What nft creators need from their software, from sources outside Wave and outside Nexa:
NFT sales are not reported like ordinary sales. For US tax purposes the IRS treats digital assets, NFTs included, as property, not currency. Digital assets received as payment for goods or services in a business context are ordinary income, and independent contractors report them on Schedule C. Form 1040 asks every filer whether they received or disposed of a digital asset during the year, and transactions must be reported whether or not they produce a taxable gain or loss. A creator therefore needs a record of each sale, including the date and the value in US dollars when the asset was received. (irs.gov)
Brokers and platforms report to the IRS on Form 1099-DA. Gross proceeds are reported for transactions on or after Jan. 1, 2025, and basis for certain transactions from Jan. 1, 2026. For certain NFT sales, brokers may report on an aggregate basis above de minimis thresholds. A creator's own records need to reconcile to these forms. (irs.gov)
Tax rate depends on what the NFT represents. Under IRS Notice 2023-27, an NFT is treated as a collectible if its associated right or asset is one, and a collectible held more than one year is subject to a maximum 28% capital gains rate. The IRS is still considering whether a digital file counts as a 'work of art' under section 408(m)(2)(A). Creators and collectors therefore need to record what each NFT is tied to, such as a physical item, a license, or a file. (irs.gov)
Sales tax on NFT sales varies by state and by what the NFT conveys, so creators need to record the buyer's location and what each sale includes. Pennsylvania taxes an NFT sale when it transfers rights to taxable property or services. If a sale mixes taxable and nontaxable parts, the whole amount is taxable unless the nontaxable parts are separately stated and identified. A Pennsylvania billing address on the invoice creates a presumption of a Pennsylvania purchase. Marketplace facilitators and online sellers with a Pennsylvania place of business, which includes economic presence, must register, collect and remit the tax. (pa.gov)
Creator royalties on resales need to be tracked as their own income stream, because tax treatment differs between the first sale and later resales. Pennsylvania states that royalties generated by a subsequent sale of an NFT are not subject to sales and use tax. (pa.gov)
Wave covers the bookkeeping side of an NFT creator's work. It gives you invoices, bookkeeping records, receipt capture, and bank transaction import on Pro. Its Starter plan is free. That is enough to keep a dated record of income and expenses and to hand clean books to a tax preparer. What its feature list does not show is anything specific to digital assets. It has no wallet or on-chain import, no value-in-USD-at-receipt capture, no field for what an NFT is tied to (a physical item, a license or a file), no separate tracking of royalties on resales, and no sales tax tracking by buyer location. Those are the records this trade needs for the IRS digital-asset question, Form 1099-DA reconciliation, collectible-versus-other treatment and state sales tax.
Nexa covers more of the general back office. It has invoices, expenses, bank reconciliation, profit and loss, balance sheet, 1099 summaries, sales tax tracking and receipt scanning. All of that is software you own and run yourself. It does not list wallet or crypto import, and a client record has no street-address field, which makes recording a buyer's location harder. It has no QuickBooks or Xero sync and no hosted support desk. If you used its automated emails, they send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. Its sales tax tracking is a real plus over what Wave lists, but it is not built for NFT sales either.
Over three years Wave Pro is $684 ($19 a month, $228 a year), and the free Starter plan costs nothing if invoicing and bookkeeping are all you need. Nexa is $279 once, or $458.64 over three years if you add Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month. If you already use Wave and it keeps your books in order, there is no strong reason to move. If you want to own your software and track sales tax inside it, Nexa is a fair choice. Either way, add a tool that tracks wallet transactions and USD value at the time of each sale, and keep a side record of what each NFT conveys and where the buyer is.
Our read for nft creators: Neither tool covers wallet-level sale records, USD value at receipt or royalty tracking, so pair your bookkeeping with crypto tax and digital-asset tracking software.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Wave costs nft creators $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 nft creators: 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?
The day runs on two clocks at once: the art pipeline and the community. Morning is in the studio refining trait layers for the next collection, making sure the rare combinations actually render and the metadata JSON points at the right images on IPFS. Then it's into Discord, where overnight there are mod tickets, a phishing link someone posted in general, and twenty people asking when the next drop is. The creator checks the block explorer to see how secondary sales did overnight and notices royalties came in lighter than the volume suggests, because the marketplace made creator fees optional again. There's a quote to assemble for a brand that wants a small custom 1/1 set, priced in a stablecoin, which means thinking about gas, conversion, and what the work is actually worth. Afternoon is split between answering collector DMs, scheduling a teaser post, and the unglamorous accounting reality: every wallet has coin-in and coin-out events that the tax software will eventually demand a cost basis for. Before signing off, the creator pulls proceeds from the last drop off the wallet, converts a portion to fiat to cover rent, and writes down the rate so next April isn't a forensic reconstruction across three chains.
Tracking mint revenue, secondary royalties, and gas costs across multiple wallets and chains for tax season
Royalty enforcement collapsing as marketplaces make creator fees optional, so secondary income evaporates
Converting crypto proceeds to fiat and documenting cost basis for every coin in/coin out
Holding the Discord community's attention between drops without overpromising a roadmap
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 NFT Creators
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 nft creator
Software doesn't do the actual work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every nft creator: 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.)
Watch a job become an invoice
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A nft creator'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 Commissioned 1/1 artwork minted for a collector
ServiceCustom 1/1 illustration1 × $800$800
ServiceMinting + IPFS metadata setup1 × $100$100
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$950
Deposit credited−$400
Invoice total$550
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
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 NFT Creators
The median NFT Creator 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 nft creators. You own it like you own your self-custody wallet (MetaMask / Phantom / Ledger).
Is Nexa actually right for a nft creator?
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 nft creators 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 self-custody wallet (MetaMask / Phantom / Ledger).
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 nft creators 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 nft creators actually deal with
Tracking mint revenue, secondary royalties, and gas costs across multiple wallets and chains for tax season
Royalty enforcement collapsing as marketplaces make creator fees optional, so secondary income evaporates
Converting crypto proceeds to fiat and documenting cost basis for every coin in/coin out
Holding the Discord community's attention between drops without overpromising a roadmap
A day in the life of a nft creator
The day runs on two clocks at once: the art pipeline and the community. Morning is in the studio refining trait layers for the next collection, making sure the rare combinations actually render and the metadata JSON points at the right images on IPFS. Then it's into Discord, where overnight there are mod tickets, a phishing link someone posted in general, and twenty people asking when the next drop is. The creator checks the block explorer to see how secondary sales did overnight and notices royalties came in lighter than the volume suggests, because the marketplace made creator fees optional again. There's a quote to assemble for a brand that wants a small custom 1/1 set, priced in a stablecoin, which means thinking about gas, conversion, and what the work is actually worth. Afternoon is split between answering collector DMs, scheduling a teaser post, and the unglamorous accounting reality: every wallet has coin-in and coin-out events that the tax software will eventually demand a cost basis for. Before signing off, the creator pulls proceeds from the last drop off the wallet, converts a portion to fiat to cover rent, and writes down the rate so next April isn't a forensic reconstruction across three chains.
The tools a working nft creator actually owns
self-custody wallet (MetaMask / Phantom / Ledger)
OpenSea, Magic Eden, or Foundation seller accounts
Photoshop / Procreate / Blender art pipeline
a generative art script or trait-layering tool (HashLips-style)
Discord server with verification and role bots
a block explorer (Etherscan / Solscan) for tracking mints and royalties
Local nft creators on Nexa
Real nft creators near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a nft creator? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every nft creator on Nexa →
The kit a working nft creator owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
self-custody wallet (MetaMask / Phantom / Ledger)
OpenSea, Magic Eden, or Foundation seller accounts
Photoshop / Procreate / Blender art pipeline
a generative art script or trait-layering tool (HashLips-style)
Discord server with verification and role bots
a block explorer (Etherscan / Solscan) for tracking mints and royalties
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
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 nft creators 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 nft creator'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 nft creator — 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 nft creator 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 Wave replacement?
For solo nft creators 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 nft creators, 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.