Reviews and expert opinion Incfile

With Incfile, You Get a Lot for Your Money

Often, when you sign up for a service with decent pricing, you end up getting the bare-bones minimum. That is definitely not the case with Incfile. Incfile charges one-time fees for quality services that go beyond the basics.

Incfile offers you excellent value for money, especially with its competitively-priced Gold and Platinum packages. Even the entry-level Silver package is a pretty good deal, as it is actually free – minus your state fees, of course. All packages include a free Registered Agent for a year, unlimited support, and unlimited business name searches.

In addition to LLC formation services, my research uncovered that Incfile also assists with C-corp and S-corp formation, as well as non-profit filings. They can even help research your business license or permit requirements. Incfile offers a host of other services, too, including trademark assistance, accounting and bookkeeping help, and business dissolution aid. All in all, Incfile has a lot to offer nearly any small business or non-profit startup.

Throughout my time spent researching Incfile, I discovered that it has an excellent reputation, having helped over a million businesses get their start. The biggest negative concerning Incfile is with its customer service and support. Read on to find out all I discovered.

Good Things Come in Incfile Packages

Incfile manages to pack a lot into its LLC formation plans. One of its best features is its one-time transparent fee structure. No hidden fees, no surprises. Let’s take a closer look at what Incfile has to offer.

Next-Day Filing Plus Expedited Options

Incfile promises filing of your paperwork by the next business day, with all their plans. You will also be alerted if your state offers any type of expedited processing and how much it costs.

There are charts on the website showing the average length of time each state takes to process paperwork, the expedited time, and the fee for expediting your paperwork. Expedited state processing is included free in the Platinum plan, if it is available in your chosen state.

I know from experience that the times given on the charts may be longer than average. However, since each state’s processing time is different and can depend on time of year and the number of outstanding applications, I can understand why Incfile might want to manage your expectations.

A Free Filing Plan – Sort Of

Incfile advertises that you can “start your business for free.” And that’s true, to a point. Incfile offers a plan that doesn’t cost you anything more than your state’s filing fees. You receive some basic services, including a free Registered Agent for a year, but at no additional cost to you other than what your chosen state charges.

I can see this feature really helping you if you’re starting out on a tight budget. You’d get your LLC off the ground with just a small out-of-pocket expense.

Incfile’s Helpful Tools and Resources

Incfile helps you with many aspects of starting your business via a number of tools and resources. Need a business name? Incfile has an online business name generator. Want to know if the name you’ve picked is available? There’s a name search tool.

Furthermore, the blog is chock full of articles on everything from ecommerce tips to the best startups when you only have $100 to invest.

And then there’s the PDF library of free guides and how-tos covering many different types of businesses and aspects of starting up. Want to start a food truck? Create a business plan for your investors? Moving your business to another state? Need legal form templates? All that and more is there.

One word of warning: if you download any of the informative reports, prepare to receive a sales email from Incfile at least once daily. Sure, it’s easy to unsubscribe, but it’s still kind of annoying to have to do so, you know?

Incfile’s Grant Programs

Sometimes, you have more business ideas than funds to invest in them. Incfile has two grant programs to help you get your idea off the ground. There’s the $2500 Young Entrepreneur Grant, for US high school seniors and trade school or university students who want to “own the future” and “change the world.” For adults no longer in school, the Fresh Start Business Grant includes Incfile’s Gold Plan services in addition to the same $2500 award.

Other Useful Services

Incfile doesn’t just help you start your business, it also helps you run it. You can apply for a virtual mailbox and use mail scanning, allowing you to access your mail from anywhere. Incfile will help you get your DBA, file your annual reports, file your business taxes, and change your company’s name.

Other services include filing the paperwork for your Certificate of Good Standing, as well as helping you to get back in good standing should life get in the way and you fall short of compliance. With its lifetime company alerts, however, you really have no excuse to fall behind.

A Generally Well-Designed Website, and a Terrific User Dashboard

Incfile’s website is very informative and also reasonably user-friendly with a few improvements that could be made. Once you become an Incfile client, however, you’ll find its account dashboard extremely easy to use.

Getting Started With Incfile

The very first thing you see when you open the Incfile website homepage is a Start My Business button. The button takes you directly to a page where you can sign up for a plan.

Simply choose your business type, and state of formation. The page will scroll down automatically to show you the three plans, their prices, and the associated state fees, so they won’t be a surprise later on.

The rest of the process consists mostly of fill-in-the blank pages. Note that some upsells are preselected. Be sure to deselect any you don’t want.

If you’re new to starting a business, you may want to do some research into the business entity that would best suit you, and any other services you may actually want before you get started – and you can get this info easily via the footer menu. It’s a very smooth process after that.

Extremely User-Friendly Dashboard

Incfile’s client dashboard is a joy to use. It’s equipped with a tab construction that makes finding what you need quick and painless. Simply open the tab you want and you’re ready to go.

The little orange alerts direct your eye to new activity since you last logged in. The use of the graphics and buttons is a nice touch, too, making it easy to find just what you’re looking for. My only complaint with the dashboard at all is that it is only accessible via the web browser – there’s no app.

The Website Is Well-Designed, But Has Its Issues With Links

All in all, Incfile’s site is generally well-designed and user-friendly. Navigation is clear for the most part, and the menus are well-organized. The menus in the page footer, in my opinion, are somewhat more user-friendly than the top drop-downs. The footer menus seem to use more concise language so you know exactly what you’ll see after you click.

There were a couple of buttons I clicked that didn’t give me the information I expected. These could very well be fixed by the time you read this.

Also, I found that some graphical icons used to highlight features aren’t links to the topics they depict. Call it a pet peeve, but when you use graphics as links on multiple pages, and then not on others, it can make navigation confusing. Still, these are better than a boring bulleted list of features.

Budget-Friendly, Feature-Filled Plans

The entry-level Silver plan will provide you with Incfile’s four core services. They include preparation and filing of your articles of organization, a free Registered Agent for a year, unlimited business name searches, and unlimited email and phone support.

The higher-priced plans offer a lot for the money, too. With the Gold and Platinum plans, you’ll receive an Operating Agreement draft, a free EIN, and a free 30-minute tax consultation with a certified accountant. And you’ll receive regular company alerts so you can remain compliant with all your state’s requirements.

The difference between the Gold and Platinum plans? Platinum comes with a library of free business contract templates, a domain name and a business email for getting your biz on the Web, and free expedited filing with your state.

Watch out for the “free” Registered Agent service, though, as it renews for $119/year after the first year. This might be enough to get you to take over this responsibility on your own.

Incfile’s Support Team Is About as Supportive as a Flat Tire

Infile really dropped the ball when it came to my experience with its support team. It was rather sad and disappointing to see an otherwise decent company do so poorly with its support.

I always try out a company’s support teams via all its channels, using all the methods I can. And I often use questions I already know the answer to, to test the quality of the agent’s knowledge. With Incfile, you have the option of online chat, email, or phone support. Once you become a client, you receive unlimited support via email and phone.

The advertised support hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST, but my first phone call went straight to a message system saying no agents were available, even though I called within those hours. I hung up and called right back, getting an answer on the third ring that time.

The agent was less than helpful by phone, unable to answer most of my questions – questions I’ve had answered by other companies’ support agents. At the very least, other agents have pointed me to resources on their company’s website. I understand they can’t answer legal or accounting questions, but her repeated “I can’t advise on that” made me wonder what she could advise on. I was able to find answers to many questions in Incfile’s helpful resources, however.

I’d love to say that my chat session went better, but as you can see from the screenshot above, it went unanswered for over 2 hours before I simply gave up. My intended question would have been “Do you offer services in any language besides English?” Incfile does offer support in Spanish, but if I hadn’t found the info on the website, I’d never have known.

Note the time in the chat window when I logged in, 2:46 p.m. Now note the time on my laptop in the lower right hand corner, 4:59 p.m. And this was a Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of the week, not outside business hours on an evening or a weekend. Maybe I should’ve hung in there for the remaining minute support is supposed to be available?

I tried phone support again on a Monday around 2:00 p.m. That agent was much more helpful and clarified a question I had about filing and processing times. My new agent was friendly, professional, and much more helpful. She even suggested a blog post to read in case I needed more info.