If you want to form a business in the United States, you will need to designate a registered agent. The role of the registered agent involves the usage of their address as your official business address, which means they’ll receive important document deliveries on your behalf, including court summons and other official correspondence from your state government.
While you can legally serve as your own agent and still operate a compliant business entity, there are some other benefits of hiring a registered agent service, like the ability to keep your personal information out of the public record. In addition, having a registered agent makes it so that you don’t need to be available at your place of business during all standard business hours, and it also cuts down on the amount of junk mail you’ll receive.
There are many companies that offer this vital service to businesses, and it can be difficult to discern which one is the best option for your company. In this review, we’ll take a close look at ZenBusiness, one of the top service providers in the industry. Are we the right registered agent service for your business?
About ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness automates several different parts of the business formation process in order to offer our customers the lowest possible price points.
ZenBusiness has only been around for a few years, but we’ve steadily increased our foothold in the online business services industry, with thousands of customers served to date. We want to form one million new businesses by 2024, and we’ve laid the groundwork to make that happen.
Our mission statement is as follows: “We are a small business that is excited about helping other entrepreneurs realize their dreams of creating and growing a successful business.
By making business formation easy and affordable, we hope to foster a small business community where owners can connect on a local and national level, and help each other grow.”
One fun fact about ZenBusiness is that we’re registered as a public benefit corporation (PBC), and we pursue several charitable efforts. We partner with Kiva.org to provide lending options to low-income families and individuals, and we also regularly loan money to women-owned and minority-owned businesses to help even the playing field for American business owners.
30-Second Summary of Our Review
ZenBusiness is a recent addition to the business formation industry, as we just opened in 2015. Our Texas-based company is trying to flip the online business services market on its head by offering highly affordable services that still include everything you need to maintain a compliant business entity.
ZenBusiness receives excellent customer feedback, with more than 10,000 reviews and very few critical reviews. For affordable and reliable registered agent and business formation services, we think we compare favorably to any other company in this industry.
ZenBusiness Strengths
- Fantastic customer feedback – It’s difficult to find more than a small handful of negative reviews for ZenBusiness. The vast majority of our 10,000+ reviews are positive.
- Inexpensive LLC and corporation formations – ZenBusiness offers some of the lowest prices in the industry for business formation service, while still providing clients with a nice selection of features.
- Dedication to giving back – ZenBusiness is a public benefit corporation (PBC), and we dedicate a portion of our revenue to helping disadvantaged entrepreneurs grow successful companies.
ZenBusiness Weaknesses
- While ZenBusiness does have solid pricing and great features, we are not quite the cheapest registered agent service available.
Pricing & Additional Features
Registered agent service from ZenBusiness costs $199 per year, although you can get your first year for just $99. We also include access to our online dashboard, where you can view, download, and print your important documents whenever you’d like.
ZenBusiness vs Other Registered Agent Services
ZenBusiness is one of the best in the industry when it comes to registered agent service, thanks in large part to our outstanding customer feedback.
We also have solid pricing, and our offer of business formation service for free (all you pay is your state’s required fee) is a great deal.
Still, there are other companies that either have lower rates for registered agent service or that include more advanced features. (We think you’ll struggle to find companies that can claim both, though!) For more information on your other options, take a look at our guide to the top registered agent services available.
Online Customer Reviews
We found more than 10,000 ZenBusiness reviews on Trustpilot, and 97% of them are positive in nature. Our reviewers clearly enjoy our affordable business entity formation service, and they also frequently comment on the ease of use provided by ZenBusiness.
Customer Service Quality
You can reach the ZenBusiness customer support team by phone, email, or web chat. In general, ZenBusiness has a service department that can compete with anyone in this industry. We are continually focused on improving the responsiveness and helpfulness of our customer support, and we take great pride in the progress we’ve made in this area.
Main Reasons to Use ZenBusiness
If you still need to form your business entity, using ZenBusiness’ formation service is a great idea, because we have a free package that only requires you to pay your state fee. Additionally, our customer feedback is exceptional and our registered agent service is competitively priced.
Main Reasons Not to Use ZenBusiness
If you place a high degree of importance on experience, ZenBusiness has not formed as many businesses as some of the mega-companies in our industry, like LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer.
Conclusion
With reasonable rates for registered agent service and a free business formation package that only requires you to pay your state’s fee, ZenBusiness’ outstanding customer satisfaction reputation is the icing on the cake. We believe we’re one of the best business services companies online!