Page

How we put this guide together

We build a video editor'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 video editor — 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

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 video editors 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 video editors, 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.

$432 Over 3 Years. Or $279 Once (or 3 × $99).

Own your tools. Stop renting your software.

Get Nexa — $279 Once
or 3 payments of $99
✓ 30-day money-back — save $500 or full refund

More Comparisons for Video Editors