Northwest Registered Agent vs ZenBusiness: how they compare in 2026
Northwest Registered Agent and ZenBusiness both form LLCs and corporations, act as registered agent and keep a company current on its state filings, so a business owner will often weigh the two. They price the work differently and use AI for different jobs. Northwest charges $39 plus state fees for an LLC with a year of registered agent service, then $125 a year per state, and adds its address on state filings in place of the owner's and a free domain, website, email and phone line. ZenBusiness forms an LLC from $0 plus state fees and sells packages, with Pro at $199 a year covering one day filing and annual report filings. Northwest's Mark works inside the customer's account: it answers from live filing, invoice and domain data, pays invoices and adds filings once approved, and an MCP server opens the same 114 tools to outside assistants. ZenBusiness's Velo is a guide to the business itself: it plans the business and builds a blueprint with cost estimates, prepares paperwork for the owner to approve, flags filing, license and tax deadlines, and hands questions to ZenBusiness experts.
Which one fits
Choose Northwest Registered Agent if
- You want registered agent service at a flat yearly price per state. Northwest includes a year of it with its $39 LLC, then charges $125 a year, or $100 a year per state for five or more states.
- You want an assistant that acts on your account. Mark answers from live filing, invoice, domain, email and phone data and pays invoices or adds filings, with approval before many tasks run, and works from Claude or ChatGPT through the MCP server.
- You want the AI kept on the provider's own machines. Northwest runs its own LLMs in its own datacenter and says it does not train on customer data.
Choose ZenBusiness if
- You want help planning the business itself. Velo builds a step by step blueprint with cost estimates, prepares paperwork for you to approve and flags annual report, license and tax deadlines.
- You want annual filings handled inside a package. 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 need a provider with security certifications. ZenBusiness holds PCI DSS 4.0 Level 1 certification and SOC 2 Type II compliance.
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.
Mark is an assistant layered on a formation and registered agent business that runs without it. Northwest forms LLCs, corporations and nonprofits, acts as registered agent in every state, files annual reports, amendments and foreign qualifications, scans mail, and supplies a business address, a domain, website, email and phone line. Mark sits in the client portal, answers questions from live account data and carries out account tasks such as paying invoices, adding products and creating email inboxes. The filings, mail handling and Corporate Guides keep working 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.
Mark answers from live account data. Through the MCP server, each tool runs against the customer's account and returns structured results that the AI client turns into plain language. One of Northwest's sample questions asks whether a Washington annual report is due and what the state requires, yet nothing says which state rules Mark draws on or whether an answer shows its source. The Terms of Service say AI output is not advice and may contain errors or hallucinations. No accuracy figure, test or evaluation 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.
Mark acts on the account, and the tool catalog sets out what each of its 114 tools may do. Sixty are read only and change nothing. Tools that add to the cart never charge; only checkout and tools marked as charging a saved payment method take money. Thirty three tools wait for the customer's approval in chat, some after a summary of the plan and price, and a cancellation asks for the reason and the customer's typed name before it runs. Seventeen are limited to the company owner, so shared collaborators cannot run them, and tools that delete, cancel or make a change that cannot be undone carry a warning. Payments use a method already saved on the account, card numbers and CVVs are never collected in chat, and a payment that needs a CVV goes back to the portal. The Terms say assistants perform only limited actions. Nothing describes what happens when Mark gives a wrong answer or takes a mistaken action, and a Corporate Guide joins on request rather than as a review step.
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.
Northwest calls itself the largest business formation service in the United States, says it forms thousands of companies across the country every day and employs more than 1,300 people. Its LLC offer shows a Google rating of 4.7 from 1,881 clients, and its testimonials carry first names only. No named customer, dated outcome or usage figure for Mark is published.
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.
The Terms of Service, updated October 2026, treat input to and output from the AI features as customer data, with the customer owning the input and, where permitted, the output. Northwest describes its AI as self contained, running on its own LLMs in its own datacenter, with filings, invoices and conversations processed on infrastructure it operates. It never trains on customer chats or business data, never sells or shares conversation history and never hands AI work to a public model vendor. That training commitment appears in Northwest's AI material rather than in the Terms. A customer who connects an outside client such as Claude or ChatGPT sends the results the tools return to that client. Northwest states that it is not a law firm or fiduciary and gives no legal advice, so no privilege attaches, and an attorney client relationship exists only for a trademark matter accepted by Law on Call. Nothing describes how one customer's conversations and records are kept apart from another's beyond account sign in.
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 Terms of Service state that Northwest is not a law firm or fiduciary and provides no legal advice, that its free forms are templates used at the customer's own risk, and that AI output is not advice. Trademark work runs through Law on Call, with an attorney client relationship limited to the accepted matter, and Northwest's trademark attorneys review intake forms and assess whether a mark is likely to register. Corporate Guides, a mix of paralegals, accountants, advisors, educators, lawyers and business experts, answer questions by phone and email. Northwest's description of Mark carries no statement that its answers are not legal advice, and no state rules on document preparation services are named.
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. Northwest describes its AI as built and run in house without outsourcing, which concerns privacy and hosting. Nothing describes how Mark is tested before release, who at Northwest is accountable for it, or how its answers hold up across states, entity types or account situations.
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 limits collection to what Northwest needs to form and maintain an entity and run the services hired. Customers may ask for copies, correction, deletion with exemptions, limits on use and a portable export, and may appeal a refusal. Information is kept only as long as law allows or requires, and the California notice keeps each category for as long as its purpose needs unless law sets a longer period. Service providers work under contracts that require security, limited use and deletion when the work ends. Northwest says it performs nearly every service in house; Corporate Filings LLC processes card payments, and Northwest does not store card data. Two factor authentication is on by default. An in house IT team encrypts data, monitors applications for unusual use and attacks, tests new applications for vulnerabilities and keeps records of security issues, on servers and backup servers Northwest owns. No retention period is stated for Mark conversations, and no subprocessor list 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.
The Terms of Service provide the services as is with no warranties, exclude indirect damages and liability for hacking, and cap Northwest's liability at the amount paid in the prior twelve months. The customer indemnifies Northwest for claims arising from its use, inaccurate information, document handling and Northwest being named as a defendant. AI output is described as not advice and possibly wrong, and nothing covers a wrong answer or a mistaken action by Mark. Washington law governs, claims must be brought within one year, and Northwest may choose individual arbitration or Spokane County court.
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.
The Northwest MCP server connects Mark's tools to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Grok and any other client that speaks the Model Context Protocol, with a setup guide for each. Its catalog covers 114 tools in 14 groups: account and companies, filings and compliance, filing forms, documents, cart and checkout, invoices and payments, registered agent and mail, domains, DNS, domain forwarding, business email, hosting, phone service and utilities. Each entry gives what the tool does, a sample prompt, its access, who can run it and whether it waits for approval. A customer signs in with a Northwest account, and the same tools run inside Mark in the portal. No connection to accounting, banking or document storage software is described.
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.
Northwest runs as a hosted service on its own infrastructure. It runs its own LLMs in its own datacenter, processes filings, invoices and conversations on infrastructure it operates, and keeps its own servers and backup servers, so Mark's AI processing stays with Northwest inside the portal. Through the connector, the customer's chosen AI client handles the conversation and the results the tools return. No region, residency commitment or tenancy model is stated.
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. Northwest describes an in house IT team, encryption, monitoring for unusual use, security testing of new applications and its own servers, and names no SOC 2 report, ISO certification or PCI attestation.
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.
Mark runs on LLMs that Northwest operates and hosts in its own datacenter, and Northwest says it does not hand its AI to a public model vendor. The MCP server exposes the same tools to outside clients, and there the client's own model reads what the tools return. The models are not named, nothing says whether they were built in house or adapted from published models, and no notice of model changes is offered.
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.
Prices are public. The Northwest LLC costs $39 plus state fees and comes with a year of registered agent service, same day processing, Northwest's address on state filings, compliance reminders and the free identity services. Registered agent service then costs $125 a year per state, or $100 a year per state for five or more states, and covers up to 15 legal documents a year. The trademark service costs $599 per application, with the USPTO charging $350 per class on top. A free domain covers one name up to $25 a year, the website, email and phone line are free, and Mark comes with the client portal at no listed charge. Purchases are generally not refundable after 90 days and state fees never are, and any service can be canceled in the portal at any time with no fee.
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.
Northwest serves people starting and running businesses in the United States. It forms LLCs, corporations, S corporations and nonprofits, including companies for noncitizens, acts as registered agent in every state, and handles annual reports, amendments, reinstatements, dissolutions, foreign qualification, EINs, DBAs, trademarks, a business address and a virtual office. Its free forms library covers operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, meeting minutes and guides to filing and defending a lawsuit. Mark covers the account's companies, filings, invoices, documents, domains, email and phone service. The Terms rule out legal advice, and nothing states which entity types, states or questions Mark does not handle. The product is not built for lawyers or law firms.
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?
Northwest's AI material says it never trains on customers' chats or business data and never uses their companies as training material, and that its models run in its own datacenter. The Terms of Service, updated October 2026, treat AI input and output as customer data owned by the customer and do not repeat the training commitment.
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?
The privacy policy keeps information as long as law allows or requires, and customers may ask for deletion, with exemptions. No retention period is stated for Mark conversations, AI output or documents requested through chat.
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?
Nothing describes how one customer's conversations, companies and records are kept apart from another's beyond account sign in. Inside an account, seventeen of Mark's tools are limited to the company owner and closed to shared collaborators, which governs permissions within the account rather than separation between customers.
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 Terms of Service let Northwest share data with law enforcement and require that law enforcement requests come as valid process sent to its registered agent address. Neither the Terms nor the privacy policy commits to telling the customer before information goes out, and no transparency report is published.
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?
Mark draws on the customer's live account data, covering companies, filings, invoices, domains, email and phone service, together with Northwest's own expertise. No statute, state filing rule or other primary source is named behind its answers on state requirements, and no update cadence is published.
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?
Mark answers account and filing questions rather than citing cases, so a citator would have nothing to work on, and no step that keeps the state requirements it describes current is published.
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?
Mark brings in a Corporate Guide when a customer asks for a person, and the Terms say AI output may contain errors or hallucinations. No behavior is described for a question Mark cannot answer from the account or from Northwest's guidance, and no confidence signal is shown.
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 Northwest Registered Agent or Mark. Mark works on business accounts and state filings rather than court filings.
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 through the statements that Northwest is not a law firm or fiduciary and gives no legal advice, with attorney work limited to trademark matters accepted by Law on Call. No ethics opinion, state rule on document preparation services or bar guidance on AI is named.
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?
Business owners buy formation, registered agent service and Mark's help for their own companies and represent themselves, so no lawyer bills a client for the work. Northwest's price claims, such as no rise in the registered agent price in 20 years, concern the buyer's own cost.
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 business owner asking which providers handle its information would find no subprocessor list. Northwest says it performs nearly every service in house, and the Terms name Corporate Filings LLC as payment processor. The privacy policy binds service providers by contract, but no list of the providers that touch account data is published.
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?
Mark adds filings to the cart, requests documents and changes account settings once a customer approves, and nothing records which content the AI produced or offers a record an owner could use if a filing were questioned.
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
In summary
Northwest Registered Agent
Northwest Registered Agent is a business formation and registered agent service based in Spokane, Washington, with no outside investors and more than 1,300 employees. It forms LLCs, corporations and nonprofits, acts as registered agent in every state and lets customers put its address on state filings in place of their own. Mark, its AI assistant in the client portal, answers from live account data and pays invoices, adds filings and requests documents, and the Northwest MCP server offers the same 114 tools to outside assistants. According to the AI Legal Index, Northwest runs its own LLMs in its own datacenter and states that it is not a law firm. An LLC costs $39 plus state fees with a year of registered agent service, then $125 a year.
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
Northwest Registered Agent vs ZenBusiness: which costs less for an LLC?
ZenBusiness forms an LLC from $0 plus state fees, with Pro at $199 a year and Premium at $299 a year, and Pro includes annual report filings. Northwest charges $39 plus state fees with a year of registered agent service included, then $125 a year per state for registered agent service, which carries its compliance service. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 10, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do Mark and Velo differ?
Mark works on the customer's Northwest account: it answers from live filing, invoice, domain, email and phone data, pays invoices, adds filings and requests documents, and asks for approval before many tasks run. It also reaches Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants through an MCP server. Velo works on the business: it plans it, builds a blueprint with cost estimates, prepares paperwork for approval and flags filing, license and tax deadlines. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 10, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which one includes a website and email?
Northwest gives customers a free domain, website, email address and phone line, along with its address on state filings in place of the owner's. ZenBusiness adds a domain and business email on its $299 a year Premium package and sells an AI website builder on a 30 day trial. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of November 10, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Do Northwest and ZenBusiness train AI on customer data?
Northwest says it does not train on customer chats or business data and runs its own LLMs in its own datacenter. 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 10, 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 holds SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS certifications, while Northwest names no outside security attestation. ZenBusiness caps liability at the lesser of $500 or six months of fees and Northwest at the fees paid in the prior twelve months, so neither stands behind AI output that turns out wrong. Neither offers attorney help with formation, and Northwest's attorneys handle trademark applications only. Both companies are independent. Neither vendor reviewed this page.