What's free and what's paid in Nexus?

What's free and what's paid in Nexus?

The most important thing to know about Nexus: a large part of it is free, for every NHS staff member, forever — no card details, no trial that runs out, no obligation to ever subscribe. The paid platform is a separate, optional decision for your practice.

Free — for anyone with an NHS email

Register once with your @nhs.net or nhs.uk address and you have:

  • Practice, PCN and ICB benchmark dashboards — your organisation compared against peers and the national picture on QOF, demographics, workforce, income, quality and patient experience
  • Funding & equity dashboard — income vs activity, staffing, deprivation and disease burden across England
  • Data sources reference — every dataset behind the dashboards
  • National performance dashboard — every ICB in England ranked, free for every account
  • Find a GP — the public practice-comparison page (no account needed)

All of it runs on published, aggregate NHS data. There is nothing to cancel because there is nothing to pay.

Paid — a subscription your practice chooses to take

The paid platform adds the tools that work on your own live data and day-to-day workflows:

CapabilityWhat it adds
Build toolsForms, questionnaires, searches, dashboards and library items, exported ready for your clinical system
Monitoring & recallThe recall worklist and monitoring packs
Performance and Actions dashboardsYour live, in-year position computed from your own clinical system — QOF — live, Multi-KPI patients and Data quality, with CQC performance, CQC actions and Childhood immunisations as separate packages
WorkforceRotas, rooms, leave and absence
FFTFriends & Family Test by email and SMS
CommunicationsDrafting, approval and scheduling
AutomationStanding instructions and the patients who now need a decision
ResultsIncoming test results grouped by what they mean

Subscriptions are an annual Core Platform band based on registered population, plus optional modules. Some capabilities are add-ons (for example AI Insights, metered in Insight Credits, and PowerPoint export of the benchmarks). Current prices are on the in-app /pricing page; see Platform tiers and à-la-carte packages.

Moving between the two

  • Start free, decide later. Most practices should simply take the free dashboards first. If your practice later subscribes, your account joins the organisation and the paid features light up — nothing to reinstall or re-register.
  • Trying the paid platform is also low-risk: new organisations get a free 90-day trial with no card details.
  • If your practice already subscribes, you don't need to buy anything — ask to join its organisation account. See Joining your organisation's existing account.

Related articles