IncFile vs. Northwest Registered Agent (Honestly): Who’s the Winner?

Quick Northwest & Incfile Comparison

If you’re in a hurry and don’t need to see the details, we have you covered. Just check out these quick comparisons to see who did better.

If you want to know more about these companies we have extended reviews for both IncFile and Northwest:

• Here’s our full review of IncFile
• And here’s our review for Northwest Registered Agent

Pricing: Incfile Versus Northwest

Pricing is an essential part of determining the actual value of a product; however, with these two products, it is not entirely straightforward. Incfile, like many LLC formation services, offers several packages, specifically three of them. However, Northwest Registered Agent offers only one formation package.

In order to compare them, we will first provide a snapshot comparison of their basic plans and then look at the two services’ full price comparison.

Side By Side Snapshot of Basic Package

	Incfile	Northwest
Time To Process	One Business Day	1-3 Business Days
Includes Operating Agreement	$40 additional	Yes
Includes Registered Agent Service	Yes: The first year free and then $119 annually	Yes: The first year free and then $125 annually
Includes EIN Filing	No: You can add an EIN for $70.	None
Annual Compliance Service	Free Lifetime Alerts	No: Included with purchase of registered agent services
Financial Services	Yes: A free tax consultation	None
Website	Included free web domain + hosting for $20 through third-party	None

Prices of IncFile

Incfile provides a free formation offer, dubbed their Silver Package, that will take care of the full formation process and provide an entire year of registered agent services at no charge. After the first year, the registered agent service will renew at an annual fee of $119, which is actually a low price for this service as well. Additionally, this package offers lifetime company alerts, filing of your Articles of Organization, as well as a free tax consultation and web domain, though a third party will provide these two services.

The Gold Package will cost $149 plus state filing fees, and it comes with everything in the silver package, as well as EIN registration and an operating agreement.

Incfile’s Platinum Package will cost $299 plus state filing fees, and it will add several more offerings onto all of the previous packages, including expedited shipping for filings,  templates for common contracts, and a domain name for a business website. This is Incfile’s top-tier package, and it can clearly add a lot of value to their other packages.

Form your LLC with Incfile (click here).

Price of Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent offers one regular entity formation plan for $225. This plan comes with one full year of Registered Agent Service and then renews for $125 annually, which though slightly costlier than Incfile’s offering, is still a low price compared to most providers.

In addition, Northwest’s plan comes with an operating agreement, a variety of free form and contract templates, and limited mail forwarding.

This was a tough fight when both providers offer pretty good packages at an affordable price. But with Incfile, you can get their lowest package tier for completely free outside of state fees. However, with Northwest, it will cost you a service fee of $225. So, the victor in this category is Incfile.

Form your LLC with Northwest (click here).

Customer Support: Incfile Versus Northwest

Customer service is an important part of any service experience. When things go wrong, you need to be able to contact the company and sort things out. So, let’s take a look at how well these companies do at helping their customers.

Incfile

Incfile has customer service hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST every weekday for phone calls. Generally, Incfile will respond quickly, but sometimes customers complain that they can take up to 24 hours to get back in touch for support.

However, you can also contact them through email, and you can make a client support request on Incfile’s website. Incfile provides lifetime support, meaning that no matter how much time has passed since they helped form your LLC, they will still provide support. From basic technical questions to more complex questions about running your LLC, Incfile offers support.

Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent will offer customer service by phone during regular business hours with guaranteed support from one of their Corporate Guides experienced in everything Northwest offers based within the US. If you get their voicemail, they guarantee a call back within 2 hours. They also offer support by email with a guaranteed response within 24 hours. They offer an online portal for service as well.

Northwest offers the same methods of support as Incfile; however, they guarantee a response within a limited period of time. They also guarantee assistance from one of their US-based corporate guides experienced in LLC formation so they can give expert support. These benefits are a big advantage over Incfile and definitely wins Northwest this round.

Ease of Use: Incfile Versus Northwest

When your paying for your LLC to be formed, you don’t want to be stuck with all the work, so ease of use is definitely important. You want an easy-to-use website with simple-to-follow steps. Let’s see who provides the easier to use service.

Incfile

Forming your LLC with Incfile is an easy process designed for the state you live in as well as the type of business you are trying to form. There are both small explanations next to questions as well as numerous hyperlinks to explain questions and entries on the forms. They even have a business name generator to help you. There are some upsells along the way, in addition to some offers for third-party services. However, if you do select them, they are added to the total cost of your order on the screen. Overall this still provides an easy to understand and follow the process without deception.

Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest registered agent has a fast and easy to follow process. All you have to do is fill in your own personal information and the details of the business you are trying to register, and all that’s left is paying for your order. Northwest offers other services, but they do not try to upsell these services during the process. They also promise that they will never give your information away to third parties, which is a nice guarantee.

Incfile and Northwest Registered Agent both make the process of forming an LLC easy, but Incfile’s detailed explanations of entries and features like their business name generator make the process fast and easy to understand. This wins Incfile in this criterion.

Customer Reviews: Incfile Versus Northwest

Looking at the services and what they offer is important, but what do customers who have used these products actually think about them? This is important as well, so let’s take a look.

Incfile

Incfile gets a fairly wide mix of favorable and unfavorable reviews. However, customer reviews on BBB give it nearly 5 stars. A few customers complain that Incfile had failed to meet their deadline. But, most customers are more than satisfied with the clear pricing and easy, straightforward formation process. Unfortunately, Trustpilot did not take as favorably to this service with a rating of 2.7 stars. Let’s take a look at a positive and negative review from the customer review aggregate Trustpilot to get an idea of what customers think of this service.

Positive Review

Negative Review

Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent generally receives positive reviews; however, Northwest has far fewer reviews to work from. Regardless, like Incfile, they receive nearly five stars from consumers on BBB. Unfortunately, they do not receive enough reviews from Trustpilot to give a very good idea of what you can expect from them; however, the ones there are positive. Let’s take a look at some positive and negative reviews of this company from the Better Business Bureau’s consumer reviews.

Positive Review

Negative Review

Both companies receive an excellent rating from customers on the BBB. However, Northwest slightly edges Incfile out on this one, and though Northwest does not receive many reviews from Trustpilot, the ones there are positive. So, we have to call this one for Northwest.

Turnaround Time: Incfile Versus Northwest

As we said, you want your business registered quickly, so you want your formation service to get done fast. Let’s look at who delivers.

Incfile

Incfile provides a one business day guarantee that promises they will process your order and forward your registration documents to your state of formation within one business day. This is an impressive offer because most services charge additional fees or require a higher-priced package in order to receive next-day processing.

However, if you require even more speed, Incfile offers expedited state processing in some states for a fee. But this does depend on what the state allows. The Platinum Package also offers expedited service, which includes expedited processing for free.

Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent provides an estimated turnaround time based on the state, which is nice. They also offer a second list of estimated dates based on states which offer expedited service. For a fee, you can pay to expedite your order in states that allow it.

This was close as both companies generally provide next-day processing and expedited service in most states, but Incfile slightly edges out the competition because they generally seem to have slightly faster processing times than Northwest.

Final Thoughts and Verdict

These companies are both some of the best-rated and most affordable companies in the LLC formation industry, so it is hard to choose one of them as the better company. However, based on our criteria, Incfile is the victor, with three out of five categories won.

IncFile wins taking victories in 3 categories out of 5.

In the end, Incfile’s free package is a great deal and combined with their next-day registration, it is hard to beat. Plus, they offer a very easy-to-use platform that explains the process every step of the way. Northwest Registered Agent is a great company with a lot to offer, but at the end of the day, we have to give Incfile the crown.

Frequently Asked Questions About Northwest & Incfile