Northwest Registered Agent vs EntityEngine: After the Filing
Northwest Registered Agent protects the filing and the address. EntityEngine runs the governance work that starts after it. One is a filing and agent service you buy once a year; the other is a board, document, and compliance workspace you open every week — and plenty of companies end up using both.
Northwest is a registered agent and filing service, and a well-regarded one. EntityEngine is the workspace for what a company does after it is formed: meetings, committees, votes, minutes, documents, and deadlines.
Governance the day the entity exists
Board and committee structure, meeting agendas, roll call, digital voting, and minutes are live products in EntityEngine, not templates you download and fill in yourself.
Documents and signatures in the same workspace
A document vault and an e-signature engine live in the same workspace as the entity, the board, and its decision records, so the signed copy is not in a different tool from the governance history.
An assistant that reads your own records
EntityMax answers from your organization record — meetings, decisions, documents, deadlines. It does not file with a state on your behalf; a human still does that.
What Northwest Registered Agent does well
Privacy-first filing and an agent service priced in plain sight
Northwest publishes its prices on the page, keeps them flat, and puts real people on the phone. For founders whose main job is "get the entity filed and keep my address off the public record," it is one of the clearest offers in the category.
Registered agent service is $125 per year, listed publicly, and $100 per year per state at five or more states — Northwest states it has not raised the price in 20 years
Privacy by Default lists Northwest’s address on public filings instead of yours, automatically, with no opt-in and a stated commitment never to sell customer data
LLC, corporation, and nonprofit formation are $39 plus state fees, with the first year of registered agent service included
Corporate Guides answer the phone without a sales script, and every document is scanned in-house rather than outsourced
A free account includes a form library with operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, and meeting-minutes templates, plus compliance reminders
Where teams outgrow the fit
The agent relationship is annual; governance is weekly
Northwest is scoped to the statutory contact point, the filing, and the address. That scope is deliberate and it is why the service stays cheap and clear. It is simply a different cadence from the work a board does once the company has directors, committees, investors, and decisions to record.
Board and committee structure, meeting agendas, roll call, quorum, and digital voting are outside the service — Northwest offers minutes and resolution templates to download, not a place to run the meeting
E-signature and approval trails are not included, so executed documents end up in a drive folder rather than in a governance record
Each service is a separate transaction with its own fee, which is transparent but means the record of what was decided and why is not something the service maintains
How EntityEngine approaches it
One record for the entity, the board, and the decisions
EntityEngine starts from the assumption that the entity is the beginning, not the deliverable. Meetings, committees, votes, minutes, documents, signatures, and compliance deadlines are objects in one system, so the answer to "who approved this and when" is a lookup rather than an archaeology project.
Board directory, committees with per-committee quorum, meeting builder, in-house video, roll call, minutes, and board packets are live today
Digital voting and decision records keep a lifecycle-locked history of what was approved, by whom, and when
Document vault plus an e-signature engine with a completion certificate, sold as an add-on
Compliance deadline rules and scheduled notification sweeps run in production, with Slack delivery if you connect it
How to choose
Which one fits your situation
Choose Northwest Registered Agent if
You need a registered agent now, in any state, at a published flat $125 per year — $100 per state at five or more states.
Keeping your home address off the public record matters, and you want that handled automatically rather than as a paid upgrade.
You want a human being to actually file the formation and the annual report for you, at $39 and $100 plus state fees.
You want to know the full price before you buy, and you want a domain, website, email, phone, and business address included rather than itemized.
Choose EntityEngine if
The entity already exists and the real work is board meetings, committees, quorum, votes, and minutes.
You need a document vault, e-signature, and decision records in the same workspace as the entity they belong to, rather than split across a shared drive and a separate signing tool.
You want compliance deadlines tracked on the same calendar as the meetings that approve the filings, with scheduled notifications and Slack delivery.
You want an AI assistant that answers from your own organization’s records rather than from generic guidance.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Feature
EntityEngine
Northwest
Formation & registered agent
Registered agent service
Priced as an add-on; fulfillment not yet confirmed live
$125/yr, all statesTheir core product — the clear pick here
LLC formation filing
Delaware and Florida today
$39 + state fees, every stateBroader state coverage
Corporation & nonprofit formation
Templates built; self-serve checkout not open yet
$39 + state feesAvailable today
Address privacy on public filings
Privacy by DefaultAutomatic, no opt-in, never sells data
Business address, mail scanning & forwarding
Included; forwarding from $20/mo
Domain, website, business email & phone
Included freeBusiness Identity bundle
EIN application service
$50 ($200 non-US resident)
Operating agreement / bylaws
Delaware operating agreement is in closed pilot
Free templates; $50 paid versionGenerally available today
Human filing specialists on the phone
Corporate Guides4.7/5 from 1,861 Google reviews
Board & governance
Board member directory
Committees with per-committee quorum
Meeting scheduling & in-app video
Calendar invite delivery is off by default
Roll call, quorum & digital voting
Minutes & resolutions
Minutes taker in the meeting
Free downloadable templates
Board packet builder
In-packet annotation and the in-app PDF reader are not enabled in production
Decision records
Lifecycle-locked with audit historyRecords with an audit trail — not cryptographic seals
Documents & signature
Document vault
Scanned mail + forms library
E-signature with completion certificate
Add-on
External / public share links
Fail-closed in production today
Compliance
Annual report filing done for you
$100 + state feesThey do the filing; EntityEngine only tracks it
Compliance deadline tracking & calendar
All states seeded; DE/FL/PA/NJ accuracy-verified
Reminders as your agent
Scheduled deadline notifications
Daily and weekly sweeps in production
Compliance reminders
Good standing monitoring
Beta — derived from tracked requirementsComputed internally from overdue requirements, not a Secretary of State feed; the sweep that refreshes it is not currently scheduled in production
Service-dependent
Business license intelligence
BetaNot generally available yet
State and local guides
Equity
Cap table & 409A
Equity engine is in beta and disabled in production
AI & integrations
AI assistant over your own records
Answers from your records; it does not file with any state
Slack notifications
Multiple entities on one account
One entity per plan
Many entities, one free accountCheaper for multi-entity and multi-state holders
Public developer API
Buying & trust
Published price list
Posted on every service pageYou can price the whole thing without talking to sales
SOC 2 / ISO 27001 certification
No certificationEntityEngine is designed for SOC 2 readiness; it is not certified
Not stated on their product pages
Pricing Approach
Northwest publishes its prices. EntityEngine does not yet.
This is a real difference and it favors Northwest today. Northwest lists $39 plus state fees for formation, $125 per year for registered agent service, and $100 plus state fees for annual report filing, right on the page. EntityEngine’s public pricing page is a package conversation with no dollar figures on it.
EntityEnginePackage Builder (no published price list)
EntityEngine does not publish a price list today. The public pricing page describes a package builder and asks you to start a conversation about scope.
Choose the engines you actually need: governance, meetings, documents, compliance, AI
Scale with users, board seats, and entities rather than a fixed tier
E-signature and registered agent are priced as add-ons rather than bundled into a base price
Each plan covers one entity — a second entity is a second plan
You will need to ask for a number; there is no self-serve price sheet to compare against
Northwest posts every price on the relevant page: $125 per year for registered agent service, $39 plus state fees to form an LLC, corporation, or nonprofit, and $100 plus state fees to file an annual report.
$125 per year registered agent service; $100 per year per state at five or more states
$39 plus state fees for LLC, corporation, and nonprofit formation, first year of agent service included
$100 plus state fees for annual report filing, added by default for entities they form or serve
Mail forwarding from $20 per month; virtual office with phone and a real lease from $29 per month
Domain, website, business email, phone line, and business address included at no extra charge
If you want to know your total cost before you talk to anyone, Northwest is the easier purchase. If you are buying a governance workspace rather than a filing, the package conversation is where scope gets set — engines, seats, and entities differ enough between a two-founder LLC and a fifteen-member board that a single list price would mislead more than it helped.
In depth
Northwest Registered Agent vs EntityEngine: a deeper look
Northwest is the straightforward answer when the job is the filing and the address
If what you need is an entity on file, a statutory address that is not your kitchen, and someone who picks up the phone, Northwest is hard to argue with. The price is published, flat, and famously stable, and the privacy posture is the strongest part of the offer.
Privacy by Default puts Northwest’s address on the public record instead of yours, without an upsell.
Formation at $39 plus state fees includes a year of registered agent service and a Business Identity bundle.
Documents are scanned in-house by Northwest employees rather than by a third-party vendor.
For five or more states the per-state rate drops to $100 per year, which makes multi-state coverage inexpensive.
What changes once the company has a board
The moment there are directors, committees, investors, or a lender who wants to see a signed consent, the questions stop being about the filing. They become "who approved this," "where is the signed copy," and "what is the minutes record for that meeting." A registered agent service is not designed to answer those, and Northwest does not claim to.
Board and committee structure, agendas, roll call, quorum, and votes are recorded as they happen rather than reconstructed later.
Minutes are produced in the meeting instead of started from a downloaded template.
Executed documents land in the same vault as the board and its decision records, with a completion certificate on the signature side.
Compliance deadlines sit on the same calendar as the meetings that have to approve the filings.
Where EntityEngine is honestly not there yet
EntityEngine is younger and narrower than Northwest in the areas Northwest owns. Self-serve formation checkout is limited to Delaware and Florida LLCs today; corporation and nonprofit templates exist but are not open for purchase. Registered agent service is priced but not confirmed operating. The equity engine, standard Delaware operating agreement, and license checkout are all disabled in production. There is no published price list and no security certification.
Do not buy EntityEngine expecting it to replace a registered agent today.
Do not buy it for cap table or 409A work — that engine is off in production.
Do buy it if the meetings, votes, minutes, documents, signatures, and deadlines are the problem.
Running both is a normal outcome: Northwest for the agent and the filing, EntityEngine for the governance record.
FAQ
Northwest Registered Agent vs EntityEngine: FAQ
When is Northwest Registered Agent the better choice?
Whenever the job is the filing, the agent, and the address. Northwest is cheaper, broader by state, and more established at exactly that. If you need registered agent service today, want your address off the public record, want a person to file your formation or annual report, or simply want a published price you can budget against, Northwest is the better buy — and EntityEngine does not currently offer confirmed registered agent fulfillment to compete with it.
Do I have to leave Northwest to use EntityEngine?
No, and most teams should not. Northwest can stay your registered agent and filing service while EntityEngine holds the governance record: board and committee structure, meetings, votes, minutes, documents, signatures, and compliance deadlines. The two are scoped at different layers.
How does pricing compare?
Northwest publishes its prices: $125 per year for registered agent service, $39 plus state fees for LLC, corporation, or nonprofit formation, and $100 plus state fees for annual report filing. EntityEngine does not publish a price list today — its public pricing page describes a package builder and asks you to start a scope conversation. On price transparency, Northwest is clearly ahead.
Can EntityEngine form my LLC in any state?
Not yet. Self-serve formation checkout currently covers Delaware and Florida LLCs. Corporation and nonprofit document templates exist but are not open for purchase, and nonprofit 501(c)(3) Form 1023 preparation is not shipped. Northwest files in every state today, which is the honest answer if state coverage is your deciding factor.
Does EntityEngine file my annual report for me?
No. EntityEngine tracks annual report deadlines and sends scheduled reminders, with verified accuracy in Delaware, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey and seeded rules elsewhere. Northwest will actually prepare and submit the report for $100 plus state fees. If you want the filing done for you, that is a Northwest service, not an EntityEngine one.
Can EntityEngine handle BOI or beneficial ownership filings?
No. EntityEngine models BOI only as a deadline type; there is no filing workflow. Confirm your own reporting status with counsel rather than with either vendor.
Is EntityEngine SOC 2 certified?
No. EntityEngine is designed and architected for SOC 2 readiness but holds no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, and we will not claim one until an audit is complete. If a certification is a procurement requirement for you, ask both vendors for their current attestation reports directly.
Every Northwest Registered Agent price and capability on this page comes from a page we fetched and read. Where we could not verify a claim, we say so instead of asserting it.
Northwest Registered Agent — Registered Agent Servicehttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/registered-agent$125/year registered agent pricing, $100/year per state at five or more states, "no price increase in 20 years", Privacy by Default, locally-scanned documents, Corporate Guides, free mail scanning up to 5 documents per year, included domain/website/email/phone/business address, 4.7/5 from 1,861 Google reviews.
Northwest Registered Agent — Start an LLChttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/llc$39 + state fees LLC formation pricing and the included Business Identity bundle (domain, website, phone, email, business address, brand protection).
Northwest Registered Agent — Start a Corporationhttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/corporation$39 + state fees corporation formation, free corporate bylaws, mail scanning and business address included, registered agent free for the first year then $125/year, registered offices in every state.
Northwest Registered Agent — Start a Nonprofithttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/nonprofit$39 + state fees nonprofit formation with a full year of registered agent service and the Business Identity bundle included.
Northwest Registered Agent — Annual Report Filing Servicehttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/annual-report$100 + state fees annual report filing, guaranteed on-time filing, compliance reminders, and the note that renewal service is added by default for entities Northwest forms or serves as agent.
Northwest Registered Agent — Free Business Legal Formshttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/legal-formsFree downloadable operating agreements, corporate bylaws, resolutions and meeting-minutes templates, plus a free account for form downloads and a stated no-data-sale policy.
Northwest Registered Agent — Mail Forwarding Servicehttps://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/mail-forwardingMail forwarding from $20/month with same-day scans and 24/7 online access; virtual office with phone service and a month-to-month lease from $29/month.
LLC University — Northwest Registered Agent reviewhttps://www.llcuniversity.com/reviews/northwest-registered-agent-llc/Independent confirmation of $39 + state fee formation, $125/year renewal, $50 EIN service ($200 for non-US residents), $50 operating agreement, and $100 + state fees annual report service.
See EntityEngine for yourself
Keep Northwest as your registered agent if it is working. Add EntityEngine for the board meetings, votes, minutes, documents, signatures, and compliance deadlines that come after the entity exists.