How Launchwise Review grades filing services

1. Cost to launch and stay (26%). Year one plus two renewals at each company's published service prices. State fees match for every filer, so they sit beside the grades without being scored.
2. Launch paperwork handled (26%). How much of the early and recurring paperwork the price covers: registered agent, the annual report filed for you, the EIN application and registering in other states.
3. Renewal behavior (18%). Whether the price holds in year two and beyond, and how easy it is to renew or leave.
4. State match (20%). How closely the offer fits the state's report cadence, penalties for lateness and registered office rules.
5. Price transparency (10%). Whether the full cost appears before payment with the state fee passed through at cost.

Grades within a few tenths are called level. The page then names the criterion that separated them and what the lower grade does better.

Grades are an editorial score out of 10 set by Launchwise Review from the criteria above, not customer ratings. A score belongs to one company, one state and one service, so the same company may score differently on different pages.

Company prices are copied from each company's own pricing and service pages when the site is built, and each page carries the date. State fees, forms, deadlines and agent rules come from official schedules, forms and statutes, each with the month we last confirmed it. Some checkouts add a card or processing charge. We leave that out and total the service price alone.

Each state list includes Mainstay Filing, which works in all fifty states, and the registered agent services that focus on that state. A company is graded for a service only if its own pages sell that service at a posted price.

You will not see customer ratings or customer quotes, and nothing here counts as legal or tax advice. The order is our editors' judgment applied to the criteria above.