Knowing the Costs of Starting a Business

Starting a new business is not for the faint of heart. To navigate the process effectively, you must be ready to face many questions, challenges, and risks: Will my business idea work? How much will it cost? How do I protect myself and my assets? With proper planning and education, you can navigate the process with confidence. Once you are able to answer the Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How related questions for your new business, the next step in the process is understanding all of the costs required to start a new business. These costs set the foundation for establishing your new business. The first cost you will encounter is forming your business entity.

Forming Your Business Entity

A business entity helps you establish the type of business that you want to operate. Each business entity is slightly different in how they handle taxes and liability for your business. These entities include sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies (LLC), and corporations. It is important to speak with an attorney and an accountant to understand the laws, fees, and taxes involved with starting a new business. The attorney fees for filing your business entity can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. If you plan to form your business in a state that you are not physically in, Earth Class Mail has a virtual business address solution (see more details in "From Albuquerque to Wilmington, We Have A Virtual Address in Every U.S. State (...and now, Atlanta!)"). You will also need to pay for a registered agent in that state (see more details in “How to Get a Virtual Mailing Address to Register Your Business”) to actively participate in commerce in that state.

Location

The location of your business can set the tone and establish instant credibility for your new business. Whether you are looking for a local address in Columbus, OH or a premier address on Park Avenue in New York City, NY, or Market Street in San Francisco, CA, Earth Class Mail offers over 80 virtual business addresses that you can sign up to use for your business address. The location will act as your business address to register your business entity and the location where you will receive business postal mail. Earth Class Mail offers plans for new businesses to manage a way to digitize your postal business mail. For more details on the cost of Earth Class Mail’s plans, see here.

How to Manage Your Business Postal Mail and Checks:

As your new business continues to grow, you will begin to receive postal mail from your customers (including checks), your bank, the government, and other important documents. With Earth Class Mail, we can help you scale your business with a suite of products that provide digital solutions to automate your company’s postal mail, checks, and important documents. From your mailbox to your inbox, Earth Class Mail helps you launch your new business with a digital solution for postal mail. See more here.

Payments with Stripe:

Another decision that you will need to make is which service and method you will choose to accept payments from customers. We highly recommend Stripe.com. Stripe brings together everything that’s required to build websites and apps that accept payments and send payouts globally. Whether your new business is an e-commerce store or a subscription business, Stripe offers a complete stack for all your payment needs across channels. Stripe also protects your new business from fraud. With 135+ currencies and dozens of payment methods, Stripe makes it easy to launch new markets and add your customers’ preferred way of paying to increase conversion abroad. See more on Stripe’s pricing and plans here.

When starting a new business there are many decisions and costs that you will encounter on the way, such as setting up your business entity and choosing the right location, as well as how you manage your postal mail and your payments. Earth Class Mail and Stripe provide easy solutions to help you get your new business up and running. We wish you the best and let us know how we can help you scale your business from the idea stage to a successfully operating venture!