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Founder Mentor Guide

How we score

The scoring criteria

Founder Mentor Guide picks services the way a mentor would advise a first-time owner: what the bill comes to over three years and how much of the work stays on your own desk. Facts come first and picks second, and this page covers both.

Advice from the Founder Mentor Guide mentors

Sources

Every form name, fee, deadline and rule in a walkthrough comes from the state's own publications: fee schedules, filing forms and statutes. Each is cited where it appears, with the month we looked at it, and every walkthrough ends with a list of official pages.

How a walkthrough is built

For each state there are three walkthroughs, each laid out as answer, facts, picks, stages, costs and questions. Our three-year state figure is the filing fee, plus reports in years two and three, plus any yearly minimum tax. Costs that have no fixed amount, such as newspaper publication, are explained but never added into the figure.

The scoring criteria

  1. Three-year bill (32%). Year one plus two renewals, taken from the prices each company publishes. Every filer pays the state the same fee, so the guide lists it on a separate line and does not score it.
  2. Work taken off your desk (32%). The jobs the price handles so the owner does not: filing the paperwork, serving as registered agent all year, submitting the recurring state report and applying for the EIN.
  3. Year-two price (10%). The price after the first year, and whether a cheap opening bill turns into a larger one.
  4. Fit for where you operate (16%). How well the plan suits the state: report timing, late penalties, the agent address rules and the chance the company will register in another state.
  5. Honest pricing (10%). Whether the complete price is visible before checkout, with the state fee itemized at the figure the state sets.

If two services score almost the same, the guide names the criterion that separated them and says what the one in second place does well.

Scores are Founder Mentor Guide's own editorial judgments from these criteria and are not customer ratings.

Listed services

A service is listed only when it sells that service at a published price; Mainstay Filing and the state's agent services qualify.

Limits

We use no customer ratings or quotes, and nothing here is legal or tax advice.