Northwest Registered Agent vs ZenBusiness (2027): Which Is Better?

The short version

Pick Northwest if you want the lowest real cost. It charges $39 with a year of registered agent and an operating agreement included, and the agent renews at $125. Pick ZenBusiness if a big review count and bundled compliance filings matter more to you than about $300 in year one. All prices on this page exclude the state filing fee.

Cost: year one and year two

This assumes you need a registered agent, an EIN and an operating agreement.

	Northwest	ZenBusiness
Package	$39 (one package)	Pro $199
Registered agent	Included year one	$199/yr
EIN	$50 add-on	In Pro
Operating agreement	Included	Template in Pro
Year one	$89	$398
Year two	$125 agent	$398 with Pro, $199 without

Northwest's $39 includes the agent, a business address with mail scanning, a domain, website, email and phone (Northwest LLC). Its agent price is a flat $125 a year (Northwest registered agent). Its FAQ page still says "$100 plus state fees" (Northwest FAQ), which looks stale next to the $39 on the LLC page.

ZenBusiness Pro is $199 and renews at $199 a year, and its agent is $199 a year (ZenBusiness pricing). You can also get an EIN yourself for free from the IRS (IRS), which cuts Northwest's year one to $39.

What's included

Northwest's agent service covers up to 15 legal documents a year with no per-document charges (Northwest terms), and the free business address keeps your home address off public filings. It files the same day.

ZenBusiness Pro adds 1-day processing, Worry-Free Compliance (annual reports plus up to 2 amendments a year), the EIN and a logo kit (ZenBusiness compliance). Northwest doesn't bundle compliance. Instead it auto-enrolls you in annual report filing at $100 plus the state fee, charged about 90 days before the deadline, unless you opt out (Northwest annual report).

Renewals, refunds and cancelling

Northwest lets you cancel any service in its portal with no fee. Payments are generally nonrefundable after 90 days, and state fees never are (Northwest terms).

ZenBusiness advertises a 60-day money-back guarantee on formation plans, but its terms say a bundled order with any part filed with the government is nonrefundable (ZenBusiness terms). All its subscriptions auto-renew, and the website trial preselected at checkout becomes $15 a month after 30 days.

Reputation is ZenBusiness's clear win: 4.8/5 from 33,239 Trustpilot reviews (Trustpilot) against Northwest's 4.1/5 from 318 (Trustpilot). Northwest shows 4.7/5 from 1,881 Google reviews on its own site.

Which one to choose

Choose Northwest if you want to pay $89 in year one and $125 after, and you will handle or opt into annual reports yourself. Decide on the annual report service before the first charge.

Choose ZenBusiness if you want compliance filings bundled in and weigh its larger review base heavily. Expect to pay about $300 more in year one.