Review Page: Legalzoom Review
LegalZoom is an online LLC formation service that advertises itself as being able to help you get your business started in minutes. It is a trusted brand with over two decades of experience and a 100% satisfaction guarantee. However, our LegalZoom review found that the features and pricing the company offers are not competitive with other similar businesses we have reviewed.
Advantages of LegalZoom
There are several advantages we noted in our LegalZoom LLC reviews.
Brand Recognition
LegalZoom is one of the most recognized names in the industry. The company credits itself with helping more than 2 million entrepreneurs start businesses and boasts over 20 years as an industry leader.
Customer Service
LegalZoom’s customer care agents are available from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT during the week and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT on the weekends. While this isn’t as good as 24-hour service would be, it provides several hours before and after work, plus weekend options, which should give most people an opportunity to contact the company at a convenient time. Customers can reach an agent by phone or chat or submit a question on the website.
Satisfaction Guarantee
LegalZoom guarantees that if an unsatisfied customer contacts the company by phone or email within 60 days of purchase, it will refund the customer’s money. However, only the fee paid directly to LegalZoom for the service is covered. Third-party processing fees, filing fees and attorney fees are not covered.
One-Stop Shop
You can check whether the business name you want is available on LegalZoom’s site, which saves you some effort. Additionally, LegalZoom offers a variety of other services that your business may need, such as registering a trademark or filing your annual report. Additionally, if you decide not to form an LLC, the site can help you form an S corporation, professional corporation, C corporation or nonprofit.
Professional Website
Throughout our LegalZoom review, we found the website to be professional-looking and easy to navigate. There’s an option to click on the chat assistant at the bottom of every page so that you don’t have to go hunting through the site if you get stuck. The site utilizes an easy-to-understand question-and-answer format to walk you through the LLC setup process.
Disadvantages of LegalZoom
We have noted a few features that we did not like in our LegalZoom review.
The Price
LegalZoom is more expensive than many of its competitors. For example, LegalZoom’s cheapest LLC formation service costs $79 plus filing fees. IncFile offers its basic LLC formation package for free, though you still need to pay the filing fees.
Economy Service Can Be Slow
While the Standard and Express Gold services promise expedited processing times, the Economy service can take up to 30 business days.
Cumbersome Upsells
LegalZoom doesn’t miss many opportunities to try to sell you one of its other services. By the time you manage to sign up for the formation service, it will have tried to get you to purchase the registered agent service, business license research package, legal services subscription service and more. You are given the chance to opt-out, but it forces you through several pages of extra clicking.
Expensive Registered Agent Service
You don’t have to sign up for LegalZoom’s registered agent service, even if you are operating in a state that requires you to have a registered agent. However, if you do select it, you will pay a $249 annual fee that automatically renews every year until you remember to cancel it. By contrast, Northwest Registered Agent offers a year of free registered agent service with a $125 annual renewal fee.
Cost of the LegalZoom Formation Service
We examined three LLC formation service packages in our LegalZoom LLC reviews.
Economy
The Economy package costs $79 plus the state filing fee. It comes with basic features and can take up to 30 business days.
1. Comprehensive Name Search and Business Entity Filing
You input the name you want on the LegalZoom website and the company searches the name directory to see if it is available, fills out your LLC paperwork and submits it to your state.
2. Peace of Mind Review™
LegalZoom reviews your paperwork for consistency and completeness before submitting it.
3. Tax Savings Consultation
Tax guidance to help you maximize your deductions and income and optimize your tax strategy. Additionally, you get a 30-minute phone consultation with a tax advisor.
4. Digital LLC Welcome Packet
Your welcome packet includes the articles of organization, a financial account authorization letter and a checklist to use after your LLC is formed.
5. Digital Tracker
The digital tracker checks the status of your order.
6. Lifetime Customer Support
All customers have access to LegalZoom’s customer support.
7. Entrepreneurs' Business Newsletter
Get tips and information from LegalZoom.
Standard
You get everything that comes with the economy package, plus some additional features for $329 plus the state filing fee with the Standard package. Processing time takes up to 15 business days.
1. Deluxe Founder's Kit
An embossed binder to store your important documents in.
2. Personalized Business Embosser and Membership Certificates
Company membership certificates and a company embosser with your business name on it.
Express Gold
This package includes everything in the Standard package plus two more features for $349 plus the state filing fee.
1. Expedited Processing
Your order gets priority processing and LegalZoom will attempt to complete it in 10 business days.
2. Express Shipping
LegalZoom will use its fastest shipping method to send your completed documents.
Add-On Services
We also noted the available add-on services for our LegalZoom LLC reviews:
- Registered agent service
- Employer identification number
- Compliance calendar
- Operating agreement
- Business licenses
These services can be useful, but many of them are available at lower prices elsewhere.
Detailed LegalZoom Review
LegalZoom offers a wide range of legal services to businesses of all sizes and from all industries. Whether you want to formally register your business or hire someone as your business’s registered agent, LegalZoom can help you out.
While the rest of the review focussed specifically on LLC formation, in this section of our LegalZoom review, we will review all the services offered by LegalZoom in detail.
Let’s get started.
Business Formation Services
LegalZoom is most popular for its business formation services and it takes care of all the formation paperwork and formalities from start to end.
During our LegalZoom review, we found that it can help you form all types of business entities, so let’s discuss each briefly.
Sole Proprietorship Formation Services Review
This is one of the easiest types of business entities to form and does not require a lot of paperwork. In fact, you don’t even need to register your business at the federal government level.
What does LegalZoom offer?
LegalZoom will:
- Provide you with legal advice on how to form your Sole Proprietorship and comply with government regulations
- Register your business name with the state government
- Help you acquire the necessary business licenses and permits
- File for doing business as (DBA) if you want that
- Convert your Sole Proprietorship into an LLC or other legal entity
During our LegalZoom review, we found that it has not mentioned a separate pricing plan for Sole Proprietorship formation. It does, however, charge for additional services like acquiring business licenses or filing DBA.
LLC Services Review
LegalZoom specializes in offering LLC formation services and it charges $79 for these services, excluding the state filing fees.
Here are the services it offers:
- Business name search
- Business registration with complete paperwork
- Add-on services like DBA filing and acquiring business licenses
Remember, that the additional services cost more and the basic plan only includes business name search and LLC registration. When you check out they will try to upsell these add-on services, so add only the services you really need.
Incorporation Services Review
Our LegalZoom review would not be complete without talking about their incorporation services. They will help you form a Corporation with just $149 and state filing fees. Any add-on services are chargeable.
Given that the paperwork required for forming a Corporation is more complicated than forming an LLC, the higher fee is justified. You simply need to answer the questions and give them the information they need and they’ll take care of all the legal formalities.
Non-Profit Business Formation Review
The process for forming a non-profit organization is slightly different and requires some additional paperwork. As these don’t have a profit motive, they qualify for tax-exempt status and can also apply for grants.
LegalZoom will take care of the non-profit formation process for $99 plus the state filing fees. They will also help you get the tax-exempt or 501(c)(3) status by filing form 1023 or form 1023-EZ.
That brings us to the end of the business formation services part of this LegalZoom review.
One last thing that we want to mention in our review is that they offer a complete 60-day mon-back guarantee if you don’t like their services.
Registered Agent Services
For this part of our LegalZoom review, we will discuss the registered agent services offered by the company. After business formation services, this is the most important and popular service offered by LegalZoom.
LegalZoom can act as a registered agent for your company and ensure that you get all legal notices and documents on time.
Missing any legal notice can cause a lot of harm for your new company in the form of penalties. That’s why you need a registered agent that’s available during regular business hours, all 365 days, to receive these notices.
You can, of course, choose to be your own registered agent, but that will restrict you to remain available at the registered address on all business days. This might not be possible for most people and that’s why appointing a company as your agent is so much better.
LegalZoom charges $299 per year for their registered agent services. This is a decent price given that it takes a lot of pressure off of your back.
Here’s what you can expect from their services:
- Alerts on emails received on behalf of your company
- Email alerts on upcoming compliance or filing deadlines
- Unlimited cloud-based storage for all your business documents
What’s more is that they’ll cover the paperwork and fees associated with switching your registered agent, if you’re not happy with their services.
Business Operation Services
The legal formalities and compliance requirements do not end once you form your business. There are a lot of things that you need to take care of to enable smooth business operations.
LegalZoom provides a wide range of services that help with your day-to-day business operations. As these are all important parts of your business, we decided to cover these in our LegalZoom review.
Let’s cover each of these services one by one.
Annual Report
Filing annual reports is a formality that most businesses have to do every year. Just because it’s an annual thing, does not make it any easier.
That’s where LegalZoom comes into the picture. It can create and file your annual reports on time and take care of all the paperwork for just $55 plus the filing fees.
They’ve filed over 145K annual reports for businesses to help them remain in good standing with the state government and other authorities.
Contracts and Agreements
LegalZoom is a gold mine for templates on legal documents, contracts, and agreements. Any type of document that you may need to create for your business, you can find on their website.
Whether you want to file an affidavit with the state or have someone sign an NDA, you can create your document using LegalZoom. You can simply choose from the 150+ documents on their website, fill in the details, and print your document.
During our review, we did not find any pricing information for this as it seems like a free service that they offer.
Business Licences
This is another important service offered by LegalZoom and is, therefore, a crucial part of this LegalZoom review.
LegalZoom can help you find all the business licenses and permits you would need to run your business smoothly, in just a few minutes.
They provide this service in collaboration with their partner Business Licenses.
Once you find all the necessary information, you can choose to file for these licenses yourself or use professional help.
LegalZoom charges $99 for this service.
Foreign Qualification
Many businesses operate in multiple states and not just the state of formation. To do so, your business would need a foreign qualification in each of the states (other than your home state) where you want to operate.
This process becomes tedious if you have to apply for this in multiple states as it can take a lot of your time. LegalZoom can make this process quick and easy for you by taking care of all the paperwork on your behalf.
The pricing starts at $229 plus the state filing fees.
Corporate Amendment
If you want to make any amendments to your business name, address, or other important information, LegalZoom can do it for you. As always, you can do this by simply filling out a form on their website any time after business formation.
The Standard plan costs $129 plus filing fees while the Rush plan costs $239 plus filing fees. The only difference between the two is that the Rush plan offers expedited processing and express shipping.
Tax Services
The tax services offered by LegalZoom are handled by a separate sister company called LZ Tax. It is a one-stop shop for all the tax advice and services you’ll ever need for your business or personal needs.
Here are some of the key services that it offers, that we think are important enough to be covered in this LegalZoom review:
- Preparation for and filing of annual taxes with the state and federal government
- Tax advisory from trusted professionals all year round
- Accounting and bookkeeping services
- Automatic payroll management services using QuickBooks
During our review, we did not find any fixed pricing plans on their website. You can fill out their online form and submit your query to get the pricing and plan details.
Intellectual Property Services
In this section of this LegalZoom review, we will cover the intellectual property protection services offered by LegalZoom. When you start a new business, you will need one or more of these services at some point.
Let’s review each of these services, one by one.
Trademark Search
Before you apply for a trademark, you need to ensure that it’s available and not taken up by some other company. This requires extensive research to find the availability of a particular trademark to avoid any potential future conflicts.
LegalZoom offers trademark search services to help you determine the availability of a trademark so you can confidently file for it knowing that it’s unique. It charges $199 for a comprehensive search and provides results in as less as 15 minutes.
Trademark Registration
As a business, you would probably like to trademark your company’s name, logo, or slogan to prevent others from copying them. LegalZoom can help you through the process of getting a trademark.
They take the help of a professional attorney to complete this process and charge $599 plus filing fees for this service. Though the price may seem a bit steep at first, it’s still cheaper than hiring an attorney and getting it done yourself
Trademark Monitoring
Just because you obtain a patent or a trademark does not mean that no one will ever file for something similar that may be an infringement. You can’t, however, keep track fo all trademark or patent applications that may be potentially infringing.
That’s where LegalZoom can help you and that’s why we’ve included this service in our detailed LegalZoom review.
LegalZoom offers a trademark monitoring service for $175 per year. If you don’t want to invest in this service every year, you can choose to use this every few years to see if there have been any potential infringements.
Provisional Patent
Just like you can trademark your brand name and logo, you can obtain a patent for any innovations or inventions you’ve made. LegalZoom will get all the necessary details from you and e-file and application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The price for this service is $199 plus filing fees.
Copyright
Similar to patents and trademarks, you can file for copyright for your creative work like books, films, or any other tangible creative work. It charges $114 plus filing fees for this service.
Best LegalZoom LLC Alternatives
While LegalZoom is one of the best-known formation services, it is far from the only option. These are three other services we believe are worth considering:
1. IncFile
IncFile offers its service, including one year of registered agent service, for free. This makes it one of the best options for companies on a tight budget. However, you still must pay the state filing fee.
2. Northwest Registered Agent
Northwest’s VIP service gives you the option to have the company cover your state filing fees in exchange for a monthly fee. Alternatively, you can opt to pay a $225 fee upfront or go with the basic plan for $39 plus state filing fees. All of the plans come with one year of free registered agent service.
3. ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness, which starts at $49, is another low-cost option with some nice features. It offers other related services like registered agent service and EIN filing service as well. Like most LegalZoom alternatives, it also offers expedited form filing and processing.
LegalZoom Customer Reviews
One of the benefits of the popularity of LegalZoom is that there are plenty of customer reviews available on the internet. We take a look at three of the most popular review sites here.
SiteJabber
3.9out of 5
There are over 1,000 LegalZoom reviews on this site with an average rating of 3.59 stars out of 5. Positive reviews note the ease of using the service, professional staff and fast document delivery. However, the service has received a high rate of negative reviews in recent months, many of which note that the redesigned website is difficult to navigate. Other customers complained about customer service issues and hidden fees.
Trustpilot
4.5out of 5
There are over 1500 LegalZoom reviews on this site with an average rating of 4.5 stars. 76% of customers have given an excellent rating to LegalZoom. The positive reviews focus on their excellent customer service, quick service, and professionalism. The negative reviews revolve around specific instances of delayed orders or resubmissions.
Better Business Bureau
4.42out of 5
LegalZoom has an A rating with the BBB and received accreditation in 2001. The over 3,800 customer reviews have an average score of 4.42 stars out of 5. The majority of recent reviews are positive and note the professional and friendly staff. The few negative reviews mention issues with slow service and difficulty getting refunds.
Consumer Affairs
4.6out of 5
There are over 700 customer ratings on this site with an average score of 4.6 stars out of 5. Satisfied customers note the ease of using the site and the friendly customer service. Unlike SiteJabber, most of the recent reviews on this site are positive with a few negative reviews complaining about mistakes or slow service.
Should You Use LegalZoom To Form Your LLC?
Our LegalZoom LLC reviews found that the service shines when it comes to ease of use. The website walks you through the process step by step and doesn’t bog things down with cutesy graphics or cumbersome forms to fill out. However, the process is marred by the laundry list of add-ons you have to click through. The company is one of the best established in the business and has a good reputation for quality customer service.
However, when it comes to value, LegalZoom doesn’t hold up to the competition. Many of the services that are expensive add-ons with LegalZoom are included in the price with top competitors. Additionally, the processing time on the economy service is a substantial downside unless you are forming your LLC months ahead of your intended start date.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can set your LLC up yourself. You can even find some free resources on the LegalZoom website to help you do it. However, it will take time and effort to navigate through all of the steps, gather the correct forms, figure out how to complete the forms and then file them with your state.
The answer depends on how much time you are willing to invest in researching and filing paperwork and how much confidence you have in your ability to complete the task correctly. If you prefer to save yourself the work and avoid the risk of making a mistake, then it may be worth the cost to pay a formation service to set up your LLC for you.
If you set your LLC up yourself or use a free service, your only cost is the state filing fee. In 2021 these fees ranged from $50 to $500.
Yes, it helps you form all kinds of businesses. The reason we focussed mainly on LLC formation in this LegalZoom review is that it’s their most popular service. LLC is the most commonly-used business structure for new businesses in the US and that’s why we paid special attention to it in this LegalZoom review.
As part of our LegalZoom review process, we identified the following key services that it offers:
- Business formation services
- LLC formation
- Sole Proprietorship formation
- Incorporation
- Non-Profit formation
- Registered agent services
- Business operation services
- Annual report creation and filing
- Contracts & agreements creation
- Business licenses search and filing
- Foreign qualification filing
- Corporate amendments
- Tax services
- Intellectual property services
- Trademark search
- Trademark filing
- Trademark monitoring
- Patent filing
- Copyright filing