Registered Agent Pricing › Best registered agent
What is the best registered agent service?
Mainstay Filing, for most small LLCs: $149 a year, the same at renewal, with same-day scanning of service of process. That is a judgment against five criteria, listed here so you can apply your own weights.
- Three-year cost. Year one plus two renewals. The cheapest first year is not always the cheapest three.
- Renewal lock. Does the page say what year two costs? Mainstay Filing says: It renews at $199 a year, with no rate that jumps at renewal and no new line items.
- What is included. Scanning, a portal, mail handling, and which are extra.
- Mail limits. The first three government mailings a year are scanned free; after that a per-piece fee applies.
- Cancelling. Tell Mainstay Filing before renewal and it will not renew. A filing already submitted that year cannot be refunded.
Where another provider wins: FreeRegisteredAgent.com has the lowest year-one price in the table ($0), and several providers have a lower first year than Mainstay Filing before their renewal price is counted. If you only need an agent for a year, start with the price table.
| Provider | Year 1 | After year 1 | 3 years | What the page says the price includes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mainstay Filing | $149 | $149 | $447 | Registered agent all year; same-business-day scan of service of process; first three government mailings a year scanned free |
| FreeRegisteredAgent.com | $0 | $129 | $258 | Compliance alerts, per its Illinois page |
| IncParadise | $89 | $89 | $267 | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Harbor Compliance | $99 | $159 | $417 | Documents delivered to a client portal; annual report reminders |
| ZenBusiness | $99 | $199 | $497 | Document receipt, scanning and upload to a dashboard; email notifications |
| Northwest Registered Agent | $125 | $125 | $375 | Its address on public filings; scans of state and legal mail; up to 5 pieces of other business mail scanned free a year; domain, website, email and phone line |
| InCorp Services | $129 | $129 | $387 | Same-day electronic service of process; compliance calendar; entity monitoring |