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Starts at $0 + state fees and only takes 5-10 minutes
Inc Authority and Swyft Filings 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 all of its business formation customers one year of registered agent service at no charge, while Swyft Filings charges $149 per year for registered agent service. However, Swyft Filings can sometimes form LLCs faster than Inc Authority. If you’d like a more in-depth look at these LLC services (and their top alternative), keep reading.
1) Affordable: With either Swyft Filings 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) Positive Customer Feedback: Although Swyft Filings has a higher volume of reviews, both of these companies receive high average rating scores in their customer reviews, which indicates a strong level of client satisfaction.
3) Customer Support: These two services both have customer support networks that can answer your questions. Why go it alone when you can get help from Swyft Filings or Inc Authority?
4) Experience: Inc Authority and Swyft Filings have each helped form thousands of businesses over the years, and they both have plenty of expertise. You can trust them to have the experience they need to form your compliant LLC.
5) Additional Services: Both Swyft Filings and Inc Authority have many other services that they can provide to your business, from registered agent service to annual reports and much more.
6) Efficiency: These companies both work quickly, and they can get your formation processed with the state in a matter of weeks or even days.
7) Trustworthy: These are both 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.
Inc Authority: They offer a free (+ state fee) LLC formation service package that includes a year of registered agent service and EIN acquisition. Inc Authority also sells two premium packages with advanced features like an LLC operating agreement template, faster filing, and personalized business advice, but you’ll need to contact them to inquire about pricing.
Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings provides its customers with a free (+ state fee) package for LLC formations, although it comes with no additional features. Its $199 Standard package adds EIN acquisition, an operating agreement template, and a banking resolution, while its $299 Premium plan adds a company alerts system, digital corporate kit, document templates, and a business website package from SquareSpace.
Inc Authority: Inc Authority has been in business since 1989, and they’ve formed more than 130,000 business entities over the years.
Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings was created in 2015 by a pair of serial entrepreneurs. To date, the company has helped form 300,000+ LLCs, corporations, and nonprofits.
Inc Authority: Inc Authority offers customer support via phone, email, or web chat. With all three options, you’ll receive timely support from friendly and knowledgeable representatives. Inc Authority reps are available from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET on weekdays.
Swyft Filings: They provide phone, email, and chat support from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET on weekdays. We reached out via each channel to see for ourselves how their response times were, as well as to determine the quality of their support. We were impressed with the response times for all, although the answers we received were rather basic.
Inc Authority: Each state has its own in-house processing times, ranging from a few days all the way up to a couple of months. Inc Authority bases its turnarounds on these state estimates, so you’ll see quite a bit of variety in expected processing speeds between different states. All that said, Inc Authority’s turnaround times are usually competitive with other services.
Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings promises same- or next-business-day processing. This doesn’t guarantee faster processing once paperwork reaches the state but rather helps ensure that they never take more than a day or so to submit your documents to your formation state. In general, Swyft Filings’ turnaround times are often a day or two faster than some competitors.
Inc Authority: Customer feedback is a pro for Inc Authority. They have 23,000+ reviews available online with a 4.9/5 average score on Trustpilot.
Swyft Filings: Client feedback is one of their major strengths because they have 36,000+ reviews available online, and more than 90% of them are either 4- or 5-star ratings.
Inc Authority: On the first screen, you’ll choose your entity type (LLC, corporation, nonprofit) and your state. Then, you’ll answer a series of questions about yourself and your business. Next, you’ll enter your name, email address, and phone number, followed by your business name, a short description of your business, and your business address. You’ll then navigate through an extensive series of upsells for an operating agreement template, a legal documents package, a minutes and resolutions feature, web design software, personalized business support, audit and lawsuit assistance, and business banking from Bank of America before finally paying for your order.
Swyft Filings: After you choose your entity type and state, you’ll walk through a series of screens where you fill in your contact info, business type, and whether you’ll have employees before choosing which of Swyft Filings’ three LLC formation service packages you’d like to buy. You’ll also encounter upsells for registered agent service, a business license research package, EIN acquisition, an operating agreement template, faster processing, a business banking package from Bank of America, and an H&R Block tax consultation. Then, you can review the information you provided before checking out.
With either of these companies, you can access a wide variety of additional services to help your business. Both Swyft Filings and Inc Authority provide registered agent service, S corporation tax elections, EIN acquisitions, and operating agreement templates. However, they also both have some services the other doesn’t offer.
For example, Swyft Filings provides its customers with seller’s permits and entity conversions, which Inc Authority doesn’t offer. On the other hand, only Inc Authority has a business credit service to help you build your business, and they also offer revocable living trusts.
Swyft Filings and Inc Authority have plenty of common characteristics that make them two of the most popular LLC formation services available, but they also have some 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.
Does receiving a full year of registered agent service at no additional charge appeal to you? This is a good reason to use Inc Authority.
Are you in a hurry and need the fastest LLC formation possible, even if it’s just a difference of a day or two? Swyft Filings might be worth a look.
If you’d like to form your LLC with ZenBusiness, we’re here to help. We offer LLC formations starting at $0 (+ state fee), and we have 12,000+ positive customer reviews available online. Form your LLC quickly and get more tools to start your dream business.
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In our opinion, Inc Authority’s entry-level LLC formation package is the best one they offer. Not only is it free of charge (except for your state fee), but it also includes a year of registered agent service and EIN acquisition. However, you’ll need to contact them to get pricing info for their premium packages.
Inc Authority doesn’t provide any help with New York publication requirements. However, Swyft Filings does. In their own words: “There are certain states that will require you to publish a notice of business formation in the local newspaper(s) such as Arizona, New York, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. The requirement can be met by using a filing service such as Swyft Filings.” For another option, check out our New York publication 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 too much. Swyft Filings also has several pages of upsells throughout its order form, but again, we can’t blame a free service for trying to make a buck.
One of the biggest advantages Swyft Filings has over its competitors is its generous refund policy that’s quite similar to ours at ZenBusiness. With their 100% satisfaction guarantee, they ensure that any customer who requests a refund will receive one. They don’t have time limits on their guarantee, and they don’t charge cancellation fees either. As for Inc Authority, they specifically state on their website that they don’t grant refunds for any reason.
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.
Even though they both use the same method to calculate turnaround times, Swyft Filings does live up to their name. They form businesses faster than some competitors, and they’re slightly quicker than Inc Authority in some states.
You can. In fact, thousands of American entrepreneurs form their own business entities each year. While there’s 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 an LLC is formed. Furthermore, we appreciate the peace of mind we receive from hiring a reputable company to form our businesses.
Swyft Filings Comparisons
Inc Authority Comparisons
Disclaimer: The content on this page is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice. If you have specific questions about any of these topics, seek the counsel of a licensed professional.
Written by Team ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness has helped people start, run, and grow over 800,000 dream companies. The editorial team at ZenBusiness has over 20 years of collective small business publishing experience and is composed of business formation experts who are dedicated to empowering and educating entrepreneurs about owning a company.
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