Northwest Registered Agent

Plans and pricing

It is our rank-2 pick here, earned on price discipline and on privacy built into how they file rather than sold as an add-on. Not on hand-holding. If you want somebody walking you through every screen by phone, LegalZoom is the honest alternative.

You should know who is talking. Lobi Space sells its own Illinois registered agent service and Chicago address, so we compete with part of what Northwest sells. We still recommend Northwest to plenty of people, and below we say where each of us wins. Our team did the research and checking here, AI helped organize what needed covering, and every opinion is ours.

One sourcing note. Northwest's site blocks automated readers, so we verified these figures from their own pages as indexed today rather than by loading the pricing page. Confirm before you pay.

• Registered agent service: $125 a year, per state. Their registered agent page covers all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico at that price, says the price has not moved in twenty years, and says there are no hidden fees or per-document charges. Renewal is the same $125, and you can buy it without formation. On a ten-year subscription, the renewal number is the real number.

• Five or more states: $100 a year, per state, per their national page. The discount starts at five, not two.

• Formation: $39 plus the state's own fee. Their formation page says every formation includes one year of registered agent service, the business identity bundle, privacy protection, and Corporate Guides support. The cheap part is year one. Year two arrives as a $125 renewal.

• The identity extras are free, not a trial. Per their free identity services page, the domain, website, email, phone number and brand protection carry no trial and no renewal fee. Upgrades cost extra: email at $3, $9 or $12 a month, unlimited phone at $9, hosting at $9, $16 or $26.

• Mail forwarding on its own: from $20 a month, with same-day scanning and online access, per their mail forwarding page.

• Virtual office, Illinois included: $29 or $39 a month. Their Illinois virtual office page sells a commercial address with an assigned suite number, month to month, plus a local Illinois number and conference room access. The $29 tier opens and scans mail, the $39 tier forwards it unopened weekly, and forwarding originals from the cheaper tier costs extra.

On the claim that no upsell is buried in the checkout, the published price list backs it up and the free extras are free by their own terms. We could not walk the checkout today, so that one is their claim plus a consistent price list, not a thing we tested.

Illinois charges its own fee, separately

No formation service pays the state for you.

The Articles of Organization filing fee is $150, per the Secretary of State's Guide for Organizing Domestic Limited Liability Companies and its instructions for forming an LLC online. So $39 plus $150 is $189 to exist on day one.

Then the yearly one. The Illinois LLC annual report costs $75, due before the first day of your anniversary month, meaning the month you formed, per the annual report instructions. Miss it by 60 days and the state adds a $100 penalty. At 120 days past delinquency it can administratively dissolve your LLC.

Illinois also requires every LLC to appoint and maintain a registered agent in the state, with a registered office at an Illinois street address matching the agent's own business office. A PO box alone is not acceptable, per the state's agent change instructions. Our read, not the state's: that address is where somebody may hand your company a lawsuit. Use your apartment and that is where a process server knocks.

Why consider it

The renewal price is the price. Five years of agent service at $125 is $625, told to you up front rather than after a discount lapses. In a category built on year-two surprises, that is worth real money.

Privacy is structural. Their Privacy by Default page says they do not sell customer data, that clients can list Northwest's address for everything on a filing, and that when Northwest files for you the state sees their bank information and IP address rather than yours. Run a business out of a two-flat and that is the difference between a searchable home address and none at all. It covers what the state publishes, not what you hand a bank or post on your own site.

Multi-state without a spreadsheet. One account holds documents for every state you register in, and Northwest sends the reminder and the right form for each one where it is your agent. A Chicago contractor taking work in Indiana and Wisconsin faces three registrations and three annual filings. One correction to our own listing card: you get one dashboard, and the fee is per state per year. Nothing on their pages promises a single combined renewal date.

The reviews hold up. Our ratings check puts Northwest at a 4.6 weighted average across 2,270 reviews: Trustpilot 4.1 across 293, BBB 4.29 across 100. The Google figure of 4.7 across roughly 1,877 reviews is secondary-verified, meaning we could not read it from Google directly. The narrow gap between the solicited platform and the complaint-driven one is the tell, since most vendors here split wide.

Where it falls short

It is not hand-holding. You get forms, reminders and a support line staffed by people they call Corporate Guides. You do not get somebody on the phone reassuring you through your first legal document. If that is what you need, LegalZoom does it well and charges for it, fair enough for a nervous first-timer. Know the tradeoff: LegalZoom's reviews split hard, 4.6 on Trustpilot across roughly 32,720 against 2.75 on the BBB across roughly 939.

It is not a local address. Their Illinois virtual office is an Illinois address, and the pages we could read do not name the city or neighborhood. That matters if your filings, your mail, your invoices and your Google listing all need to carry one Chicago street address a client can walk into. A national agent's address is a legal address, not a presence.

That is our business, so read this knowing it. Lobi Space sells an Illinois registered agent service and a Chicago virtual office address from our own building, priced on our pricing page. The honest split: Northwest wins when you file in several states, and when the address is a compliance box you never think about again. We win when you want one Chicago street address doing every job, and when the neighborhood is part of how you get customers.

A note from Lobi Space management

Management here has been an entrepreneur for more than twenty years. Technology, hiring people, remote employees, live reception services, plenty of platforms tried and dropped along the way. It can all be overwhelming, and the overwhelm traces back to working without a strategy, a goal and a road map.

So start with a plan before you start a company. Write down every single process your business needs in order to succeed, then match each one to a tool or a person. Formation is one line on that list. Do you actually understand what your articles of organization say and what you are signing? If not, hire LegalZoom or somebody who will explain it, and call it money well spent. If you do understand it, a flat-price filer like Northwest is the right kind of boring.

One more thing we hear constantly around here. Somebody's neighbor used a service, loved it, and now everybody at the table is signing up. Shopping takes a long time and switching later is painful, so decide once, against your own written list. A registered agent is a ten-year commitment dressed up as a checkout button.

The short version

Northwest charges $39 plus the state fee to form your company, first year of agent service included, then $125 a year per state, or $100 at five or more. Illinois charges its own $150 to file and $75 every year, due before the first day of your anniversary month. The privacy stance is real and structural, and the reviews are consistent at 4.4 across 2,270. You get one account across states, not one renewal date. Pick Northwest for multi-state filing, a Chicago address service when your filings, mail and street presence should be one place, and LegalZoom when you want a hand to hold.

Filings, subscriptions and dashboards are all fine, and none of them is the point. Without a road map, a goal and a plan, you are shooting in the dark or chasing a dream. Make the plan first and every choice in this article gets easy.

Blunt questions, straight answers

Can I be my own registered agent in Illinois and skip the $125? Yes, and it costs nothing if you have an Illinois street address where somebody can be handed legal papers. A PO box alone will not satisfy the state. What a service sells you is privacy, since your own address goes on the public record and every move means filing a change. You can also file the articles yourself for the state's $150, which our Illinois LLC guide walks through.

Is the $39 formation price real, or does something jump later? Both, in a fair way. The $39 is a real one-time charge with the first year of agent service inside it, and year two is a $125 renewal. Add the state's $150 filing fee and $75 annual report and year one runs $189, then about $200 a year after.

I am in Chicago. Northwest or you? If you need a legal address you never think about again, especially across more than one state, Northwest is the cleaner buy. If you want your filings, your mail and your invoices to carry one Chicago street address, with people who know you when you walk in, that is what we sell. Compare our registered agent service and virtual office yourself.

What will Illinois charge me every year no matter who I hire? $75 for the annual report, due before the first day of your anniversary month, per the Secretary of State. Sixty days late adds $100, and 120 days past delinquency the state can dissolve your company. Put the date in a calendar today.

Why it made our list

• Pricing is straight and the checkout does not bury you in upsells, which is rarer in this category than it should be.
• They keep your home address off public filings, the main reason most owners hire an agent in the first place.
• If you are forming in several states, one account holds them all, though the agent fee is still billed per state, per year.