Making sure you get the best registered agent for your Kansas business is a critical step.
The right Kansas registered agent will responsibly guard your personal assets and data, help your business maintain compliance with all state regulations, and protect your business and personal assets from frivolous lawsuits.
The wrong Kansas registered agent will not secure your assets, but rather will put your business at risk by failing to keep you in good standing with the state.
I've investigated 60+ registered agent services, assessed the top 12, and written in-depth reviews of the three best. Here are my picks for the best registered agent service in Kansas:
1. Northwest Registered Agent — 9.13/10 (My Top Pick)
Northwest Registered Agent is the best resident agent in Kansas because they offer the best services and have the best customer service staff working to assure your company’s compliance and success.
Pros
Northwest Registered Agent is the best Kansas resident agent for a number of reasons, starting with how well they handle the basics. They also take the responsibility of maintaining your privacy and securing your personal assets and data very seriously, which should offer you substantial peace of mind.
As part of your registered agent service, Northwest Registered Agent issues you a physical address in Kansas which accepts all documents on behalf of your company including service of process. They also act as your point of contact with the Kansas Secretary of State and notify you should there be any changes in state regulations.
Mail and documents will be accepted on your behalf during normal business hours and be scanned soon after receipt and then uploaded to your personal web portal, which you can access at any time. Soon thereafter your documents will be physically forwarded to your PO Box or home address.
Compliance alerts, a critical service that will notify you of any upcoming filing deadlines, come as part of the standard registered agent service with Northwest Registered Agent. They will also help you set up a personalized calendar to keep you from falling behind on your required paperwork, which could result in additional state fees.
Northwest Registered Agent really rises above the competition in one key aspect—customer service. Rather than just acting as an automated answering service that just tries to push you back to a website, the customer service department at Northwest is made up of real, actual people. These people also happen to be some of the most experienced, knowledgeable people in the industry. They all seem to come from a business background and many are former accountants, lawyers, or entrepreneurs. Anything related to your business is fair game, and they are qualified to offer advice well beyond the registered agent business.
Despite investing so much in their customer service, Northwest Registered Agent still charges one of the lowest prices of the Kansas registered agent services I surveyed. They are an absolute bargain at $125 per year.
Cons
I’ve found myself in a few situations when I wished that Northwest Registered Agent hired customer service reps that were a little less thorough. When I’m just trying to ask a quick question between meetings, for example, and my agent is determined to provide an agonizingly in-depth answer. These instances are rare, but can be frustrating.
It’s a pretty petty complaint. In the long run, I am happy to have a customer service rep who will go the extra mile to keep me informed, even if it means a few lost minutes on the phone.
Overall
Northwest Registered Agent earned my top ranking by mastering the essential responsibilities of a resident agent and by assembling the best customer service team in the industry. Despite their stellar reputation and outstanding service, they still only charge one of the lowest rates of any reputable registered agent in Kansas.
If you want a registered agent that frees you from worrying about regulations and filing deadlines and allows you to focus on the enjoyable aspects of running your business, go to Northwest Registered Agent.
2. Harbor Compliance — 7.92/10 (Best Budget Registered Agent)
Harbor Compliance is a reliable option if you are on an extremely tight budget and can do without outstanding customer service.
Pros
Harbor Compliance fulfills all the legal requirements to serve as your Kansas registered agent and they do so at the best price ($99 per year) of any reputable registered agent I surveyed. They provide you with a registered address in Kansas that accepts legal documents and mailings from the Kansas Secretary of State on your behalf during regular business hours.
Upon receipt of mail or service of process, Harbor Compliance will scan and upload it to your online account, physically forward it to you, and even give you a phone call if something is of particular urgency.
Harbor Compliance also issues compliance alerts to notify you of impending deadlines for an annual report or other document and, in general, makes a good faith effort to keep your business in compliance with the Kansas Secretary of State.
Cons
Harbor Compliance will do just enough to fulfill their obligations as your registered agent. Their customer service is sufficient but not necessarily efficient.
If Harbor Compliance invested a little more in their online system and customer service, they could give Northwest Registered Agent a run for their money, but Harbor Compliance seems content to offer a minimum level of service at a very low price.
Overall
Harbor Compliance won’t impress you, but they won’t neglect you either. They are one of the few registered agent services that seem accurately priced. With Harbor Compliance, you get what you pay for, but little more.
If your business operates on a shoestring budget and you can’t afford the extra $26 per year for Northwest Registered Agent, go to Harbor Compliance here.
3. LegalZoom — 6.59/10 (Best Premium Service)
LegalZoom is a world-renowned online legal services company that offers Kansas registered agent services for a premium price.
Pros
Everyone is familiar with LegalZoom. They’ve been around for more than 20 years because they have a great reputation for being trustworthy and reliable. When you’re deciding which registered agent you should entrust your company to, sometimes a familiar name can inspire a lot of confidence.
Another advantage of LegalZoom is the sheer breadth of their legal product offerings. They can help with copyright law, personal law such as last wills and testaments, LLC formation, service of process (during normal business hours), and just about anything in between. If you hire LegalZoom, you can access all of that, in addition to your registered agent service, with just one account.
LegalZoom also offers an unusual benefit along with their registered agent service. They will underwrite a $1 million identity theft insurance on your behalf if you sign up with their service. That is a valuable free add-on at a time when cybercriminals are becoming more and more sophisticated.
Cons
LegalZoom uses their name recognition to their advantage by charging a hefty annual price ($299). Among the companies I examined, they are the most expensive registered agent in Kansas.
One of the reasons you could justify paying so much for LegalZoom is the identity theft insurance, but you can purchase a similar policy elsewhere for fairly cheap. Buying a policy from an insurance agent and using a different registered agent service would give you the same bundle of goods for quite a bit cheaper.
There’s also a bit of a jack-of-all-trades aspect to LegalZoom’s business. With such a wide range of offerings, their registered agent service can get a little lost in the shuffle and their customer service is not as personalized as it is elsewhere.
Overall
LegalZoom is a good choice if you’re not at all concerned with your budget and appreciate the fact that your registered agent service can also help you with your last will and testament.
Check out LegalZoom here.
4. ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness has only recently opened up their registered agent service to anyone as it was previously offered only to customers who used them to form an LLC or other business entity. LLC formation is ZenBusiness’ bread and butter, but their registered agent service doesn’t seem to be completely conceptualized as of yet.
They charge $199 for a basic service that includes a registered office address, worry free compliance alerts, an official address that can receive official documents on your behalf, an online document storage portal, an Employer Identification Number that the IRS uses to track your tax status, and mandatory annual report filing.
This is an unfortunate miss, as Harbor Compliance at $99 offers a better, more comprehensive basic service and Northwest Registered Agent offers a cheaper, better premium service.
If you'd like to learn more about ZenBusiness and their services, read my full ZenBusiness review.
5. IncFile
IncFile provides a basic service with all the essentials such as a Kansas street address that will accept service of process and file your annual report, other legal documents or correspondence from the Kansas Secretary of State on your behalf during normal business hours. They don’t offer compliance alerts, and at $119 per year, they are only a few dollars cheaper than Northwest Registered Agent.
6. Rocket Lawyer
Rocket Lawyer was conceived as direct competition to LegalZoom and they offer many of the same advantages and disadvantages as their more famous predecessor. They charge substantially less than LegalZoom, but at a cost of $149 per year, they still charge more and offer less than the better Kansas registered agent services above them on this list.
Read my full Rocket Lawyer review and learn more about the online legal services they offer.
7. SunDoc Filings
It is hard to justify hiring SunDoc when they charge $159 for a very basic level of service. They offer a registered office and can keep you in good standing with the Kansas Secretary of State and accept service of process on your behalf, but they don’t offer any higher-end features such as compliance alerts, which you can easily afford with another registered agent for less than $159.
8. InCorp
InCorp is one key element away from competing with Harbor Compliance for the best budget service. They offer everything you’d need from a registered agent, including a street address in Kansas, and they also receive service of process on your behalf, but the one mark against them is their poorly designed website.
If you don’t mind spending a little extra time squinting in vain at your computer screen while you try to complete a simple task in your online account, InCorp might be for you. Otherwise, Harbor Compliance offers a much more user-friendly, accessible system for the same price.
9. Swyft Filings
Swyft Filings is another Kansas registered agent that offers budget service at a less-than-budget price ($149). They are easily bested by other Kansas registered agent services both in terms of price and quality.
To learn more about Swyft Filings' services, please read my full Swyft Filings review.
10. CSC Global
CSC Global would like you to consider them a premium Kansas registered agent, but they skipped over the part where they offer premium services and instead decided to simply charge premium prices. They don’t go much beyond the basics, offer compliance alerts or have great customer service, but they charge $299 per year.
CSC Global features one relatively uncommon offer—if you switch to their service, they will pay the fees required to charge your Kansas registered agent. This makes them seem like a good option should you require a new registered agent, but with their sky-high annual fees, you’ll be giving those savings back and then some.
11. Registered Agents Inc.
Registered Agents Inc may have built their business on the assumption that consumers don’t realize there are registered agents other than Registered Agents Inc. Many of the lower-case registered agents offer far better services at a much better price than upper-case Registered Agents, which charges $200 for bare-bone service.
12. Jumpstart Filings
Jumpstart Filings offers registered agent service for $129 a year, or $4 more than Northwest Registered Agent. Jumpstart will provide a Kansas registered office, but not much more.
They’re not worth considering when you could hire the best registered agent in Kansas and buy four items at the dollar store for the same price as a year with Jumpstart.
Registered Agent Review Summary
I started with over 60 Kansas resident agents and narrowed that down to my top 12. I read marketing materials and spoke to customers, sales reps, and customer service teams in order to rate each of my top agents in five categories. In the end, it was clear that Northwest Registered Agent was the best registered agent in Kansas.
They responsibly safeguard your business and your personal assets and their customer service team is so experienced they can answer the questions you haven’t even thought to ask. They are as much small business advisors as they are resident agents.
If you would only trust your business to the best registered agent in Kansas, go to Northwest Registered Agent.
Best Registered Agent Review Methodology
This is how I arrived at the best registered agent.
Why You Should Trust Me
There are probably not many people out there who have spent as much time as I have researching Kansas registered agents. I’ve always been an extremely thorough person, which I believe is one of the reasons why I have had success with my businesses.
After I realized how critical a Kansas registered agent would be to my company, I applied the same focus to my registered agent search as I had to with everything else. After working so hard to start a business from scratch, I wasn’t going to entrust it to just anyone.
I started with just the most basic idea of what a registered agent actually does, so I did some broad internet research at first before going directly to the websites of various Kansas registered agents. I looked through their marketing materials to get a feel for what each agent offered and how they tried to promote their businesses.
More often than not, I was left with more questions than answers, so I spent hours on the phone (much of that time on hold with some of the lesser resident agents) talking to customer service and sales departments until I really got a sense of what each company was all about.
I also spent a lot of time talking to other Kansas business owners, and that is when my research really started to take shape. I found out many of them were just as uninformed about resident agents as I had been, so I came up with my rating system and started to share my research.
Eventually, I decided to publish my findings on this site, which has already helped thousands find their Kansas registered agent. I hope that I can help you too.
How I Selected the Best Registered Agent
I used four stages to determine the best Kansas registered agent.
Stage 1: Reviews
There are a surprising number of resident agents operating in Kansas, so in order to narrow the field, I began by diving deep into the murky waters of online reviews. I went to the Better Business Bureau, Facebook, TrustPilot, and Google Business, among others.
I began reading a lot of complaints about one particular practice that is employed by many Kansas resident agents. You can find a lot of agents that offer an exceptionally low price, usually between $39–59. At first glance, that seems like a great deal. They offer a registered office and all the basics.
The fine print reveals the trick, however. In most cases, this advertised rate just covered an initial sign-up fee and your total annual costs were significantly higher.
This struck me as inherently dishonest, and because trust is so important when selecting a Kansas registered agent, I immediately disqualified any resident agents that used this bait-and-switch pricing policy.
Stage 2: Website Analysis
After eliminating those that were less than honest with their pricing, I was left with a list of only twelve companies offering Kansas registered agent service.
I went through the website of each company, fine print and all, and determined exactly what they were offering with their service.
Some services, like a registered office, were offered by all of them, but others, like identity theft insurance, were offered by only one. When necessary, I called the resident agents to clarify their offerings, and I came up with a list of exactly which resident agents offered what services.
Stage 3: Speaking with Real Customers
My contacts within the Kansas business community were very helpful once I started asking around about resident agents. They shared their experiences with me and I was able to ask very specific questions. This was quite a bit more informative than relying simply on online reviews.
Once I launched this website, I was able to get even more feedback from readers who wanted to share their experience with their Kansas registered agent.
Stage 4: Speaking with Their Sales Teams
For the last stage, I went back to the companies themselves. Now that I was armed with a ton of information about each of them, I could bring up very specific complaints and see how they would respond. This taught me a lot.
The better Kansas resident agents were open to feedback, anxious to correct any mistakes, and eager to improve their service. Other resident agents dismissed my questions and didn’t seem at all interested in what their customers were saying. It was a good glimpse into the company’s culture.
Rating Factors
I used five factors to find the best Kansas registered agent for your Kansas LLC.
Factor 1: Offerings
I was surprised how many different offerings you can get as part of your Kansas registered agent service.
Every Kansas registered agent service on my top 12 list offered the basic LLC formation services, starting with a registered office that accepts service of process or other documents on behalf of your company during regular business hours. Some offered a cheap LLC service too. They also all protect your personal details and keep you in compliance with the Kansas Secretary of State.
Some offer compliance alerts so you don’t overlook a due date for an annual report or other required filings. Others offer to cover the fees if you switch your current Kansas registered agent to them.
In total, I found 24 different services offered by the 12 remaining Kansas resident agents.
I kept track of who offered what on a spreadsheet and rated the registered agent services based on who offered the widest range of services.
Factor 2: Value
Since many of us are operating on shoestring budgets when we first get our companies off the ground, making sure we get the most for our money is extremely important.
Pricing can get a little confusing in the registered agent universe, which makes it difficult to determine the value of your service. For example, some registered agent services charge one rate for a very basic service, but the price swells when you add compliance alerts or other benefits. In that way, “budget” resident agents can actually cost far more than other agents, who include everything in their base price.
To assess value, therefore, I compared prices for a similar bundle of services from each agent. That way, my ratings penalized companies that tacked on extra fees for services that other agents offered for free.
Factor 3: Ease of Sign-up
Signing up for your Kansas registered agent should be a very simple process, but, frustratingly enough, some companies make it way harder than it should be.
As a business owner, your time is far too valuable to waste on such a simple task, and a resident agent that can’t streamline the sign-up process probably doesn’t value your time as much as they should.
I signed up for all 12 resident agents to test their systems and rated them according to how simple and quick the process was.
Factor 4: Ease of Use
Unsurprisingly, many of the resident agents who had awkward sign-ups also had troubles with their online systems as a whole. I tested each registered agent’s online portal by attempting simple tasks such as accessing documents and changing personal details.
If I got bogged down on something simple, or if the website seemed counterintuitive or clunky in general, I docked the resident agent’s rating.
Factor 5: Customer Service
In a lot of ways a good registered agent is like an umpire in baseball—the less you have to think of them, the better they are at doing their job. But if your cleanup hitter gets intentionally plunked, you better hope you have an umpire who knows what he’s doing.
The same is true of your Kansas registered agent. You might not think of them very often, but when something goes wrong and a regulatory change catches you off guard, or you get an unexpected service of process, you need a registered agent who can offer expert guidance.
I called each registered agent service on this list and tested them by asking fairly simple questions. I then rated them based on the accuracy of their answers, how timely they were in their responses and how courteous they were.
The Best Kansas Registered Agent Results Summary
After evaluating more than 60 registered agent services operating in Kansas, I narrowed it down to 12 and selected these as my top three.
Best Overall Registered Agent — Northwest Registered Agent (9.13/10)
Northwest Registered Agent offers the best Kansas resident agent service by a wide margin.
They can be trusted to handle your most sensitive documents including service of process, keep your personal details off the public record, protect your personal assets, and help you maintain compliance with the Kansas Secretary of State.
They offer a wide array of services, such as compliance alerts and a personalized filing calendar, and do so for one of the lowest prices ($125) in my top 12, making them the best value for your Kansas business.
Perhaps the most valuable part of their service is their customer service team. Northwest Registered Agent has invested in customer service reps who are incredibly knowledgeable and experienced. They are former accountants lawyers and entrepreneurs who can guide your business in Kansas through whatever challenges you might face.
It's worth mentioning that there are over 3,000 positive Northwest Registered Agent reviews online, so I'm not the only one with a positive experience with them
If your business deserves the best Kansas registered agent service, head to Northwest Registered Agent.
Best Budget Registered Agent — Harbor Compliance (7.92/10)
Harbor Compliance is a solid second choice if your budget is extremely tight and you can do without great customer service.
For $26 per year less than Northwest Registered Agent, you won’t get the best in the business, but you will get a registered office in Kansas that’s open during normal business hours to accept legal documents and service of process on behalf of your company. Harbor Compliance also offers compliance alerts and adequate customer support.
They are a trustworthy, reliable Kansas registered agent service that won’t go the extra mile, but won’t let you down either.
Don't just take it from me. There are also hundreds of positive Harbor Compliance reviews online from other happy customers.
If you prioritize your budget over all else, head to Harbor Compliance.
Best Premium Registered Agent — Legal Zoom (6.59/10)
LegalZoom is expensive ($299), but their name recognition and ability to help you with other legal issues, both personal and professional, make them an intriguing option for business owners with an unlimited budget.
They’re a one-stop legal shop that can help you form your Kansas LLC or other business entity and will stay on to serve as your Kansas registered agent. They’ll issue a street address for your business in Kansas, accept and forward your mail, notify you of upcoming filing deadlines, and accept service of process as your registered agent service.
On top of that, they offer a $1 million insurance policy to protect you in the event of identity theft.
LegalZoom charges more than double the price of Northwest Registered Agent and offers a fraction of the personal service, but if you really value a big name and an identity theft insurance policy, they are your best option.
Check out LegalZoom here.
In Conclusion
The decision on what Kansas registered agent service to employ is one you want to get right. They will be handling your most important documents, receiving communications from the Kansas Secretary of State, and guarding your personal assets.
It’s also a decision you want to get right the first time because if you need to change your Kansas registered agent down the road, you may have to pay a significant fee to make the switch.
When I had to make the decision about which agent to choose I did a lot of research, which I’m sharing now in the hope that it will save you some time as you make your own choice. I started with 60 Kansas resident agents, narrowed it down to 12 and ranked them according to five factors.
In the end, Northwest Registered Agent came out on top. They’re simply the best in almost every category.
They offer all the essential services required of a resident agent and then some:
- A Kansas street address to accept service of process, legal documents, and communications from the Kansas Secretary of State
- Prompt mail forwarding
- Document scanning and uploading so you can view your mail via their online portal
- Help with filing paperwork to establish your Kansas LLC or other business entity
- Compliance alerts so you don’t miss key deadlines
On top of that, they have the most experienced customer service team in the industry. They can guide you through whatever challenges your company might face.
Despite all the perks, Northwest Registered Agent still charges a very competitive rate ($125 per year), making them the best value on my list.
If you could only trust your business to the best resident agent in Kansas, go to Northwest Registered Agent today. To switch your resident agent in Kansas, you must complete the state's Change of Registered Agent or Registered Office Amendment and submit it to the Kansas Secretary of State by mail or online.
