Wave vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Chainsaw Carvers
Wave
$19/mo ($228/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 14.7 months at Wave's current price.
Does Wave Fit Chainsaw Carvers? Our Read
What chainsaw carvers need from their software, from sources outside Wave and outside Nexa:
Carvers who sell only at craft shows and festivals may need a state license and must collect sales tax. In South Carolina, an artist or crafter who sells products they made as a vendor at craft shows and festivals more than four times in a fiscal year needs an Artist & Craftsman License ($20, non-refundable). They must collect the 6% statewide Sales & Use Tax plus any local taxes. Sales outside shows and festivals, including online, need a $50 Retail License. Records need to track sales by event and by sales channel. Other states have their own rules. (dor.sc.gov)
A carver whose work doesn't make a profit may be treated as having a hobby, not a business. The IRS says an activity is presumed to be for profit if it makes a profit in at least three of the last five tax years. For hobby activities, deductions cannot exceed the activity's gross receipts, and losses cannot offset other income. The page lists factors such as time and effort, dependence on the income, and changes made to improve profitability. This makes per-year income and expense records, including chainsaws, logs and travel, important. The IRS page is marked as historical and may not reflect current law. (irs.gov)
Chainsaw carvers commonly set a price from an hourly or day rate and then adjust it to what the customer will pay. In a UK carving forum thread, one carver suggests starting from your normal or desired hourly rate, then adjusting it. Reported prices for similar owl carvings range from £275 to about £1,500. Quotes therefore need to record hours, materials and the final agreed price per piece. (arbtalk.co.uk)
Carvers weigh a day rate plus costs against a price based on what the piece is worth. In a UK forum thread, one poster uses a community-art day rate of £180–200 for a 7-hour day, plus costs, and calls it a recognised standard for school projects. Another says a piece is worth what someone will pay and that some days he earns about £50. A carver needs to track hours and costs per job to see which method pays. (arbtalk.co.uk)
Chainsaw carving competitions sell finished pieces at live auctions, with part of the proceeds going to local nonprofits. In the Carve Wars event at Purgatory Resort, pieces are sold on completion at live auctions on set days and times. The article does not say whether carvers donate the pieces or receive a share. A carver who takes part in such events needs to record each piece, the auction outcome and the terms agreed with the organizer, for tax and payout purposes. (snowsportsnews.com)
Wave covers the paperwork side of carving well. Its free Starter plan handles unlimited estimates, invoices and bookkeeping records, which is enough to keep per-year income and expense records for a hobby-or-business question. The Pro plan adds automatic bank transaction import and categorizing, receipt capture, a mobile app, and late-payment reminders. It does not list per-job costing, so a carver who prices from an hourly or day rate would have to track hours, materials and the final price per piece outside Wave. It also has nothing built for tracking sales by show or by channel, or for logging live-auction outcomes and organizer terms, which many states and the IRS make worth recording.
Nexa covers more of the job-level work. It has invoices, estimates and quotes, jobs with costing and profit per job, time tracking, expenses, receipt scanning, profit and loss, and sales tax tracking, which is what you need to see whether a day rate or a what-it-is-worth price pays better. It runs offline, which helps at festivals. It does not list per-event or per-channel tracking, so you would need to tag those yourself. It has no point-of-sale or card reader, and online cards go only through your own Stripe account. It also has no sync or import with QuickBooks or Xero, and no stated automatic bank import. Its automated emails and reminders send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It has no hosted support desk.
Over three years, Wave Pro is $228 a year, or $684. Nexa is $279 once (or 3 payments of $99), or $458.64 with optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. Without sync it stays at $279 on one device. A carver who is happy with Wave's free Starter plan, or who wants bank feeds and late-payment reminders, should stay on Wave. A carver who wants profit per piece and is comfortable running software on their own device should look at Nexa.
Our read for chainsaw carvers: Stay on Wave if bank import and reminders matter most; choose Nexa if you want hours, costs and profit tracked per piece and can live without hosted support.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Wave costs chainsaw carvers $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 chainsaw carvers: Either can do the job, for the reasons in our read above. On price alone, that is $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 invoicing, task manager and financial suite 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?
It starts at the wood. You walk the yard checking which white pine and cottonwood butts have seasoned enough and which are still wet, then wrestle a 200-pound log onto the stand with the hoist. Chaps on, face shield down, muffs on, the roughing saw screams and chips fly as you block out a bear: ears here, shoulders there, cutting away everything that isn't bear. Bar oil and two-stroke smoke hang in the cold air. Switch to the detail saw with the dime-tip bar to plunge the snout and undercut the paws, then the angle grinder with a chain disc to rough the fur before burrs and a torch lay in the grain. A customer texts mid-cut wanting a price on a memorial eagle from their fallen oak; you wipe sawdust off the phone and try to remember what you charged for the last one. Afternoon is finishing: sand the face smooth, brush on a linseed-and-spirits cut so the green wood doesn't check, then spar urethane the pieces headed outdoors. You load three carvings for Saturday's fair, chase a deposit on a totem that's been sitting blanked-out for a month, and sweep a shop floor ankle-deep in chips. Tomorrow the bear gets a face.
Quoting one-off custom work with no list price: a 6-foot eagle with a fish in its talons is a different beast than a plain bear, and detail level and species push the same height to wildly different numbers
Green-wood gamble: a log carved this week keeps drying and can develop deep checks for a year, so tracking which carvings were sealed, when, and whether the buyer was told to re-oil it is a paperwork mess
Festival cash chaos: quick-carve auctions, walk-up booth sales, and same-day commissions all hit in a weekend of dust and noise, then reconciling cash, cards, and 'I'll pick it up next week' holds against a table of inventory
Commission deposits and the dead season: a carver takes a deposit on a custom totem, seasons the log, then waits, and winter kills the foot traffic that funds gas and rent
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. Wave solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Wave Actually Costs Chainsaw Carvers
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 a chainsaw carver
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every chainsaw carver: 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 Chainsaw Carvers
The median chainsaw carver earns $36,000/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 chainsaw carvers. You own it like you own your Powerhead saws in two roles: a heavy roughing saw for stock removal and a lighter detail saw fitted with a 12-inch dime-tip carving bar for tight noses and fine cuts.
Is Nexa actually right for a chainsaw carver?
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
Right for you if
You run solo or a small crew — like the 4,000 chainsaw carvers in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for quickbooks and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
You want to invoice, schedule, and track from the field — not from a back office.
You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your Powerhead saws in two roles: a heavy roughing saw for stock removal and a lighter detail saw fitted with a 12-inch dime-tip carving bar for tight noses and fine cuts.
Look elsewhere if
You run a 20+ chainsaw carver fleet that needs enterprise dispatch and multi-crew routing — Nexa is built for 1–5, and a fleet 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 chainsaw carvers 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.
Chainsaw Carvers by the numbers — by place
Tax, licensing & seasonality where you operate
1-13.3%income tax
CSLB (Contractors State License Board)licensing
Year-round construction in SoCal. Fire season (June-November) drives restoration demand. Drought impacts landscaping. Earthquake retrofitting is ongoing market.
DBPR (Dept of Business and Professional Regulation)licensing
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.
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.
What chainsaw carvers actually deal with
Quoting one-off custom work with no list price: a 6-foot eagle with a fish in its talons is a different beast than a plain bear, and detail level and species push the same height to wildly different numbers
Green-wood gamble: a log carved this week keeps drying and can develop deep checks for a year, so tracking which carvings were sealed, when, and whether the buyer was told to re-oil it is a paperwork mess
Festival cash chaos: quick-carve auctions, walk-up booth sales, and same-day commissions all hit in a weekend of dust and noise, then reconciling cash, cards, and 'I'll pick it up next week' holds against a table of inventory
Commission deposits and the dead season: a carver takes a deposit on a custom totem, seasons the log, then waits, and winter kills the foot traffic that funds gas and rent
A day in the life of a chainsaw carver
It starts at the wood. You walk the yard checking which white pine and cottonwood butts have seasoned enough and which are still wet, then wrestle a 200-pound log onto the stand with the hoist. Chaps on, face shield down, muffs on, the roughing saw screams and chips fly as you block out a bear: ears here, shoulders there, cutting away everything that isn't bear. Bar oil and two-stroke smoke hang in the cold air. Switch to the detail saw with the dime-tip bar to plunge the snout and undercut the paws, then the angle grinder with a chain disc to rough the fur before burrs and a torch lay in the grain. A customer texts mid-cut wanting a price on a memorial eagle from their fallen oak; you wipe sawdust off the phone and try to remember what you charged for the last one. Afternoon is finishing: sand the face smooth, brush on a linseed-and-spirits cut so the green wood doesn't check, then spar urethane the pieces headed outdoors. You load three carvings for Saturday's fair, chase a deposit on a totem that's been sitting blanked-out for a month, and sweep a shop floor ankle-deep in chips. Tomorrow the bear gets a face.
The tools a working chainsaw carver actually owns
Powerhead saws in two roles: a heavy roughing saw for stock removal and a lighter detail saw fitted with a 12-inch dime-tip carving bar for tight noses and fine cuts
Spare carving bars and quarter-tip/dime-tip chains, plus a chain-sharpening kit because carving chains dull fast in dirty bark
4-1/2 inch angle grinder with carving chain discs and donut burrs for shaping fur, feathers, and feather-edges after the saw work
Full PPE rig: kevlar chaps, face shield over safety glasses, ear muffs, and steel-toe boots run all day in dust and two-stroke exhaust
Finishing kit: propane torch for accenting grain, boiled-linseed/mineral-spirits cut, exterior spar urethane, and a sprayer for sealing green wood against checking
A box trailer or truck rig with a generator, ramps, and an engine hoist to haul 200-lb logs and finished bears to fairs and buyers' yards
Why chainsaw carvers leave the big platforms
quickbooks: $55/month for a seasonal carving business. Winter months have near-zero revenue.
wave: Too basic. Can't track per-commission costs with travel, fuel, and chain wear.
Where chainsaw carvers actually talk shop
r/woodworking (Reddit)
r/chainsaw (Reddit)
ChainsawCarvers.com Forum (Forum)
Griffon Ramsey (YouTube)
Jordan Anderson Carves (YouTube)
Chainsaw Carl (YouTube)
Local chainsaw carvers on Nexa
Real chainsaw carvers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a chainsaw carver? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every chainsaw carver on Nexa →
The kit a working chainsaw carver owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Core kitEssential
Carving chainsaws, multiple sizes
$400–$1,500
Core kitEssential
Angle grinder with carving disc
$60–$250
Core kitEssential
Die grinder and burrs
$50–$200
Core kitEssential
Chaps, helmet and hearing protection
$100–$350
Core kitEssential
Chain sharpening kit
$40–$250
Core kitEssential
Propane torch for finishing
$30–$120
Core kitEssential
Sanders and flap wheels
$40–$150
Core kitEssential
Log dogs, cant hook and stands
$50–$200
Upgrade
Trailer for transport
$1,500–$5,000
Upgrade
Generator for remote demos
$500–$1,500
The core kit, bought once$770–$3,020
Here's the bar that matters: you spent $770–$3,020 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 chainsaw carvers 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 a chainsaw carver'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 chainsaw carver — 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, 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 $36,000 median we cite for the typical chainsaw carver 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 chainsaw carvers actually need to the people who set the standards — AWI. 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 chainsaw carvers 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 chainsaw carvers, 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.