Rocket Lawyer LLC Service Review

With more than 25 million customers served since they opened in 2008, Rocket Lawyer processes a huge volume of LLC formations and other business services.

There are many providers offering LLC filing, and Rocket Lawyer is one of the most popular despite strong competition. This Rocket Lawyer LLC service review will help you discern whether you’d like to enlist the help of their services for your business.

Pros & Cons of Rocket Lawyer

Pros of Rocket Lawyer

✔ Rocket Lawyer gets good feedback from their clients. On TrustPilot their average score is 4.7/5.

✔ They offer a comprehensive legal services subscription that includes all sorts of document filings (including LLC formation service at no extra charge to new members) while also granting access to attorney consults and more. With their 7-day free trial offer, there’s no risk involved in trying it.

✔ With more than 25 million customers since 2008, Rocket Lawyer is easily the most popular online business services provider in the United States. They have a level of customer volume that even LegalZoom isn’t close to matching.

✔ Rocket Lawyer has extended customer support hours that run for 12 hours every weekday, and their service agents are helpful in our experience.

✔ As long as you contact them within 30 days of purchase, they offer a satisfaction guarantee that covers 100% of all fees paid to Rocket Lawyer. They’ll either resolve the issue, credit your account for other purchases, or simply give your money back.

Cons of Rocket Lawyer

✖ If you choose not to join Rocket Lawyer’s $39.99/month legal services program, their pricing is fairly high for what you get. Their $99.99 package for non-members is a slim offering compared to other LLC services that offer a lot more features while charging far less. For example, at ZenBusiness we’ll form an LLC for free. All you have to do is pay the state filing fee.

Rocket Lawyer LLC Pricing

Rocket Lawyer doesn’t have multiple LLC formation service packages like many of their competitors do. Instead, they offer two alternate options to customers looking to form an LLC online: either subscribe to their legal services program or purchase a one-time LLC formation.

Non-Member = $99.99

Best For: Entrepreneurs looking for a no-frills LLC formation from one of the industry’s biggest brands.

➢ Preparation and Filing of Your Articles of Organization: These are the documents submitted to your state of formation to officially create your new company. Rocket Lawyer will draft these documents, and then file them with the state.

➢ Business Name Availability Search: They will search through your formation state’s business database to see if your desired business name is available, or if it’s already claimed by another company.

➢ Online Document Storage: You can access electronic copies of your filed formation papers at any time using Rocket Lawyer’s really well-built online platform.

➢ Hard Copies: In addition to online access, Rocket Lawyer will also mail hard copies of your completed articles of organization to you.

Member = Free (With $39.99/Month Subscription)

Best For: Entrepreneurs looking for ongoing legal assistance for their new LLCs.

Rocket Lawyer’s bread and butter is their legal services subscription, which includes LLC formation service for new members. You can try their subscription for free for seven days, after which you’ll pay $39.99 per month. You can cancel your Rocket Lawyer legal services subscription at any time, so there’s really not much risk involved.

When it comes to features for the LLC service itself, there is no difference between the member and non-member formation packages. The difference lies in the other features you receive in the subscription. If you want to check out the full explanation of features, check out their website. For now, we’ll give a quick breakdown:

➢ Legal Documents with Document Defense: Quickly create a wide variety of business documents that you can sign, share, download, and print at your convenience. With every document, you’ll receive Document Defense, which is an attorney review.

➢ Ask a Lawyer Your Legal Questions

➢ 30 Minute Consultation on Every New Legal Matter

➢ Discounts on Attorney Services

➢ 25% Off Registered Agent Service

➢ 25% Off Future Incorporation Filings

In-Depth Rocket Lawyer Review

Overall Pricing and Value

Rocket Lawyer is more expensive (by about $50) than some competitors based on what services they offer. As an entrepreneur who’s looking for more basic offerings, you can easily spend less somewhere else while also receiving a wider variety of features.

However, for the right customers, Rocket Lawyer’s monthly legal membership could be a good benefit, as it provides valuable discounts and free document templates for your business. The monthly fees can add up quickly, so we suggest you do your research before jumping in and signing up. If your business will have significant legal needs, Rocket Lawyer’s services may save you money over a traditional legal service.

Track Record

Rocket Lawyer was established in 2008 primarily as a way for customers to have access to online legal services. Over the last decade, they’ve expanded their offerings to include everything from wills to advice on legal issues and help starting a business. They’ve helped more than 20 million customers, although this number includes their many personal customers, not just their business clients.

As we briefly discussed earlier, customer feedback is a pro for Rocket Lawyer, but that wasn’t always the case. A few years ago, they received plenty of negative reviews, largely because many customers didn’t think they were up-front enough regarding their free trial.

Rocket Lawyer has always offered free legal documents as part of a 7-day trial for their legal services subscription, but they weren’t always as clear regarding the nature of this trial. Some customers used to get confused and not understand that this was actually a subscription service, and would get upset when charged for it down the line.

These days, Rocket Lawyer is quite clear regarding the nature of their legal services subscription, and they don’t have issues with negative customer feedback anymore.

Customer Support

Rocket Lawyer offers phone, chat, and email support, with operating hours from 9 am to 9 pm ET, Monday through Friday.

We called to clarify the timeline for receiving finalized documents back for business formation and were pleased with the service we received. Our call was answered in under a minute, and the customer service representative was helpful.

However, it was obvious that they were ready to make a sale while on the phone. Since they have a membership, the customer service representative talked to us about using it to save on incorporation. Even though we knew they wanted to make a sale, we still appreciated the clarification since it’s a unique feature from what other incorporation services offer.

We also emailed with a question and received a response in about 24 hours. Similarly, we received a good response with some elaboration on our next steps and the offer to help more if needed.

When we tried their chat feature, it didn’t quite work the way we expected. Instead of messaging with a Rocket Lawyer representative, the chat is actually more of a searchable FAQ. You type in a few keywords about the issue you’re having, and they show you results that match your keyphrase.

If that doesn’t solve your problem, you can then request live assistance, which does pull up the expected person-to-person messaging function with a Rocket Lawyer rep. All told, the chat feature is a bit convoluted in its presentation but it does work well once you figure it out.

Ease of Placing an Order

Ordering business formation with Rocket Lawyer can be easier or harder than other services, based on your perspective. They do not have tiered packages as many of their competitors do. Instead, you walk through a handful of add-ons before checking out, which we’ll describe in detail shortly.

There are positives and negatives to this approach. On one hand, they’ve simplified their offerings to eliminate confusion for their customers over what is needed and what isn’t. However, since you don’t really know everything they offer until you make it to checkout, you can’t compare their prices without putting in a little extra work.

Still, it only took us about 10 minutes to walk through the form, make our selections, and reach the checkout screen.

Overall Turnaround Time

If you would like to get an estimate for turnaround times for your state of formation, all you need to do is click through the order form to the page where you decide whether or not to expedite your order. On this page, you can access estimates of the number of days required for both expedited and standard processing times.

While it would be nice to have these turnaround times listed in a more convenient spot, as opposed to several pages into the order form, the fact that they give you such specific estimates is certainly a plus.

Is Rocket Lawyer Right For You?

Rocket Lawyer is a solid option for LLC service. They have a huge volume of customers and significant brand power, and they have impressive customer reviews as well.

They’re not the ideal choice for all entrepreneurs, of course, so let’s take a look at a couple of scenarios that might clarify just a bit further who they’re right for.

✔ When to Start an LLC with Rocket Lawyer

If you are already interested in their legal services subscription, it’s a solid choice because you can get LLC service as part of their $39.99/month subscription.

✖ When NOT to Start an LLC with Rocket Lawyer

If all you want is LLC formation service, there are cheaper places to get the basic service offered by Rocket Lawyer’s $99.99 non-member package.

Final Verdict

It’s hard to top the experience level of Rocket Lawyer, as they’ve helped millions of customers with business and legal services over the years. Their standalone limited liability company formation service is reasonably priced, but it’s clear that Rocket Lawyer would rather have customers subscribe to their comprehensive legal services plan ($39.99/month) as opposed to ordering LLC services a la carte ($99.99).

About Rocket Lawyer

Rocket Lawyer has been in business since 2008, and they’ve served an impressive 20 million customers since then, although it’s unclear how many of those are business clients as opposed to individual customers. Overall, they’re the largest company in the legal services industry.

On their website, Rocket Lawyer describes their mission statement: “Our laws were created to protect and empower us — as individuals, families, and business owners — but many people don’t get the help they need because of costly legal fees and complexity.

At Rocket Lawyer, we want to change things by making legal services affordable, simple, and available to more people than ever before.”

One fun fact about Rocket Lawyer is that their business model is built around their legal services subscription plan. Costing $39.99 per month, this plan includes access to a legal document library, consultations with thoroughly vetted business attorneys, free formation service (for new members), and other discounts.

It’s a unique and valuable offering that few competitors can match.

Rocket Lawyer Customer Reviews

If you scan around the internet, you can find nearly 7,000 reviews for Rocket Lawyer, and by reading through this feedback, you can get a good feel for what their customer experience is like.

For the most part, Rocket Lawyer’s customer reviews are quite positive. In general, their clients seem to really enjoy their ease of use and also praise the usefulness of the free trial for their legal services subscription package.

Here are some of the positive things people have to say about Rocket Lawyer:

• Easy access to a wide variety of forms (both business and personal)
• Good customer service

And here’s what the naysayers had to say:

• Difficult to cancel the legal service subscription

Customer Service Quality

With Rocket Lawyer, you can access customer support via phone, web chat, or email. Our favorite aspect of this service is its extended operating hours, which run from 9 am to 9 pm ET every weekday.

Aside from that, their representatives are easy to get in touch with, and they offer knowledgeable and professional service regardless of which medium you choose to reach out.

It should be noted that their chat function is a bit convoluted in the way that they make you search their FAQ for an answer to your question before connecting you to an agent, but that’s a relatively minor inconvenience.

What Other Services Does Rocket Lawyer Offer?

As with most competitors, Rocket Lawyer provides a wide variety of additional services to help entrepreneurs form, maintain, and grow their businesses. We dug into the list of business features Rocket Lawyer offers to see how much they charge for each of these services.

Rocket Lawyer uses variable pricing models for many of its services, requiring prospective customers to contact them and wait around 24 hours to get a pricing quote.

That said, we’ll do our best to take a look at everything Rocket Lawyer offers below:

• Registered Agent Service ($149.99): Rocket Lawyer doesn’t include registered agent service with its formation packages, and they charge $149.99 per year to add it on. You can buy a similar service from competing companies for less.
• Operating Agreement Template (FREE): An operating agreement outlines several crucial aspects of the LLC’s internal operations. Considering that some competitors charge $35+ for an operating agreement template, getting one for free is a solid bargain.
• Initial and Annual Reports (pricing not publicly available): Most states require some sort of annual or biennial report from entrepreneurs. This report keeps the state updated regarding some basic attributes of your business, like your address or your registered agent’s name. A few states also require a similar filing to the annual report when you first open your business.
• DBA Name (pricing not publicly available): A DBA (doing business as) name is an alternative to forming a business entity, as it gives you the legal right to use an assumed business name.
• Amendments (pricing not publicly available): If you need to amend your LLC’s formation documents to reflect important changes made to your business.
• Dissolution (pricing not publicly available): Are you ready to shut your LLC’s doors for good? Rocket Lawyer will complete and file your dissolution paperwork, closing your business and removing your responsibility for keeping up with ongoing maintenance requirements.
• Trademark Search and Registration (pricing not publicly available): Rocket Lawyer won’t just search the federal trademark database and register your mark on your behalf — they also provide legal counsel from an experienced trademark attorney.

How Does Rocket Lawyer Work?

Instead of viewing prices up front, you’ll put your personal information in first and then walk through choosing features to add to the base price of $99.99 for LLC formation. This fee includes the basic preparation and filing of all your formation documents, as well as a business name availability check with your state.

Step 1)

Once you input your basic business info, you’ll accept or decline a series of add-on features before making it to the checkout, as they do not have any packages. First, you’ll decide whether you want to pay extra for an expedited turnaround time for your business formation. This fee varies by state, as does the efficiency of both standard and expedited turnarounds.

Step 2)

Next, you can decide whether you’d like to have Rocket Lawyer obtain your federal tax ID number (EIN) for you, which is a $59.99 upcharge. Considering the fact that you can request an EIN for free from the IRS, this isn’t a necessary expense, but if you would rather save time and hassle, you do have that option.

Step 3)

The third option asks whether you want to acquire a corporate kit and/or seal. For $99.99, you can get a binder with your company name embossed on it, along with a personalized decorative seal and some sample forms. You also have the option to add just the seal for $59.99.

Neither the binder nor the seal serves any real purpose in the modern business landscape, but if you appreciate their symbolic nature, you can obtain them in this step.

Step 4)

Since registered agent service is not included in their formation package, you’ll be prompted to choose if you’d like Rocket Lawyer to fill this role for your company. A registered agent allows you to use their address for receiving mail, which limits the availability of your personal information in the public record.

Their registered agent service also includes reminders when you have important due dates for items like annual report filings. Their fee is $149.99 annually, with 25% off for members of their legal services subscription plan.

Step 5)

Finally, Rocket Lawyer offers you their legal services subscription. This is the heart of their business model and a service that they really like to push. Subscribers receive a wide variety of features, including:

• Unlimited free legal documents
• Document Defense attorney review on all documents
• Ask a lawyer your legal questions
• 30-minute attorney consults for each new legal matter
• Up to 40% off attorney fees
• Free LLC/corporation formation (for new members, excluding state fee)
• 25% off LLC/corporation formation (for existing members, excluding state fee)
• 25% off registered agent service

The membership comes with a 7-day free trial, after which your cost will be $39.99 per month. You may cancel at any time.