LegalZoom Review

Summary of our opinion

Don’t have time to read it all? Here is a summary of our opinion on LegalZoom, to assist you in understanding whether LegalZoom is a good choice for you or not!

LegalZoom allows entrepreneurs and SMB’s to manage all legal formalities online quickly, cheaply and in a simple manner for customers with fewer roadblocks, from forming a company, applying for licenses and permits to getting a tax ID, they have it all.

The company mostly offers prepaid legal services whereby customers pick the plan they need, pay online and LegalZoom’s team promptly completes the setup.

In summary, if you are looking to create an LLC, corporation, non-profit or doing business as (DBA), LegalZoom provides the trained attorneys, customer support and online portal means to do this quickly and efficiently. 

For a full in-depth review, the following is our opinion of LegalZoom in detail.

LegalZoom pricing

Prior to LegalZoom’s launch, company formation and producing the necessary documents required to manage the business was a long, tedious and expensive process. 

LegalZoom changed this with its use of new technologies to simplify document editing processes and offer reliable legal documents at affordable and transparent prices.

LegalZoom offers affordable pricing packages for customers depending on your needs. Packages range from $79 to $349 (plus state filing fees) with the option to add on additional services including a registered agent, tax advice and access to a legal form and document library.

Legal Zoom pricing for LLC formation services:

	Economy	Standard	Express Gold
Price	$79 + state fee	$329 + state fee	$349 + state fee
Setup time	20 biz. days	10 biz. days	2-5 biz. days
Services	Name check & biz. filing	Economy +	Standard +
	Articles of Org.	Deluxe organizer	Rush case with the Sec. of State
	LLC steps guide	Official certificates and seal	Express shipping
	Peace of Mind Review	VIP processing
	Lifetime customer support
	Financial account authorization letter

LegalZoom doesn’t have any monthly membership so customers don’t  have to worry about canceling a free trial or unexpected charges on their credit card.

Who should use LegalZoom?

LegalZoom is aimed at individual entrepreneurs, startups and SMBs and helps with company formations as well as running your business with services including annual report generation, business licenses, registered agent services, contracts & agreements, corporate amendments and more. 

LegalZoom also provides a tax consultancy service for your business through its LZ Tax wing. 

Larger firms or companies with very specific needs may have internal teams dedicated to managing these matters or already have established connections with specialized lawyers. 

Individuals can also use LegalZoom to generate many documents such as residential leases, property deed transfers, power of attorney and more. 

Testing LegalZoom

To test the service offered by LegalZoom, we decided to sample the order process for setting up an LLC on the LegalZoom website. The registration process was short, and took us less than five minutes to complete. 

The process was as follows. The creation of the company creation order was very easy with the user required to mostly click

• Yes and No buttons
• Drop-down option selections
• A ‘Skip’ button for steps that may not be relevant to your business
• Text boxes to insert manual address information 

A percentage (%) progress bar at the top of the page detailed our progress towards document completion. We were able to create an order for an LLC company formation in less than five minutes. 

For ordering the LLC company formation, the required steps to enter/update were as follows:

• Desired LLC name and check availability 
• The State where you will file your LLC paperwork 
• Primary contact details
• Date in which the Operating Agreement should take effect
• Is this your first LLC?
• Company purpose (company description of product/services)
• Where will the business sell its products or services?
• Will you have employees in the first 12 months?
• Appoint LegalZoom as your registered agent service?
• Signup for an Operating agreement AND an EIN, plus licenses?
• Signup to Total Compliance? (track filing dates)
• Signup to LegalZoom’s Full-Service Tax + Accounting Plan service?
• Signup to LegalZoom’s Legal Protect Plan for legal dispute protection?
• Select the Economy, Standard or Express Gold package
• Optional business checking account & credit card signup with Bank of America or Point of Sale terminal signup offer with Square 
• Review Order & checkout 

Good to know: The order is saved on the go under ‘My account > Order’ allowing users to come back at a later time to finish the order if needed. 

We’ve tested multiple different company formation ordering processes and LegalZoom offers a very clear path to what you may need for your business as well as useful service upgrades and full tax services.

Services offered by LegalZoom

Here we take a look at the services offered by LegalZoom to entrepreneurs and startups.

LegalZoom supports firms with:

• Starting an LLC
• Amending the Articles of Organization
• Closing your company
• Filing LLC annual reports
• Transferring business ownership
• Formation advice including LLC vs C-Corp
• Selling shares in your LLC
• State requirements for starting a firm

LegalZoom’s services for the establishment of businesses begin at the following beginning rates:

• Formation of an LLC will cost $79 in addition to any state filing expenses.
• Formation of a corporation will cost you $149 in addition to state filing expenses.
• Services as a registered agent cost 299 dollars yearly.

LLC formation services

LegalZoom is the market leader in the establishment of limited liability companies (LLCs). They have assisted millions of businesses in forming an LLC, and they have made it simple for anybody to get started by using their knowledge and expertise.

The procedure is quite easy to understand, and the prices for the bundles are reasonable. Getting your company off the ground requires you to:

• Customers inform LegalZoom of any changes to their professional requirements
• The customer chooses the company formation package that best suits their needs.
• Your documentation will then be prepared and filed by LegalZoom.

Customers may also take use of LegalZoom’s free company name checking service.

Corporation formation

LegalZoom is another popular choice for companies who are interested in incorporating their enterprises. The formation of a C C-corp or a S Corp are just two options for your business.

If a client is confused about which solution is best fitted to meet the needs of their company, the support staff at LegalZoom is ready to provide guidance and recommendations.

Using LegalZoom to incorporate your company is just as straightforward as establishing an LLC. After you have responded to the questions that LegalZoom has about your company and decided which package option you would like, LegalZoom will handle everything else.

The following is a list of the company creation packages and prices offered by LegalZoom:

• $149 more taxes and fees for the economy
• Standard price is $329 + applicable state costs
• Express Gold costs $349 in addition to any state fees.

Every plan comes with a check for the availability of company names, the preparation and submission of incorporation paperwork, documents for incorporation, and lifelong customer support. In addition to that, they have a “next steps guide” as well as a peace of mind evaluation.

The most important contrast that can be made between the three approaches is how much time each one needs to do the job. If you’re not in a rush to start your business, choose the 30-day Economy plan.

But if you are short on time, the Express Gold plan is the way to go since it offers quick processing.

Registered Agent with LegalZoom

Every company has to have a registered agent, who’s really responsible for accepting official correspondence on behalf of the company. This may include court paperwork (if you are sued), official state mail, notifications from the state tax agency, notifications from the secretary of state, and notices about yearly reports.

They assist businesses in maintaining compliance with regulations and ensure that critical filing dates are never missed.

The registered agent services provided by LegalZoom begin at $299 per year and include the following:

• Protection against identity theft costing $1,000,000 and credit monitoring
• Unlimited online storage for all of your essential company documents
• Access to the compliance calendar, which lists the forthcoming important deadlines.
• Coverage of administrative tasks and transaction costs when transferring from a rival Reg. Agent

Document creation

LegalZoom offers multiple different types of editable documents, many of which are aimed at entrepreneurs, startups and professionals. These include:

• Independent contractor agreement
• Consulting services agreement
• Employee NDA’s
• Business plan NDA’s
• Amendment of agreement
• Letter of intent
• Business advisory plan
• Termination of agreement and release
• Bills of sale

These documents are reliable and can be edited to include your company’s details in a matter of minutes. 

Documents can be easily accessed at any time in the LegalZoom dashboard.

Customer support 

LegalZoom also extends generous support contact hours in comparison to its competitors and their US-based support team is available via phone, email, and live chat. 

LegalZoom‘s customer support is available Monday through Friday 5AM to 7PM (PT) whilst on weekends, customer service opens from 7AM to 4PM (PT). Customer service agents are very efficient in solving caller’s issues with short wait times. 

LegalZoom: Customer reviews

When writing this review, LegalZoom had more than 1,518 reviews on Trustpilot, for an average rating of 4.5/5. 

Customers tend to be very satisfied with overall service including customer support, professionalism and ability to answer legal queries promptly. 

LegalZoom: Overall verdict

LegalZoom offers exactly what businesses are looking for: No nonsense business setup and services, a clean customer interface and great customer support, all backed up by experienced attorneys qualified in these legal matters. 

They also offer a 60-day money back satisfaction guarantee and you can cancel your membership at any time and get a prorated refund. They also offer the least expensive option for a business legal plan that offers regular access to an attorney.

The business legal plan includes phone consultations with an attorney and document review as well as offering tax advice and an annual business evaluation, a massive bonus for startups bringing much convenience, time savings and peace of mind.