A Free Year, and a Price Nobody Prints

Plain statement of interest. MD Registered Agent.org competes with Inc Authority, charges $99 a year, and wants the business. The rest of this page rests entirely on the difference between a figure that is published and one that is not, so nothing below has been estimated or filled in on Inc Authority's behalf.

The Free Year Is Genuine

Inc Authority hands a new client twelve months of registered agent coverage without charge when it comes attached to a formation package. We went looking for the qualifications these offers usually carry, a setup charge, a shortened effective term, something clawed back on cancellation, and found none of them stated. For a Maryland founder absorbing a $100 formation fee and staring down a $300 report the following April, watching a required cost drop to zero in year one is worth something real.

Year Two Is Not Priced Anywhere Public

What Inc Authority does not publish is what the service costs once the free period ends. A July 2026 pass across the home page, the package pages, and the frequently asked questions produced no renewal figure at all. In this industry that pattern usually means the number surfaces at the order form or on a phone call.

Substituting a figure of our own would undo the argument, so none appears here. The structural observation stands on its own anyway. Registered agent service is a permanent expense, the renewal rate is therefore the number that actually describes it, and withholding that number until purchase removes the one comparison a buyer would want while still choosing.

Maryland Publishes Its Numbers

The contrast with the state itself is instructive. Maryland's annual report obligation runs through Md. Code, Corporations and Associations section 1-203. The fee is a flat $300. The deadline is April 15, the window opens January 1, and Maryland will grant an extra 60 days to June 15 at no cost if you ask online. Even the penalties are spelled out in advance: a late report draws a county property tax penalty computed from your assessment plus interest, and a report never filed costs the entity its Maryland charter.

You are free to dislike every one of those numbers. What you cannot say is that you were unable to find them. An agent service is being hired partly to keep that machinery visible to you, and a vendor that will not show its own second-year price is an odd fit for the assignment.

Two Numbers, Both Readable Today

$99 to start, $99 at each renewal, both stated on our pricing page before an order exists. Around them: same-day scanning of service of process at our Maryland office, email notification with it, one item at checkout with nothing to decline, our address on the public resident agent line, and a reminder ahead of every April 15. The single optional charge is $15 per item for general business mail, printed here rather than sprung on you later.

Our limit, stated rather than buried. BetterLegal publishes $90 a year, which is under us. The version that survives scrutiny is that $99 falls at the cheap end of published Maryland rates and that both of its years are legible right now.

Ten Years, Two Columns

Run the comparison across the life of the entity instead of its first twelve months. Our column totals $990 over a decade. The other column totals nothing, plus an unpublished number multiplied by nine. That is not rhetoric. It is an accurate description of what a buyer can know at the moment of deciding.

How to Take Inc Authority Off the SDAT Record

Maryland's exit is cheap and short. The Resolution to Change Principal Office or Resident Agent goes to SDAT's Charter Division with a $25 fee, and the agency assigns no number to the form, so its full name is how you request it.

Because the resolution must name the incoming agent, put the replacement in place first and leave the existing appointment undisturbed until your entity listing shows the new name. That overlap is what keeps the seat filled the entire time, rather than for most of it. Nothing prevents filing during the free year, and there is nothing to recover from a service you were never paying for. Our change of agent page covers the steps and the online route.

Order Here