ZenBusiness vs EntityEngine: Formation vs What Comes After
ZenBusiness gets the entity filed and keeps the state filings moving. EntityEngine runs the governance record that grows around it. ZenBusiness publishes real prices and actually submits annual reports on your behalf; EntityEngine tracks those deadlines and carries the board, committee, decision, and document records that a filing service does not hold.
ZenBusiness solves getting formed and staying filed, at volume and at a published price. EntityEngine is built for the record that accumulates afterward — board and committee membership, meetings, votes, resolutions, minutes, and the documents attached to each.
Decisions kept with the entity
Meetings, votes, resolutions, minutes, documents, and compliance deadlines land in one record, so a decision and the paperwork it produced are not maintained in separate places.
AI that reads the whole organization record
ZenBusiness ships Velo, an AI assistant aimed at running a small business. EntityMax answers across the same organization record EntityEngine keeps — governance history, documents, decisions, and compliance deadlines.
Governance without a second vendor
Teams that start with a formation service usually add a board tool, a document system, or a signature product later. EntityEngine carries those in the same account as the entity record.
What ZenBusiness does well
A high-volume formation service with published prices and real filing fulfillment
ZenBusiness is genuinely good at the thing it sells. It files in all 50 states, it tells you what it costs before you talk to anyone, and its compliance subscription submits state filings on your behalf rather than just reminding you about them. Its homepage cites 950,000+ new businesses launched and a 4.8 Trustpilot score across nearly 32,000 reviews.
Three published formation plans: Starter at $0 + state fees, Pro at $199/yr + state fees, Premium at $399/yr + state fees
Worry-Free Compliance actually files: ZenBusiness submits the annual report to the state on your behalf and waives its own processing fee, at $99/yr Basic, $199/yr Essentials, or $299/yr Advanced
Registered agent service for LLCs and corporations in all 50 states, whether or not the entity was formed with ZenBusiness, at $99 + state fees for the first year and renewing at $199/yr
Advanced Compliance adds unlimited amendment filings, an annual certificate of good standing, and a money-back guarantee on state fines from a missed covered filing
A wide operating bundle around the entity: EIN service, business banking at $5/mo, Money Pro bookkeeping at $30/mo, domain, business email, website, and a logo kit
Velo, a personalized AI assistant, plus a compliance dashboard and calendar included from the Starter plan up
Where teams outgrow the fit
The product is scoped to filings and small-business operations, not to governance
This is a scope boundary, not a defect. ZenBusiness is built for the founder who needs an entity, a registered agent, and someone to keep the state happy. The board-and-committee record that a company accumulates once it has investors, a board, or a real approval process sits outside that scope.
There is no board member directory, committee structure, or quorum model in the ZenBusiness product; the closest governance tool is the meeting minutes wizard inside Worry-Free Compliance.
Meetings themselves are not hosted or scheduled in the product — there is no agenda builder, board packet, or in-product voting on resolutions.
Compliance coverage is explicitly state-level. The help center notes that Worry-Free Compliance covers state filings and reminders but does not generate a license report.
The bundle is priced as a stack of subscriptions and one-time fees, so a team that adds compliance, registered agent, banking, bookkeeping, and a website is managing several renewals at once.
Registered agent service is not offered to professional LLCs or nonprofit organizations, per the registered agent page.
How EntityEngine approaches it
The entity record and its governance history in one system
EntityEngine puts the meeting, the vote it produced, the resolution and minutes that came out of it, and the document it generated in the same record as the entity, so nothing has to be reconciled between a filing vendor and a board tool.
Board member directory, committee management with per-committee quorum, meetings with built-in video, packet assembly, minutes, and a document vault
Digital voting and resolutions, plus decision records with provenance that stay linked to the entity and documents they touch
A compliance calendar with annual report deadline tracking and scheduled reminders running in production
EntityMax answers across governance history, documents, decisions, and deadlines rather than a single filing dashboard
Delaware and Florida LLC formation is chargeable end to end, so for those two the entity and its governance start in the same place
E-signature is available as a paid add-on, so signed consents live beside the resolution that required them
How to choose
Which one fits your situation
Choose ZenBusiness if
You want to form in a state other than Delaware or Florida, or you want an S-corp or C-corp filing — ZenBusiness files LLC, S-corp and C-corp in all 50 states and EntityEngine does not.
You want someone to actually submit the annual report, not remind you to. Worry-Free Compliance files it on your behalf and waives ZenBusiness processing fees; EntityEngine only tracks the deadline.
You need a registered agent you can rely on today, in any state, at a published $199/yr renewal. EntityEngine registered agent is in beta and fulfillment is unverified.
You want the price before the conversation, and you want the surrounding small-business stack — EIN, banking, bookkeeping, domain, email, website — from one vendor.
Choose EntityEngine if
You have a board or committees, and the membership, meetings, votes, resolutions, and minutes currently live in a mix of email, calendar invites, and a shared drive.
Your decisions keep generating downstream work — documents, signatures, deadlines — and you want the decision and its paperwork in one record.
You are forming or recently formed a Delaware or Florida LLC and want the governance record to start in the same system as the entity.
You would rather ask questions across the whole organization record — governance, documents, decisions, deadlines — than across a filing dashboard.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Feature
EntityEngine
ZenBusiness
Entity Formation
Formation Filing Coverage
Delaware & Florida LLCSelf-serve chargeable formation is verified for DE and FL LLCs only
All 50 statesLLC, S-corp and C-corp filings nationwide
Published Formation Price
No public rate card today; packaging is a conversation
$0 / $199 / $399 + state feesStarter, Pro and Premium listed on the formation plans page
Expedited Filing
1-day on Pro, $79 rush add-onStandard processing is 7–10 business days
EIN Service
Not offered — you obtain the EIN directly from the IRS
$99, included in Pro
Operating Agreement Generation
Standard Delaware operating agreement generation is fail-closed in production
$99 template, included in Pro
Registered Agent
BetaBeta; fulfillment is unverified, so we do not claim to be your registered agent
All 50 states, entity formed with ZenBusiness or not; $99 + state fees first year then $199/yr; not for PLLCs or NPOs
DBA Registration
From $95 + state fees
Compliance
Compliance Calendar & Reminders
Annual Report Deadline Tracking
Tracking and scheduled reminders run in production
Due dates tracked automatically in the compliance dashboard
Annual Report Filed On Your Behalf
EntityEngine tracks the deadline; it does not submit the filing
Worry-Free Compliance submits to the state and waives the ZenBusiness fee
Records carry provenance; tamper-evident sealing is not enabled in production
Not among the products listed on the ZenBusiness pricing pages or in the Worry-Free Compliance scope
Decision Records
Linked to the entity, meeting, and documents they touch
Not among the products listed on the ZenBusiness pricing pages or in the Worry-Free Compliance scope
Document Vault
External and public share links are not enabled in production
Secure dashboard with unlimited storage
E-Signature
Add-onPriced separately from the base plan
Not offered on pages reviewedPremium includes a business documents library; no e-signature product was listed
AI & Business Tools
AI Assistant
EntityMax over the org recordDrafts and surfaces only; it does not submit filings
Velo® personalized assistantIncluded from the Starter plan up
Business Banking
$5/month
Bookkeeping
Money Pro, $30/month
Website, Domain & Business Email
From $25/yr, website $129/yr
Logo & Brand Kit
$60 kit, builder in Pro
Company & Packaging
Published Price List
Packaging is discussed directly
Full price list published for every service and add-on
Self-Serve Signup
Create an account without a demo; packaging is still discussed directly
Track Record at Scale
Early-stage product
950K+ businesses launched4.8 Trustpilot across 31,942 reviews and an A+ BBB rating, per zenbusiness.com
Independent Security Certification
Designed for SOC 2 readiness; not certified
Not stated on pages reviewed
Entities Per Plan
One entity per planAdditional entities mean additional plans
Priced per business
Pricing Approach
ZenBusiness publishes its prices. EntityEngine does not.
This is a straightforward advantage for ZenBusiness and worth saying plainly. Formation runs $0, $199/yr, or $399/yr plus state fees; Worry-Free Compliance is $99, $199, or $299 a year; registered agent renews at $199/yr; banking is $5/mo and bookkeeping $30/mo. EntityEngine has no public rate card today — packaging is discussed directly.
EntityEnginePackaged engines, self-serve start
EntityEngine packages by engine and scale rather than by a stack of individual subscriptions, and lets a team create an account without scheduling a demo first.
Choose the engines you use: governance, documents, compliance, formation
E-signature is a separate add-on rather than bundled into a base price
Each plan covers one entity; additional entities mean additional plans
Self-serve signup, so a first look does not require a scheduled demo
No public rate card today — packaging is discussed directly
ZenBusiness posts a full price list. Its formation plans page states Starter $0 + state fees (does not renew), Pro $199 + state fees renewing at $199/yr, and Premium $399 + state fees renewing at $399/yr. Compliance, registered agent, banking, bookkeeping, and web presence are priced separately on the products pricing page, so the total depends on how much of the stack you take.
Starter $0, Pro $199/yr, Premium $399/yr — all plus state fees
Worry-Free Compliance $99 / $199 / $299 per year by tier
Registered agent $99 + state fees the first year, $199/yr after
If a published, self-serve price is the deciding factor, ZenBusiness gives you one and EntityEngine does not. What EntityEngine offers instead is account creation without a scheduled demo, and packaging by engine rather than by a stack of separate subscriptions.
In depth
ZenBusiness vs EntityEngine: a deeper look
ZenBusiness is the right answer when the job is getting filed and staying filed
For a founder who needs an LLC in Ohio next week, a registered agent, and a service that will submit the annual report every year without being chased, ZenBusiness is a serious and appropriate choice. It has done this at very high volume and it publishes what it costs.
All 50 states, three plans, and a $0 entry point mean the cheapest path to a filed entity is genuinely cheap.
Worry-Free Compliance is fulfillment, not just alerting — ZenBusiness submits the annual report and waives its own processing fee, and Advanced adds a money-back guarantee on state fines from a missed covered filing.
The surrounding stack — EIN, banking, bookkeeping, domain, email, website, logo — means a solo founder can stand up a business from one account.
Where a filing service ends and the governance record begins
Once a company has a board, outside investors, or an approval process someone will later ask about, the records that matter are membership, meetings, votes, resolutions, minutes, and the documents attached to each. That is a different system from the one that submits your annual report.
ZenBusiness offers a meeting minutes wizard inside Worry-Free Compliance, which is useful, but there is no board directory, committee structure, quorum model, packet, or in-product vote.
For a single-member LLC that never holds a board meeting, none of that is missing — it simply is not needed.
For a company with a real board, EntityEngine keeps the meeting, the vote, the resolution, the minutes, and the document in one record so nothing has to be reassembled a year later.
What EntityEngine can and cannot do today
EntityEngine is a younger product and it is worth being direct about the boundaries. Being honest about them is more useful to you than a table where one vendor comes out ahead on every row.
Live today: board directory, committees, meetings with video, packet assembly, minutes, voting and resolutions, decision records, document vault, e-signature as an add-on, EntityMax, and a compliance calendar with annual report deadline tracking.
Not available today: annual report or BOI filing on your behalf, amendment filing, certificates of good standing, EIN service, banking, bookkeeping, or web presence tools. Registered agent is beta and business license intelligence is beta. Chargeable formation is verified for Delaware and Florida LLCs only, and each plan covers one entity.
No certification claim: EntityEngine is designed for SOC 2 readiness and holds no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, and we will not claim otherwise.
FAQ
ZenBusiness vs EntityEngine: FAQ
When is ZenBusiness the better choice?
When the job is forming an entity in any of the 50 states at a published price, having a registered agent you can count on today, and having someone actually submit your annual report each year. ZenBusiness does all three; EntityEngine files Delaware and Florida LLCs, its registered agent is in beta, and it tracks annual report deadlines rather than filing them. If any of those is your deciding factor, the decision is already made.
Does EntityEngine file annual reports for me the way ZenBusiness does?
No, and the difference is important. ZenBusiness Worry-Free Compliance submits the annual report to the state on your behalf and waives its own processing fee. EntityEngine tracks the deadline, keeps it on a compliance calendar, and sends scheduled reminders — the filing itself is still yours to make. Some teams run both for exactly this reason.
Can EntityEngine be my registered agent?
Not today. Registered agent is in beta and fulfillment is unverified, so we will not claim to be your registered agent. ZenBusiness offers the service to LLCs and corporations in all 50 states whether or not the entity was formed with ZenBusiness, at $99 + state fees for the first year and renewing at $199/yr, though not to professional LLCs or nonprofit organizations.
What does EntityEngine do that ZenBusiness does not?
The governance record. Board member directory, committee management with per-committee quorum, meetings with built-in video, board packet assembly, minutes, digital voting and resolutions, decision records, a document vault, and e-signature as an add-on. ZenBusiness has a meeting minutes wizard inside Worry-Free Compliance; the rest of that list is outside its product scope.
How do the prices compare?
ZenBusiness publishes everything: formation at $0, $199/yr or $399/yr plus state fees, Worry-Free Compliance at $99, $199 or $299 a year, registered agent at $199/yr on renewal, banking at $5/mo and bookkeeping at $30/mo. EntityEngine does not publish a price list today; packaging is a conversation. If a posted price is what you need to decide, ZenBusiness gives you one and we do not.
Does either company file BOI reports with FinCEN?
Neither one does today. ZenBusiness previously ran a beneficial ownership filing service and has discontinued it for US-based businesses, citing the March 21, 2025 change that exempted US companies and their beneficial owners from BOI reporting. EntityEngine has never had a BOI filing flow — it exists only as a tracked deadline type on the compliance calendar.
Can I use both?
Yes, and for many teams that is the honest answer. ZenBusiness handles the filings, the registered agent, and the annual report submissions; EntityEngine holds the board, committee, meeting, decision, and document record that a filing service does not keep. Neither is trying to be the other.
Every ZenBusiness 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.
ZenBusiness — Pricing and Productshttps://www.zenbusiness.com/pricing-products/The published per-service price list used throughout this page: LLC, S-corp and C-corp formation "Starting at $0 + state fees"; registered agent $199/year; Worry-Free Compliance filings $199/year; Advanced Compliance Protection $299/year; operating agreement template $99; EIN $99; fast filing $79; DBA from $95 + state fees; business license report $149; annual report filing $100; amendment $100; certificate of good standing $100; domain $25/year; business email $25/year; website $129/year; logo kit $60; business banking $5/month; Money Pro bookkeeping $30/month. This is the canonical destination of https://www.zenbusiness.com/pricing/, which 301-redirects here; it does not itemize the Starter/Pro/Premium tiers, which come from s2.
ZenBusiness — Formation Planshttps://www.zenbusiness.com/pricing-formation-plans/Starter $0 + state fees and does not renew, including name availability search, articles of formation filing, "Secure dashboard with unlimited storage", "Velo® personalized AI assistant", compliance reminders and alerts, a free first year of Worry-Free Compliance renewing at $199/yr, and standard 7–10 business day processing with a $79 rush option. Pro $199 + state fees renewing at $199/yr adds 1-day processing, operating agreement template, EIN, and logo builder. Premium $399 + state fees renewing at $399/yr adds registered agent service, Advanced Compliance Coverage, a business documents library, a business advisor consultation, and a 60-day Money Pro trial renewing at $30/mo.
ZenBusiness Help Center — Plans: Starter, Pro and Premiumhttps://help.zenbusiness.com/about-zenbusiness/plansConfirms the three-plan structure and pricing from the help center side, and that Pro bundles Worry-Free Compliance (Essential) while Premium bundles WFC Advanced plus registered agent service with the first year included and $199/year after. Note this page and the marketing formation-plans page describe the Worry-Free Compliance bundling slightly differently, which is why this page states the tiers rather than which plan includes which.
ZenBusiness — Worry-Free Compliancehttps://www.zenbusiness.com/pricing-worry-free/Worry-Free Compliance pricing at $99 Basic, $199 Essential and $299 Advanced per year, and the included features: email reminders and alerts, a centralized compliance calendar, annual report filing, up to two amendment filings per year with state fees separate, a compliance score, and a meeting minutes manager. Also the Advanced money-back guarantee covering a state fine from a missed covered filing.
ZenBusiness Help Center — What Is Worry-Free Compliance?https://help.zenbusiness.com/worry-free-compliance/what-is-worry-free-complianceTier-by-tier comparison: all three tiers include annual report filing, compliance alerts and reminders, a compliance calendar, a meeting minutes wizard and compliance webinars; Basic includes 0 amendments per year, Essentials 2, and Advanced unlimited plus one certificate of good standing per year and priority support. State filing fees are passed through at cost.
ZenBusiness — Advanced Compliance Protectionhttps://www.zenbusiness.com/advanced-compliance-protection/Advanced Compliance at $299/year plus state fees as a standalone service, with 24/7 compliance monitoring, a money-back guarantee on fines from missed compliance events, unlimited amendment filings, an annually included certificate of good standing, and dedicated compliance support.
ZenBusiness — Registered Agent Servicehttps://www.zenbusiness.com/registered-agent-service/Registered agent service available to LLCs and corporations in all 50 states for any business filed independently or with ZenBusiness, at $99 plus state fees for the first year and renewing at $199 annually, including document scanning to the dashboard and notification of legal notices. Also the stated exclusion: no registered agent service for professional LLCs (PLLCs) or nonprofit organizations (NPOs).
ZenBusiness Help Center — Annual Reports Guidehttps://help.zenbusiness.com/worry-free-compliance/annual-reportsThe fulfillment claim that separates ZenBusiness from deadline-tracking-only products: "ZenBusiness submits the annual report to the state on your behalf and waives our processing fee." Also that Worry-Free Compliance tracks the specific due date automatically and surfaces upcoming deadlines in the dashboard compliance calendar, with state filing fees passed through.
ZenBusiness Help Center — Worry-Free Compliance Overviewhttps://help.zenbusiness.com/worry-free-compliance/overviewThe meeting minutes wizard as the governance-adjacent tool inside Worry-Free Compliance, the compliance dashboard and calendar covering annual report due dates, biennial renewals, registered agent renewals and franchise tax deadlines, and the scope statement that Worry-Free Compliance covers state-level filings and reminders but does not generate a license report. Also the summary of scope: the service "tracks your deadlines, sends alerts before they arrive, files annual reports on your behalf, and covers business amendments depending on your plan tier".
ZenBusiness — Beneficial Ownership Information Filinghttps://www.zenbusiness.com/beneficial-ownership-filing/That as of March 21, 2025 filing a BOI report is no longer required for US businesses or persons, and that "ZenBusiness has discontinued BOI filing services for U.S.-based businesses to reflect the most current federal guidance." Basis for the BOI comparison row and FAQ.
ZenBusiness — Homehttps://www.zenbusiness.com/Product scope across formation, compliance, financial services and growth tools, the Velo® AI assistant, and the scale figures used on this page: 950K+ new businesses launched, a 4.8 Trustpilot score across 31,942 reviews, an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, and operation in all 50 states.
TRUiC — ZenBusiness Reviewhttps://howtostartanllc.com/reviews/zenbusiness-reviewIndependent secondary confirmation of the $0 / $199 / $399 plan pricing and of the customer-support strength, plus the noted trade-offs: registered agent is bundled only at the Premium tier, and competitors start lower on entry price.
See EntityEngine for yourself
Start with the engines your organization actually uses today and expand from there. If what you need is a cheap filing in any of the 50 states, a registered agent, and someone to submit your annual report for you, ZenBusiness does that today and EntityEngine does not — and we will say so.