Should You Open Your Business with BetterLegal? Read our BetterLegal LLC Review to Find Out
Updated · May 19, 2022
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- $299 flat fee
- All LLC essentials included
- Incredibly fast turnarounds
- Extensive information center
- No native registered agent
- Difficult to find contact info
“Everything you need, nothing you don’t, at the speed of the state.”—BetterLegal’s motto tells you all you need to know about the service.
But does the company live up to its promise? Is BetterLegal good for starting a business? How fast, efficient, and cost-effective are its services?
Let’s find the answers to these questions and many more in our thorough BetterLegal review below.
What Is BetterLegal?
Founded in 2016, the relatively new company has already helped thousands of customers to legally form their LLCs and corporations.
It offers arguably the most straightforward online formation services in the business—with a heavy focus on transparency, affordability, and a no-nonsense approach.
Numerous BetterLegal reviews praise the company’s honesty and trustworthiness. Let’s see why.
Pros
- BetterLegal hates convoluted bundles—The company puts forward one of the most simple and streamlined offerings on the market. With a flat fee of $299, it covers all the essential business formation services.
- Incredibly easy to use—The ease and speed of placing an order with BetterLegal are unmatched. More on that later in our BetterLegal 2022 review.
- Transparent pricing policy—Apart from being reasonably affordable, the company’s pricing policy is also displayed in an upfront fashion—free of upsells, hidden fees, or deceptive practices, which its competitors often resort to.
- Remarkably fast turnarounds—It takes up to seven business days, even for the best incorporation services, to complete the formation of your LLC. Luckily, with BetterLegal, the process will be much shorter—a maximum of three business days!
- Loads of informative content—Thanks to its extensive Information Center, all the necessary information to form an LLC will be one click away!
- 24/7 BetterLegal customer service—BetterLegal’s support reps are available to answer your questions and resolve your issues at all times via the online chat.
- Lots of praise from users—With its A+ rating from BBB and high customer satisfaction score on TrustPilot, online reputation is another aspect where BetterLegal excels.
- Simple and secure website—Its platform is among the best LLC websites in the game. It will take you 10 minutes at most to complete any document. The privacy of your information is guaranteed by McAfee SECURE.
Cons
- No BetterLegal registered agent—The company doesn’t include a registered agent service in its offering. Instead, it can set you up with a third-party service that will provide you this service for $90/year or $10/month.
- Contact information is difficult to find—Although we at Web Tribunal spoke highly of BetterLegal’s website, its only flaw seems to be that it lacks a “Contact” or “About Us” page.
- Underwhelming in the ongoing compliance department—BetterLegal LLC packages are not designed to provide lifetime notifications and ongoing deadline alerts. However, an annual compliance service is offered a la carte for $90/year or $10/month.
BetterLegal Services
BetterLegal values simplicity and quickness and this does not go unnoticed by end-users, as becomes evident from the many positive BetterLegal LLC reviews.
The company steers clear of the unnecessary advertisement or the temptation to pile up pointless features to justify the price increase.
Instead, it offers all the essential LLC filing services in a no-frills manner:
Filing Articles of Organization
This is the core service of any LLC formation provider. The BetterLegal LLC cost covers the preparation, drafting, and submitting of all the necessary documents, such as the Certificate of Formation.
With BetterLegal, you can save valuable time for your business operations instead of going through the paperwork hassle by yourself.
Name Availability Search
Using BetterLegal for LLC formation will also allow you to conduct a thorough search through the state’s database. You can use this to find out if somebody has already claimed your desired business name or not.
Federal Tax ID Number
This is essential if you wish to open a business bank account, hire employees for your company, or enjoy certain tax benefits in the future.
Technically, you can obtain the Employer Identification Number from the IRS yourself. But why lose valuable time when you can be using BetterLegal for the LLC formation procedures while you design your future business strategy.
Operating Agreement or Corporate Bylaws
The operating agreement is one of the essential documents you need to get your company up and running—it outlines the principles and ownership of your business.
BetterLegal not only helps you prepare the operating agreement, but it stores it in a secure place along with all other important documents. This convenient little trick is highly valued by end-users, as becomes evident from several BetterLegal reviews.
Banking Resolution & Tax Election
These features are not necessarily essential but rather useful additions to the core LLC formation services.
With these tools, you can choose the best tax option and properly organize your business meetings with the Meeting Minute template. Whether you open an LLC, S-corp, or C-corp, BetterLegal will help you remain in good standing with the state.
Additional Free Services
Lots of users point out the usefulness of these add-ons for LLC formation in their BetterLegal reviews.
Signing up for BetterLegal’s main services will also get you a free website domain, a tax analysis conducted by a specialist, a free checking account, and attorney support if needed.
BetterLegal Registered Agent
Unlike the majority of its competitors, BetterLegal doesn’t include this option in its package.
Instead, it can connect you to a third party by the name of Registered Agents, Inc. This entity will provide you a registered agent service for $90/year or $10/month.
Compliance Service
Similarly to the registered agent, the annual compliance can be purchased a la carte.
By paying the additional BetterLegal LLC fees ($90/year or $10/month), you’ll be able to file the necessary annual reports without missing important deadlines.
License & Permit Search
The license and permit search is another handy add-on this service offers for an extra $125 paid one-time.
You can say goodbye to the excruciating research—BetterLegal reviews state requirements and informs you which licenses and permits you need to operate in a fully compliant manner.
Partner Account
Last but not least, we present you with a feature that is unique to this company—BetterLegal allows you to become its partner and provide LLC filing services yourself.
If you decide to create a partner account, you will receive a personalized URL that will give you access to a customizable site. This will be the home of your new business—offering online formation services in partnership with BetterLegal.
BetterLegal Plans & Pricing
BetterLegal LLC shines with its straightforward approach to pricing and its principles of transparency.
As we mentioned earlier in our BetterLegal review, all services are included in two all-encompassing packages.
This plan includes all the essential services for LLC formation—filing the Certificate of Formation, obtaining the EIN, and filling in the operating agreement document. You also get bonus tools, such as Officer Designation, Ownership Amendment Form, Meeting Minute Template, S-Corp Tax Election, free tax analysis, free website domain, checking account, and attorney support.
This package includes all essential documents for forming and managing a corporation, such as articles of incorporation, EIN, and bylaws to govern your business. You also get some extras, like banking resolution and other helpful docs.
On top of that, there are certain services you can access only by paying some additional BetterLegal prices.
For example, the business license search will set you back an extra $125. For the registered agent service provided by a third-party company, you will have to pay either $90/year or $10 monthly.
BetterLegal Support
Support is excellent—the BetterLegal customer service hours are virtually unlimited and the reps are always available through the live chat or via email. According to many BetterLegal reviews on BBB, the responses are extremely fast, friendly, and polite.
We wanted to check if that is really the case. We sent the reps a message reporting some problems with BetterLegal’s phone support option and asked to talk to a representative.
We received a very thoughtful answer from a knowledgeable rep within two hours. They explained that the contact information can be found on the privacy page of the website and that the team will be more than glad to receive our phone call.
We find it a bit odd that the contact info is buried that deep in the website, but other than that the BetterLegal support deserves all the praise it can get.
Ease of Use
BetterLegal.com is extremely streamlined and easy to navigate, with a user-friendly interface without any unnecessary, cluttered verbosity.
However, this minimalistic style also comes with some disadvantages. Certain information, such as the BetterLegal phone number, is not as easily accessible as it should be.
Still, placing an order is straightforward and fast. Your documents will be processed and submitted in the shortest amount of time allowed by your state-specific requirements.
As we mentioned earlier in our BetterLegal review, the quickness of turnarounds is certainly among the company’s greatest strengths.
In addition, the website puts a comprehensive Information Center at your disposal. There you can find tons of information on forming an LLC, other useful articles, and an FAQ section.
BetterLegal User Reviews
Before discussing the BetterLegal reviews, we should mention that the company is relatively new, so the amount of customer feedback available online is limited.
Still, BetterLegal ratings are exceptionally high.
For instance, the company holds an A+ rating on Better Business Bureau, with one positive opinion and zero BetterLegal complaints.
On TrustPilot, the service is rated 4.8/5 based on 201 reviews, 90% of which are positive.
The majority of the satisfied users point out the company’s fair and transparent pricing, responsive customer support, same-day processing policy, and high value-for-money.
One particularly convincing testament to the company’s merits comes from a BetterLegal review on Reddit: “I have created about a dozen LLCs using similar services and I can only really recommend betterlegal.com.”
The few complaints we found online are regarding delayed delivery of certain documents and issues with some support reps. These seem to be isolated issues, though.
Is BetterLegal Worth It?
If you’re a businessman that values integrity and straightforwardness in pricing, BetterLegal is certainly worth a shot. The company excels at providing swift formation services, excellent ease of use, clarity of its pricing structure, and top-notch BetterLegal customer service.
Its biggest downside is that it doesn’t offer the best registered agent service out there. In fact, it doesn’t offer one of its own at all—it collaborates with a third-party company that can provide this service for you.
Another shortcoming worth mentioning is that the company’s phone number is not easy to find. Still, you can contact them via chat or email—they are quick to answer.
So, is BetterLegal worth the money? As many online incorporation reviews can confirm, it is a more-than-reasonable LLC formation service, so it’s worth the try.
Alternatives of BetterLegal
In this section, we focus our attention on some noteworthy BetterLegal competitors.
We collected the latest data on the best LLC services in the business and briefly compared them to BetterLegal.
BetterLegal vs LegalZoom
Although at first glance LegalZoom seems to be cheaper than BetterLegal, that only stands true for the basic package, which lacks many essential features.
LegalZoom shades it in terms of experience and track record, but BetterLegal fights back with transparent pricing and better customer support.
BetterLegal vs Rocket Lawyer
As several Rocket Lawyer reviews point out, this service is not the cheapest LLC registration option.
Rocket Lawyer is geared more toward offering top-notch legal aid and advisory service, so it’s the better option for ongoing support.
BetterLegal stands out with its no-nonsense policy and quick turnarounds.
BetterLegal vs Swyft Filings
This BetterLegal alternative is one of the best rated online LLC formation services, so this one can be considered more of a speed race than a comparison.
Both companies are known for their quick turnaround times.
SwyftFiling doesn’t provide the cheapest, nor the best registered agent services, charging $149/year. BetterLegal does not excel in that department either, but it does offer a more advantageous deal ($99/year).
Final Verdict
Upfront pricing, lack of ads and upsells, quick turnaround times, and mostly positive customer feedback—BetterLegal comes across as a good one-stop-shop for online formation services.
Although there are some problems with BetterLegal, like the lack of a native registered agent and hard-to-find contact information, the company certainly knows how to get the job done.
It works in a transparent fashion and takes care of the paperwork while you concentrate on the more important aspects of your business.
Yes. BetterLegal is perfectly legitimate. But note that it’s not a legal advisor, so it can’t provide you with advanced legal assistance beyond LLC formation and compliance matters.
No. The BetterLegal refund policy makes it pretty clear that the turnaround times are too short for the company to be able to offer refunds.
BetterLegal offers only one plan—LLC Formation, starting at $299 plus state fees.
To find out the cost of the services which are not included in this package, such as the registered agent, check out the pricing section of this BetterLegal review.
Yes. BetterLegal is a solid LLC formation provider with transparent pricing, impressive processing speed, and excellent customer support.
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