BizFilings DBA Review

Is It A Good Service To Use?

BizFilings DBA Review

Need a DBA or trade name for your business? Making your sole proprietorship more credible, opening business bank accounts, using an alternate name in official releases — there’s a handful of reasons to get a DBA.

However, it can be tough to figure out who is the best filing service in this crowded marketplace. As a supplement to your own research, my team and I spent many hours going over the details of every popular online DBA service.

In this BizFilings DBA review, I’ll go over the pros and cons, pricing and features, customer reviews and much more. Let’s see if they’re a good fit for you!

Pros & Cons of BizFilings

Pros of BizFilings

  • BizFilings offers expedited orders which isn’t as common as you’d think for DBA filings. For $60 they can have your filing completed in as quickly as 2 weeks.
  • Their free Business Owner’s Toolkit includes all sorts of valuable info on a wide variety of legal service topics including business formation, compliance, taxes and more.
  • Your security is a priority for them, as they use Norton Web Security to encrypt data transfers and scan for malware.
  • Their customer support team is available every weekday until 8pm ET. It’s nice to be able to wrap up the business day before contacting them with any issues that might have popped up during the day.

Cons of BizFilings

  • Their $99 base fee would be industry standard, except they charge another $25 for a name check in states that require one, which most competitors include for free. BizFilings also charges extra for publication fees (again, only necessary in some states) and while this is fairly common across the industry, some companies like LegalZoom include publication as well.
  • Customer feedback is hard to find. While it’s certainly a good thing that there aren’t many complaints to be found, we couldn’t find much positive feedback either.

BizFilings DBA Alternative

LegalZoom is a good provider of DBA services due to their brand popularity and their satisfaction guarantee. Read Review

LegalZoom

BizFilings DBA Pricing & Features

BizFilings starts their DBA pricing at $99, but that doesn’t include the name check fee or publication fees required in some states. In states that don’t require name check or publication, their $99 is essentially the industry standard.

Bizfilings DBA Pricing

It’s pretty standard stuff for the most part. I will point out that not every provider includes shipping a hard copy of your documents, which BizFilings does. Also, the option to expedite your order is not something that you see with all DBA services.

So as you can see, there’s not anything groundbreaking here but they do have a couple tweaks to their DBA obtainment package that may set them apart from the competition depending on your priorities.

Customer Reviews

The vast majority of online BizFilings reviews can be found on Legal Spring, where you can view 20 reviews dating from 2004-2012. If you would like to see more recent feedback, Yelp and BBB.org have a total of 4 reviews. In short, it’s difficult to gauge how happy BizFilings customers are because most of their 26 online reviews are quite old.

Customer Reviews Section Last Updated 8-10-17
  • Legal Spring: 3.4/5 out of 20 reviews
  • Yelp: 2.5/5 out of 3 reviews
  • BBB: A+ out of 1 review

Conclusion: It’s not a great sign when your most-recent positive review is from 2014, as is the case with BizFilings. However, it is a pretty good sign when you’ve only got 4 critical reviews in that same time period, so it seems that their customers just don’t write reviews, which is fine. I’m not weighing this in as a pro or a con.

How BizFilings Compares

Considering how much time I’ve spent researching DBA providers, I’ve come to realize some of them simply offer more for your money than others. Of course, the goal here is still to figure out which one has the right combination of pricing and features for your company.

BizFilings is a strong option to get a DBA because of their expediting options and extended support hours. Still, it’s always a good idea to see what the competition’s up to, so let’s also take a quick look at my personal favorite, LegalZoom.

Pricing: LegalZoom has a base rate of $99, which is the same as BizFilings. However, LegalZoom doesn’t have as many additional fees as BizFilings.

Features: LegalZoom’s $99 price point includes a name check and newspaper publication in states that require those features. BizFilings charges extra for both.

Customer Support: Both BizFilings and LegalZoom have extended customer support hours, meaning you can wait until the end of the day to call them instead of taking time out of running your business. In general, they both have friendly and knowledgeable service agents who can answer most of your tricky questions.

Experience: BizFilings has served hundreds of thousands of businesses since they opened back in 1998. On the other hand, while LegalZoom opened in 1999 they’ve formed over 1 million businesses.

HERE'S A QUICK VISUAL

Legalzoom

Pricing Starts at $99

In Business Since 1999

Perfect for: Anyone wanting a DBA filing company with a proven track record and basic features

BizFilings

Pricing Starts at $99

In Business Since 1996

Perfect for: Anyone looking for tried and tested DBA filing service with good overall value

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I File a DBA Independently?

It’s certainly an option, but I’ll warn you that it can be a bit of a hassle depending on your location. If you use a DBA registration service like BizFilings, they can handle it for you and leave you more time to run your business. If you are interested in the DIY route, make sure to read through our comprehensive how-to guide.

What’s Their Refund Policy?

BizFilings guarantees their services from error, and they will absorb any costs required to correct it if they do make a mistake. It’s not as good as a “no questions asked” money-back guarantee, but it’s much better than nothing.

How Secure Is BizFilings?

They use Norton Web Security to protect their website, meaning you’re as safe or moreso than you are on any competitor’s site.

Do They Offer Ongoing Support?

They definitely do, and they also have extended support hours until 8pm ET every weekday, which is a nice feature.

Should You Use BizFilings?

BizFilings earns a score of 4.5/5 in my book. I’m a fan of their valuable Business Owner’s Toolkit and their expedited orders can be completed quickly. That being said, if this doesn’t sound like you perfect fit, check out our Best DBA Filing Services. Cheers!