The first step in selecting the best California LLC service for your business is to determine how much help you require beyond basic assistance with the actual filing of the LLC documents with the California Secretary of State. While some companies can take care of the filing process themselves, most will find investing in an LLC service saves them time and avoids delays due to omissions in the filing process.

Essential LLC Service Features

LLC services handle all aspects of forming an LLC in California or other states. However, many businesses choose to do some of the formation work themselves and hand off specific aspects to a company that focuses on registering an LLC and ensuring that the business remains in good standing with the state.

Most LLC services offer assistance with business management tasks beyond LLC formation and maintenance. These include creating an LLC banking resolution that lists the parties who have financial authority, applying for business and professional licenses and opening a business checking account.

Packages and Add-Ons

While many California LLC services let businesses choose only the features they need and charge separately for each, it’s more common for them to sell packages of services for a flat price, which is usually between $199 and $299. The exceptions are Rocket Lawyer, which offers a bundle of legal services for a flat monthly fee that includes LLC formation, and Northwest Registered Agent, which lets you add services to its base $39 plan.

Popular add-ons for LLC services are a business bank account (in addition to banking resolution that confirms your LLC’s legitimacy with financial services), business websites, trademark and copyright registration and business funding. Several LLC services provide legal and financial services, and access to legal and business document templates.

Ease of Use

We found great variation in the usability of LLC services’ websites. While several of the sites make it easy to find pricing and other information (these include ZenBusiness and Filenow), others seem to go out of their way to hide the final price you’ll pay for their services. For example, Active Filings doesn’t post the prices of its stand-alone LLC services on its site, and Inc Authority requires that you provide your business and contact information as part of the checkout process before you’re shown the prices for its services.

In addition to clear pricing information, the best LLC services explain the steps of the LLC formation process, the requirements of the California Secretary of State for filing your LLC application and the expected timeframe for receiving your LLC documents from the state. BetterLegal and Northwest Registered Agent offer extensive resources for California LLCs, while Inc Authority and Filenow provide little in the way of self-help tools.

Customer Service

Registering an LLC in California is a relatively straightforward process, but when things go wrong, it can really set your business back. Businesses need to be sure that their LLC service will be thorough in vetting the paperwork before submission and active in working with the California Secretary of State to keep the approval process running.

Most of the LLC services we evaluated provide telephone and live chat support during normal business hours, while a handful provide extended telephone support on weekdays and abbreviated weekend hours. For example, LegalZoom’s customer support staff can be reached by telephone from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT, Monday to Friday, and from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT on weekends.