What app flippers need from their software, from sources outside Wave and outside Nexa:
Development spend on an app needs its own tracking. Since 2025, software development costs are treated as research or experimental expenditures under IRC §174A(d)(3). A flipper can deduct domestic costs in the year incurred. They can instead elect to capitalize and amortize them over at least 60 months. The election is made on the original return for the first year it applies, and the chosen method must be kept in later years unless the IRS consents to a change. Software tools therefore need to tag development labor and contractor costs by project and by domestic or foreign location. (irs.gov)
Selling an app business means reporting how the sale price is split between intangibles and other assets. Both buyer and seller generally attach Form 8594 to their tax return for the year of the sale. Publication 544 lists business books and records and information systems among section 197 intangibles. It also says a loss on a section 197 intangible cannot be deducted when it is disposed of. Instead, the loss is added to the adjusted basis of the section 197 intangibles the owner still holds. Flippers need acquisition-price allocation records for each app they buy and sell. (irs.gov)
Revenue often arrives through third-party payment platforms, so records have to cover payouts that do not come with a Form 1099-K. A third party settlement organization need only file a 1099-K when a payee's gross reportable payments exceed $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200. Flippers whose per-app revenue stays under that limit still need their own income records for each app. (irs.gov)
Wave covers the general bookkeeping side of flipping apps. Its free Starter plan includes invoices and bookkeeping records. Pro, at $19 a month ($228 a year), adds automatic bank import, receipt capture and categorizing, and user roles. That helps with per-app income records when payouts come through payment platforms that may never send a 1099-K. The listed features don't include tagging development labor or contractor costs by project or by domestic versus foreign location. They also don't include acquisition-price allocation records for each app bought and sold. Those are the two things the §174A election and Form 8594 reporting depend on.
Nexa covers more of the project-level side. It has expenses, profit and loss, a balance sheet, cash flow, 1099 summaries, receipt scanning, jobs with costing and profit per job, and missions (projects) with sub-steps. Per-app cost tracking could be approximated that way. But nothing in its feature set tags costs as domestic or foreign, and nothing records how a purchase price is split across assets. It has no manual journal entries, no sync or import with QuickBooks or Xero, and no hosted support or onboarding. Without the optional Cloud Sync it runs on one device only.
Over three years, Wave Pro comes to $684. Nexa is $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), and with Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month for 36 months the total is $458.64. A flipper who only needs bank import and simple income records per app can stay on Wave, and its free plan may be enough. Nexa's lower price doesn't fix the missing cost tagging or allocation records. Flippers who need to track development spend by project and location, and to keep allocation records for each sale, should look for a tool built for project-level cost tracking and asset-purchase records. Until then, they should keep those records in a separate ledger and have an accountant review them.
Our read for app flippers: Neither tool tags development costs by project and domestic or foreign location or keeps purchase-price allocation records, so look for project-level cost-tracking and asset-ledger software.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Wave costs app flippers $228/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 14.7 months it has cost less than Wave, 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 Wave 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 app flippers: Neither Wave 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 $684 for Wave over three years.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need financial suite and task manager in one tool
You're tired of price increases
You want to own your tools like you own your equipment
Choose Wave if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Wave's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
An app flipper trades on metrics most people never see. Morning is the consoles: App Store Connect and Play Console side by side, checking yesterday's downloads, in-app purchases, and the subscription churn number that quietly decides whether an app is worth holding. RevenueCat shows a cohort of subscribers lapsing on a utility app, which is a problem if the plan was to sell it on its recurring revenue. Midday is acquisition diligence: a listing on Acquire.com claims steady MRR, so the flipper asks for analytics access, checks whether downloads are organic or paid, and probes the churn, because a high-churn subscription app is a leaky bucket dressed up as recurring income. Afternoon brings an ownership transfer that's mid-flight; transferring an app between developer accounts has its own rules, and this one is stuck because the receiving account hasn't accepted, so the flipper chases the buyer and confirms the agreements are signed. There's also ASO housekeeping on an app being groomed for sale, refreshing keywords and the screenshot set to nudge organic installs upward before listing. A new iOS beta dropped, which raises the perennial fear that an OS change breaks one of the apps, so a quick compatibility check goes on the list. The day ends tallying per-app revenue and churn into the portfolio tracker and noting which apps are sale-ready and which need another month of stabilized numbers.
Verifying download numbers, in-app revenue, and subscription churn before acquiring an app at a revenue multiple
Tracking recurring subscription income and churn across a portfolio of apps with different billing cycles
Navigating the App Store / Play ownership transfer process so a sale doesn't get stuck in platform limbo
Defending an app's valuation against the risk of an OS update or store policy change breaking it overnight
The books 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. Wave solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Wave Actually Costs App Flippers
Today's list price is $19/month — $228 a year, from Wave's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$228
Year 2$228
Year 3$228
Three years of Wave$684
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $405 less.
If Wave 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
Wave
Nexa
Invoicing
✓
✓
Scheduling
✗
✓
CRM
✗
✓
Time Tracking
✗
✓
Full Accounting
✓
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
✗
✓
Works offline
✗
✓
Price
$19/mo
$279 once or 3 × $99
3-Year Total
$684
$279
You own it?
No — stop paying, lose access
Yes — forever
✓ and ✗ for Wave come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Wave 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.
Wave'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 Wave Does Better
Straight from Wave's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Free plan covering unlimited invoices and bookkeeping
Bank transaction import on Pro
Receipt capture
Late payment reminders
Simple enough to run without an accountant
A free plan to start on (with limits), so you can use Wave before paying anything.
Wave is the better call if you need free plan covering unlimited invoices and bookkeeping specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
What Wave Is Built For
Wave says it is built for small business owners and solopreneurs at every stage, not accountants. Its page names freelancers, contractors and consultants. (waveapps.com)
The Starter plan costs $0 and includes unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records. (waveapps.com)
Pro costs $19 USD a month or $190 USD a year. It adds automatic bank transaction import (for banks Plaid supports), automatic merging and categorizing of bank transactions, and automated late-payment reminders at 3, 7 and 14 days after the due date. (waveapps.com)
Pro lets you put your logo and brand colors on invoices, remove Wave branding from footers, and attach files to invoices and estimates. It also adds user roles (admin, editor, viewer), and the payroll manager and Block Advisors tax pro roles are free. (waveapps.com)
Online card payments on Starter cost 2.9% + $0.60 (Amex 3.4% + $0.60). On Pro the first 10 transactions each month are 2.9% + $0, then 2.9% + $0.60. (waveapps.com)
Wave Advisors starts at $149 a month and includes a dedicated bookkeeper and monthly financial statements. Payroll is an add-on starting at $25 a month in one region and $40 in the other; the page does not say which price applies where. (waveapps.com)
Wave lists a mobile app for invoices, expenses and receipts, and 256-bit SSL encryption with PCI-DSS Level 1 certification. Live chat and email support runs Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 4:45 PM Eastern, and is tied to optional add-ons. (waveapps.com)
What people outside Wave and outside Nexa say:
NerdWallet lists a free plan and straightforward invoicing as pros. Its cons are no built-in third-party integrations, no advanced features such as mileage, time tracking or inventory, no live support unless you pay, and no audit trails. (nerdwallet.com)
NerdWallet says "An overwhelming number of Wave reviewers criticize its customer support." It adds that the paid plan "doesn't address Wave users' biggest complaint: customer service." (nerdwallet.com)
Tech.co praises the free tier, affordable add-ons and the way Wave "does the basics well." It concludes "Wave is definitely worth it" for side businesses that don't need specialist accounting features. (tech.co)
Tech.co criticizes Wave for lacking advanced features such as budgeting, cash flow projections, stock handling and project accounting, and for struggling to scale with growing businesses. It also says phone and live chat support come at a premium. (tech.co)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for an app flipper
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every app flipper: 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.
1
Find the work
Win the job
↓
A lead, a call, a referral — and a quote or estimate that turns it into a booked job.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Do the job
↓
The part you actually get paid for — with the time, materials, add-ons, and tasks tracked as you go, not guessed at later.
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 actual work. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)
Calculate Your Full Stack
Wave plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Wave
1
Export your data — Go to Settings → Data Export. Download customers, invoices, transactions, and accounts.
2
Set up Nexa — 15-minute setup. Import your client list and bank transactions from CSV.
3
Parallel run — Run both for 1-2 weeks. Re-create recurring invoices in Nexa and check your bank imports.
4
Cancel Wave — Cancel paid features. Your free account data stays accessible for records.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for App Flippers
The median App Flipper earns $32,000/year. At $228/year, Wave 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 app flippers. You own it like you own your App Store Connect and Google Play Console accounts.
Is Nexa actually right for an app flipper?
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 40,000 app flippers 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 App Store Connect and Google Play Console accounts.
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 app flippers 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.
The books 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 app flippers actually deal with
Verifying download numbers, in-app revenue, and subscription churn before acquiring an app at a revenue multiple
Tracking recurring subscription income and churn across a portfolio of apps with different billing cycles
Navigating the App Store / Play ownership transfer process so a sale doesn't get stuck in platform limbo
Defending an app's valuation against the risk of an OS update or store policy change breaking it overnight
A day in the life of a app flipper
An app flipper trades on metrics most people never see. Morning is the consoles: App Store Connect and Play Console side by side, checking yesterday's downloads, in-app purchases, and the subscription churn number that quietly decides whether an app is worth holding. RevenueCat shows a cohort of subscribers lapsing on a utility app, which is a problem if the plan was to sell it on its recurring revenue. Midday is acquisition diligence: a listing on Acquire.com claims steady MRR, so the flipper asks for analytics access, checks whether downloads are organic or paid, and probes the churn, because a high-churn subscription app is a leaky bucket dressed up as recurring income. Afternoon brings an ownership transfer that's mid-flight; transferring an app between developer accounts has its own rules, and this one is stuck because the receiving account hasn't accepted, so the flipper chases the buyer and confirms the agreements are signed. There's also ASO housekeeping on an app being groomed for sale, refreshing keywords and the screenshot set to nudge organic installs upward before listing. A new iOS beta dropped, which raises the perennial fear that an OS change breaks one of the apps, so a quick compatibility check goes on the list. The day ends tallying per-app revenue and churn into the portfolio tracker and noting which apps are sale-ready and which need another month of stabilized numbers.
The tools a working app flipper actually owns
App Store Connect and Google Play Console accounts
app analytics (App Store Connect / Play Console / RevenueCat)
ASO tooling (App Radar, Sensor Tower)
a transfer/escrow process for app ownership handoff
a P&L tracker for download revenue, IAP, and subscription churn per app
Local app flippers on Nexa
Real app flippers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you an app flipper? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every app flipper on Nexa →
The kit a working app flipper owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Development laptop
$1,500–$4,000
Core kitEssential
Test devices: iOS and Android
$400–$1,500
Core kitEssential
Dual monitors
$400–$1,600
Core kitEssential
Ergonomic chair and desk
$300–$1,500
Core kitEssential
Mechanical keyboard and mouse
$100–$400
Core kitEssential
Backup storage
$150–$700
The core kit, bought once$2,850–$9,700
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $2,850–$9,700 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.
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 Wave'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 Wave'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 app flippers we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Wave on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Wave'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 an app flipper'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 an app flipper — 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 pricingQuickBooks $456/yr, Wave $228/yr, FreshBooks $516/yr, Square — 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 $32,000 median we cite for the typical app flipper 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.
The field's own bodiesWe anchor what app flippers actually need to the people who set the standards — NRF. We don't speak for them; we point you to them so you can weigh this guide against the profession's own.
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 Wave replacement?
For solo app flippers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Wave may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
What does Wave do that Nexa doesn't?
Wave has features like Free plan covering unlimited invoices and bookkeeping and Bank transaction import on Pro that some businesses rely on. For most solo app flippers, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $19/month, Nexa pays for itself in 14.7 months. After that: $228 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.