Normally the Cheapest is reading the .gov website for the state and jumping through the hoops your Self.

Some states make it REAL easy, others make you have to pay a broker and take out an Ad in the paper for 30 days. >:|

It’s literally free to do it yourself with the CA SOS.

Easiest is honestly to just do it yourself. Its not half as difficult as they make it out to be with all the " pay us 300" scams out there. To make it easier use chat gpt its actually surprisingly good at providing you with exactly what you need to look for.

as far as advice.

get a lawyer and an accountant to help you do the initial formation and save yourself headaches and problems down the road upcounsel has some decent options. Also open a separate bank account/credit card early on for your business and pay everything through that to avoid admin headaches later.

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1. if you are doing any form of contracting business ( construction etc. ) check the company name first or be prepared to do a DBA . They don’t automatically allow you to apply for a license if they aren’t happy with your company name.
2. Make sure you have a domain that will work with your name or is your company name and get it registered. Dont use Godaddy or squarespace, they are both pretty horrible. Try siteground always been good service for me at least.
3. Dont bother setting up any kind of suppliers etc until your business foundation is established and setup, again this will make it easier to get connected and less headaches.
4. decided on a mailing platform/backbone you can use siteground and cpanel to setup a generic " custom email " yourname@yourbusiness.com or you can pay for google workspace /microsoft 365 once you choose you kinda locked in with the last 2 so look at the pros and cons. Nobody takes a business that has yourname@yahoo.com seriously in my experience.

While I know you said affordable in your question, be prepared to spend a lot more money setting things up properly than you anticipate. Having an llc alone will set you back $800 a year just for the pleasure of having one. This ignores other licensing and fees you may require. If you do a sole prop you may get a little more mileage out of your money but lose the protection of an LLC. An improperly formed LLC has a lot of risk too though.

Damn you need any digital hand on some facilitation of research?? Just give me credit for the hunt and give me some opportunities in the work.

Just read the instructions and fill out the online form yourself. If you can’t figure that out I don’t know what to tell you