If you’re starting a business, understanding the true cost of incorporating in Alberta is crucial for protecting your company and maximizing potential benefits. With so many options for incorporation services available today, how do you know which one to choose?

This article breaks down the real costs and key differences between the major options for incorporating in Alberta: do-it-yourself services, traditional law firms, and our alternative approach at allincorporated.ca.

Learn how to navigate the incorporation options and choose what’s best for both your business and your budget.

Pricing Comparison: DIY vs. Law Firm vs. allincorporated.ca

First, let’s look at a pricing comparison of the three main options for incorporating in Alberta:

Service	Advertised Price	Actual Price Range	Key Things to Know
DIY Sites	$50-$150	$500-$1000	No legal advice, many important services not included
Law Firms	n/a	$1200-$3000	Full legal services and support, high-cost
allincorporated.ca	Starts at $575 + government fee	$900-$1,500	Lower cost legal services, extras included

DIY Sites

Do-it-yourself sites often lure you in with low advertised pricing, but tack on many additional fees throughout the process.

In many cases, you’ll have your corporation registered, but you’ll find out a few years down the road that there is a lot more required to set up a business correctly. When that time comes, you’ll need to hire a lawyer to try to fix all of the work that was missing or incomplete. This can be expensive and create legal headaches.

How do we know? We get asked to fix DIY incorporations all the time! It’s what drove us to create this website to begin with.

Traditional Law Firms

As lawyers who used to work for traditional law firms, we understand the value of working with a lawyer.

Traditional law firms provide complete legal services, advice, and support, but at a higher overall cost. If you can afford the higher cost of incorporating in Alberta, and don’t mind taking a bit longer to have your corporation registered, using a law firm is a great choice. Just keep in mind that their processes may be outdated, and you will likely be stuck with in-person meetings and paper-based records (as opposed to doing things digitally).

allincorporated.ca

Our services at allincorporated.ca aim to provide the best of both worlds – experienced legal guidance and lawyer-completed online incorporation, at a lower cost than traditional law firms. Your corporation is registered and set up by an Alberta lawyer, without the cost or hassle of working with a traditional law firm. You’ll also get a year of corporate legal support services for free, worth up to $996 in value.

Avoid the Hidden Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Incorporation

Do-it-yourself incorporation services provide a fast and low-cost way to register your business. However, many important legal services are excluded, which can lead to headaches for your company down the road.

A major risk of DIY incorporation is the lack of legal advice and review of your corporate structure. DIY websites almost always include a disclaimer, stating that they are not law firm and cannot provide legal advice. They also recommend speaking to a lawyer before using their services. This is meant to provide them with protection in the event that something goes wrong. But how many people visiting their site actually get legal advice before using their services? Our guess, based on the frequent problems we see from DIY incorporation services, is that it’s a very small number.

Without legal advice or involvement in the process, problems like improperly issued shares, missing corporate documents, and incomplete minute books are common. Unfortunately, you may not find out about these problems until later.

The longer it takes to identify the issues, the more difficult and expensive it is to fix. We’ve even had clients have to start a new corporation altogether due to problems caused at the time of incorporation.

The cost of incorporating in Alberta with a DIY website is lower, but in our view, the small amount of money saved on incorporation isn’t worth the risk of legal problems. For a few extra bucks, it’s worth getting advice from an incorporation lawyer at the start.

Benefits of Incorporating With a Traditional Law Firm

Incorporating through an experienced business law firm provides complete, customized legal services when starting your company.

While pricier than DIY options, the benefits include:

• Personalized legal advice
• Legally privileged communications
• Assistance with corporate structure, share classes, and issuance
• Preparation of a comprehensive corporate minute book
• Ongoing support and legal review
• Ability to act as your registered office, records address and Agent for Service for an additional fee

This ensures your business is properly structured and protected from the get-go. Think of their higher incorporation fees as an investment in your company’s legal foundation.

For business owners who want the highest level of legal protection, and are okay with taking a bit longer and requiring more effort, a traditional law firm may be the right choice, despite the higher cost.

Why allincorporated.ca Offers the Best Incorporation Value

At allincorporated.ca, our incorporation packages are designed to provide a middle ground between the two extremes of DIY and traditional law firms.

Our experienced business lawyers provide customized legal advice and support at competitive rates. The key advantages include:

• Lawyer completed incorporation
• Comprehensive minute book & documents with on-demand access
• Flexible share structure
• Digitally signed documents for your convenience
• Ongoing support & advice from our lawyers at a lower cost than traditional law firms
• Packages start at $575 + the actual government registration fee (no hidden fees!)

We believe this combination of included features and lawyer-backed services provides the best overall value for incorporating in Alberta.

Additional Benefits of Incorporating with allincorporated.ca

When you incorporate with us, you get affordable access to legal expertise plus the convenience of a quick online process.

Most importantly, your corporation will be legally supported for the first critical year of operations. That’s because all of our incorporation packages include 1 year of annual maintenance and support from our legal team at no extra cost. This includes:

• Maintaining your digital minute book
• Free access to our online corporate records portal
• Preparing legally required annual resolutions
• Registered and records office services*
• Acting as your Alberta Agent for Service*
• Discounted rates for additional legal work*

* included with our Standard and Pro incorporation packages

After the first year, you can renew these support services, starting from just $240/year, which includes the government fee for filing your corporate annual return.

This means your business isn’t just registered and left on its own. For the first 12 months, our lawyers will make sure your corporation stays compliant and up-to-date.

Rather than focusing on being the cheapest option, we aim to provide real value and to set up your business correctly from the beginning.

Incorporate With Confidence

When starting a business, don’t cut corners on the foundation. Invest in legal advice and services upfront, so you can focus on building your company rather than fixing preventable issues.

By choosing allincorporated.ca, you can keep the cost of incorporating in Alberta low, while still experiencing the significant benefits of working with a lawyer to properly set up and maintain your business.

Whether you’re starting a federal or provincial corporation in Alberta, we look forward to helping you get your business started the right way.