LegalZoom review (2026)

The free tier exists. You can walk out of LegalZoom's checkout having paid only the state filing fee. It is harder than it looks, and it is dramatically harder than doing the same thing on ZenBusiness or Bizee, because the upsell funnel is the most aggressive of any provider we tested.

LegalZoom rewards comparison shopping. Read this review before clicking any button on the checkout page.

Our methodology

In March 2026 our editors filed test LLCs on LegalZoom in Wyoming, Delaware, and Texas, alongside matched filings on Northwest, ZenBusiness, and Bizee. We recorded each checkout, counted every upsell touchpoint, timed filing speed against state processing estimates, and retrieved the completed filings from each Secretary of State to inspect what address landed on the public record. Pricing was verified against legalzoom.com on April 14, 2026.

Rankings were locked in our editorial tracker before any affiliate outreach. LegalZoom had no preview of this review.

What's actually included

The Basic tier, advertised as $0, covers:

• Preparation and filing of the Articles of Organization
• Name availability search
• Digital delivery of the filed certificate

That is the list. Basic does not include:

• Registered agent service
• Operating agreement
• EIN
• Annual report filing
• Attorney consultations
• Any post-formation compliance tooling

Standard ($249 + state fee) adds the operating agreement template and a banking resolution template. Express Gold ($349 + state fee) adds rush filing and some deluxe branding boilerplate.

Above the formation tiers, LegalZoom pushes the Business Advisory Plan (~$49/month) for attorney consultations, a separate tax-filing service, and registered-agent service at approximately $249/year. That RA price is roughly twice Northwest's $125/year.

Price breakdown

Exact dollars, verified April 2026:

• Basic: $0 service fee + state filing fee. No RA, no operating agreement, no EIN.
• Standard: $249 + state fee. Adds operating agreement, banking resolution.
• Express Gold: $349 + state fee. Adds expedited filing, deluxe binder.
• Registered Agent service: ~$249/year as an add-on (first year sometimes discounted).
• EIN service: $79 (free from the IRS directly).
• Business Advisory Plan: $49.99/month or $499/year.

Five-year horizon in Wyoming, Basic plan + RA add-on: $0 + $100 (state) + $249 × 5 = $1,345. That is the most expensive five-year outlay of any service in our comparison set, and ~$700 more than Northwest.

Privacy handling

On the Basic plan, LegalZoom uses the customer's own name and address on the Articles of Organization. Privacy is not the default. To get LegalZoom's address on the filing, you must buy registered-agent service at ~$249/year, and separately uncheck any fields LegalZoom's form prefilled with your home address as the LLC's principal office.

Put differently: the same privacy outcome that Northwest gives you by default for $39 costs ~$249/year at LegalZoom, and requires active navigation of the checkout to achieve. Several Trustpilot reviewers report being surprised to find their home address publicly queryable months after filing; this is a direct consequence of Basic-plan privacy defaults.

Upsell density

LegalZoom's checkout had the most upsell touchpoints of any service we tested in March 2026. We counted:

1. Basic / Standard / Express Gold tier toggle (pre-selected to Standard on two of three runs)
2. Registered agent add-on
3. EIN service
4. Business license research
5. Operating agreement (already bundled into Standard/Express)
6. Trademark registration
7. Business Advisory Plan subscription
8. Tax preparation
9. Accounting service referral
10. Document storage/vault
11. Banking partner offer (interstitial page)
12. Post-purchase "complete your formation" email sequence with additional offers

Twelve touchpoints before and after purchase. Prices are stated. Toggles are mostly off by default. But the cumulative effect of declining twelve offers is fatigue, and fatigue is what the funnel is designed to exploit. This is why Trustpilot reviewers with similar starting intents report finishing at $0, $250, $400, and $600 — the same starting tier produces wildly different final prices depending on how many upsell prompts the buyer ignored.

Support

Chat support is staffed 5am–7pm Pacific, weekdays. Phone support is on the Business Advisory Plan or on paid formation tiers. Our two test chats on Basic were routed to a general queue; response time was 14 and 22 minutes. The agents answered the questions we asked but defaulted to "let me connect you with an attorney on our Business Advisory Plan" for anything beyond the script.

Attorney consultations, where the Advisory Plan is genuinely useful, are legitimately valuable if you need general legal review of a contract or non-state-specific advice. LegalZoom's attorney network is real, licensed, and responsive. This is the one area where LegalZoom out-delivers the pure formation services. If you are going to use the Advisory Plan, LegalZoom is a reasonable vendor for it; if you are not, there is no strong reason to start here for the formation itself.

Speed

State filing speed is dominated by the state. Our Wyoming Basic-tier filing cleared in 31 hours; Texas took 6 business days; Delaware took 2 business days. Express Gold pays the state's rush fee and, on Delaware, saved us roughly one calendar day compared to Basic. LegalZoom does not submit to the state meaningfully faster than Northwest or ZenBusiness.

Pros

• Largest and most-recognized brand; the name carries across attorneys, bankers, and landlords who may need to see formation paperwork
• Attorney-network Business Advisory Plan is a genuine, useful product for founders who want occasional legal consults
• Free tier does exist if you can navigate the upsell funnel without fatigue
• Document-storage dashboard is polished; formation paperwork is easy to retrieve years later

Cons

• Twelve upsell touchpoints across the checkout — the heaviest funnel we measured
• Registered agent add-on at ~$249/year is roughly twice Northwest's $125
• Basic plan puts the customer's home address on the public filing; privacy costs $249/year extra
• Five-year total cost (Basic + RA) is the highest in our comparison set
• Support on the Basic plan is slow and tends to deflect toward the Advisory Plan upsell
• EIN upsell at $79 is a service the IRS gives away for free

When to use it

Use LegalZoom if:

• You specifically want ongoing attorney consultations via the Business Advisory Plan and plan to actually use them
• You are already a LegalZoom customer and consolidating formation + existing legal services in one vendor has workflow value
• Brand recognition matters for an external audience (e.g., a specific banker or landlord who asks who filed your entity)
• You are highly disciplined at declining upsells and the $0 tier genuinely serves you

When to skip it

Skip LegalZoom if:

• You want privacy on the public filing. Northwest handles this by default at $39.
• You want the lowest five-year total. Basically every other provider wins on this metric.
• You are forming a Delaware C-Corp with investment ambitions. Stripe Atlas does this better.
• You are forming a Delaware LLC and want a specialist. Harvard Business Services does this better.
• You suspect you are the kind of buyer who adds things to the cart when asked nicely. LegalZoom's funnel is designed for that buyer, and it works.

Further reading

• Our methodology for ranking LLC formation services
• Northwest Registered Agent review — the privacy-first and flat-pricing alternative
• ZenBusiness review — the beginner-friendly alternative with a cleaner dashboard
• Harvard Business Services review — the Delaware-specialist alternative
• Stripe Atlas review — the venture-ready Delaware C-Corp alternative
• Delaware LLC filing guide — where the filing fee and RA math matter most