By Justin Abdilla, Illinois Landlord Attorney, ARDC #6308444
LegalZoom is a competent filing service. A simple single-member LLC with no assets needs nothing more. The decision rule is one question: will the LLC hold Illinois rental property? If it will, you need the parts LegalZoom cannot sell. You need an attorney-drafted operating agreement your lender will accept. You need the $100 deed that moves the building into the company. You need a lawyer who answers the phone when a tenant sues the LLC. My fee is a flat $750, operating agreement and Illinois filing fee included. There are no upsells and no subscriptions.
I checked every competitor price on this page against the company's own published pricing in August 2026. I concede the rows LegalZoom wins. You already know I am the biased party here. The concessions make the rest of the page worth your time.
What Does LegalZoom Actually Do Well?
Credit first. LegalZoom's checkout works at two in the morning. That is when most people finally sit down to form an entity. The interface is clean. The questionnaire is short. The filing reaches the Secretary of State without drama. I have reviewed dozens of LegalZoom formations over twelve years. I can count the defective Articles of Organization on one hand.
The price for a bare entity is hard to beat. As of August 2026, LegalZoom's Basic LLC package is $0 plus state filing fees. Its Pro package is $249 plus state fees, and it includes an operating agreement template and the EIN. Its Premium package is $299 plus state fees. In Illinois the state filing fee is $150.
LegalZoom is fine for a no-asset shell. A website, a side hustle with no premises, or a reserved name needs only the $150 all-in Basic route. Do not pay me $750 to form a shell.
You may want the even cheaper path and file the Articles yourself. I wrote a separate honest breakdown of forming the LLC yourself versus hiring an attorney. This page assumes you ruled out pure DIY. You are choosing between a filing service and a lawyer.
Where Does the LegalZoom Model Break for a Landlord?
A rental property LLC is not a shell. It owns a building. It signs leases. It gets sued. It borrows money. The filing-service model stops working at those four facts. None of this is LegalZoom's fault. LegalZoom is not a law firm, by its own terms of service. These are structural limits.
The operating agreement is a template, and your bank can tell
LegalZoom's Pro and Premium packages include an operating agreement. It is a fill-in-the-blank template. The document is the same whether your LLC sells candles or owns a three-flat in Berwyn. The operating agreement I draft runs 12 to 20 pages. I write it for rental property. It has capital contribution and distribution rules that survive a refinance. It has manager authority language that a DSCR lender's closing checklist looks for. It has transfer restrictions. Those restrictions keep an ex-spouse or a judgment creditor from becoming your co-member.
The bank asks for the operating agreement when you open the LLC's account. The lender reads it before it lends to the entity. In my experience, the template version generates follow-up questions and demands for amendments. The attorney version gets initialed and returned.
The operating agreement also matters if a court tests the liability protection. Courts still apply the judge-made veil-piercing factors after the 2025 amendment to the Illinois LLC Act. The factors are commingling, undercapitalization, and treating company assets as your own. Follow a real operating agreement. It is the paper trail that shows you ran the company as a company.
Nobody moves the building into the LLC
This is the failure I see most often. It is the expensive one. The LLC gets formed. The confirmation email arrives. The building stays deeded in the owner's personal name forever. An LLC that never takes title protects nothing. A slip-and-fall complaint will name you personally. The county recorder's index shows you as the owner, and that index is the first exhibit.
LegalZoom does not prepare or record Illinois deeds in its LLC packages. My office does that work at $100 per deed. County recording charges are extra, and they run $100 to $300 by county. I walk through the lender conversation first. Most mortgages carry a due-on-sale clause, and a transfer can technically trigger it. The full mechanics are in my guide to transferring property into an LLC.
No legal advice, by design
LegalZoom's own terms of service say two things. LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice, except where authorized through its subsidiary law firm. And LegalZoom does not apply the law to the facts of your particular situation. That is not a hidden gotcha. It is their published compliance posture, and it is honest. The Pro package includes attorney consultations through a subscription. The subscription runs as a 30-day inclusion. Then it auto-renews at $49 per month unless you cancel. The attorneys on that network answer general questions. They do not stand behind your specific deal.
Ask what happens eighteen months from now. A tenant stops paying, or a tenant sues over a security deposit. A filing service has no role in that fight. I am in eviction court four or more days a week. The same office that formed your LLC handles the case. Landlords learn one detail the hard way: an LLC cannot represent itself in an Illinois courtroom. 705 ILCS 220/1 requires the company to appear through counsel. So does the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in Downtown Disposal Services, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 2012 IL 112040. An LLC plaintiff that files an eviction pro se gets the case bounced. I cover the details on my page about LLCs and court representation. The broader landlord services are on my Chicago landlord attorney page.
The pricing model is a subscription stack
LegalZoom's registered agent service is $249 per year as of August 2026. It auto-renews at the purchase rate until you cancel. The attorney-consultation plan renews at $49 per month after its included window. The bookkeeping tool in the Premium package renews at $9.99 per month after six months. None of these renewals is a scandal. LegalZoom discloses every one at checkout. But the business model is recurring revenue. The checkout flow is built to attach subscriptions. My model is the opposite. You pay $750 once. If you want ongoing compliance monitoring with registered agent service, the fee is a flat $149 per year. That is $100 less than LegalZoom's registered agent charge alone.
What Do the First Two Years Actually Cost?
Do not compare sticker prices at checkout. Run the math over two years. In that window the registered agent renewals happen. The deed also happens, or it does not. Every LegalZoom figure below comes from its published pricing as of August 2026. I use the Pro package because most landlords would pick it. It is the cheapest tier that includes an operating agreement and the EIN.
| Line Item, First Two Years | LegalZoom Pro | My Office |
|---|---|---|
| Formation service | $249 | In the $750 |
| Illinois filing fee ($150) | $150, paid separately | In the $750 |
| Operating agreement | Template included | Custom, 12 to 20 pages, in the $750 |
| EIN | Included | In the $750 |
| Registered agent, year one | $249 | Setup in the $750 |
| Registered agent + compliance, year two | $249 | $149 |
| Attorney consultations | 30 days in, then $49/mo unless canceled | Free 30-minute consult, then me |
| Deed moving the building into the LLC | Not offered | $100 per deed |
| Two-year total | $897, building not in the LLC | $999, building deeded in |
Two costs are the same on both sides, so the table excludes them. The county recording charge on any deed is $100 to $300, and the client pays it either way. The Illinois annual report carries a $75 state fee, and every LLC owes it every year. My office can file the annual report for you. That service is $200 flat with the state fee included.
Read the totals honestly. The surprise is how close they are. The two paths land about $100 apart. Do not hire me to save money on formation. You will not save money. The difference is what exists at the end of year two. One path leaves a template agreement and a building still titled in your name. The other path leaves a company that owns its property. That company has documents a lender will take. It has an attorney who already knows the file.
"The filing was fine. Everything after the filing was missing."
$750 Flat. Operating Agreement, EIN, and State Filing Fee Included.
Bring me a building. Or bring me a LegalZoom LLC that needs finishing. I draft the operating agreement. I file with the Illinois Secretary of State. I obtain the EIN. I prepare the deed that puts the property inside. One price. No subscriptions.
All consultations are confidential.
How Do LegalZoom and an Attorney Compare Side by Side?
The honest version of this table has rows LegalZoom wins. Those rows come first.
| What You Are Comparing | LegalZoom | My Office |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest possible entity | ✓ Wins: $0 tier, $150 all-in for Illinois | $750, and I will not undercut that |
| Ordering at 2 a.m. without talking to anyone | ✓ Wins: instant online checkout | You schedule a call with me first |
| Software dashboard and document portal | ✓ Wins: polished, mature product | Email and phone, no portal |
| Forming in any of the 50 states | ✓ Wins: nationwide coverage | Illinois only |
| Operating agreement | Generic template | ✓ Drafted for rental property and lenders |
| Deed transferring your building in | ✗ Not offered | ✓ $100 per deed, lender review first |
| Legal advice on your specific facts | ✗ Excluded by its own terms of service | ✓ That is the product |
| Registered agent cost | $249/yr | ✓ $149/yr with compliance monitoring |
| When a tenant sues the LLC | ✗ You start searching for a litigator | ✓ Same office, in court 4+ days a week |
| Pricing model | Tiers plus auto-renewing subscriptions | $750 once, flat |
What About ZenBusiness and Bizee?
Two other names come up in every comparison thread: ZenBusiness and Bizee. They get the same verified-numbers treatment here. They get the same concessions too.
ZenBusiness has the best compliance software of the three. Its dashboard and filing reminders are useful. As of August 2026 its Starter plan is $0 plus state fees. Starter includes no operating agreement and no EIN. Its Pro plan is $199 plus state fees and includes both. Read the fine print on its own pricing page. Pro renews at $199 per year as a subscription. Premium renews at $399 per year. Registered agent service is a separate $199 per year add-on on the lower tiers. Add the $150 Illinois filing fee. A landlord who buys Pro plus the registered agent pays $548 in year one. The recurring charge after that is $398 per year.
Bizee is the company formerly called Incfile. It is the cheapest entry point of the three. As of August 2026 its packages are $0, $199, and $299 plus the state fee. Each package is a one-time payment. Every formation package includes a real free first year of registered agent service. That free first year is a legitimate advantage, and I will not pretend otherwise. The registered agent then renews at $149 per year, the rate Bizee publishes as of August 2026. Older accounts report renewing at $119. Compare that with my $149 per year, which covers the registered agent and the compliance calendar together.
The decision rule does not change with the logo. ZenBusiness does not draft a custom operating agreement. Bizee does not either. Neither company prepares an Illinois deed. Neither company gives legal advice on your facts. For a shell, any of the three is fine, and Bizee is probably the cheapest. For a building with tenants, all three stop at the same wall.
What Does My $750 Include, and How Does the Process Work?
The flat $750 covers four things. I file the Articles of Organization with the Illinois Secretary of State, and the $150 state filing fee is included. I draft a custom operating agreement of 12 to 20 pages for rental property. I obtain the EIN. I set up the registered agent. There is no tier above the $750. Nothing is held back for an upsell.
Related work carries flat fees too. Deed transfers into the LLC are $100 per deed. Ongoing compliance plus registered agent is $149 per year. Annual report filing is $200 with the state fee included. A Series LLC is $1,050 including the $400 state fee. Investors who structure multiple properties use the Series LLC. The full picture of entity options is on my Illinois LLC formation hub.
The process starts with a free 30-minute phone consultation. On that call I ask about the property and the mortgage. I ask about your co-owners, if any. I ask about your plans for the next acquisition. Those answers change how I draft the operating agreement. Formation typically files the same week. Your first rental may make the LLC one piece of a bigger checklist. My first rental property LLC guide walks the whole sequence. It runs from the entity to the insurance to the day you sign the first lease.
One more honest note. You may have already formed at LegalZoom. Do not dissolve the LLC. The entity is fine. The repair path is a replacement operating agreement, the deed, and a registered agent switch. The repair costs less than starting over.
Decided? $750 Flat. Filed This Week.
Operating agreement, EIN, state filing fee, and registered agent setup included. Deed work is $100 per deed when you move the building in.
Frequently Asked Questions