Should You Use Zen Business?
ZenBusiness was founded in the year 2015, and since then this Texas-based company has formed a few thousands of businesses and accumulated hundreds of really good reviews. There are a handful of services that form an LLC, however reviews of ZenBusiness has proven themselves as one of the best LLC services around.
This ZenBusiness LLC service review will lay out what to expect with their services. We’ll take a look at some of their pros and cons, pricings and features, and much more to see if they’re actually the right fit for you.
Overview of ZenBusiness
Zen Business is an LLC formation service for current or soon-to-be-business owners. Founded in 2015, this Texas-based company has assisted a few thousand entrepreneurs around the US in building their LLC companies from scratch.
They offer everything you need to kick-start your business, including registered agent services, CPA assessments, EIN acquisition, compliance guarantee, and even website-building services. ZenBusiness also offers 3 plans for users to choose from: Starter, Pro, and Premium.
Compared to other LLC formation services, ZenBusiness provides some of the most affordable packages. And whichever you choose, you already get one free year of registered agent services.
The Advantages of Using ZenBusiness
They are one of the most affordable LLC services available with prices that starts at just US$39. This is US$60 less compared to LegalZoom, one of the more well-known service.
ZenBusiness does a really good job of making the entire process of forming an LLC feel approachable and exciting. As contrasting to some other services that try to scare or trick the user into buying add-on services, ZenBusiness offers elective features/services in a non-discriminating way.
Customer feedback is a leading strength for ZenBusiness. They have several hundreds of reviews and nearly all of them are positive.
In their efforts to assist you in starting and maintaining your business, they offer to take care of yearly report filing and other ongoing LLC maintenance. This is part and parcel of their Worry Free Guarantee (included in the Pro package) service.
What’s also unique is that ZenBusiness is a socially aware organization, fixated on doing good while growing as a company. They have a partnership with Kiva.org to assist in lifting people out of poverty through financial lending to help women (and also minority-owned businesses get it off the ground).
The Disadvantages of Using ZenBusiness
Their turnaround times are hard to pin down. For instance, their Starter plan advertises that a Colorado LLC will be created between 1-2 weeks. However, when people formed an LLC in Colorado to test their services with that specific plan, it just took 3 days. On one hand it was a pleasant surprise to have the LLC formed faster than what they have advertised – however, we also think it’s important to have clarity on timeline.
ZenBusiness Pricing and Packaging
Here are what ZenBusiness offers in their plans and pricing.
Basic LLC Package
The Basic Package (which is free) allows you to build your own solution, and includes name availability search, articles of incorporation, state filing, and verification. LLCs can be made via ZenBusiness' Basic package within 4 weeks depending on the state you’re in.
Starter LLC Package
The US$49 Starter Package provides you everything in the Basic plan, and with a real-time chat support, a personalized dashboard, registered agent service, operating agreement, and a CPA assessment. It will take approximately 3-4 weeks to form an LLC with the Starter package. The Starter package renews yearly at US$119/yr which is the cost of the registered agent service.
Pro LLC Package
The US$199 per year Pro Package is ZenBusiness’s most popular plan, and includes everything in the starter package, with an employer ID number (EIN), banking resolution, and a worry-free guarantee. It also allows you to form your LLC faster—in 1-2 weeks.
Premium LLC Package
The US$299 per year Premium Plan allows you to form your business faster than the other plans, in just about 3-5 days. It includes everything in the Pro plan has, and a business website, business domain name, domain name privacy and business email address.
What Users Are Saying About ZenBusiness
Our experience with ZenBusiness was a smooth-sailing and hassle-free one. However, how does it fare when it comes to other customer reviews?
In our research of Zen Business reviews online, we’ve come to learn that, like us, there are many people who are happy with the experience they’ve had with them. ZenBusiness has an optimistic reception among its users, especially because of the great deals (excluding state fee) and the entirely smooth process.
Generally speaking, it seems like ZenBusiness’ customers are satisfied with their services. On Trustpilot, they have got 4.7 stars average from more than 1,400 reviews. Customers are also satisfied that they experienced far fewer upsells with ZenBusiness when compared to other similar business formation services. This shows that the company is not cutting corners despite them offering low price points.
Conclusion
As we compared it with all of the most popular business formation services available today, we decided that ZenBusiness is certainly worthy of a spot near the top of our list. Our favorite feature of ZenBusiness is their Starter plan, which costs just US$39 and comes with the complete preparation and filing of your articles of incorporation. That and along with registered agent service, and a risk-free consultation with one of their in-house CPAs.
If you upgrade to their US$149/year Pro plan ― which ZenBusiness says is their most popular package ― they’ll add managed annual report and compliance management service, a federal tax ID number (EIN), and a banking resolution among many other services.
The most expensive plan available from ZenBusiness is their appropriately named Premium package. That plan costs $249 per year. We’re not huge fans of this package, as most of the added features compared to the Pro plan are 3rd party partnership offers that add relatively little value to the general package.
