Stripe Atlas charges $500 for a Delaware C-Corp only, with Cooley-drafted templates, automatic 83(b) filing, and one year of registered agent service. Clerky's lifetime package runs $819, adding a broader document library and a Carta-synced cap table. Neither platform puts an attorney on the documents, and roughly 40% of incorporations raise questions a template cannot answer.
A flat-fee attorney sits between automated tools and BigLaw hourly rates: one price, real review. Zecca Ross builds flat-fee packages for founders incorporating in Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming who need customization and the ability to ask questions.
A complete flat-fee package covers the full document stack that turns a filed corporation into a fundable company, not just the act of incorporating. Many founders assume the work ends when the state accepts the Certificate of Incorporation. That filing is the first item on a list of a dozen, and skipping the rest leaves the company with a defective cap table and unassigned intellectual property, regardless of which state the entity is formed in.
The canonical document set starts with formation papers and extends through equity and IP. Expect the Certificate of Incorporation, bylaws, the action by sole incorporator, and the initial board consent that appoints officers and authorizes stock. On the equity side, each founder signs a Common Stock Purchase Agreement with vesting terms, and the company issues stock certificates against a documented payment of cash, IP, or services. Goodwin Procter's Founder's Workbench and Orrick's Start-Up Tool Kit both generate versions of this set, a useful benchmark for the standard document list any package should match.
Two items inside that stack carry real consequences if handled wrong. The IP assignment agreement transfers everything a founder built before incorporation into the company, and without it the company's most valuable asset sits with an individual rather than the entity investors are funding. The 83(b) election sets the founder's tax basis at the grant price, and the IRS allows exactly 30 days from share purchase to file it. Miss that window and the founder owes ordinary income tax as the stock vests, a mistake worth six figures in a successful exit.
A package should also build the cap table from the stock ledger, tracking shares, options, and warrants in the format investors request during diligence. A clean cap table at formation avoids reconstructing ownership history under deadline pressure later.
One compliance item most automated platforms skip is the Beneficial Ownership Information report. Since January 1, 2024, the Corporate Transparency Act requires many new entities to file BOI with FinCEN, and companies formed from 2025 onward have 30 days to do so. This applies regardless of formation state, so a Nevada LLC or a Wyoming corporation carries the same federal filing obligation as a Delaware C-Corp. Civil and criminal penalties apply for non-compliance, and any founder holding 25 percent or more, or exercising substantial control, is a reportable owner. A flat-fee attorney folds that filing into the package. A template generator hands over the documents and leaves the deadline to the founder.
A flat-fee attorney quotes one price for a defined scope of work, and that price holds whether the engagement takes three hours or eight. The scope gets agreed before any work starts, so the certificate of incorporation, the founder stock agreements, the 83(b) guidance, and the cap table setup all sit inside a number known at signing. A question that comes up halfway through gets asked without watching a meter.
Hourly billing reverses that arrangement. The attorney bills for time, so every email, every revised stock agreement, and every clarifying call adds to the invoice. Founders learn to ration their questions, the opposite of what early-stage legal work should encourage. A founder who hesitates to ask whether double-trigger acceleration fits their cap table ends up with a document that doesn't match their deal, and the final number often lands far above the initial estimate.
That open-ended structure is why BigLaw incorporation work can run into the thousands before a company has revenue. Traditional firms staff startup formations alongside billion-dollar financings, and their hourly rates reflect that book of business. A founder paying $600 an hour for a partner to review a standard stock purchase agreement is subsidizing a billing model built for clients who aren't pre-seed.
Flat-fee attorney packages sit in the middle tier between the two extremes. Below them are the automated platforms, where Stripe Atlas charges $500 and Clerky charges $819 for software-generated templates with no lawyer in the loop. Above them is hourly BigLaw, where the same documents come with a licensed attorney and an unpredictable bill. A flat-fee package delivers attorney review and room to ask questions, at a price that can be planned around. For founders weighing startup legal costs against a tight runway, whether incorporating in Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming, that predictability is the advantage hourly billing cannot offer.
Stripe Atlas charges a $500 one-time flat fee for a single product: a Delaware C-Corp, with no LLC option and no Nevada or Wyoming path. That price buys incorporation in one to two business days, EIN registration, founder stock issuance, automatic 83(b) filing for all founders, and the first year of registered agent service. Atlas built its document templates with Cooley LLP, so the paperwork follows standard venture-backed conventions. After filing, though, Atlas provides no ongoing legal support, and founders who later need SAFEs, hiring paperwork, or equity grants have to source those documents elsewhere.
Clerky sits one tier up at $819 for its lifetime package, and the extra cost buys a far broader document library. The lifetime fee covers Delaware C-Corp incorporation, founder stock with vesting, bylaws, IP assignment, board consents, pre-filled 83(b) elections with reminders, and unlimited access to SAFEs, convertible notes, offer letters, and maintenance filings. Clerky also runs a cap table tool that syncs with Carta, which matters once a company starts tracking options and warrants. Like Atlas, Clerky is built around Delaware, so founders who want a Nevada or Wyoming entity are outside its core product. Founders who only need formation can pay per use instead, with formation priced around $427 and individual documents between $25 and $99 each.
Neither platform puts an attorney between the founder and the filing. Both Atlas and Clerky generate documents from software templates, and no attorney reviews the specific situation before anything gets filed. Neither lets a founder ask a question or request a change inside the platform. For a clean two-founder Delaware C-Corp with standard four-year vesting, that limitation rarely bites. For anything else, including a Nevada or Wyoming formation, the founder ends up paying an outside lawyer to fix what the template produced or to handle the filing directly.
A flat-fee attorney occupies the space between these platforms and traditional hourly firms. The price runs higher than Clerky or Atlas, but the work is attorney-led and built around the actual cap table and the actual state of formation, rather than a generic Delaware-only template. Founders can ask questions, request changes, and handle the situations software cannot touch. Roughly 40% of incorporations involve questions that go beyond what a template can answer, and double-trigger acceleration, super voting shares, and non-standard vesting all fall in that group, on top of any founder simply choosing Nevada or Wyoming for reasons a Delaware-only platform can't accommodate.
The right way to compare the three is on attorney involvement, customization, and post-incorporation support, not sticker price alone. Atlas wins on speed and lowest cost for the simplest Delaware case. Clerky wins on document breadth for Delaware founders comfortable working without legal review. A flat-fee attorney wins whenever the equity structure is non-standard, whenever two or more founders need their interests sorted out, or whenever the founder wants Nevada or Wyoming instead of Delaware. The savings at checkout disappear fast once a template gap, or a state a platform doesn't support, sends a founder to a lawyer to clean up after the fact.
Stripe Atlas is the cheapest route to a clean Delaware C-Corp when the cap table is simple and the terms are standard. Clerky gives founders a deep self-serve document library at a fixed lifetime price, which fits those comfortable drafting without a lawyer, provided Delaware is the target state. A flat-fee attorney is the right call when the equity structure breaks the template, or when the founder wants a Nevada or Wyoming entity that neither platform is built to handle.
The $500 or $819 sticker price hides the real cost of automated incorporation, which surfaces months later when the situation stops matching the template. Neither Stripe Atlas nor Clerky allows customization for double-trigger acceleration, super voting shares, or a non-standard vesting schedule, and neither offers a path to Nevada or Wyoming at all. Founders with any of those needs take the generated documents to an outside attorney and pay hourly to rewrite them, or start over in the right state. The flat-fee package skipped at incorporation reappears as a more expensive cleanup.
About 40% of incorporations involve questions that go beyond what a template can answer. Neither platform allows a question or a change request inside the product, so founders either guess or hire help. A startup lawyer in an r/startups thread put it plainly, recommending Clerky for simple setups but suggesting founders with any worry "hire a lawyer to look over your shoulder as you complete Clerky/Atlas." Once that supervision gets added, the flat-fee attorney who would have handled the whole thing, in whichever state the founder actually wants, starts to look cheaper.
The 83(b) election carries the sharpest hidden risk, and it applies the same way in Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming since it's a federal tax filing, not a state one. Both platforms support the filing for their Delaware entities, but neither can enforce that a founder completes it. The deadline runs 30 days from stock issuance with no extensions, and missing it triggers income tax on each vesting tranche at full value as the stock appreciates. A blown 83(b) on a founder grant can cost far more than every dollar saved on incorporation software. An attorney who files it and confirms receipt removes that risk entirely.
Stripe Atlas ends support after the filing clears. Once the Delaware C-Corp exists, Atlas provides no ongoing legal document support, so the SAFEs, offer letters, and equity grants needed the following month come from somewhere else. Clerky's lifetime package covers more of that library, but its premium templates, including dual-class stock, cost extra beyond the $819 already paid.
The recurring fees are smaller but real. Atlas charges $100 per year for registered agent service after the first year, and Clerky charges $125. Every entity, Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming, needs a registered agent indefinitely, so this fee never goes away regardless of platform. Atlas also lists post-fundraising SAFE updates at $250, and porting an existing Delaware C-Corp into Clerky runs $199. None of these break a budget on their own, but stacked against the cost of fixing a document the platform never customized, or restarting in a different state, they explain why a flat-fee attorney often wins on total cost rather than entry price.
The right tool depends on how standard the situation is and which state fits the company best. Four scenarios cover most founders deciding between an automated platform and an attorney.
Best for the simplest Delaware C-Corp: Stripe Atlas. A vanilla Delaware C-Corp with no custom vesting, standard founder equity, and no need to ask questions is exactly what Atlas is built for. It costs $500, bundles a year of registered agent service plus product credits, and the Cooley-drafted templates assume a textbook setup.
Best for document-heavy early stage on a tight budget: Clerky. Founders planning to raise on SAFEs, issue equity grants, and generate hiring paperwork over the next year get more from Clerky's $819 lifetime package than from a formation-only tool, as long as Delaware is the intended state. The unlimited document library and Carta-syncing cap table earn their cost once a company produces more than a handful of documents.
Best for non-standard equity or a Nevada or Wyoming entity: a flat-fee attorney. Roughly 40% of incorporations raise questions a template cannot answer, and dual founders, double-trigger acceleration, or super voting shares fall squarely in that group. Founders who have decided Nevada or Wyoming fits their situation better than Delaware, whether for cost, privacy, or franchise tax reasons, also need an attorney, since neither Atlas nor Clerky offers those states. A flat-fee attorney reviews the specific documents and answers questions before anything gets filed, in whichever state the founder chooses.
Best for an existing entity needing a health check: post-incorporation review. A company already incorporated through Atlas, Clerky, or a DIY filing benefits from a flat-fee review that catches the gaps. An attorney confirms 83(b) elections were filed on time, the cap table matches the stock ledger, and the Beneficial Ownership Information filing with FinCEN is current. Founders who skip this often discover missing IP assignments or unfiled compliance documents during their first diligence request.
Zecca Ross builds flat-fee packages for founders incorporating in Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming who want an attorney's judgment on their documents, not a template signed blind. Every package includes attorney review and the ability to ask questions before anything gets filed, a step Clerky and Stripe Atlas leave out entirely, and every package works across all three states rather than defaulting to one.
Incorporation Package. Covers formation start to finish in Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming, built for founders raising venture capital or planning to, as well as founders who have already picked a different state for tax or governance reasons. It includes the Certificate of Incorporation, bylaws, board and incorporator consents, founder stock purchase agreements with vesting, IP assignment, the 83(b) election prepared and filed within the 30-day window, and the EIN. An attorney reviews the equity split and vesting terms before filing, and Beneficial Ownership Information filing under the Corporate Transparency Act is handled as part of the package.
Post-Incorporation Review. Built for founders who already formed an entity through Clerky, Stripe Atlas, or a registered agent service and want an attorney to check the work, regardless of which state the entity sits in. An attorney audits stock issuances, 83(b) filings, IP assignments, and the cap table for the gaps that surface during a financing round. This review fits the roughly 40 percent of incorporations that involve a question a template could not answer.
Cap Table Setup. Builds a clean, accurate ownership ledger from stock issuances, options, and any warrants. Investors request the cap table during fundraising, and a messy one slows a deal or damages founder credibility. An attorney structures it to reflect actual issuances and support a pro forma view of how a planned financing changes ownership.
Startup Contracts Package. Covers the agreements signed with people outside the founding team: employee and contractor offer letters with enforceable IP assignment language, NDAs, advisor agreements, and SAFEs or convertible notes once fundraising starts. Each contract is drafted or reviewed for the specific situation and the specific state, rather than pulled from a generic library.
Every package lists a clear price range before commitment, the same way Stripe Atlas or Clerky post a price up front. The difference is an attorney who stands behind the work, answers questions along the way, and handles Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming with the same level of attention. Contact Zecca Ross to see current package pricing and what fits a given stage and state.
Is Clerky or Stripe Atlas good enough? Clerky and Stripe Atlas work well for a standard Delaware C-Corp with no unusual equity terms. Neither runs the documents past an attorney, and neither offers a Nevada or Wyoming option. A flat-fee attorney at Zecca Ross provides the same incorporation plus review and the ability to ask questions, in whichever state actually fits the company.
What does an 83(b) election cost to file? The 83(b) election itself costs nothing to file with the IRS beyond postage, since the form is free, and this holds regardless of formation state. The expense comes from preparing it correctly and meeting the deadline. Zecca Ross includes 83(b) preparation in its incorporation package so the filing is done right and confirmed, rather than left to a platform reminder that might get missed.
Can a founder use Clerky and then hire a lawyer? Yes. Founders can use Clerky for formation and bring in an attorney afterward, and many do exactly that for complex setups. Zecca Ross offers a post-incorporation review for founders who started on a platform and want their documents checked.
Why would a founder choose Nevada or Wyoming over Delaware? Nevada and Wyoming appeal to founders for reasons including lower filing and franchise tax costs, stronger privacy around ownership disclosure, and simpler ongoing compliance for companies that don't plan to raise institutional venture capital right away. Delaware remains the default for companies planning a priced venture round, since most investors and their counsel expect it. Zecca Ross advises founders on which state actually fits their funding plans rather than defaulting to one.
What happens if the 83(b) deadline is missed? Missing the 30-day deadline triggers income tax on each vesting tranche at its full value, and the IRS grants no extensions. This applies the same way no matter which state the company is formed in. Zecca Ross tracks the filing as part of incorporation so the election lands inside the window.
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