We’re in the middle of setting up our company and based on what we’ve learned so far, I’d suggest that if you’re establishing a DE C-corp, you do it with a dedicated attorney whom you trust rather than with online templates (Clerky, Stripe Atlas, etc.)
The templates struggle with nuances (employee pools, acceler. vesting, etc.). The templates will also give you only a snapshot-in-time service, while you will need to keep things chugging in the long-run to remain in good standing. Alternatively, you can ask your lawyer to review the templates, if that saves her/him time and costs you less, but using the templates instead of lawyers makes for a bad recipe.
Incorporation templates feel like outsourcing your core engineering function - they might get you going now, but in the long-run you will struggle. Even if your attorney charges $400+/hr, you’d only save about $1k-$2k, which is not worth it when so much is at stake.
A lot of the automation software out there are overtemplatized. Having a trusted attorney in the loop – even for a five-minute high-level checking to make sure everything’s looking good – is definitely a good idea.
If you’re set up is plain vanilla, Stripe Atlas and Clerky are excellent. If you have nuances involved, definitely get an attorney on board. Properly setting up a Delaware c-corp should cost no more than $2k-$3k; in fact, a lot of attorneys will do it for a flat fee, so you don’t have to worry about the billable hour.