Inc Authority vs BizFilings
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Do Inc Authority and Incorporate.com Offer Good Value?
Inc Authority and Incorporate.com are two of the most popular companies providing online LLC formation services, and they’re both able to efficiently and effectively form limited liability companies. They each have some advantages over the other.
First and foremost, Inc Authority offers LLC formation service for free, as long as you pay your own state fee. By contrast, Incorporate.com charges at least $99 to form an LLC in most states. In addition, Inc Authority receives strong customer reviews, while Incorporate.com has very little client feedback available. However, Incorporate.com has much more experience.
Would you like to learn the details that set these service providers apart, as well as the common characteristics they both share? Read on as we discuss all the information you need to make a decision between these two respected companies.
7 Things They Have in Common
1) Affordable: With either Incorporate.com or Inc Authority, you’ll save a significant amount of money on your LLC formation compared to hiring a business attorney to handle your formation process.
2) Customer Support: These two services both have customer support networks that can answer your tough questions. Why go it alone when you can get help from Incorporate.com or Inc Authority?
3) Experience: Inc Authority and Incorporate.com have each helped form thousands of businesses over the years, and they both have plenty of expertise. You can definitely trust them to have the experience they need to form your compliant LLC.
4) Additional Services: Both Incorporate.com and Inc Authority have many other services that they can provide to your business, from registered agent service to annual reports and much more.
5) Efficiency: These companies both work quickly, and they can get your formation processed with the state in a matter of weeks or even days.
6) Informative: Incorporate.com has a helpful Learning Center on its website that includes information on startup tasks, comparison guides on different types of business entities, and much more. As for Inc Authority, they have a blog where they share business tips and tricks. Both are solid educational resources whether you’re a customer or not.
7) Trustworthy: These are both entirely legitimate operations with strong track records. These aren’t fly-by-night companies, but rather they’re well-respected entities with plenty of expertise to get the job done right.
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Side-by-Side Comparisons
Pricing
It’s impossible to beat Inc Authority’s offer when it comes to pricing. That’s because they’re one of only a few companies in this industry (along with ZenBusiness and IncFile) that offers LLC formations free of charge, as long as you pay your own state fee. As for Incorporate.com, their pricing starts at $99 unless you’re forming an LLC in Delaware, in which case they only charge $79.
You don’t need us to tell you that paying zero dollars is always preferable to paying $99 or even $79. However, let’s see how these companies stack up in other areas before making a decision.
Features
Inc Authority’s free formation package includes one year of registered agent service, along with an S corporation tax election filing (which most LLCs don’t need). Incorporate.com’s base-rate package provides only the essentials of business formation with no additional features.
If you wanted to make an Incorporate.com LLC formation package match the features you’ll receive from Inc Authority for free, you would need to pay an additional $235 for the year of registered agent service.
Experience
Inc Authority was founded in 1989, and they’ve formed more than 140,000 LLCs and corporations over the years. Although it’s been known by a few different names over the years, Incorporate.com has been around since way back in 1899, and they’ve formed 750,000+ business entities since then.
Customer Support
Incorporate.com draws on its extensive experience to provide support via phone, email, or web chat, and they say that you can “expect a response within one business day.” Their hours of availability run from 8 am to 8 pm ET on weekdays and 9 am to 6 pm ET on Saturdays. Inc Authority offers customer support via chat, phone, or email. Their representatives are available from 11 am to 8 pm ET on weekdays.
In general, both of these companies provide solid support. Their reps are friendly and knowledgeable, and they respond to messages quickly. However, it’s undeniable that Incorporate.com’s extended support availability is a welcome attribute.
Turnaround Times
This category is a toss-up in our eyes. Both of these companies base their turnaround times on the capabilities of each individual state. These processing times vary from just a few business days all the way up to several weeks.
Order Tracking
Both of these service providers have order-tracking tools available on their websites. Simply log into your account and you’ll find your order status in your profile.
Registered Agent Service
Every LLC in America is required to designate a registered agent, which is a person or business entity that receives important document deliveries (like service of process) from your state government, informs you of the receipt, then forwards the documents to you.
This is so crucial because the state needs to have a reliable means of contacting your business at any time. If you would like to see a list of our favorite registered agent service providers, simply click this link.
As we’ve mentioned, Inc Authority includes one year of registered agent service at no extra cost with any LLC formation package. After that, their price point is a reasonable $99 per year. Incorporate.com does not include registered agent service with any of their formation packages, and it costs $235 per year to add it on.
Customer Reviews
Inc Authority’s customer satisfaction reputation is strong. We found more than 11,000 reviews of their services, and they were mostly positive. Their clients clearly enjoy their free LLC formation service offering, and they also seem to appreciate their quick processing speeds.
On the other hand, Incorporate.com’s customer reviews are less impressive. We were only able to find nine reviews online, and the vast majority of them are negative. We find both the low quality and the low quantity of their customer feedback surprising, and not in a good way.
Ease of Use
These companies are relative equals in this category, as they both make the LLC formation process quite simple compared to forming your own business using the DIY method. Still, we will give Incorporate.com a slight edge because their website is a bit more streamlined and user-friendly than the Inc Authority site.
Additional Services
Inc Authority and Incorporate.com both offer a variety of additional business services, and there’s quite a bit of overlap between their offerings. For instance, they both provide registered agent service, annual reports, business licensing research, LLC operating agreements, and more.
However, there are some services that are exclusive to one company or the other. Inc Authority has business credit and business funding features that aren’t available through Incorporate.com, and they also offer revocable living trusts.
On the other hand, Incorporate.com offers mail forwarding services and entity conversions, neither of which are offered by Inc Authority.
Which Is the Best LLC Website for You?
Incorporate.com and Inc Authority have plenty of common characteristics that make them two of the top LLC formation services available, but they also have some major differences that set them apart.
If you haven’t yet made up your mind between them, let’s finish this comparison by quickly describing some scenarios that may sway your opinion one way or the other.
Regardless of which one you ultimately choose to help form your LLC, we think you’ll be quite pleased with the service you receive from these companies.
➥ Choose Inc Authority if You Are:
Are you interested in getting your LLC professionally formed for free? Does receiving a full year of registered agent service at no additional charge appeal to you? Do you value positive customer feedback? If so, Inc Authority is a solid option.
➦ Choose Incorporate.com if You Are:
Is experience a significant factor for you? You might want to look at Incorporate.com, as they have the longest track record in this entire industry.
🎉 Choose ZenBusiness if You Are:
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FAQ's
As it turns out, Inc Authority’s entry-level LLC formation package is the best option. Not only is it free of charge (except for your state fee), but it also includes a year of registered agent service and an S corporation tax election filing. However, their premium packages are all a bit overpriced in our opinion.
Some states have additional compliance steps, such as publishing your LLC’s formation in a reputable local newspaper. Unfortunately, Inc Authority does not offer publication service, and Swyft Filings doesn’t either. If you’re looking for a publication service, you should take a look at BizFilings or ZenBusiness.
If you’d like more information on the best options for New York LLC publication services, check out our full guide on this topic.
Incorporate.com gives you several opportunities to add its $235/year registered agent service to your order. In addition, Incorporate.com’s LLC service package selection screen looks like their annual report service and online compliance tool are included features. However, if you read the fine print, you’ll see that you can only access these features if you also purchase registered agent service.
Inc Authority includes a page of optional add-on features at the end of their order form, but seeing as they’re a free service to begin with, this doesn’t really bother us.
Incorporate.com has a somewhat confusing refund policy, and to be honest, we don’t really understand whether they actually offer refunds or not. Here it is in their own words: “If you cancel your order before we have submitted it to a federal, state, or local office, Incorporate.com will refund the total amount paid for such order less a service fee. If you cancel your order after we have already submitted it, we will use our discretion to determine what portion, if any, we will refund.”
As for Inc Authority, they specifically state on their website that they do not grant refunds for any reason. In short, it’s pretty clear that both of these companies leave a lot to be desired in this category.
These two sites have turnaround times that are quite similar due to the fact that they both base their processing speeds on each individual state’s ability to process formations. This means your turnaround time might be as quick as just a few days in some states but could take several weeks in others.
Of course, you can. In fact, thousands of American entrepreneurs form their own business entities each year. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with doing this, we will caution that because each state is allowed to create its own rules regarding how LLCs are formed, there is some variance from state to state regarding how this process works.
Furthermore, we appreciate the peace of mind we receive from hiring a reputable company to form our businesses.
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Customers ❤️ ZenBusiness
Quick and easy process!
Quick and easy process!
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Joshua R. was outstanding. He walked me through a process where the online service was not working properly. The customer service Joshua provided is the reason I will continue to do business with Zen.
Great service
Great service! I was reached out to and called, taken through the process. I’m just in the beginning phases with Zen Business, but so far so good. My business is finally an LLC!
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