How Formation Scorecard marks the scorecards

1. Cost across three years (25%). Service fees for the first year and two renewals, taken from published prices. State fees do not vary by provider and appear apart from the score.
2. Coverage of the price (25%). The yearly chores folded into one price: registered agent, report filing, EIN application, and whether one account covers other states.
3. Renewal terms (20%). Whether the price rises at renewal and how renewing or cancelling works.
4. State-by-state fit (15%). The service's fit with that state's report cadence, late fees, agent address rules and filing steps.
5. Pricing clarity (15%). Whether the total is shown before checkout and the state fee is listed on its own at cost.

Totals that land within a few tenths count as level. The page says which row of the scorecard separated them.

The points on each scorecard are Formation Scorecard's own editorial marks out of 10, not ratings from customers. A score covers one state and one service, which is why a company can earn different marks on different cards.

Prices are taken from each company's own pricing and service pages when the site is built, and each ranking shows the read date. State fees, forms, deadlines and agent rules come from official state fee schedules, forms and statutes, each listed with the month it was last confirmed. Where a checkout tacks a card or processing charge onto the state fee, we print the service fee only and omit the total.

Each state card lists Mainstay Filing, which serves all fifty states, and the registered agent services built for that state. A company is scored for a service only when its own pages sell it at a published price.

The site carries no customer ratings, no customer quotes and no legal or tax advice. Scores are editorial judgment based on the criteria above.