Inc Authority will form your LLC for nothing. Not a discounted rate, not a first-year promotion with a renewal attached to the same product. The filing fee is $0, you pay your state, and that part is exactly what it says.
So the question is not whether the free LLC is real. It is. The question is what happens in month thirteen, and that is where this gets interesting, because Inc Authority does not publish the answer anywhere I could find it.
I went through the homepage, the free LLC page, the premium packages page and the current upgrade promotion. Here is what is published, what is not, and how to bound your cost before you hand over your details. I run Ecommerce Paradise, and I have watched enough people take a free offer and get surprised by the second invoice to think this is the part worth writing about.
What Is Genuinely Free
| Included at $0 | What it is |
|---|---|
| LLC or corporation filing | Document preparation and submission to the state |
| Registered agent, first year | Stated as one year of service |
| EIN and tax ID | Federal tax identification number |
| Business name check | Availability search in your state |
| Digital storage and delivery | Cloud copies of your formation documents |
| Tax planning consultation | A consultation, described as included |
| Business credit and funding analysis | A review of credit and financing options |
You pay your state filing fee and nothing else to get an entity that exists, has a federal tax number, and has a registered agent on file. For someone with no capital, that is a genuinely useful package, and I am not going to pretend otherwise because the business model behind it makes me cautious.
Worth naming the model plainly though. A company that files your LLC for free is not doing charity. It is acquiring a customer cheaply and expecting to earn the money back on what you buy next, on what you renew, or on the referral fees attached to the partners it introduces you to. That is a legitimate business, and it is also a reason to read the rest of this carefully.
The filing genuinely costs nothing
LLC filing, EIN and a first year of registered agent at $0, with state fees paid direct to your state. Take it, decline the upsells, and diary the renewal date.
What Is Not Published
This is the section that made me want to write the article, and I want to be precise about it rather than insinuating.
The registered agent renewal price does not appear on any page I checked. The offer is described as a registered agent for one year. What that service costs in year two is not stated on the homepage, on the free LLC page, on the premium packages page, or on the current upgrade promotion. It may well be reasonable. I simply cannot tell you, and neither can the website.
That matters more than it would for most line items, because a registered agent is not optional. An entity without one falls out of good standing in most states. So the one recurring cost you cannot avoid is the one whose price is not disclosed at the point where you decide.
The premium bundles have no published prices either. There are two, named STARTER Business Bundle and FAST TRACK Business Bundle. The comparison table lists what they contain, including registered agent service, operating agreements, record books, annual compliance notifications, a tax consultation, and a web domain with email addresses. It does not list what either costs.
The page states the reason directly: the bundles “can only be ordered through our team of Business Startup Experts,” with a phone number and the line “Save hundreds by calling us.” So the pricing exists, it is simply held on the other side of a sales call.
The current upgrade promotion is a percentage with no base. There is a live offer of 30 percent off upgrades with every LLC or corporation formed online. Thirty percent off an unpublished number is not a price, and it cannot be compared against anything.
Their Own Blog Publishes a Range for Everyone Else
Here is the detail that sharpened my view, and it comes from Inc Authority’s own writing rather than from a critic.
The company publishes a guide to what an LLC costs. In it, it tells readers that professional registered agent services typically run $50 to $300 per year, and lists registered agent renewal as a recurring cost of typically $50 to $300 per year. It also says state filing fees range from $35 to $500 with an average across all fifty states of $132, and that most founders spend between $200 and $1,000 in their first year.
Those are useful, honest numbers and I have no quarrel with any of them. The observation is simply this: the company is willing to publish an industry range for the recurring cost that matters most, and not willing to publish its own figure for the same thing. A reader can learn from Inc Authority roughly what a registered agent should cost while being unable to learn what Inc Authority charges for one.
I am describing what the pages say rather than assigning a motive. But if you are deciding, the practical consequence is the same either way: get the year-two number in writing before year one starts.
How to Bound Your Cost Anyway
You cannot get Inc Authority’s renewal figure from its website, but you can put a ceiling on what you should be willing to pay, because other companies publish theirs. These are the figures I verified directly on each vendor’s own page.
| Service | Registered agent, per year | Published? |
|---|---|---|
| Harbor Compliance | $99 first year, renews at $149; $297 prepaid for three years holds $99 | Yes, on the product page |
| Northwest Registered Agent | $125 single state, $100 per state at five or more | Yes, on the product page |
| MyCorporation | $249, after $120 for the initial term | Yes, on the product page |
| Inc Authority | Free for one year, renewal not published | No |
So the market for this service, among companies that will tell you the price, runs from $99 a year at the cheap end, through $125 to $149 in the middle, to $249 at the expensive end. If Inc Authority quotes you inside that band, the free first year is a straightforward win. If it quotes you above it, you now know the number to push back with, and you can switch agents at any time with a state filing.
That is the whole defence, and it is a good one. Switching a registered agent is routine, it is a filing rather than a negotiation, and it usually costs a modest state fee. Nothing about accepting a free first year locks you into a second.
Know what year two should cost
$125 a year for a single state, published openly, with a business address and mail scanning listed as included. That is the number to measure any renewal quote against.
The Bank Bonus and the Referral Layer
The homepage advertises a bank bonus of $300 to $800 through a Bank of America partnership. Two things are true about that at once.
It is real money and a new business does need a business bank account, so being pointed at one with an incentive attached is not a bad thing in itself. Bank sign-up bonuses of that size normally carry conditions, typically a minimum opening deposit, a spending threshold, or a balance held for a set period, so read those before counting the money.
The other thing that is true is that this is the business model showing through. Free formation plus a referral to a bank, a tax consultation, a funding analysis and a website is a set of doors, and the company earns on some or all of them. None of that is improper. It does mean you should treat every recommendation inside the flow as a recommendation from an interested party, which is exactly how you should treat the recommendations on this page too, since my links here are affiliate links.
Who the Free Tier Is Genuinely Right For
Someone forming an entity with no money and no complications. A single-member LLC in a straightforward state, no partners, no unusual tax position. You need a filing, an EIN and an agent, and this gives you all three for the price of the state fee. Take it.
Someone testing whether a business is real. If you are not sure the idea works, paying $300 to a formation company before you have a customer is a poor use of money. Form free, prove something, spend later.
Someone who is disciplined about upsells. The model depends on you buying more. If you can say no to a website you do not need and a funding analysis you did not ask for, the free tier is a good deal for you specifically because you are not the customer they are counting on.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
Anyone who wants to model three years before committing. You cannot, because the recurring number is not published. If you are the kind of operator who builds a spreadsheet before buying, this will frustrate you, and a service that publishes everything will suit you better. I have broken down two that do. My MyCorporation pricing guide covers a four-package ladder with every figure on the page, including the agent renewal. My BusinessAnywhere pricing guide covers the non-resident end of the market.
Anyone who does not want a sales call. The bundles are phone-only by design. If your preference is to buy software the way you buy everything else, without talking to anybody, that preference is not served here.
Non-US residents. The free offer is built around a straightforward domestic filing. If you have no US address and no Social Security number, the sequence you need is different and the services built for it handle EIN and ITIN applications, banking introductions and a US address as part of the product.
Anyone who needs the agent to also be a business address. A registered agent address receives service of process. It is not automatically an address you can put on a supplier dealer application or a website. If you need both, price them together rather than assuming one covers the other.
The Questions to Ask Before You Sign Up
All of these have specific answers and none of them are on the website. Ask them in writing, by email if possible, so you have the reply.
What does the registered agent cost in year two, and every year after? This is the one that matters. Get a number, not a range.
What happens if I decline the renewal? Confirm that you can move your agent to another provider without penalty, and ask what notice they need.
What do the STARTER and FAST TRACK bundles cost? Ask before the call if you can. A price you receive over the phone under time pressure is a worse price than one you received by email and slept on.
Is the 30 percent upgrade discount off a published list price? If so, ask for the list. If not, the discount is not measurable.
What are the bank bonus conditions? Minimum deposit, spending requirement, holding period. A bonus you cannot qualify for is not a bonus.
What is the standard filing turnaround for my state? Ask before paying for any expedite option, because you cannot judge whether faster is worth money without knowing what normal is.
What the Price Does Not Cover
State filing fees. Mandatory everywhere, paid to your state rather than to the company. Inc Authority’s own guide puts the range at $35 to $500 with a fifty-state average of $132, which matches what I would expect. More important than the filing fee is the recurring state obligation, the annual report or franchise tax, which varies far more and is the number to compare when choosing a state.
Your EIN, in the sense that it was never expensive. Inc Authority including it free is genuinely convenient, and it is worth knowing that if you are a US person you can apply for one directly through the IRS at no cost in any case. Nobody should ever pay a formation company for this.
Tax treatment. A tax planning consultation is included, and a consultation is not a filing. How your LLC is classified federally is set out in the IRS guidance on LLCs, and if real money is involved the conversation is with your own accountant rather than a vendor’s.
The decision to form at all. The Small Business Administration guidance on choosing a structure is a free primer worth reading first. A free filing is not a reason to file.
Legal advice. Not a law firm, and nothing in the free package is a substitute for one.
Common Questions
Is the free LLC actually free? The service fee is genuinely $0. You pay your state filing fee, which every service in this category charges on top regardless of what they quote. There is no catch in the formation itself.
What is the catch, then? It is not a catch so much as a model. The company earns on upgrades, renewals and partner referrals rather than on the filing. If you decline all three, you have taken a good deal and cost them money, which is allowed.
How much is the registered agent after the first year? Not published. Ask before you sign up and get the answer in writing, because it is the only recurring cost you cannot skip.
Can I switch registered agents when the free year ends? Yes. It is a state filing with a modest fee and it is the standard remedy if the renewal quote is higher than the market. Plan for it as an option rather than a last resort.
Why are the bundle prices phone-only? The stated reason is that they can only be ordered through their business startup experts. In practice, phone-only pricing lets a company vary the number by customer, which can work in your favour if you negotiate and against you if you do not.
Should I take the free website? Only if you would otherwise have no website at all. If you are building a real store, you will want your own platform, and a bundled site is one more thing to migrate away from later.
Related Reading
For services that publish every figure, my MyCorporation pricing breakdown covers a four-package ladder with a $249 agent renewal, which is the transparent version of the same trade-off.
My BusinessAnywhere pricing breakdown covers the non-resident and nomad end of the market, where the bundle genuinely earns its price.
For the only major service in the category with no free tier at all, see my CorpNet pricing guide.
If you are choosing on total cost rather than headline price, the cheapest LLC formation service that does not cut corners makes the same argument across the whole field.
For the high-ticket use case, the best overall LLC formation service for high-ticket dropshippers weighs what suppliers actually check on a dealer application.
For the mechanics, how to form an LLC walks the sequence in order. Once the entity exists, business formation for high-ticket dropshipping covers what you will be asked to produce.
Free filing, free EIN, free first year of agent
A reasonable way to get an entity on the register when capital is the constraint. Get the year-two renewal figure in writing before you start.
Checked against Inc Authority’s own pages in September 2026, specifically its homepage, its free LLC page, its premium packages page and its current upgrade promotion. The $0 filing, $0 EIN and one year of registered agent at $0 are as published, as is the list of included services. No registered agent renewal price appears on any of those pages, and the STARTER and FAST TRACK bundles carry no published prices, with the packages page stating they can only be ordered by phone. The $50 to $300 registered agent range, the $35 to $500 state fee range, the $132 fifty-state average and the $200 to $1,000 first-year figure are quoted from Inc Authority’s own guide to LLC costs and are presented there as industry figures rather than as its own prices. Northwest’s $125 per year single-state rate, MyCorporation’s $120 initial term renewing at $249, and Harbor Compliance’s $99 first year renewing at $149 with a $297 three-year prepay holding $99 a year, are all from those companies’ own pages. Competitor prices attributed to LegalZoom, ZenBusiness and Swyft Filings appear on Inc Authority’s own comparison pages and are its claims rather than figures I verified. Disclosure: the Inc Authority, Harbor Compliance, Northwest and MyCorporation links on this page are affiliate links. Confirm all current pricing directly before you buy.
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
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