Why Delaware is the easiest page on this site to compare
Most jurisdictions hide the government's share of the bill. Delaware does not. The state publishes $110 to form and $400 a year to keep, so any quote can be decomposed into the state's part and the agent's part in about ten seconds.
Do that once and the market looks very different. A $0 formation offer is a $110 state fee plus an agent taking their margin at renewal. A $500 flat fee is $110 to the state and $390 for the work. Neither is wrong. But you should know which one you are buying.
The renewal is the whole decision
Registered agent service is a statutory requirement and a commodity. The agent receives legal documents on the company's behalf and forwards them. There is very little to differentiate.
The published renewals on this page run from $50 to $299 a year for that identical function. Harvard Business Services guarantees $50 for the life of the company; Firstbase charges roughly $299. Across five years the difference is around $1,250, which is more than any formation fee here.
You can move a registered agent, and it is not difficult, so a cheap first year with an expensive renewal is a real option if you intend to switch. Most people do not switch.
The part that actually goes wrong
Formation is not the hard step. For a founder outside the US, the hard steps are the EIN and the bank account.
The EIN cannot be obtained online without an SSN or ITIN. The fallback is a fax or postal application to the IRS, which typically takes four to ten business days and is unforgiving about small errors on the form. Some agents on this page handle that end to end; others send you a walkthrough. Ask which, in writing, before paying, because it is the difference between a company that can open a bank account this month and one that cannot.
