LegalZoom vs ZenBusiness: how they compare in 2026
LegalZoom and ZenBusiness both form LLCs and corporations for $0 plus state fees, act as registered agent and file the annual reports that keep a company in good standing, so a business owner forming a company will usually look at both. They differ in breadth and in how the AI works. LegalZoom covers far more legal ground: trademarks and copyrights, legal forms, wills, trusts and other estate planning documents, and attorney plans through independent attorneys and its own law firm subsidiary. Its AI is a set of tools around those products, including Doc Assist, a free document summarizer, AI research for business licenses, and 24 MCP tools that let ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft 365 Copilot form an LLC or book an attorney review. ZenBusiness stays with formation and compliance and puts Velo, a free AI guide, at the center: it plans the business, prepares filings and documents for the owner to approve, flags filing, license and tax deadlines, and hands questions to ZenBusiness experts. On price, ZenBusiness's Pro package is $199 a year with annual report filings included, against $249 for LegalZoom's Pro package.
Which one fits
Choose LegalZoom if
- You need more than a company. LegalZoom also files trademarks and copyrights, sells legal forms and prepares wills, trusts and other estate planning documents.
- You want an attorney on call. LegalZoom's attorney plans connect customers to independent attorneys and, where authorized, its subsidiary law firm, and its Premium package includes 30 days of attorney consultations.
- You want to work from your own AI assistant. LegalZoom's 24 MCP tools let ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft 365 Copilot form an LLC, analyze a document or book an attorney review.
Choose ZenBusiness if
- You want a guide that plans the business with you. Velo is free, builds a step by step blueprint with cost estimates, prepares filings and documents for you to approve and flags annual report, license and tax deadlines.
- You want annual compliance included. ZenBusiness's Pro package, at $199 a year, files in one business day and covers state annual report filings and up to two amendments a year.
- You also want a website and email in one place. ZenBusiness sells an AI website builder, a domain and business email, and its Money account alongside formation.
At a glance
All 15 axes, side by side
The same grid applied to every vendor in the index, graded from public sources. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
AI Centrality
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
The AI is a feature layer on a business whose value stands without it. LegalZoom's AI features are Doc Assist, a free document summarizer; a business name generator, NAICS code search, expense categorizer, grant finder and search summaries; and AI research that produces most business license lists. The core products, such as entity formation and compliance filings, registered agent service, trademark and copyright filings, legal forms and attorney plans, run without the models.
Velo is a free guide layered on a filing and compliance business that runs without it. ZenBusiness forms entities, acts as registered agent, files annual reports and amendments, obtains EINs and supplies operating agreements and corporate documents, and its team prepares and submits each state filing. Velo helps an owner brainstorm and plan, builds a blueprint with cost estimates, prepares paperwork and documents for approval, and flags filing, license and tax deadlines. The AI website builder is a separate product sold on a trial. Without the models, the formation packages, registered agent service and compliance filings still work.
Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
Grounding is claimed without sources a user can open or any measurement. The MCP catalog says documents are analyzed against a clause framework curated by attorneys, and Doc Assist gives clause highlights and common questions for the document type. The Doc Assist page and FAQ say summaries may be incomplete or inaccurate because they rely on rapidly evolving generative AI, and the AI Additional Terms make no promise that output is accurate. No accuracy figure, test or source linking is published.
ZenBusiness says Velo's guidance is shaped on real questions, decisions and outcomes from nearly a million businesses rather than generic answers from the web, and that Velo has held more than 2 million conversations. Nothing says which statutes, state rules or filing requirements Velo draws on or whether an answer shows its source. The Terms of Use, updated 14 October 2026, describe the AI Services as generative AI provided as is, with no promise that output is accurate, complete or error free, and say any reliance is at the user's own risk. No accuracy figure, test or evaluation is published.
Autonomy and Oversight Model
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
Oversight is asserted through disclaimers and an optional attorney, without a described control on the AI. Doc Assist says its output is informational only and links to attorney review, and the AI Additional Terms say the AI Services do not provide legal advice. A March 2026 release says AI now completes about 70 percent of business license research requests and the rest still go to human review. It does not say what sends a request to a person or who that reviewer is. No lawyer reviews AI output by default.
Velo is described as taking action: it files paperwork, creates documents and tracks deadlines, and the owner approves before it proceeds. When a question needs a person, Velo briefs a ZenBusiness expert and hands the matter over. The Terms say AI output is informational and does not replace advice from a professional. Nothing describes what Velo may do without approval, what it reviews before a filing goes to a state, or how an error is caught and corrected, and no lawyer reviews AI output. Velo Prime, offered for early access, is described as running a business on autopilot.
Operational and Outcome Evidence
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
Results are quoted without customer attribution or a method on the customer side. The business license release estimates about $3 million in LegalZoom's own savings in 2026 from automating license research, and a 2023 release says 85 percent of LegalZoom customers had not spoken to an attorney. These are the vendor's operating figures, not named customer outcomes, and the Terms say published reviews carry only a first name and last initial.
ZenBusiness says it has helped start nearly a million businesses, more than 950,000 on its about page, and that Velo has held more than 2 million conversations. It shows a Trustpilot rating of 4.8 from more than 33,000 reviews, and its customer quotes are unattributed beyond a first name. No named customer, dated outcome or measured result from Velo is published.
Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
Confidentiality is asserted in general terms, and training use is permitted by policy. The Terms of Service say no attorney client relationship or privilege is created with LegalZoom, and the AI Additional Terms say the AI Services are not meant for privileged or highly sensitive information. The privacy policy says LegalZoom does not intend to collect attorney information in a way that waives privilege. The Doc Assist FAQ says uploads are stored in the user's documents center and may be used to train LegalZoom's own models but not third party AI tools. Nothing addresses separation between users or what an AI provider retains.
The Terms of Use make no promise that content generated by the AI Services will be confidential, and tell users not to put documents with highly sensitive information into the services. ZenBusiness states that it is not a law firm and creates no attorney client relationship, so no privilege attaches. The Velo page says guidance is shaped on questions, decisions and outcomes from nearly a million businesses and is personalized to each business, and neither the Terms nor the privacy policy says whether a user's conversations are used to train or refine Velo. Nothing separates one user's information from another's beyond account access.
UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
The vendor states plainly what the product is and is not, who may use it and what it requires of its attorneys, with jurisdiction statements and a disclosure on every page. The Terms of Service open by saying LegalZoom is not a law firm, its forms are no substitute for an attorney, the customer represents themselves, and no attorney client relationship or privilege is created. They add that a customer who believes they received legal advice should not buy. The Terms of Use say LegalZoom reviews answers only for completeness and consistency and never applies law to facts. They define network attorneys' experience as five years' practice, errors and omissions insurance, good standing and no recent discipline. The Terms say LegalZoom is not a registered legal document assistant under California law, and the AI Additional Terms limit AI use to adults and say it is not legal advice. The footer names the subsidiary law firm, LZ Legal Services, LLC, as the only route to advice.
The Terms of Use state that ZenBusiness is not an attorney, a law firm or a substitute for one, does not practice law or give legal advice, and creates no attorney client relationship, and that it gives no advice, opinion or recommendation on legal rights or remedies. The AI clause adds that the AI Services do not provide legal advice, are for information only and do not replace advice from a professional. Velo hands questions to ZenBusiness experts rather than attorneys. Nothing names the states whose rules on document preparation services apply, and no disclosure on the Velo page itself says the guide is not legal advice.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
No AI governance position is published. The privacy policy says LegalZoom applies privacy by design, has privacy and security teams, and uses AI and human review in processing; the AI Additional Terms set rules for users. Nothing describes how the AI features are tested before release, who is accountable for them, or how they perform across users or document types.
No AI governance position is published. The Terms of Use set rules for users of the AI Services, such as no defamatory, unlawful or deceptive content, and promise to disclose AI use before a user reaches a product that deploys it. Nothing describes how Velo is tested before release, who at ZenBusiness is accountable for it, or how its guidance performs across states, entity types or industries.
AI Safety and Data Stewardship
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
The privacy policy covers products as well as the website and lists the data collected. It names payment, shipping and identity verification vendors (WorldPay, Adyen, Stripe, Onfido, Veriff, FedEx, USPS), bars service providers from other uses, sets out access and deletion requests with an appeal route, and says multi factor authentication is in place for all customer accounts. The security page describes a dedicated security team, encryption of sensitive information and a responsible disclosure policy, and the Doc Assist FAQ says uploads are stored in the user's documents center. Retention is only at least as long as necessary, no AI provider is named, and no breach notification commitment is published.
The security and compliance page describes AES 256 GCM encryption of sensitive data at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit, segmented Google Cloud environments with native threat detection, SSO or multifactor authentication for critical services and role based access control. The privacy policy lets users review, correct or ask to delete personal information, says some data cannot be deleted, and keeps personal information after an account is canceled where law, legal process, records, fraud prevention or disputes require it. Twilio is named for message delivery. No retention period is stated for Velo conversations or uploaded documents, no subprocessor list is published, and no AI provider is named.
AI Liability and Recourse
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
Liability is addressed only by disclaimers and a standard cap. The AI Additional Terms provide the AI Services as is, with no promise that output is accurate, complete or fit for use. The Terms of Service and Terms of Use exclude indirect damages and cap liability at the amount paid. The LZ Guarantee is a refund policy on purchases and does not reach the free AI features.
Liability is limited by the Terms of Use to the lesser of $500 or the amount paid in the six months before a claim arises, and the Terms exclude direct, indirect, incidental and consequential damages. The AI Services are provided as is, ZenBusiness disclaims liability for reliance on AI generated content, and nothing covers a wrong answer from Velo. The 100 percent accuracy guarantee on formation filings promises that the team will correct errors in the paperwork it files, which covers the filing service rather than the AI.
Practice Systems Integration Depth
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
Documented, verifiable integrations, with what each one does described. The AI capabilities page publishes 24 MCP tools in seven families, from LLC formation and business licenses to document analysis and attorney booking, each with its own page. It also publishes a catalog.json with schemas, annotations, versions and authentication, a text catalog for agents, connector setup documentation and six read only WebMCP browser tools. Named integrations cover ChatGPT, Claude and a Microsoft 365 Copilot agent. For a small business buyer, these assistants and Microsoft 365 are where the work happens.
Velo works inside the ZenBusiness account and mobile app, alongside the company's own filing, compliance, website and Money products, and Velo Prime can send and receive text messages. No connection to accounting, document storage or other business software is described for Velo, and the website builder runs on Duda, a partner. The product stands alone.
Deployment Model and Data Residency
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Cloud delivery is implied, and neither hosting location nor tenancy is stated. The privacy policy covers US, EU and UK users but says nothing about where data is hosted or processed. The Doc Assist FAQ says the service is available only to US customers, which concerns eligibility rather than residency.
ZenBusiness runs as a hosted service on Google Cloud, with environments segmented inside it, and the Money account is limited to United States residents and businesses. No region, residency commitment or tenancy model is published, and nothing says where Velo's AI processing runs.
Security Certifications and Trust Center
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
No independent security attestation is published. The security page, titled a trust page, describes a dedicated information security team, encryption, multi factor authentication and a responsible disclosure policy, and names no SOC 2 report, ISO certification or audit.
The security and compliance page, headed as a trust center, says ZenBusiness is certified each year at PCI DSS 4.0 Level 1 and holds SOC 2 Type II compliance across all five trust criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. It names neither the auditor nor the report period, and no route to obtain the SOC 2 report is described.
Model Supply Chain Disclosure
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
Proprietary models are mentioned without saying what sits underneath. The Doc Assist FAQ says inputs may train LegalZoom's own proprietary AI models and will not train third party AI tools, and the AI Additional Terms say the features use generative AI. No model, version or provider is named, and nothing commits to notice of changes. The ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft 365 Copilot integrations run LegalZoom tools inside other vendors' assistants and do not disclose what powers LegalZoom's own features.
Velo is described as smart AI shaped on ZenBusiness's experience with nearly a million businesses, and the Terms say the AI Services use generative AI. No model, version or provider is named, nothing says where the models run, and no notice of changes is offered.
Commercial Transparency
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
A buyer can learn the price without a sales process. LegalZoom's own pages publish LLC formation at $0 (Basic), $249 (Pro) and $299 (Premium), each plus state filing fees. Premium's attorney consultations renew at $49 a month after 30 days, bookkeeping tools cost $9.99 a month after six months, and Doc Assist is free. The Terms of Service set out filing fees, a 60 day refund window and an installment plan for purchases of $200 or more.
Prices are public. Formation costs $0 plus state fees on Starter, $199 plus state fees on Pro, renewing at $199 a year, and $299 plus state fees on Premium, renewing at $299 a year. Pro adds one day processing and ongoing annual report filings with up to two amendments a year, and Premium adds a domain and business email. Talking to Velo is free, and the AI website builder comes on a 30 day trial that renews monthly. State fees pass through to the state, ZenBusiness may hold $100 on a card until fees are set, and the Terms rule out cash refunds on undelivered orders after 120 days unless ZenBusiness is at fault.
Firm and Practice Coverage
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
Who the product serves and what it covers are documented, with limits stated. LegalZoom serves small businesses and individuals across business formation and compliance, business licenses, trademarks, copyrights and provisional patents, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, prenuptial agreements, divorce and real estate documents. The stated limits are specific. Doc Assist is for US users only and takes text files up to 5 MB, license lists exclude tax registrations and professional licenses, and the AI features are not for privileged, highly sensitive or minors' information. The Terms say LegalZoom is not a registered legal document assistant in California. Firm segments and government use do not apply to a consumer product.
ZenBusiness serves people starting and running small businesses in the United States, from a side project to an operating company, with formation of LLCs, S corporations and C corporations, registered agent service, annual reports, amendments, EINs, operating agreements and corporate documents. Velo is organized around four stages: dream, plan, start and grow. The Terms bar using the AI Services for highly sensitive documents or for information about people under 18. The plans page does not list which entity types, states or industries Velo's guidance covers, and the product is not built for lawyers or law firms.
The 12 legal signals, side by side
Recorded rather than graded. These are the questions a practitioner has to answer before a tool touches a client matter, and the answers are taken from public material only.
Client Data in Training
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
Public material states that customer inputs may train the vendor's own models, with no matching term in the agreement. The Doc Assist FAQ says information provided through Doc Assist may be used to improve the product, which may involve training LegalZoom's own proprietary AI models, and will not be used to train any third-party AI tools. The Terms of Use license personal information only to enable the service and incorporate the Privacy Policy, whose product-development purpose covers developing machine learning or AI technologies without naming training. No opt-out is offered.
The Velo page says the guide's advice is shaped on real questions, decisions and outcomes from nearly a million businesses and is personalized to each owner's business, which describes customer activity refining the product. Neither the Terms of Use, updated 14 October 2026, nor the privacy policy says whether a user's own conversations or documents train or refine the models, and no opt out is offered.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
Retention is acknowledged without a period. The privacy policy says personal information is kept at least as long as needed for its purposes and legal obligations; the Doc Assist FAQ says uploaded documents are stored in the user's documents center and summaries in a LegalZoom database. Deletion is by verified request and may be declined.
The privacy policy keeps personal information after an account is canceled where law, legal process, recordkeeping, fraud prevention, disputes or enforcement of the Terms require it, and lets users ask for deletion while saying some data cannot be deleted. No retention period is stated for Velo conversations, generated documents or uploads.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
Controls on account access are the only separation described, and keeping one user's matters apart from another's goes entirely unmentioned. Nothing addresses separation between users' matters beyond controls on authorized contacts for account access.
Nothing describes how one user's business information, Velo conversations or documents are kept apart from another's beyond account sign in. The security page describes segmented cloud environments and role based access for ZenBusiness staff, which concerns internal access rather than separation between customers.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
The privacy policy says personal information may be disclosed as required by law, including subpoenas and law enforcement or national security requests, and the Terms of Service say that for a disabled account no information is released outside LegalZoom absent a subpoena or court order. Neither commits to telling the customer first.
The privacy policy lets ZenBusiness keep and use personal information to comply with laws, regulations, legal process, court orders or governmental requests, and the Terms allow reporting users to law enforcement. Neither commits to telling the customer before information goes out, and no transparency report is published.
Primary Law Corpus Provenance
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
The sources are identified as the vendor's own content, with no primary law named. The MCP catalog says document analysis uses an attorney-curated clause framework and knowledge search draws on LegalZoom articles and approved legal education; the Terms of Use say LegalZoom strives to keep its documents current but cannot guarantee it. The statutes and cases behind that content and any update cadence are not stated.
Velo's guidance is described as drawing on ZenBusiness's own experience: real questions, decisions and outcomes from nearly a million businesses, rather than generic answers from the web. No statute, state filing rule or other primary source is named behind its answers, and no update cadence for state requirements is published.
Good Law Verification
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
A citator would have nothing to check in the summaries and analyses the AI features produce. The AI features summarize and analyze documents and cite no legal authority; no good-law check is described.
Velo gives business and filing guidance and prepares paperwork rather than citing cases, so a citator would have nothing to check, and no check that state rules it relies on are current is described.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
Inaccuracy is acknowledged and human review absorbs part of the workload, but the AI itself has no described way of signaling what it cannot answer. Doc Assist says its summaries may be incomplete or inaccurate and points users to attorneys, and the release says about 30 percent of license research requests still go to human review, but no behavior for questions the AI cannot answer, and no confidence signal, is described.
When a question needs a person, Velo briefs a ZenBusiness expert and hands it over, and the Terms say AI output may be inaccurate or incomplete. No behavior is described for questions Velo cannot answer from its own guidance, and no confidence signal is shown.
Fabricated Citation Record
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
The AI Hallucination Cases database kept by Damien Charlotin holds no entry naming LegalZoom or Doc Assist as the tool used. Doc Assist is LegalZoom's AI feature for working on legal documents.
The AI Hallucination Cases database kept by Damien Charlotin holds no entry naming ZenBusiness or Velo. Velo helps owners form and run businesses and prepares state filings and corporate documents rather than court filings.
Bar Guidance Alignment
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
Professional responsibility is addressed in general terms without named guidance. The Terms set out that LegalZoom is not a law firm, is not a registered legal document assistant under California law, and define the experience standard for network attorneys; the footer names its subsidiary law firm. No ethics opinion, court AI order or bar guidance on AI is named on the surfaces read.
Professional responsibility is addressed only through the disclaimer that ZenBusiness is not a law firm, does not practice law and creates no attorney client relationship. No ethics opinion, state rule on document preparation services or bar guidance on AI is named.
Billing and Fee Posture
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
The product sits outside a lawyer and client fee relationship. Small businesses and individuals buy forms, filings and the free AI tools for their own matters and represent themselves, under the Terms of Service. Attorney fees under the legal plans are governed separately and fall outside this assessment.
Business owners buy formation, compliance and Velo for their own businesses and represent themselves, so no lawyer bills a client for the work. ZenBusiness's price claims, such as Pro filings submitted in one business day, concern the buyer's own cost and time.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
A customer asking which AI providers handle its documents would find the question unanswered by any list. The privacy policy names payment, shipping and identity-verification vendors as examples, but no subprocessor or AI model provider list is published and none is offered on request.
A business owner asking which providers handle its information would find no subprocessor or AI provider list. The privacy policy names Twilio for message delivery and Google Analytics, Firebase and Facebook for analytics, and the security page names Google Cloud, but no list of the services behind Velo is published.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
Customers who file what they prepare get no guidance on disclosing AI use. Customers prepare documents they may file, such as divorce papers, but nothing addresses disclosing AI use to a court or recording which content AI produced.
Velo prepares documents and state filings that an owner approves, and nothing records which content the AI produced or offers a record an owner could use if a filing were questioned.
The questions both sides leave open
Derived from the records above rather than written, so it cannot favor either vendor. Take these into both conversations and ask each side the same question.
- AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
- Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
- Good Law Verification
- Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
- Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
- Court Disclosure Support
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
LegalZoom
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Product / capability
LegalZoom opened its AI Assistant to all business owners for free, including those who formed their business elsewhere and open a free account.
Source -
Integration / interoperability
LegalZoom launched a ChatGPT plugin aimed at attorneys.
Source
In summary
LegalZoom
LegalZoom is an online legal platform for small businesses and individuals, listed on Nasdaq and based in Mountain View, California. It sells business formation and compliance filings, registered agent service, trademark and copyright filings, legal forms, estate planning documents and attorney plans, and states that it is not a law firm. Its AI features include Doc Assist, a free document summarizer, a business name generator, a grant finder and AI research for business licenses. According to the AI Legal Index, it also publishes 24 MCP tools that let assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft 365 Copilot form LLCs and book attorney reviews. LLC formation starts at $0 plus state fees, with Pro at $249.
ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness is an online platform for starting and running a small business in the United States, founded in 2015 and based in Austin, Texas. It forms LLCs and corporations, acts as registered agent, files annual reports and amendments and supplies operating agreements. Velo, its free AI guide, plans a business, prepares paperwork for the owner to approve and flags filing, license and tax deadlines. According to the AI Legal Index, ZenBusiness states that it is not a law firm, holds PCI DSS 4.0 Level 1 certification and SOC 2 Type II compliance, and limits its liability to the lesser of $500 or six months' fees. Formation starts at $0 plus state fees, with Pro at $199 a year.
Questions buyers ask
LegalZoom vs ZenBusiness: which is better for forming an LLC?
Both form an LLC for $0 plus state fees and act as registered agent. ZenBusiness includes annual report filings on its $199 a year Pro package and adds Velo, a free AI guide that plans the business and tracks deadlines. LegalZoom's $249 Pro package sits inside a wider range that adds trademarks, legal forms, estate planning and attorney plans. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which one gives access to a lawyer?
LegalZoom does, through attorney plans with independent attorneys and its subsidiary law firm, and its Premium package includes 30 days of attorney consultations. ZenBusiness states that it is not a law firm, and Velo hands questions to ZenBusiness experts rather than attorneys. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do their AI tools differ?
LegalZoom's AI is a set of tools around its products: Doc Assist summarizes documents, AI research produces business license lists, and 24 MCP tools let outside assistants use LegalZoom services. ZenBusiness's Velo is a single guide that plans the business, prepares filings for the owner to approve and flags deadlines. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Do LegalZoom and ZenBusiness train AI on what you upload?
LegalZoom's Doc Assist FAQ says uploads may train its own models but not third party AI tools. ZenBusiness says Velo's guidance is shaped on questions and outcomes from nearly a million businesses, and its terms make no promise that AI output is confidential. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Neither vendor paid for inclusion, placement or a grade, and neither reviewed this page before it published. Everything on it comes from public material on the dates shown. How the index grades.
Two points to weigh. ZenBusiness limits its liability to the lesser of $500 or the fees paid in the six months before a claim, and LegalZoom caps liability at the amount paid, so neither stands behind AI output that turns out wrong. LegalZoom's attorney services come through independent attorneys and its subsidiary law firm, while ZenBusiness offers no attorney service. LegalZoom.com, Inc. is listed on Nasdaq. Neither vendor reviewed this page.