5 Top Rated & Best Online Incorporation Services in 2022

ZenBusiness | #1

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Very few companies can top the outstanding $39 price point offered by ZenBusiness alongside their track record of 300,000 businesses formed.

Even with this low price tag, ZenBusiness includes a free year of registered agent service and an accounting assessment along with your incorporation, making this package more fully-featured than many competitors’ incorporation packages that cost far more.

Guru Tip: You are legally required to designate a registered agent when incorporating online. Using a registered agent service simplifies your responsibilities and protects your personal privacy.

Customer feedback is a huge advantage for ZenBusiness. They have more than 4,700 reviews online, and almost all of them are positive. In fact, of the reviews we found, 97% of them are positive, which says a lot about how consistently satisfied their clients are.

Another aspect of ZenBusiness that we really appreciate is the fact that they’re a public benefit corporation. ZenBusiness partners with Kiva.org to help lift people out of poverty through lending money, and they also loan money to women-owned and minority-owned businesses each year, helping more entrepreneurs reach their business goals.

There’s a lot to like about ZenBusiness, and the only real negative we see in their services is the somewhat confusing nature of their turnaround time estimates. They have a bit of a hybrid system for estimating processing speeds, which combines actual state requirements with ZenBusiness’ own in-house processing priority system. We will note, however, that their actual turnaround times are typically faster than their advertised turnaround times.

ZenBusiness Pros

• Great pricing and valuable packages
• Excellent customer reviews
• 12 months registered agent service included

ZenBusiness Cons

• Confusing turnaround times

Northwest | #2

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Northwest Registered Agent tops our list as the best online incorporation service for those of you seeking the best customer support in the industry. However, Northwest doesn't include as many features as some of the other providers in this guide, with a $39 price point.

One big pro of Northwest is their registered agent service is included for a full year at no extra charge. After that first year, it only costs $125 annually, a price that is lower than average compared to other incorporation services.

As you might expect from a company that has the words “registered agent” in their business name, Northwest excels at providing this service.

They’re actually the only major nationwide registered agent service that scans every document they receive as your agent, whereas their competitors only scan the government forms that they’re legally required to forward to you.

On top of their top-notch customer support, Northwest also makes the business formation process fast and straightforward by removing all add-ons and upsells. You get everything you need and nothing you don’t.

Northwest Pros

• 12 months registered agent service included
• Highly personalized customer support
• Very experienced company

Northwest Cons

• Not as many included features

Incfile | #3

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The great thing about our top incorporation services is that each is a clear leader, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the only companies worth using. For Incfile, a company that is quite generous with additional features, the value for the price is definitely there, especially when you consider that they offer free incorporation service!

Similar to ZenBusiness and Northwest, Incfile includes an entire year of free registered agent service in each package, a feature that only costs $119 per year after that.

Plus if you’re looking for more features than Incfile’s $0 incorporation service includes, their $149 Gold package offers a strong value for the additional cost, as this plan adds a federal tax ID number (EIN), corporate bylaws, meeting minutes, a banking resolution, and a personalized binder.

Finally, Incfile has thousands of customer reviews available online and nearly all of which are extremely positive. It’s tough to find more than a small handful of critical reviews when it comes to their services.

Incfile Pros

• Free incorporation service
• Fantastic customer feedback
• One year registered agent service included
• Quick processing

Incfile Cons

• Strict refund policy
• Lots of add-ons and up-sells

BizFilings | #4

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BizFilings is backed by Wolters Kluwer, a massive global compliance firm. Overall, their value-to-cost ratio is reasonable, but slightly more expensive than some other services that ranked higher on our list.

BizFilings offers a fairly intuitive process that even the least-experienced entrepreneur can navigate with ease. Instead of fumbling your way through a laundry list of features and prices, just walk through their convenient incorporation wizard to get a personalized recommendation.

While it’s certainly better than not getting any registered agent service included at all, they only include six months of registered agent with their formation packages.

If you want BizFilings to continue serving as your registered agent after the first six months is up, it will cost you $164 annually. This price point is roughly average across the many incorporation services we reviewed.

BizFilings Pros

• 6 months registered agent included
• Incorporation wizard is convenient

BizFilings Cons

• Some competitors offer much lower prices
• Very few customer reviews available online

LegalZoom | #5

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LegalZoom is perhaps the best-known of the business incorporation services, which is largely why they made this list. It’s also one of the most popular services available and they’ve helped more than 4 million customers over the years.

LegalZoom offers incorporation service for the rather steep price of $149, and they offer a series of upsells along that way that can make it a more expensive process.

In addition, unlike the other companies we’ve discussed in this guide, LegalZoom doesn’t offer free registered agent service, and they charge an additional $159-$299 annually if you want to add it on, so you’ll likely spend at least that much investing in their services.

One aspect of their services that we really appreciate is their 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee. If you’re unhappy with your business formation for any reason, all you have to do is request a refund within 60 days of your purchase and LegalZoom will grant it.

LegalZoom Pros

• One of the most experienced companies in the industry
• 100% satisfaction guarantee

LegalZoom Cons

• Expensive formation packages
• No registered agent included
• Registered agent is a costly add-on