Active Filings seem to be one the most reliable business incorporation services. Whether you want to incorporate your business quickly and affordably in all 50 states, including Puerto Rico, or fast-track your company’s growth and obtain permission to do business in a different state, Active Filings can help. We’ll cover all of this and more in our Active Filings review.

Active Filings’ services and business structures include free business name search, incorporation packages, LLC formation, C, S, nonprofit, and professional corporations. The thing is that business incorporation doesn’t have to be challenging or something you do alone. With Active Filings, you can streamline the process and incorporate your business so that you become productive and realize your vision as soon as possible. 

But, how good are their business incorporation services? Should you try to use them, joining hundreds of other business owners? Let’s get into it.

Who Are Active Filings?

Active Filings is one of the oldest online incorporation services. Robert Neuberger founded Active Filings in 2000 in Miami, Florida. Robert wanted to simplify the process of starting a business in the United States, and that’s how Active Filings was created.

At the same time, Robert Neuberger decided to offer incorporation services in Spanish, too, considering the vast number of Spanish-speaking people in the US. In fact, Active Filings is the only US incorporation service with dedicated Spanish-speaking team members. 

Over the years, Active Fillings has helped thousands of US citizens start a business in various states and establish LLCs and nonprofit organizations in all 50 states. In 2001, when the internet was the norm, they became industry pioneers and paved the way for other incorporation services startups. Active Filings has no institutional investors and no massive shareholder returns, so the only way to increase their revenue is by providing a better experience than other incorporation services. 

Active Filings combines a high-technology approach with traditional customer care. This way, customers receive fast and efficient service while staying on top of technological trends. They provide customers with peace of mind as they create their business quickly, efficiently, and at a competitive price. 

Active Filings — Mission and Values

Like most incorporation services, Active Filings aim to provide customers with a fast and reliable way of starting a business and take care of any legal documents along the way. What’s more, Active Fillings aims to offer such services at an affordable rate and for everyone. 

Active Filings’ core values are convenience and reliability, integrity and transparency, credibility and accountability, customer service and appreciation, professionalism in all aspects of operations, and excellence in all things. Also, they attempt to foster innovation, diligence, entrepreneurial spirit, and teamwork and exceed customer expectations on all engagements. 

And this is true since there are no hidden charges and the incorporation services are at a fair price. Likewise, incorporating a business is achieved in the least time possible, with customers completing the process in less than five minutes.

To sum up, Active Filings’ goal is to provide business startups with fast, affordable, and convenient formation and incorporation services while, at the same time, being a step ahead of the competition and the industry standard. 

About Active Fillings

Since 2001, Active Filings has aimed to provide individuals and business startups with fast, efficient, affordable, and convenient formation and incorporation services. Whether you are a CPA, an entrepreneur, a simple individual, or a lawyer, Active Filings’ services are high-end and stand out from the competition. 

Active Filings has a range of services, from free business name search to domestic and international LLC incorporation packages. In fact, their International Incorporation Plan appears as one of the most robust and most complete formation plans for non-US residents.

Active Filings Review — Products and Services

Active Filings is one of the oldest incorporation companies, indeed. Hence, by now, they should have perfected their incorporation services. That said, the reality is that the plethora of business services they offer is great, even if, perhaps, they are not that much better than the competition. 

Whatever the case may be, Active Filings provides a multitude of incorporation services that help people begin a new business journey. 

This is what Active Filings do:

Business Name Search

Considering that choosing a business name is one of the most important decisions when starting a new business, having a memorable name seems like a must. Active Filings can help you choose a unique business name that strengthens your brand and represents your business type for free. 

Thanks to Active Filings’ free business name search, you can find out the availability of a business name. The reason for this is if your business name isn’t available, you lose time and money, and you’d want to avoid that. Checking the availability of your desired business name is paramount before filing your business formation paperwork. 

Incorporation Packages

Active Filings, as expected, offers many incorporation packages at different rates. Even though we will discuss the pricing models and plans later; it’s worth mentioning the incorporation services they provide to people and business startups: 

• Incorporation service
• Registered agent services
• Annual report compliance
• Business address
• Privacy protection
• EIN – federal tax ID number
• Corporate seal
• Corporate book
• Expedited service
• Fulfilment of state filing fees

LLC Formation

A Limited Liability Company (LCC) is a new business form in the United States, introduced in 1977. It’s a hybrid business structure and combines the characteristics of a sole proprietorship, corporation, and partnership. Also, LLC is considered one of the most approachable and least complex structures. It’s meant for small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs, including freelancers. 

To form an LLC with Active Filings, you just have to subscribe to their incorporation packages. Active Filings suggest that you save time, energy, and money by using them to form your LLC and lower the risk of rejections, plus you get supplementary services, like a registered agent service. 

To start your LLC formation service, you need to provide the following information:

• Business name and address
• Main business activity
• Name and address of the registered agent
• Name and address of the company’s members

Business names should end with a “Limited Liability Company, “Limited Company,” “Limited,” or any of the abbreviations, “LLC,” “LC,” or “Ltd.”

C Corporation

A C corporation, or C corp, is a tax designation that takes its name from IRS’s Internal Revenue Code. Essentially, it’s a business structure that enables its owners to create a company as a separate legal entity and wholly separate it from the people who actually own it. 

The advantage of starting a C corporation is that it’s a Limited Liability company, meaning that owners are safe from lawsuits and liens. Second, you can easily raise capital to scale growth and have share transferability with a C corp. Lastly, such a corporation has perpetual existence; even if the owner ceases to exist, the business will continue. 

Active Filings claim they can help you create your C corp in three minutes and provide one year of registered service and annual report compliance. 

S Corporation

S corporations, also known as S corps, are tax designations that take their name from IRS’s Internal Revenue Code, similarly to how a C corp is named. Contrary to a standard LLC, where your income is taxed in one sum, the income from an S corp is divided into two groups: 

• Reasonable salary, as IRS calls it
• Dividends

In other words, your salary as an owner of an S corp is subjected to 15.3% self-employment tax, while the dividend portion escapes it. That said, you cannot distribute an abnormal amount of earnings (i.e., money) on the back end, as the IRS will notice it. 

Nonprofit Corporations

Active Filings also offers incorporation services for nonprofits. A nonprofit is an organization that’s meant to benefit a group of people for charitable and educational purposes instead of providing financial benefits to the owners. Nonprofits are formed at the state level, just like regular profit businesses. On top of that, some nonprofit organizations can also obtain federal tax exempt status.

Active Filings can help you kickstart the creation of your nonprofit. Just provide them with the following information:

• Nonprofit organization name
• Business address
• Name and address of the registered agent
• Name and address of incorporators
• Name and address of at least three directors and offices
• Detailed purpose statement
• Information about the nature of the nonprofit
• Duration of the nonprofit

Professional Corporations

A professional corporation, or PC, is another incorporation service Active Filings offers and is a business structured for licensed professionals, including lawyers, engineers, accountants, and doctors or pharmacists. The primary purpose of a PC is to separate one’s personal assets from the corporation’s assets. Thanks to this separation, the owner or owners of the PC are not liable for business debts or can be targeted by lawsuits. For example, you won’t be brought to court because of a business partner’s malpractice (well, you will be brought to the court, but as a witness). 

To form a PC, you’d have to provide the following:

• Corporate name
• Articles of incorporation, where you will clearly state that the business you’re forming intends to operate exclusively as a professional corporation.
• Meet state requirements.
• Internal documents and management: PCs must have accessible and organized internal documents and elect a board of directors. Hence, your PC’s corporate lawyers should lay out the responsibilities of the corporate offers, tenure, financial records, voting rights for shareholders, and so on.
• A bank account.

Having reached this point, it’s time to focus on Active Filing’s three pricing plans:

The Starter

This plan costs $25 per month and includes all incorporating and registered agent services and annual report compliance. It’s the cheapest pricing plan and offers basic services. Nevertheless, it’s quite useful and will help entrepreneurs jumpstart their startups. 

The Sprinter

This is the second plan of Active Filings and costs $125 per month. It offers everything “The Starter” package does, plus additional services, such as business address (Active Filings will use their own local office address on the formation document to protect your business’ privacy and keep it off the public record), privacy protection, and EIN – federal tax ID number (Active Filings gets an EIN or FEIN number for you). 

Keep in mind that if you don’t have a Social Security Number, Active Filings can obtain one on your behalf for an extra $200. 

The Finisher

The Finisher is the ultimate services package from Active Filings and is priced at $275 per month. The extra incorporation and registered services this plan offers are as follows:

• Corporate Seal: Premium embossing seal of your corporate name, as well as a seal with your state and date of formation.
• Corporate Book: A corporate leather book with a zipper cover that you can take to any business meeting.
• Expedited Service: For premium members, Active Filings offer same-day filing, courier delivery to get filings back quicker, and same-day scanning in your client account.
• State filing fees.

As a last note, prices differ from state to state and type of business. Also, remember that the prices and packages can change with a pre-written notice.

Comparison of the Three Active Filings Pricing Plans

Active Filings Achievements

Leaders in Online Business Incorporation

Considering Active Filings is one of the oldest incorporation services, it seems safe to assume they’re a leader in the incorporation services field. Additionally, they’ve been members of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) since 2003 and have a clean record. The BBC offers consumers a method to dispute resolution and record claims against a company member. 

Competitive Prices 

Although they’re not the most affordable LLC formation and business incorporation service, Active Filings’ rates are competitive. In fact, they provide consumers with many products for free, like unlimited customer support, publishing instructions, free e-delivery, one year of registered agent services, tax consultation, and real estate filing fees. 

Free Resources

Except for exceptional business services, Active Filings offers many free resources on their website, from free information on how to incorporate a business to free quotations online and helpful e-books.

Simple and Straightforward Process of Incorporating

Active Filings promises to give customers peace of mind by establishing their companies quickly and efficiently. They go many steps beyond the industry standard, offering comprehensive incorporation services with fair rates without hidden charges. 

Active Filings Under Achievements

Limited Customer Reviews

Even though Active Filings is one of the oldest incorporation companies in the United States, they don’t have a strong online presence or customer reviews. This is not worrying, but it’s worth noting. For example, there are no reviews of Active Filings on Trustpilot and only 27 Google reviews. Hence, Active Filings has stellar reviews on the sites where reviews are available, including Facebook.

The issue is that competitors sport thousands of positive reviews to look at and offer a much clearer picture of their track records. 

Confusing Website

Active FIlings’ website is OK but leaves lots to be desired, especially compared to the competition. On top of this, their website is a bit confusing, too, as Active Filings does not clearly outline the services they provide. 

For instance, if you look at the “Manage Your Business” section, there are dozens of subsections discussing everything from certificates of status to the buy-sell to operating agreement to foreign qualifications. And, even though there’s content, sometimes most sections are just descriptions. There is also no mention if Active Filings actually provide each service and what steps they take to realize it. 

A confusing website confuses prospective customers, and if prospects get confused and are required to dig around to figure out what services a company offers, they turn elsewhere to competitors. 

Upselling on Premium Pricing Plans

This depends on the consumer, but it appears that while the Starter package offers good value, the other packages don’t. For example, the Sprinter package doesn’t offer many more services than the Starter. 

What’s more, EIN filing is a process that can be done for free, while privacy protection exists in all packages either way. Expedited service can also be purchased for $50 as a standalone service. 

Just a few pointers to keep in mind. 

Active Filings Competitors

Active Filings is a good business incorporation service, but there are many competitors worth looking at. 

Incfile

Incfile is a free online LLC formation and incorporation service, except for state filing fees. The free plan includes preparing and filing your state’s articles of organization and registered agent services. The other pricing packages cost $149 and $299 and provide additional incorporation services.

Zen Business

ZenBusiness is an excellent LLC service, offering three paid plans priced at $39, $149, and $249. It is similarly priced and offers similar features. That said, ZenBusiness is a flexible service and offers a 60-day money-back guarantee (except for state fees), meaning if you are not happy with their services, you can request a refund.

LegalZoom

LegalZoom is one of the biggest online legal and incorporation services. More expensive than Active Filings but also offers more services. LegalZoom has three plans to choose from to create an LLC. The least expensive plan costs $79, while the others are priced at $329 and $349. All LegalZoom plans include lifetime customer support, a digital tracker, and a business newsletter.

Rocket Lawyer

Rocket Lawyer offers one premium plan that costs $39.99 per month. Their plan is free to join but offers legal and incorporation services at a cost that ranges from $39.99 to $149.99, depending on the service. This is a very good service, considering its approachable and affordable price—definitely a worthy competitor to Active Filings. 

Conclusion

Active Filings offers high-end incorporation services thanks to their affordable pricing plans. Whether you want to find a business name and address, register an LLC or a nonprofit, get an EIN/FEIN number, avoid the hassle and exhaustion of dealing with complex legal documents, or obtain a certificate of status for your business, Active Filings can help. 

Now, Active Filings provides three paid packages, although, as discussed above, the better plan seems to be the Starter. In other words, it doesn’t appear appealing going for the higher-tier packages, except for the expedited processing feature. Plus, a $50 fee is a reasonable price for a fast turnaround. 

Active Filings does not have many customer reviews, but, at least, the ones they do have, are positive. In fact, Active Filings’ consumers are satisfied with how the company works and their turnaround times and customer service. To conclude, Active Filings is one of the oldest incorporation services in the United States, offering a vast range of business formation and incorporation services. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Active Filings Free?

Well, yes – if you subscribe to their pricing plans (occasionally, the Starter pack is free). Of course, you’d have to pay state fees. 

If you subscribe to a free option, you will have to pay $99 per year for your registered agent service after the first free year. If you don’t want it, you can cancel it.

What States Do Active Filings Cover?

Active Filings serves all 50 states, including Puerto Rico. On top of that, they have international packages for non-residents and foreign entrepreneurs looking to form an LLC in the United States. 

Do Active Filings Have a Refund or Cancellation Policy?

Active Filings offers refunds on its registered agency service, but only if you cancel within 90 days. Additionally, it provides refunds on some of its other services, but not all of them. 

Who Is Active Filing Best For?

Active Filings is for the people looking for a simple and fast LLC formation and business incorporation at a competitive price. The company also offers Spanish language services, meaning Active Filings is a good choice for Spanish speakers.