Looking for a ZenBusiness alternative?
ZenBusiness advertises $0 formation, and that part is true. What it does not include is an EIN at $99, an operating agreement at $99, and registered agent service at $199 a year — which a US LLC is legally required to have.
What each one costs
Verified July 28, 2026
ZenBusiness
- LLC formation
- "Starting at $0 + state fees" — name check, Articles of Organization preparation, and filing coordination.
- Registered Agent
- $199/year. Not optional — every US state requires a registered agent with a physical in-state address.
- EIN
- $99 one-time. Required for Stripe and US banking, so effectively mandatory for a non-US founder.
- Operating Agreement
- $99 one-time.
- Annual Report Filing
- $100 per report, separate from the state's own fee.
Source: zenbusiness.com/pricing, read July 28, 2026. Prices change — check before relying on this.
RazorFile
- Starter
- $129 one-time, plus state filing fee. No EIN included.
- Growth
- $249 one-time, plus state filing fee. Includes EIN guidance — the realistic entry point for a non-US founder.
- Complete
- $499 one-time, plus state filing fee.
- Renewal
- $149/yr to keep the company in good standing. Registered Agent $99/yr if bought separately.
What ZenBusiness does better
- ZenBusiness has roughly 31,660 Trustpilot reviews at 4.8 and claims over 950,000 customers. That is a track record we cannot match and it is a legitimate reason to prefer them.
- Their Wyoming state page runs to roughly 8,500 words and includes the Wyoming Secretary of State's street address, phone number and office hours, plus dated filing statistics. It is the deepest state content in the market and genuinely useful research.
- They publish an AI-crawler sitemap and use HowTo and OpeningHoursSpecification structured data. Their technical SEO is more mature than ours.
- For a US-resident founder who already has an SSN and does not need an EIN service, $0 formation plus a state fee is genuinely hard to beat.
Stay with ZenBusiness if
You are a US resident with an SSN who can get your own EIN free from the IRS in ten minutes online, and you want the cheapest possible filing from an established company with a very large review base. In that case $0 plus the state fee is an excellent deal and our $249 buys you services you do not need.
Where the two differ
The $0 headline is real; the first-year total is not $0
For a non-US founder who needs an EIN and must have a registered agent, ZenBusiness's first year works out at $0 formation plus $99 EIN plus $199 agent plus $99 operating agreement — $397 before the state fee. RazorFile's Growth plan is $249 including EIN, one year of registered agent and an operating agreement template, so $349 all-in with Wyoming's $100 fee. The gap is not enormous, but it runs the opposite way to what the headline suggests.
Registered agent is where the recurring difference sits
ZenBusiness charges $199 a year for registered agent service. Ours is $99 a year if purchased separately, and the first year is included in Growth. Over several years that is the single largest cost difference between the two, and it is the line item founders most often forget to compare.
They are built for US residents; we are built for founders who are not
This is the honest framing. ZenBusiness's $0 formation is compelling precisely because it assumes you can obtain your own EIN, which requires an SSN and the IRS online tool. A founder in Lagos or Karachi cannot use that tool at all and applies by fax on Form SS-4. Our pricing bundles the things that are hard when you are not in the US, which is why it looks worse for someone who is.
If you are switching
Your LLC belongs to you, not to the company that filed it. If ZenBusiness formed your entity, moving registered agent service to another provider at renewal is the practical switch — no re-filing, no new EIN. Doing it mid-term usually means paying twice for overlapping coverage, so the renewal date is the natural moment.
Common questions
Is ZenBusiness really $0?
The formation service itself is, plus your state's filing fee. What is not included is the EIN at $99, an operating agreement at $99, and registered agent service at $199 a year, which is legally required. For a US resident who can get their own EIN, $0 plus the state fee is genuinely what you pay. For a non-US founder, expect closer to $397 before state fees.
Should I use ZenBusiness if I am a US resident?
Quite possibly. If you have an SSN you can get an EIN yourself from the IRS online in minutes at no cost, which removes the main thing our Growth plan is bundling. Their review base is far larger than ours and their formation price is lower. We would rather say that than pretend otherwise.
Why is your registered agent cheaper?
We charge $99 a year against their $199. We are not going to claim ours is a better service — it is the same statutory function of receiving legal documents at a physical address in the state. It is priced lower, and over a multi-year hold that difference compounds.
Form your US LLC with RazorFile
Wyoming filing, Registered Agent, and EIN guidance from $249 plus the state fee. Filed in one to three business days.
Competitor pricing on this page was read from their own published pricing pages on July 28, 2026 and may have changed. RazorFile is not affiliated with ZenBusiness.