Active Filings vs. Northwest Registered Agent Review

A Northwest Registered Agent Review

We aren’t going to say we’re better than Northwest Registered Agent because we don’t think we are, but neither do we see Northwest as better than us. We’re different companies. Here at Active Filings, we think of ourselves more as a filing company. We’re here to complete the paperwork for your new LLC or corporation fast and cheap. If your business needs a streamlined, inexpensive business formation service without a lot of additional services, we’re probably right for you.

If your business’s needs are more complex or you want help maintaining your company and are seeking a full-service company, Northwest Registered Agent may be a better option.

Side-by-Side Comparison: Active Filings vs. Northwest Registered Agent

Price

Northwest Registered Agent: Northwest Registered Agent’s prices are competitive—with registered agent service set at $125 a year and their LLC service coming in at $100 plus state fees—but they tend to be a bit more expensive than most of their direct competitors (including Active Filings). But don’t mistake the surface for what lies beneath it. Plenty of online business formation services offer cheap prices up front only to sneak in a bunch of up-sells and add-ons for items and services Northwest Registered Agent provides as part of its base price.

Active Filings: Still, if there’s any place where we objectively beat out Northwest Registered Agent, it’s price. Our basic LLC formation and incorporation services cost $25 plus state fees (versus Northwest’s $100 plus state fees), and we include a free full year of registered agent service. After that, you’ll pay $99 a year (versus Northwest’s $125) for registered agent service for your business. We can keep our registered agent price this low because, unlike Northwest Registered Agent, we don’t provide registered agent service directly. We use the Registered Agents Inc network—the industry standard for registered agent service—instead.

Our incorporation packages are also more versatile than the single $125 service offered by Northwest Registered Agent (in the sense that you have more options to choose from). We offer three incorporation packages at different prices:

• The Starter ($25 plus state fees) – includes incorporation, 1 free year of registered agent service, and annual report compliance.
• The Sprinter ($125 plus state fees) – includes incorporation, 1 free year of registered agent service, annual report compliance, federal EIN, and expedited service.
• The Finisher ($275 plus state fees) – includes incorporation, 1 free year of registered agent service, annual report compliance, federal EIN, expedited service, a corporate seal, and a corporate book.

Customer service

Northwest Registered Agent: Northwest is well known in the industry for its dedicated customer support, and that’s likely a well-earned reputation. Try calling them on the phone some time with a question about forming your business to see what we mean. Not only will you talk to an actual human being located in the United States, but often the same human being will answer the phone each time you call. They even have a special name for their incorporation experts: Corporate Guides.

Active Filings: Our dedication to customer service is probably where we most closely resemble Northwest Registered Agent. Our numerous customer testimonials and positive online reviews speak for themselves and help explain how a relatively small company like ours has managed to survive and thrive despite the size of our competition.

Mail forwarding and virtual office

Northwest Registered Agent: Northwest operates mail forwarding centers in Wyoming, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, and Montana, and they offer mail forwarding and virtual office service in each of these states. These services are possible because they own their own buildings in each of these states.

Active Filings: Forwarding official state mail and service of process is simply part of your registered agent package, so in a sense we offer “mail forwarding.” But we only provide true mail forwarding services—services that include providing you with a virtual business address—for clients who sign up for our international packages.

Free legal forms

Northwest Registered Agent: Northwest offers free legal form templates for LLCs, for-profit corporations, and nonprofits (such as article templates, operating agreement templates, and corporate bylaws), and you can download these templates from their website for free. Notably, they are wise enough to stick with what they know—offering forms for starting and maintaining a business—and they avoid wading into the murky waters of personal wills, security agreements, and other legal forms that really need a lawyer’s guiding hand.

Active Filings: We aren’t into providing free legal forms because it falls outside of our company’s primary focus: helping you form and maintain your business. Indeed, one of the reasons we can keep our prices so low, without sacrificing great customer service, is that we know how not to stretch ourselves too thin by offering too many options for our clients.

Privacy and security

Northwest Registered Agent: Northwest makes a point of repeatedly reminding you that the company won’t sell your data to third parties (a rare thing in this day and age). Northwest Registered Agent maintains its own servers and writes its own code to make this level of privacy and security possible.

Active Filings: Like Northwest, Active Filings is dedicated to keeping its clients’ data private and secure, though we lack infrastructure and technology necessary to reach Northwest Registered Agent’s heights when it comes to protecting your personal data (though we do use fingerprint readers on all of our company computers as one way to make sure only authorized individuals ever have access to your information). Still, when you hire Active Filings, your data is in safe hands.

Website

Northwest Registered Agent: Frankly, Northwest’s website is huge—a nested shell of internally-linked pages that cover just about every small business issue and question you can think of. Northwest Registered Agent also publishes a daily blog that keeps up with contemporary business news and changes to state laws relevant to starting and maintaining a business.

Active Filings: Active Filing’s website isn’t as exhaustive as Northwest’s, but it provides numerous short guides on a range of formation and maintenance subjects, and it has significant perk that Northwest Registered Agent can’t hope to match. Our company was founded by Roberto Neuberger, an immigrant from Argentina, and he was dedicated to providing business formation opportunities to Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs. That’s why we still offer a Spanish-language version of Active Filings—which, as far as we know, is unique to online business formation websites in the United States.

So Who’s Better?—Active Filings or Northwest Registered Agent?

Ultimately, we think our services and Northwest Registered Agent’s services are different enough that neither company is outright “better” than the other—but that doesn’t mean Active Filings isn’t better than Northwest Registered Agent when it comes to our specific clients’ needs.

Granted, if you’re looking for a wide range of services and ongoing business guidance, Northwest Registered Agent is probably better for you. But we’ve found that most of our clients are after fast, inexpensive business filings—not extras like mail forwarding service and free legal forms—so we feel comfortable with our staying power in a competitive marketplace that includes Northwest Registered Agent.