Firstbase vs Stripe Atlas (2026): the total-cost comparison for non-US founders

This page goes deeper on two providers than our US incorporation pillar does, because the pillar has to cover entity choice, EIN mechanics and annual upkeep as well. Here the only question is which of these two you buy, and what you actually pay over two years rather than at checkout.

Short version: the $101 headline gap is a mirage, and it points the wrong way. Atlas sells one flat number that swallows the government fees and your first year of registered agent. Firstbase sells a lower entry price and unbundles the recurring compliance into separately priced products, one of which its own page describes as mandatory. Add that single required item and Atlas is cheaper in year one, cheaper again in year two, and pulling further ahead by year three.

The structural difference, before any numbers

Atlas is opinionated. Delaware, standard documents, a fixed inclusion list. Its page offers a C corporation, an LLC or a subsidiary, and states the templates were created in collaboration with Cooley LLP. You do not configure anything, and there is nothing to forget to add, which is the entire product thesis. The tagline is literally the pricing model: "Incorporate for $500 and get over $50,000 in discounts."

Firstbase is a platform. Start is the formation event; Agent, Mailroom, Accounting, Tax Filing and Sales Tax are separate purchases, individually priced, and Firstbase One is the bundle that wraps four of them. That is a better fit if you want one vendor running compliance for years, and a worse fit if you are comparing checkout prices, because the checkout price is not the cost of the thing you need.

Two sentences on the Firstbase page do most of the work in this comparison. The first: "Registered agent services are required for incorporation." The second, under Mailroom: "A US address is required for incorporation." Both are priced separately. Atlas bundles the agent for year one and does not sell a mail product in what we captured.

What each price actually buys

Sources: both vendors' own pricing pages as captured by our snapshot pipeline on 2026-08-03 — Firstbase pricing and Stripe Atlas product page. The Atlas price set ($500, $100, $2,500, $50,000) is identical across our four captures on 2026-07-15, 07-20, 07-27 and 08-03. The Firstbase page text was byte-identical between 07-27 and 08-03, so nothing moved week over week on either side. "Not offered in our capture" means we did not find the product on the page we captured, not that it does not exist anywhere.

Year one versus year two, worked

This is the section that decides the page. The rule we are applying: include only what each vendor's own page says you must have to incorporate and stay incorporated, and show what is excluded rather than burying it.

Included in the math: the formation fee and the registered agent, because Firstbase states the agent is required and Atlas bundles it. Excluded from the baseline: state franchise tax and annual report fees (we have not verified any amounts and they are identical whichever vendor you use), tax preparation, bookkeeping, and the mail address — which we then add in a second scenario, because Firstbase says it is required.

The arithmetic in full, because a comparison page that shows totals without workings is asking to be trusted rather than checked. Firstbase year one: $399 + $299 = $698. Atlas year one: $500 flat. Year two is just the agent on each side, $299 against $100. Two-year cumulative: $698 + $299 = $997 versus $500 + $100 = $600, a gap of $397. Three-year: $399 + ($299 × 3) = $1,296 versus $500 + ($100 × 2) = $700, a gap of $596.

So the $101 headline advantage inverts into a $198 disadvantage the moment you add the one item Firstbase itself calls mandatory, and the recurring agent line is roughly three times the Atlas renewal every year after that. Nothing about this is hidden — it is all printed on the Firstbase pricing page. It just is not on the same line as the $399.

Now add the US address Firstbase says you need

Firstbase states a US address is required for incorporation and sells Mailroom Basic at $315 annually. Adding it: year one $399 + $299 + $315 = $1,013. Year two $299 + $315 = $614. Two-year cumulative $1,627, against Atlas's $600 — a gap of $1,027, or nearly 2.7×.

Read that comparison carefully, though, because it is not clean. Atlas does not sell a mail product in our capture, which does not mean an Atlas company needs no address — it means Atlas is silent on how you get one and we are not going to invent a number for it. If you already have a US address, or your agent's address suffices for your purposes, drop this scenario and use the baseline. We are showing it because a founder budgeting from the Firstbase page will hit both "required" statements and should see what they sum to.

Where Firstbase One changes the picture

Firstbase One is displayed at $199 monthly against a struck-through $362, marked 45% off, billed yearly at $2,388. Both parts of that check out: $199 × 12 = $2,388, and 45% off $362 lands at about $199. The four add-ons priced alongside it are Mailroom Premium $350, Agent Autopilot $299, Accounting $1,890 and Tax Filing $1,799. Those total $4,338, and $4,338 − $2,388 = $1,950 — exactly the "save up to $1,950 annually" the page claims. That is an unusually honest bundle discount, and we will say so.

The catch is the word "up to". The saving is only real if you want all four modules. Take a C-corp founder who needs the agent, a premium mail address and tax filing but does his own bookkeeping: $299 + $1,799 + $350 = $2,448 standalone, making One $60 cheaper — a rounding error, and you are buying Accounting you did not ask for. Take our actual reader, a non-US founder of a single-member LLC, whose tax package is the $899 one: $299 + $899 + $315 = $1,513 standalone, against $2,388 for One. One costs $875 more.

Firstbase One is a good deal for a funded C-corp with real bookkeeping volume, and a poor one for a solo founder with a single-member LLC. That is a coherent product decision on Firstbase's part; it is just the opposite of what the "save $1,950" badge implies to a first-time buyer.

Delaware or Wyoming, and why the state matters later

Firstbase forms in Delaware or Wyoming at the same $399. Atlas, on the page we captured, incorporates in Delaware. If you have already concluded Wyoming is right for you, this comparison is over on that line alone, and no amount of cost math overrides it.

The more useful point is that state choice is a decision about your ongoing costs, not your setup cost. Both vendors charge the same to form in either state; what differs afterwards is the annual state-level obligation, and that is charged by the state, not the vendor. We have deliberately not published franchise tax or annual report figures here — the incorporation pillar handles the state-fee layer, and duplicating stale numbers across two pages is how a site starts contradicting itself.

One vendor-side interaction is worth flagging: Firstbase prices Agent Autopilot $299 annually per state. If you form in one state and later have to register in a second, that line doubles to $598 a year. Firstbase says foreign qualification is available in all 50 states, and notes separately that state fees to foreign qualify, and taxes owed, are paid separately. Atlas's $100 renewal is described in the context of maintaining the registered agent Delaware requires; we did not verify what a multi-state Atlas company pays, because the page does not say.

The 83(b) and founder-equity gap

If you intend to raise, this section probably outranks the cost math. Atlas names, as included items in the $500: founder equity issuance and share purchase, and 83(b) election filing. Its how-it-works flow repeats the sequence — Delaware incorporates the company, Atlas gets the EIN, issues equity and files the 83(b) — and its product mock shows an "83(b) election — Filed" state. The document templates are described as created in collaboration with Cooley LLP.

We did not find equivalent bundled items in the Firstbase Start tier. What that list does name is a full document set, explicitly including a stock purchase agreement and bylaws, which is the raw material for a founder stock issuance. But a template is not a filing. The 83(b) election is time-sensitive, and the failure mode is not a bad invoice, it is a tax position you cannot unwind. If you are issuing founder stock on a vesting schedule and you go with Firstbase, treat the 83(b) as your own tracked deliverable and ask Firstbase in writing what they do and do not file.

Being fair to Firstbase in the other direction: it sells the ongoing compliance products Atlas does not have at all. The $899 annual package for a single-member LLC owned by a non-US citizen or resident, covering Forms 5472 and a pro forma Form 1120, is precisely aimed at this site's reader, and Atlas has no answer to it. Firstbase also runs an R&D tax credit service priced at 15% of the total credit received, invoiced separately. Different products for different years of your company's life.

doola, as a third option

Worth thirty seconds because it is priced on a genuinely different model. doola's own FAQ resolves its tiers unambiguously: Starter $297/yr, Pulse bookkeeping $300/yr, Tax and Compliance $1,999/yr, and Business-in-a-Box $2,999/yr, shown as $329/mo, with all plans billed annually. Starter includes the LLC filed in one to two business days, the EIN, guidance to open a US bank account, a US business address and registered agent service — so unlike Firstbase, the two mandatory items are inside the entry price.

The trap is the suffix. Every doola price carries "+ State Fees", and Starter is a subscription, not a one-time fee. Two years of Starter is $594 plus two years of state charges, against Atlas's $600 with government fees stated as included in year one. Comparing $297 to $500 as though they are the same kind of number is the single most common budgeting error in this category.

One freshness note, since we track these pages weekly: our 2026-07-27 capture showed promotional pricing across doola's tiers — Starter at $208, Tax and Compliance at $1,399, Business-in-a-Box at $2,099. By 2026-08-03 those promos were gone and the list prices above were what the page showed. If you saw a lower doola number recently and cannot find it now, that is why.

Which one to buy

Choose Stripe Atlas if you are forming a Delaware C-corp with the intention of raising; if you want the 83(b) filing and founder equity issuance handled rather than templated; if you value one number over a configurable stack; or if you simply want the cheapest two-year cost of a compliant Delaware entity, which on our baseline it is by $397. The $2,500 in first-year Stripe credits is worth something concrete if you are going to process payments through Stripe anyway.

Choose Firstbase if you want Wyoming, which rules Atlas out; if you want one vendor to run the agent, the mail, the books and the filings for years and you would rather pay a premium than assemble that yourself; or if you are the single-member-LLC non-US owner for whom that $899 Form 5472 package is the annual purchase that actually matters. Just budget $698 for year one, not $399.

Choose doola if you want the lowest entry price with the agent and address already inside it, you are comfortable adding state fees yourself, and you are content to treat formation as a subscription.

What we did not verify

Stated plainly, because a cost page that hides its gaps is worse than one that admits them. No state franchise tax or annual report amounts appear on this page — not Delaware's, not Wyoming's. They are real, recurring, charged by the state rather than either vendor, and they are the same whichever provider you pick, which is why leaving them out does not distort the comparison.

No filing timelines and no approval odds. Atlas states you will be incorporated and ready to bank, fundraise and accept payments within two business days, and doola advertises an LLC filed in one to two business days. Those are vendor claims on vendor pages and we have not tested either. We have no data at all on how often an application stalls, or on IRS EIN processing time this month.

We have not assessed the cash value of Atlas's $50,000 discount bundle. The page says "over $50,000 in partner discounts" on tools such as Mercury, Xero and AWS. Bundles of this shape are almost always credit against future spend rather than money, so the realisable value depends entirely on whether you were going to buy those products anyway. Treat $50,000 as a marketing ceiling, not a line item. The same caution applies to Firstbase's "more than $350K in deals and rewards".

Two genuine ambiguities we could not resolve from the pages themselves. First, whether the Firstbase $399 covers state filing fees: the page says "Zero filing fees for all required documents", which may mean Firstbase charges nothing on top rather than that the state charge is included. Atlas says "includes government fees" and doola says "+ State Fees"; Firstbase says neither, so we have not assumed either way, and you should ask. Second, the Accounting price: $1,890 appears as an add-on, while the standalone Accounting block prices $599 monthly or $5,990 annually at the $50–75k monthly expense tier. Our capture does not say which expense band the $1,890 corresponds to, so do not assume it is the same service at a discount.

Finally, one correction to how these two are usually compared, including in our own earlier work: Firstbase's $50 monthly / $350 annually price belongs to Mailroom Premium, not to the registered agent. Agent Autopilot has one price on that page and it is $299 annually per state. Getting those two crossed changes every total on this page, which is a decent illustration of why we work from stored captures rather than memory.

Pricing captured 2026-08-03 from each vendor's own pricing page. Vendors change prices without notice and promotional rates come and go — we watched doola's do exactly that between 07-27 and 08-03. Always confirm the current number and what it includes before you pay. We earn a commission if you sign up through our Firstbase or doola links; the Stripe Atlas product-page link is not an affiliate link. Our methodology explains how we rank, and our tools directory lists what else we track.

Frequently asked

Is Firstbase actually cheaper than Stripe Atlas?

Not once you add the registered agent. Start is $399 one-time and the same page states registered agent services are required for incorporation; Agent Autopilot is $299 annually per state. That is $698 in year one against Atlas's flat $500, which its page says includes government fees and the first year of registered agent services. Atlas is $198 cheaper in year one and $199 cheaper again in year two, since its agent renews at $100 against Firstbase's $299.

What does the Stripe Atlas $500 actually include?

Delaware incorporation including next-day expedited processing and state filing fees, the company tax ID (EIN), founder equity issuance and share purchase, 83(b) election filing, document templates to sell, hire and run the business, $2,500 in Stripe product credits for the first year, and access to over $50,000 in partner discounts. The agent then renews at US$100 annually and can be cancelled anytime.

Does Firstbase include the state filing fees in its $399?

We cannot confirm it does. The page says "Zero filing fees for all required documents", which could mean Firstbase adds no fee of its own rather than that the state charge is covered. Atlas explicitly includes government fees; doola explicitly excludes state fees on every plan. Firstbase is silent, so get it in writing before you treat the $101 headline gap as real.

Is Firstbase One worth $2,388 a year?

Only if you want all four bundled modules. One is $199 monthly against a struck-through $362 at 45% off, billed yearly at $2,388. The four add-ons beside it — Mailroom Premium $350, Agent Autopilot $299, Accounting $1,890, Tax Filing $1,799 — total $4,338, so the "save up to $1,950" claim is exact. But a C-corp needing only agent, mail and tax filing pays $2,448 standalone, making One just $60 cheaper; a single-member LLC on the $899 package pays $1,513 standalone and One costs $875 more.

Does Firstbase file the 83(b) election like Atlas does?

We did not find it in the Start feature list. Atlas names 83(b) election filing and founder equity issuance as included items and repeats the step in its how-it-works flow. Firstbase Start names formation in Delaware or Wyoming, expedited EIN setup, zero filing fees for required documents, bank introductions, the document set including a stock purchase agreement and bylaws, VC discovery, $350K+ in deals, and lifetime support — but not 83(b) filing. If you are issuing founder stock on a vesting schedule, ask before you assume parity.

Delaware or Wyoming, and does it change the provider choice?

Firstbase offers both at $399; Atlas is Delaware in our capture, so choosing Wyoming ends the comparison. State choice drives your ongoing annual obligations far more than setup, and it interacts with Firstbase's per-state model: Agent Autopilot is $299 annually per state, so operating in two states doubles that line. We have not verified any state franchise tax amounts here.

Related reads

• US incorporation for non-US founders — the parent guide. Delaware C-corp versus Wyoming LLC, EIN without an SSN, the state-fee layer, W-8 mechanics, and the three-provider comparison including doola.
• Cross-currency fintech per corridor — the banking half of the decision. A US entity you cannot open an account for is a dead entity.
• Tools we track — the full list of vendors in our weekly pricing pipeline, with capture dates.