LegalZoom vs. Bizee: Which LLC filing service is better?

Trying to decide which LLC filing service is best for you? I out LegalZoom vs. Bizee head-to-head to see how the two services match up against each other.

Officially forming a business entity is a big step if you’re an entrepreneur.

In this LegalZoom vs. Bizee comparison, we’re reviewing two of the most popular business formation services.

Our final verdict? Bizee is better overall when it comes to business formation, though LegalZoom does offer some other personal and business legal services.

Now, let’s dive deeper into how their features compare.

LegalZoom vs. Bizee: At a Glance

Feature	LegalZoom	Bizee	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	8.5/10	9.3/10	Bizee
Business Formation Services	LLC, partnership, C-Corp, non-profit, or DBA	LLC, C-Corp, Nonprofits	LegalZoom
Processing Time	5 to 14 days	24-hour formation guarantee	Bizee
Registered Agent Services and Costs	$249/year	1st year free, then $119/year	Bizee
Name Availability Search	✅	✅	Bizee
Online Document Access	✅	✅	Tie
Money-Back Guarantees	60 days	24-hour notice	LegalZoom
Platform User-Friendliness	Aesthetic UI	Simple and modern	Tie
Customization Options	✅	❌	LegalZoom
Compliance Assistance	✅	✅	Bizee
Industry-Specific Expertise	Founded in 2001	Founded in 2003	LegalZoom
Customer Education and Resources	✅	✅	Tie
Customer Support	Phone, live chat, email	Phone, fax, email, and live chat	LegalZoom
Pricing	$149 – $349	$0 – $299	Bizee
Scalability	Convert as you grow	Convert as you grow	Tie

LegalZoom: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

LegalZoom is a tech-driven legal services provider. Alongside business formation, they also offer a range of other services including estate planning, intellectual property protection, and even legal name changes.

With LegalZoom, you can get personal help from their network of experienced attorneys – which has garnered an average customer rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

While LegalZoom offers a variety of legal services, we’re only going to be discussing the cost of their business formation since that’s what this review is about.

The cost of this service depends entirely on the type of business or corporation you’re trying to set up.

Here’s a quick breakdown of LegalZoom’s pricing for business formation:

• LLC: $0 – $299 plus state filing fees
• Corporation: $149 – $349 plus state filing fees
• Nonprofit: $99 – $359 plus state filing fees
• Limited partnership: $149 – $379 plus state filing fees
• LLP: $149 – $379 plus state filing fees
• DBA: $99 – $119 plus state filing fees

Bizee: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Bizee is a business formation service that handles the process of filing an LLC or corporation for you.

They’ll submit the paperwork, set you up with a registered agent, and send alerts so you can stay compliant with state and federal laws.

They were previously known as Incfile, but rebranded to Bizee in December 2023. However, they still offer all of the same services as before.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Bizee’s basic LLC formation service is free, so you’ll only be out of pocket for your state’s filing fees.

But if you want access to a more advanced product suite – such as business contract templates, banking and tax assistance, an EIN tax number, and more – you’ll need to subscribe to a paid Bizee plan.

Here’s a quick breakdown of Bizee’s plans:

• Basic: $0 plus state filing fees
• Standard: One-time payment of $199 plus state filing fees
• Premium: One-time payment of $299 plus state filing fees

Business Formation Services

LegalZoom provides formation services for the following business entities:

• LLC
• Corporation (S Corp or C Corp)
• Nonprofit corporation
• Limited partnership
• Limited liability partnership (LLP)
• DBA

You can use Bizee to establish an LLC, S Corporation, C Corporation, nonprofit business entity, or DBA (Doing Business As).

However, unlike LegalZoom, you won’t be able to use them to form a partnership.

As long as you’re in one of the 50 U.S. states, you can use either service to form your business.

They’ll handle the formation process from start to finish so you don’t have to worry about filling out all the paperwork correctly.

✅ Winner: LegalZoom

Processing Time

You can expect LegalZoom to prepare and file your formation documents within 5 to 14 days.

If you need a faster turnaround, you can select expedited processing at checkout. Pricing for this will depend on the specific package you choose.

Bizee, on the other hand, is usually much quicker. They aim to process your filing paperwork and submit it to the state within 1 business day of receiving your order.

Regardless of the processing times of these services, total turnaround time will largely depend on your location.

State filing speeds vary drastically – as a good rule of thumb, expect it to take anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks total.

✅ Winner: Bizee

Registered Agent Services and Costs

All business entities are required to appoint a registered agent who will be responsible for receiving official documents and other mail, as well as keeping up with annual report due dates.

You can be your own registered agent, but not every business owner has the time or desire to do so.

Which is where a done-for-you registered agent service comes in handy. LegalZoom offers a registered agent service that’s priced at $249 per year.

This is over twice as expensive as Bizee’s registered agent service that costs just $119 per year.

Not only that, but Bizee sets you up with a free registered agent for your first year after forming your business with them.

You can’t beat that.

✅ Winner: Bizee

Name Availability Search

LegalZoom does have a name availability search tool, but it’s only available to customers after they’ve purchased a business formation package.

If you were hoping to perform initial name checks before committing to LegalZoom’s services, this is a potential drawback to consider.

Bizee’s built-in name availability search tool is available for anyone, regardless of if they’ve committed to a package.

It’s super easy to use – just input your desired business name, entity type, and your email address.

You’ll receive an email in 5 to 10 minutes with the results of your search and whether your desired name is available.

When I tried it out, I received my results back in just 3 minutes.

✅ Winner: Bizee

Online Document Access

At this time, LegalZoom does not have an online document portal. Your filing paperwork and other important documents will be sent to you via mail.

This can make managing your documents inconvenient and inefficient. Not having access to digitized records is a huge drawback, in my opinion.

Fortunately, Bizee does provide online document access through their Business Dashboard.

Here, you’ll be able to easily find, view, and print your filed documents as needed.

Plus, your data will be automatically backed up and encrypted.

✅ Winner: Tie

Money-Back Guarantees

LegalZoom does not provide any kind of traditional money-back guarantee on its business formation service.

However, they do provide quality assurance under their “LZ Guarantee.” Basically, the LZ Guarantee says that if LegalZoom makes a mistake on your order, they’ll correct it at no cost to you.

Bizee technically does offer a money-back guarantee for business formation, but it has pretty serious limitations.

Your order is refundable until forwarded to the state – but since Bizee claims to process all orders within 24 hours, you have a very small window of time to change your mind.

In addition to that, you’ll be subject to a $30 cancellation fee if you request a refund.

However, this still beats LegalZoom which offers no money-back guarantee.

✅ Winner: LegalZoom

Platform User-Friendliness

Since I didn’t actually form a business with LegalZoom or Bizee, I can’t speak fully on the user-experience and how simple the platforms are to navigate.

However, their dashboards appear to be simple to use. Here’s what the dashboard on LegalZoom looks like:

And here’s what Bizee’s looks like:

One Trustpilot reviewer, Dwana, had this to say about Bizee’s ease of use:

“The website is user friendly. Filling out the forms for my LLC and DBA was super easy. Everything you need to start your business is available on the website such as opening a business account and obtaining domain name and website.”

Overall, I didn’t notice anything major about the interfaces that seemed confusing or difficult to use.

✅ Winner: Tie

Customization Options

Both LegalZoom and Bizee’s packages are pretty straightforward. What you see is what you get.

There’s not much room for package customization with either service. You can select expedited processing or choose to purchase add-on features like Compliance Calendar (LegalZoom) or accounting and bookkeeping (Bizee).

But those are all separate services with their own, additional costs.

✅ Winner: LegalZoom

Compliance Assistance

LegalZoom offers compliance assistance through their Compliance Calendar. This is an add-on feature that costs an extra $69/year.

Within the Compliance Calendar, you’ll find important dates such as tax filing dates and when annual reports are due.

You’ll also receive notifications – either by phone or email – when due dates are close.

Unlike LegalZoom, Bizee’s compliance reminders are included automatically with their formation plans.

You’ll receive emails as important tax and annual report due dates approach. This feature is completely free.

✅ Winner: Bizee

Customer Education and Resources

LegalZoom has an extensive library of educational resources for customers. They publish legal articles written by experts covering an array of topics like trademarks, taxes, and more.

They also have an FAQ section that will help solve common challenges new business owners may have during the formation process.

Similarly, Bizee’s Resource Center hosts more than 200 helpful articles on topics like business accounting, legal contracts, and even things like marketing and branding.

In short, both services provide a wealth of information and resources that can help you become a better business owner.

✅ Winner: Tie

Customer Support

LegalZoom provides both phone and email support. Their phone support hours are Monday through Friday from 5am to 7pm PST, plus weekends from 7am to 4pm.

Bizee also offers phone support, but their hours are 9am to 6pm CST. Alternatively, you can submit a ticket through their client support request form.

While neither service provides round-the-clock support, LegalZoom provides more hours of coverage overall.

✅ Winner: LegalZoom

Pricing

LegalZoom’s pricing is based on the type of entity you’re forming. Forming an LLC is much cheaper than forming a corporation or LLP with them, for instance.

Bizee differs in that they offer three pricing tiers that are all the same, regardless of what type of business entity you’re forming.

Pricing starts at $0 and goes all the way up to $299 (plus state filing fees).

In addition, the only “free” formation option with LegalZoom is LLCs – whereas with Bizee, you can form any entity on their basic plan for $0 plus state filing fees.

Neither pricing approach is wrong, per se, but Bizee’s is definitely more simple and easier to understand.

✅ Winner: Bizee

Scalability

I would say that LegalZoom and Bizee are both pretty scalable. That said, LegalZoom offers more types of business formation, so if you ever want to expand and start a partnership, they’d be the better fit.

Plus, LegalZoom has more use cases than just business. You can use it for your personal needs as well, like will and estate planning, official name changes, and even divorce.

✅ Winner: Tie

Standout Features of LegalZoom

• Compliance Calendar: LegalZoom’s Compliance Calendar helps you proactively stay on top of filing deadlines by alerting you in advance of important due dates. This service is priced at $69 per year.
• Trademark search: With LegalZoom’s trademark search feature, you can search state, federal, and international databases to be sure your chosen trademark is unique and able to be registered.
• Trademark registration: Once you’ve determined your desired trademark is available, LegalZoom offers attorney assistance for the registration process. And if your first trademark application is rejected, they’ll help you register a new one at no extra cost.

Standout Features of Bizee

• Contract templates: On Bizee’s Premium plan, you’ll get access to a library of legal templates that you can use for your business. These can be found in your Business Dashboard and include consulting agreements, demand letters, and more.
• Foreign qualification: With Bizee, you can file for a foreign qualification for free (just pay your state filing fee). This will allow you to conduct business outside of the state you originally formed in.
• Accounting and bookkeeping: If you don’t already have a dedicated accounting software, Bizee offers a separate service for that. It includes things like done-for-you tax filing, monthly or quarterly bookkeeping, and the ability to link up to four different bank accounts.

LegalZoom vs. Bizee: SMB Guide’s Verdict

LegalZoom and Bizee are two well-known companies, but when it comes to business formation, Bizee rises to the top.

Choose Bizee If

Bizee offers several free features, including a free registered agent service for customers in their first year.

With a 24-hour processing time, public name search availability tool, and more, Bizee is a great product for anyone looking to form their first business.

You can get your order started today by selecting your state and desired business entity.

Choose LegalZoom If

If you’re looking for more of a comprehensive legal solution with other use cases besides business formation, LegalZoom may be the better choice for you.