Comparing ZenBusiness and LegalZoom? Great - we’re here to help. In this guide, we’ll break down the differences between each and give our recommendation on the best service to form an LLC or C-corp. It can get confusing, so we’ve tried to cut out the jargon and expose the hidden fees and upsells.
💡 Our take: We think both ZenBusiness and LegalZoom are great options, and we don’t think you can go wrong with either. However, we think ZenBusiness is the better option for most people. It will be cheaper than LegalZoom, and its service is as good or better. There are lots of nuances which we’ll discuss below, but that’s our high level advice.
🏆 Our winner: ZenBusiness
👉 Sign up for ZenBusiness here
ZenBusiness is best for:
Those wanting an equally good service at a cheaper price.
LegalZoom is best for:
Those looking for additional legal services in addition to filing their business.
Comparing pricing between business formation services is a difficult task. Many companies will charge high add-on fees for things that other companies will include standard.
When it comes to comparing prices, you should be aware of two aspects: the cost to file your business, and the cost to maintain your business (Registered Agent fees). This section will focus on the cost to file your company and the next section will focus on the cost to maintain your company.
When filing your company, we view a couple of elements in addition to the core filing as essential: an Operating Agreement, EIN, and the first year’s Registered Agent service. The charts below compare the total price of filing across each of the major filing services including these essential elements.
ZenBusiness is the winner when it comes to the cost to incorporate. With ZenBusiness it will cost $397 (plus state filing fees) to incorporate, whereas with LegalZoom it will cost $458 (plus state filing fees).
🏆 Winner: ZenBusiness
The major ongoing service related to your business filing is Registered Agent services. Many companies include the first year of Registered Agent services for free in their offerings and then charge steep fees after year one. This is an easy way for these companies to make additional money because it’s very easy to fall back on the business you filed your company with for ongoing Registered Agent services.
For ZenBusiness it will cost you $199 per year for ongoing Registered Agent services. For LegalZoom it will cost $299. ZenBusiness has the edge when it comes to ongoing Registered Agent services.
🏆 Winner: ZenBusiness
Typically, we put less emphasis on public review sites, but for this category, many of the options have thousands of reviews on TrustPilot, and the process for incorporating is typically very standardized. This increased our trust in their ratings, and the ‘wisdom of the crowd’, so we’ve taken them into account in our recommendations, but with one big caveat. As we dug into the TrustPilot scores, we noticed some discrepancies. One tool had one 5-star review, but their Trustpilot rating was 3.7. How could this be? We found that the TrustPilot score takes other factors into account like the age of the company and responding to negative reviews. We’ve calculated the TrustPilot score based on a simple weighted average and not taken the headline TrustPilot score. As with all our guides, we’ve tried to be guided by the data.
As you can see in the chart below, ZenBusiness has a TrustPilot score of 4.7 (with over 14k reviews), and LegalZoom has a TrustPilot score of 4.4 (with over 3k reviews). We do note that LegalZoom offers other services in addition to their core filing service that some of these reviews might be reviewing. However, both companies have similarly ‘good’ scores. The slight edge goes to ZenBusiness.
🏆 Winner: ZenBusiness
When comparing processing times, there are two elements to consider. The first is how long it takes the service to file with the State for you once you have provided the necessary information. Then there will be the time that it takes for the State governments to process your business filing paperwork. This typically takes 1-2 weeks but depends on the State where you are filing. The government processing time will be the same no matter which service you use.
The typical turnaround time for ZenBusiness is 2-4 business days, but ZenBusiness will prioritize those who choose the Pro and Premium plans.
The typical turnaround time for LegalZoom is 1-2 weeks.
ZenBusiness has the slight edge when it comes to turnaround times because their one business day turnaround times are offered on all plans.
🏆 Winner: ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness offers phone support which is available Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CST or Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST in addition to email support.
LegalZoom offers phone support which is available Monday - Friday from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT and Weekends from 7 a.m.–4 p.m. PT in addition to email support.
We’ve generally had positive experiences with both companies' customer service. However, we’ve heard complaints with customer service from customers of both. These issues typically arise in two cases. The first is when the founder is trying to incorporate something other than a plain vanilla LLC or S corp. We recommend those founders instead use a lawyer for the incorporation process. The second case for complaints typically arises from people who make mistakes when entering the company info and are forced to remedy post filing. Our advice is to triple check everything before submitting it to avoid these situations.
🏆 Winner: Tie
We think both ZenBusiness and LegalZoom are solid picks, but we give the edge to ZenBusiness. It will be cheaper to file and maintain your company with ZenBusiness than it will be with LegalZoom and the service is as good or better.
💡 Note: ZenBusiness is the winner vs LegalZoom, but it isn’t our overall top pick. That goes to Bizee (Incfile). Read about ZenBusiness vs Bizee (Incfile).
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