Swyft Filings vs LegalZoom

6 Things They Have In Common

1) Affordable: Swyft Filings and LegalZoom can both save you lots of money over hiring a lawyer to form your LLC while also not leaving you alone to figure it out on your own.

2) Customer Support: Along those same lines, these companies have extensive customer support networks. If you have questions or concerns, they’re just a phone call or email away, which means you don’t have to spend hours of your valuable time trying to find the answers yourself.

3) Experience: They’re both experienced companies, and they each serve a large volume of customers every year. These are legitimate operations with lots of existing clients, and they’re wholly capable of forming your LLC.

4) Satisfaction Guarantees: Swyft Filings and LegalZoom both have 100% satisfaction guarantees, which is a welcome safety net. If you’re unhappy for any reason, you can simply request a refund, and they’ll provide it, no questions asked.

5) Additional Services: If you need services beyond formation, they can help. Both offer many features from registered agent service to federal tax ID numbers and much more. Think of them as one-stop shops for business services.

6) Efficiency: Do you need your LLC formed in a hurry? Swyft Filings really lives up to its name with some of the quickest turnaround times in the industry, and they also have expedited service available. As for LegalZoom, they structure their turnarounds based on which level of service you purchase, and their formations can be completed in as little as a week.

Side-by-Side Comparisons

Pricing

LegalZoom: LegalZoom is one of the most popular LLC formation services available, but we found that it does not translate into better value for their customers. While LegalZoom does offer a $0 package for LLCs, the number of upsells can get overwhelming — and expensive. Furthermore, they do not include registered agent service with any of their formation packages, and you’ll need to pay a variable fee of $249-299 per year to add it on.

Swyft Filings: Their Basic package only costs $49, which is a highly competitive price point on the surface, but doesn’t include any extras outside of helping you to establish your business. Their $149 Standard package is still pretty reasonable for the value, but their $299 Deluxe package is significantly more expensive. In addition, their registered agent service costs $149 extra for the year. If this service was included as a feature on their packages, it would provide much-needed value.

Experience

LegalZoom: LegalZoom serves a huge volume of customers, with more than 2 million business clients served since they started offering online business services in 2001.

Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings can’t touch that level of experience, but they’ve already served thousands of customers since they opened in 2012.

Customer Support

LegalZoom: LegalZoom offers phone and email support. We reached out twice via the email form on their site, but it took them a full week to respond. The response we received was generic – thanking us for reaching out but not answering our question.

When we reached out via phone, our question was answered very thoroughly. The representative went into detail about our different options and then sent us an email with their direct extension so that we could reach out directly with questions. Overall, while their phone support is great, their email support could be improved.

Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings provides customer support via phone, email, and chat. We tested all three options and found that no matter which one we chose, their response times are very fast (one of many areas where they truly live up to their name). However, they didn’t elaborate much on their answers, as we received quick, to-the-point responses via phone, email, and chat.

Turnaround Times

LegalZoom: Unlike most competitors, their turnarounds are based on which package you order rather than which state you’re forming in. With their most expensive package, you could receive your finalized business formation documents in 7-10 business days, but their cheaper packages take as long as 30 business days (six weeks).

Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings promises same- or next-business-day processing. Depending on your state’s expediting options, Swyft Filings will also provide rush service with your state government (for an additional fee, of course). Whether you choose standard or expedited service, they will provide you with a time estimate for your specific state as you’re selecting a package.

Customer Reviews

LegalZoom: We found 6,000+ reviews for LegalZoom, and while they do have some negative reviews mixed in, a majority of this feedback is positive. Their satisfied customers often talk about how convenient and easy to use LegalZoom’s services are.

Swyft Filings: Swyft Filings gets strong customer feedback, with more than 36,000 online reviews and high average scores. Swyft Filings’ customers frequently praise the efficiency of their services and also the quality of their customer service department.

Ease of Use

LegalZoom: Unlike most competitors, LegalZoom doesn’t give you your package options to begin the application. Instead, you enter your personal info first, then navigate through a series of rather costly upsells before you select your formation package. It’s a bit convoluted, and it can result in some surprisingly high price points by the time you work your way through the order forms to the package selection screen.

Swyft Filings: Once you’ve selected a package and any add-ons you need for your business, the application process doesn’t take long ― maybe 10-15 minutes at the most, as long as you have all of the information you need. Swyft Filings has a few upsells along the way, but they’re generally unobtrusive.

Additional Services

Both Swyft Filings and LegalZoom present many other services to their customers, and there is a significant amount of overlap between the offerings of these two companies. For instance, they both offer registered agent service, annual reports, EIN acquisition, business licensing research, amendments, and more.

However, LegalZoom also has quite a few services available that Swyft Filings doesn’t offer, which is largely due to the fact that LegalZoom provides many personal services in addition to its business offerings. Along these lines, LegalZoom offers last will and testament, power of attorney, living trust, divorce paperwork, and property deeds.

Best Service for LLC Formation?

With Swyft Filings and LegalZoom, we have two companies that are both highly capable of helping you form an LLC. If you’re still undecided, we’ll close by going over a couple of scenarios where you may be more likely to use one or the other for LLC service.

➥ Choose Swyft Filings if You Are:

If saving money is a priority, Swyft Filings is less expensive than LegalZoom. In addition, if you’re in a hurry, Swyft Filings can beat LegalZoom’s turnaround times in many states, especially if you choose LegalZoom’s cheapest LLC formation package.

➦ Choose LegalZoom if You Are:

LegalZoom has far more brand power than Swyft Filings, and they are a more popular LLC formation service when it comes to customer volume. In addition, LegalZoom has some of the longest hours of customer support availability in the industry. If these are important factors to you, LegalZoom is a strong option.