Data verified Q3 2026 (August 18, 2026). Every price below was taken from the provider’s own pricing or help documentation. Formation pricing changes frequently and introductory rates are common — confirm current terms and renewal rates before you buy.
Executive Summary
Three of the four services in this comparison will form your LLC for $0. One charges $39. Over three years, the $39 option is the cheapest of the four — by a wide margin.
That is not a paradox. It is the business model. Formation is a one-time transaction; the registered agent service attached to it is a subscription that renews every year for as long as your entity exists. Providers that give away the transaction make it back on the subscription, and the renewal rate is rarely the rate you saw at checkout.
Modeled over three years for a single-state LLC — formation plus registered agent, which is what a real estate investor actually needs — Northwest Registered Agent costs $414. ZenBusiness Premium costs $1,595. Same legal outcome. Nearly four times the price.
The rest of this article shows the arithmetic so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership
Assumptions: one LLC, one state, formation plus registered agent service maintained continuously for three years. State filing fees and annual report fees are excluded because they are identical regardless of which service you use — see the note below.
| Provider & configuration | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | 3-year total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwest ($39 formation + $125/yr RA) | $164 | $125 | $125 | $414 |
| ZenBusiness Starter ($0 formation + standalone RA) | $99 | $199 | $199 | $497 |
| LegalZoom Basic ($0 formation + $249/yr RA) | $249 | $249 | $249 | $747 |
| LegalZoom Pro ($249 + RA, add-ons cancelled) | $498 | $249 | $249 | $996 |
| ZenBusiness Premium ($399/yr + RA after yr 1) | $399 | $598 | $598 | $1,595 |
| Bizee Basic ($0 formation + RA) | Registered agent renewal rate not published | Cannot be modeled | ||
State fees are separate and unavoidable. Every provider charges them through to you at cost. Northwest cites a general range of $100–$300, with real-world outliers from $40 in Kentucky to $500 in Massachusetts. Annual report fees are likewise set by your state, not your formation service. Neither varies by provider, which is exactly why they are excluded here — including them would inflate every row equally and obscure the only difference that is actually within your control.
Why “Free” Formation Costs More
The registered agent is a statutory requirement. Every LLC must maintain one in its state of formation to receive service of process. It is not an upsell you can decline — which makes it the ideal thing to sell on a renewing subscription.
Look at what happens to the registered agent price after the first year:
| Provider | Registered agent, year 1 | Renewal rate | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northwest | $125 | $125 | None |
| ZenBusiness (standalone) | $99 | $199 | +101% |
| LegalZoom | $249 | Introductory rate; renewal subject to change | Not guaranteed |
| Bizee | Not published | Not published | Unknown |
ZenBusiness is explicit about this in its own help documentation: “New subscribers pay $99 for the first year; renewals are $199/year.” The $99 is described as an introductory rate for standalone customers. Nothing here is hidden or improper — it is disclosed. It is simply disclosed in a place most buyers do not read before clicking through a $0 formation offer.
Northwest is the outlier: $125 in year one and $125 in every year after, and the company states it has not raised that price in twenty years. Whether or not that holds indefinitely, a flat published renewal is a materially different product from an introductory rate.
We compare six registered agent providers in detail here — including the multi-entity math, which is where the gap gets expensive for investors.
The Auto-Renewing Add-Ons
The registered agent is the big one, but it is not the only recurring charge attached to these packages. Two are worth flagging specifically because they are bundled into mid-tier plans and start after a trial period ends.
- LegalZoom Pro includes unlimited 30-minute attorney consultations with a 30-day subscription. After the trial it auto-renews at $49/month — $588 per year if you do not cancel.
- LegalZoom Premium includes bookkeeping tools with a six-month subscription that auto-renews at $9.99/month.
Run the Pro package forward without cancelling: $249 formation, $249 registered agent, and eleven months of attorney subscription at $49 comes to $1,037 in year one alone, then $837 in each following year — roughly $2,711 over three years. That is the same LLC that Northwest forms and maintains for $414.
The attorney subscription may be worth $588 a year to you. That is a real service, not a scam. But it should be a decision you make deliberately, not one you discover on a card statement eleven months later.
The Provider That Would Not Show Its Price
Bizee (formerly Incfile) advertises $0, $199, and $299 formation packages, and offers registered agent service as an add-on. As of 18 August 2026, we could not find a published renewal rate for that registered agent service on either its homepage or its registered agent page. Third-party review sites quote figures; the company’s own pages, as far as we could determine, do not.
We are not going to publish a number we could not verify at the source, and we are not going to model a three-year cost from a figure a review site asserted. That is why the Bizee row above is blank rather than filled with an estimate.
Treat the blank as the finding. If a provider will not tell you what year two costs before you buy, you are being asked to sign up for an unpriced recurring obligation. Ask for the renewal rate in writing and get it before you file.
What Actually Matters for Real Estate Investors
Most LLC formation comparisons are written for generic small businesses. Property investors have a few requirements that shift the analysis.
You will probably form more than one
Investors commonly hold properties in separate entities. Once you are running several, the per-entity registered agent fee is the dominant recurring cost of your structure, not the formation fee you paid once. Northwest charges $125 per year per state, dropping to $100 per year per state at five or more states. Five entities in five states: $500/year at Northwest, versus $995/year at ZenBusiness’s renewal rate. That gap compounds every year you hold the portfolio.
You may form in a state you do not live in
If you buy out of state, you need a registered agent with a physical address in that state. This is the core service. Everything else in these packages — logo builders, website builders, document templates — is peripheral to what you are legally required to have.
Privacy is a real consideration, and a limited one
Using a commercial registered agent keeps your home address off some public filings. It does not make ownership anonymous, and it is not asset protection. Anyone telling you an LLC plus a registered agent makes you untraceable is selling something.
Where Each Service Fits
Northwest Registered Agent — best overall for investors
$39 + state fees to form; $125/year registered agent ($100/year per state at five or more states). Formation includes a domain name, business address, business email, phone line, and mail scanning at no extra charge.
Why it wins: the lowest three-year cost of any option modeled here, and the only one with a flat published renewal rate rather than an introductory rate. For a multi-entity investor, the per-state discount compounds.
The catch: it is a deliberately unflashy product. If you want an integrated dashboard with bookkeeping, invoicing and a website builder, this is not that.
ZenBusiness — reasonable if you use the Starter plan and nothing else
Starter is $0 + state fees, with no annual service fee — genuinely free formation, renewing at state fees only. Pro is $199/year and Premium is $399/year, both recurring. Standalone registered agent is $99 the first year and $199/year thereafter.
Where it makes sense: Starter plus a registered agent you source elsewhere. Three-year cost using ZenBusiness’s own registered agent is $497 — competitive, though still above Northwest.
Where it doesn’t: Premium at $1,595 over three years is the most expensive configuration we modeled, and the extra spend buys compliance monitoring and business tools rather than a different legal outcome.
LegalZoom — brand recognition at a premium
Basic $0, Pro $249, Premium $299, all plus state fees. Registered agent is $249/year, described as an introductory rate for first-time customers with renewal subject to change.
Where it makes sense: you specifically want the attorney consultation product and will use it enough to justify $49/month, or you place real value on the most established brand in the category.
Where it doesn’t: as a pure formation-plus-agent purchase, it is $747 over three years against Northwest’s $414 for the same legal result — and the auto-renewing add-ons on Pro and Premium require active management.
Bizee — cannot be recommended without a published renewal rate
$0, $199, and $299 formation packages plus state fees. The formation pricing is competitive. We cannot assess the total cost because the registered agent renewal rate is not published, and total cost is the entire point of this comparison.
Final Verdict
For real estate investors forming one or more LLCs, Northwest Registered Agent is the correct default. It is the cheapest option over three years despite being the only one that charges for formation, it publishes a flat renewal rate instead of an introductory one, and its per-state discount rewards exactly the multi-entity structure investors tend to build.
The broader lesson generalises past this comparison: in any category where a one-time purchase is bundled with a mandatory subscription, price the subscription. The headline number on the transaction is marketing. The renewal rate is the product.
Before you form anything, though, read the next section. It matters more than which vendor you pick.
Read This Before You Form an Entity
Everything above is a comparison of vendors. None of it is advice about whether you should form an LLC, in which state, or how it should be taxed. Those are legal and tax questions, and they are consequential:
- Financing. Many residential lenders will not lend to an LLC, or will price the loan differently. Transferring a mortgaged property into an entity can trigger a due-on-sale clause. Check with your lender before you form, not after.
- Tax treatment. Single-member, multi-member, and S-corp election produce different outcomes. This is a CPA question.
- State of formation. Forming in a state where you do not operate frequently means registering as a foreign entity in your home state anyway — two sets of fees for one entity.
- Insurance. An LLC is not a substitute for adequate liability coverage, and courts can disregard entities that are not maintained properly.
We are not an attorney or a CPA. Entity selection depends on your tax structure and financing requirements, and you should talk to both before filing. The purpose of this article is to make sure that once you have made that decision with qualified help, you do not overpay by $1,200 executing it.
For the rest of the stack once the entity exists, see our recommended tools and our cost comparison of Buildium vs RentRedi for small landlords, which applies the same total-cost method to property management software. Bear in mind that an entity only does its job if its money stays separate from yours — that is a banking and bookkeeping problem rather than a legal one, and our comparison of Stessa vs Baselane covers the two tools most investors use to keep per-property books clean enough to survive scrutiny. More investor analysis is collected in the Investor Lab.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the $0 LLC formation actually free?
The formation filing itself can be. State filing fees always apply and are charged separately. The recurring cost is the registered agent service, which every LLC must maintain — and that is where $0 formation offers recover their margin.
Can I be my own registered agent?
In most states, yes, if you have a physical street address in the state and are available during business hours. The trade-offs are that your address appears in public records and that you must be reliably present to accept service of process. Investors buying out of state generally cannot use themselves.
Which is cheapest over three years?
Northwest, at $414 for formation plus registered agent, excluding state fees. The nearest alternative modeled was ZenBusiness Starter with its own registered agent at $497.
Can I switch registered agents later?
Yes. It requires a state filing and usually a fee. Several providers will handle the paperwork, and some cover the state fee as part of switching to them. Switching is a manageable annoyance, not a lock-in — so a bad first choice is fixable.
Do I need a separate LLC for each property?
That is a legal and risk-management question, not a purchasing one, and the answer depends on your portfolio size, financing, and state law. Discuss it with an attorney. Note only that the recurring registered agent cost scales with the number of entities, which is why the per-entity renewal rate matters more to investors than to most buyers.
The Housing Signal provides educational information and market commentary only. We are not a licensed mortgage lender, financial advisor, attorney, or CPA, and nothing here is legal or tax advice. Entity selection depends on your tax structure and financing requirements — consult a qualified attorney and CPA before forming a business entity. Pricing was taken from provider-published sources and verified on August 18, 2026; formation and registered agent pricing changes frequently, introductory rates are common, and you should confirm current terms and renewal rates directly with each provider before purchasing. The Housing Signal is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with any provider listed beyond affiliate relationships disclosed on this site.