What sits behind the order

Every state number is taken from an official publication and cited where it appears, along with the month we confirmed it. Company prices are copied from published pricing on the date shown in each watchlist.

Take year one and add a renewal for each later year: that gives every running total on the site. Filing, the year-two and year-three reports and any minimum tax make up the state total. Anything the state leaves unpriced is mentioned but not included. Ten years of running totals are compared to find where two services meet.

1. Tracked three-year cost (37%). Year one plus two renewals, taken from the price each company publishes. State fees are the same for every filer, so they sit in their own rows and carry no weight.
2. Filings covered by the price (29%). Which recurring jobs the yearly price takes off your list: registered agent duty, the state report, the EIN application, and whether the price holds in other states.
3. Renewal movement (14%). How much the yearly price shifts once the first year is over. A flat renewal beats a low start that climbs.
4. Crossover year (10%). The year when one service's running total moves past another's, read from the totals on each page.
5. Price visibility (10%). Whether the first-year price, the renewal and the state fee can all be found before checkout.

When two services are close, the page names the column that separated them and what the lower-ranked one still does well.

The order is Filing Price Watch's own editorial reading of these criteria. It is not a customer rating.

Each list is short: Mainstay Filing and the agent services focused on that state, priced from their own pages.

An editorial order only: no customer ratings, no legal or tax advice.