Our working
How the worksheets are scored
What goes in
We take state fees and rules from the state's documents and cite each one with its month. Service prices come from each company's own pricing pages, read on the date printed in the worksheet.
The sums
Running sum = year one + (years - 1) x renewal. For the state, three years means the filing fee, two years of reports and any minimum tax. Publication costs are not added. We look up to ten years ahead for the year one running sum passes another.
Five weighted terms
- Three-year total (42%). First-year price plus two renewals as the companies publish them. Because the state charges all filers the same fee, the worksheets show it in its own lines and the sort ignores it.
- Items covered per dollar (28%). The recurring items inside the price: registered agent service, the state report filed for you, the EIN application and one price that works in several states.
- Year-two change (15%). How much the yearly price moves after the first year. A flat renewal beats a low start that climbs.
- Crossover year (8%). The first year a service's cumulative cost passes another's, shown in the cumulative-cost table.
- Published detail (7%). Whether the opening price, the renewal price and the state fee are all published ahead of checkout.
When two rows are near each other, the worksheet names the deciding column and notes what the lower row does better.
The order is Formation Math's own editorial result from these criteria, not a customer rating.
Which services get a row
Rows go to Mainstay Filing and the state's own registered agent services, each only where it publishes a price for that service.
Limits
The order is editorial, not a customer rating, and the worksheets are general information, not legal advice.