Legalzoom vs incorporate.com: What’s The Difference?
When you’re starting a business, you will ultimately wish to incorporate in order to shield your personal assets from your commercial operations. While you can do it yourself, it’s best to have experts handle the task for you to spare you the bother. Online incorporation services can help with this.
Thankfully, firms like Incorporate.com and LegalZoom exist to assist you with LLC formation and a variety of other company needs. However, right now, LegalZoom is perhaps the industry’s king. They have the most clients and have been in business for quite some time.
They do, however, charge some of the highest fees, and a large number of internet consumer evaluations suggest that they may not always provide the best value for money.
You’ll find the information you need in our Incorporate.com vs LegalZoom comparison review set out in a simple manner. We hope that by examining their similarities and differences, you will be able to make a more informed selection.
Brief Summary
We’re talking about two of the most popular LLC creation service providers, Incorporate.com and LegalZoom. Both firms are high-quality and easy to suggest, in our opinion. LegalZoom, on the other hand, offers a few benefits that make them our recommended choice and the superior alternative.
To begin with, LegalZoom has unparalleled brand power and customer volume in our market. Furthermore, their extended customer service hours might be quite beneficial.
Continue reading to learn about the key differences between LegalZoom vs Incorporate.com.
Overall Pricing and Value When Comparing Incorporate.com vs LegalZoom
As you can see, both of these brands offer quite pricey packages, and it does not appear like you are getting much value for your money. Both companies also provide a plethora of extra add-ons, which may be costly.
The most obvious omission is the lack of a registered agent services option in any subscription, which is a must if you incorporate. If you take the simple route and use these brands’ registered agent services, you’ll find that they’re also rather expensive.
Although LegalZoom is one of the most popular LLC websites and incorporation platforms on the market, we discovered that this does not convert into greater value for its clients. While LegalZoom does provide a $149 incorporation package, the amount of upsells may quickly become bewildering – and costly.
Additionally, they do not offer registered agent service with any of their formation packages, and they charge a variable price of $159-299 a year to put it on.
Their cheapest formation package is $99, and it’s as basic as they come, with no registered agent service or other extras. Furthermore, when all additional costs are included in, their top two packages cost $634 and $734, respectively. If you’re going to spend that much money on your company creation, you may as well employ an attorney. Finally, their registered agent fees are greater than most rivals, at $235 per year.
In short, neither of these service providers does a great job of providing value to their customers. If you form an LLC, LegalZoom is the cheaper option, whereas Incorporate.com can form a corporation for less money. Furthermore, LegalZoom’s top-tier formation packages are hundreds of dollars less expensive than Incorporate.com’s, as is their registered agent service.
Company track record and experience for LegalZoom and Incorporate.com
These are both ancient brands, yet their popularity levels are vastly different.
You’re dealing with one of the industry’s oldest brands, LegalZoom. They’ve been around since 1999, and over the years they’ve perfected their methodology. They’ve had plenty of opportunity Given the exorbitant costs LegalZoom charges for its services, this popularity is astounding. They might be able to satisfy and impress enough of their customers such that they persuade others to try LegalZoom.
Incorporate.com, on the other hand, is even older. The firm was founded in the year 1899. That isn’t a typo—they were founded in the nineteenth century! Obviously, they didn’t go by the moniker “Incorporation.com” back then. It wasn’t even a corporation at the time to develop their skills as experts, and they’re generally dependable. They’ll finish the work.
They are also well-known, which attests to their efficacy. They’ve fed over 4 million individuals in the two decades or so since they first opened their doors. They’ve assisted in the formation of over a million companies and partnerships.
Given the exorbitant costs LegalZoom charges for its services, this popularity is astounding. They might be able to satisfy and impress enough of their customers.
Incorporate.com, on the other hand, is even older. The firm was founded in the year 1899. That isn’t a typo—they were founded in the nineteenth century! Obviously, they didn’t go by the moniker “Incorporation.com” back then. It wasn’t even a corporation at the time.
Customer reviews may be of assistance to you. You’ll receive just as many nice ratings as negative customer reviews with LegalZoom. The reception has been extremely mixed. A large percentage of consumers believed LegalZoom was wonderful for them, yet an equal amount were dissatisfied and upset.
The number of customer reviews on Incorporate.com was definitely lower. In reality, you’ll waste a lot of time looking for these evaluations and only come across a few dozen. It’s also interesting that the majority of them had a poor impression of what they got for their money when they used Incorporate.com.
With its unquestionable popularity, LegalZoom appears to be a lot better. Although Incorporate.com has a lengthy history, it does not appear like they have done much work throughout the years. And the work they did provide wasn’t particularly outstanding.
Customer Service
You’ll undoubtedly have questions along the route that the website information doesn’t seem to address. If that’s the case, you’ll need to get in touch with customer service.
When it comes to LegalZoom, you’re better off phoning them directly for further services. While they do provide email assistance, it appears to be pretty rudimentary. If you send them an email with your queries, it might take up to a week for them to respond.
Not that the response will help you much. It appears to be an automated message that does not satisfactorily address any of your questions. Since this message includes the LegalZoom contact phone number, you get an unsubtle encouragement to just call them instead.
Instead, you should give them a call so that you may obtain real customer service. They answer the phone quickly and then connect you with a US-based representative who answers all of your queries. You may also choose from a list of alternatives with descriptions so you know what to do next.
Finally, you receive an email with the direct phone number of the agent you spoke with. If you have any more inquiries, you’ll be directed to the same agent who is more experienced with your case.
Things are a little better with Incorporate.com. They provide about the same level of service for phone calls, but they also provide customer assistance through a chat facility. They also respond to your emails in less than 24 hours. They’re also quite helpful with their responses.
Incorporate.com takes the lead in this area. They offer a chat feature, while LegalZoom does not, and they respond to your emails considerably faster.
Ease of use
One of the benefits of using this sort of services is that you don’t have to leave your house to begin incorporating. That’s very practical, especially in this day and age of lockdowns, which ease of use comes into the picture to ensure that it provides the best services and experiences to customers.
Of course, it’s crucial if the incorporation service has a website that’s simple enough for regular people to utilise. So, let’s take a deeper look at these two websites.
When it comes to ease of use, LegalZoom is a very user-friendly website. You are given extremely specific instructions and are coached through each step of the process. This simplicity of use is likely one of the reasons for the brand’s appeal.
Unlike most of its rivals, LegalZoom does not allow you to choose your package before starting the application. Instead, you fill up your personal information first, then go to a series of expensive upsells before choosing your formation package. It’s a little confusing, and it may lead to some shockingly expensive prices by the time you get to the package selection screen after working your way through the order form.
Unfortunately, being led down the path isn’t always a positive experience. That’s because the entire online process appears to be a little confusing. The whole thing could remind you of how grocery stores are organised, with the most popular goods at the rear. Because of the design, you are forced to stroll beside other goods you don’t actually need but may be tempted to buy owing to poor impulse control.
The LegalZoom website appears to use the same concept. You must first devote a significant amount of time and effort to entering your personal information. That’s before you decide whether to become a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation.
In fact, the following stage requires you to first go through a series of upsell offers. Before you can choose the incorporation package you desire, you must first determine whether or not you want these costly add-ons. True, the website provides clear instructions on how to use these add-ons and how they may benefit you.
It’s just that getting to the core packages first to evaluate which combination of features is appropriate for your needs would have been preferable to adding more features afterwards.
Along the process with Incorporate.com, you’ll come across a slew of costly upsells. But, at the very least, the Incorporate.com website is simple to navigate and the procedure is much more clear.
What irritates me about Incorporate.com is that they don’t mention all of the actual features that come with each bundle. As a result, you might not be getting what you believe you are.
Take advantage of Incorporate.com’s Starter bundle. One of the features listed is the usage of the CSCNavigator web application. However, if you read the fine print, you’ll see that this function is only included if you pay for their registered agent services as well.
The Annual Report Prep & File service, which is allegedly included in The Works subscription, is another option. Because according to the annual report prep & file service, this already costs $349, you’d be excused if you believed that all of the advertised features are included.
However, you can only use that function if you also use their registered agent services. This annual report service isn’t even included as a bonus. You’ll still have to pay an additional $150.
You get the upsells first with LegalZoom before deciding which plan or formation services to purchase. That isn’t exactly rational unless the goal is to persuade you to purchase the costly add-ons. From that standpoint, the design makes sense—it results in increased revenues.
Incorporate.com appears to desire more money from clients as well. They do this by listing functionalities as part of packages that aren’t really included in those packages. Customers will be perplexed at best. At worst, it’s deceptive and maybe even unethical.
Turnaround Times
The time it takes LegalZoom to create an LLC varies based on the level of service you buy. Their top-tier Express Gold plan has a turnaround time of 7-10 business days, while their Standard package takes 15 business days and their Economy package takes 30 days.
The turnaround time for Incorporate.com is determined on your state of formation, and figures for all 50 states may be available on their website.
Order tracking
On their website, Incorporate.com offers a sleek real-time order status monitoring feature, so you’ll always know where you are with your formation. On LegalZoom’s website, you may monitor the progress of your purchase and get real-time updates.
Registered agent service
Every LLC in the United States must name a registered agent, who is a person or business organisation who receives crucial document deliveries (such as service of process) from your state government, notifies you of the delivery, and then transmits the papers to you. This is critical since the state requires a dependable way to reach your company at any time.
The registered agent service from LegalZoom costs $299 per year (or $249 for the first year if you bundle it with your LLC formation), whereas Incorporate.com charges $235 per year. These prices are underwhelming, especially considering that several rivals offer this exact same service for approximately $100 or less.
Furthermore, unlike some of its competitors, neither LegalZoom nor Incorporate.com provide registered agent service in their LLC formation packages.
Additional services
You may access a variety of other company services through LegalZoom or Incorporate.com, and the two businesses provide many of the same services. You may get registered agent service, yearly reports, company licence packages, operating agreements, EIN acquisition, DBA names, and more from either of them.
Only Incorporate.com and LegalZoom, on the other hand, provide mail forwarding and aid with trademarks and patents. In addition, LegalZoom offers a wide range of personal services to its customers, including last will and testaments, divorce forms, and power of attorney paperwork.
Speed of formation
Unlike most of their rivals, their turnaround times are determined by the package you order rather than the state in where you are forming. Your finished business formation paperwork might arrive in 7-10 business days with their most costly plan, while their less expensive options can take up to 30 business days.
Unlike most of their competitors, they base their turnaround times on the package you order rather than the state in where you are forming. With their most expensive plan, your completed business formation paperwork may come in 7-10 business days, while their less expensive choices could take up to 30 business days.
Unlike some other businesses, Incorporate.com does not guarantee a same-day or overnight turnaround. However, they stated that they will file as soon as they have all of the information they want from the business owners, which is a reasonable answer.
Conclusion: Is LegalZoom better than Incorporate.com?
While both LLC services in our comparison provide decent overall value and have helped thousands of people create businesses, we believe LegalZoom is the best option compared to Incorporate.com. However, none of these LLC services is our top choice in the long run.
We strongly advise you to review our list of the finest LLC services to determine which is the best alternative. These choices are mostly based on the relative cost of these services, however it should be mentioned that Incorporate.com has a little advantage in terms of turnaround times and customer service.
Frequently asked questions
If I want to use Legalzoom, which package should I choose?
Our favourite LegalZoom LLC formation option is the Economy package, which costs $79 and includes everything you need to get started (plus state fee). This package contains the fundamentals of formation as well as a banking resolution to assist you in opening a company bank account. It also allows you to create binder and customized company seal with your own business name.
However, we do not suggest their $329 Standard or $349 Express Gold packages because they are considerably expensive for the services you receive.
Is LegalZoom on par with other LLC Formation services?
As you may know, LegalZoom is a well-known and popular LLC formation service. Check out our comparisons of LegalZoom and some of their top competitors to get a sense of other top LLC formation services, such as Northwest Registered Agent, IncFile, and ZenBusiness.
Which LLC Formation website is faster?
Because these two organisations take very different methods to turnaround times, it depends on which state you’re creating your corporation in.
Incorporate.com’s turnaround times are determined by how quickly each state processes LLC formation, whereas LegalZoom’s are determined on the formation package you choose.
The Economy package from LegalZoom takes 30 business days to complete, while the Standard package takes 15 business days and the Express Gold package takes 7-10 business days.
Which company offers more help with ongoing compliance requirements?
Either of these firms can help you with continuing obligations. LegalZoom offers registered agent service for a variable fee ranging from $159 to $299 per year, as well as yearly report service for a low price of $55.
If you buy these services through Incorporate.com, the registered agent will set you back $235 per year, and the yearly report service will set you back $150 per year.
Can I form an LLC on my own without any services involved?
Yes, you certainly can. There’s always the option of doing it yourself. The main reason we don’t usually advocate this option is that each state has its own laws and regulations for LLC formation, and in order to create your own LLC, you’ll need to study all of your state’s rules and regulations in depth.
We also value the peace of mind that comes with using a professional service like Incorporate.com or LegalZoom, since we know we can rely on their experience to get the job done correctly.
Starting a business correctly doesn’t have to be difficult. With over 15 years of experience consulting new businesses and start ups, Matthew is probably the best person to help you set a strong foundation for your business.