Methodology

What a page has to show

Every fee, tax rate, insurance cap, or program rule on a Formation Lane guide must have:

1. An “as of” date.
2. A source a reader can open: a secretary of state page, a statute, IRS.gov, SSA.gov, FDIC, SIPC, CFPB/Regulation Z, or the issuer’s own program or pricing page.

If a 2026 figure cannot be verified on one of those, it is omitted. Third-party blogs are not a source for a fee. Secondary write-ups may be used only to find the official document, which is then cited.

Home-state filing is the default

Guides that discuss formation assume the operator lives and works in one US state unless the page says otherwise. Out-of-state formation is described as extra jurisdiction (foreign qualification, two registered agents, two annual filings), not as a default sophistication upgrade. Georgia pages use Georgia.gov and eCorp. Wyoming fees, when quoted, come from the Wyoming Secretary of State fee schedule.

Fit versus popularity

A product can be operationally sound and still be a poor fit for a given reader. Formation Lane separates product fit from pay. How Formation Lane is paid — when it is paid — is disclosed on How we make money and in the site footer. No page ranks products by commission.

Outbound links

Informational links go to official pages (SOS, IRS, CFPB, issuer pricing). Account-opening calls to action point at the issuer’s then-current path. Bank and card categories without a named product on this site stay as categories — compare fees on the issuer’s own site.

AI assistance and the absence of “tests”

Drafting uses AI tools. Checking uses the sources listed on the page. The voice is the publisher’s: procedural, with dates on the facts. The site does not use first-person field tests (“we opened,” “our team was approved,” “I funded”).

Dates on pages are editorial dates, not “last tested” badges. When an official source is itself dated (Georgia.gov last updated June 2026; Wyoming fee schedule effective 1 July 2026), that date is kept next to the fact.

What these guides do not cover

• Consumer travel cards and issuer-by-issuer rankings.
• Crypto, marketplace storefronts, and 0% funding trades into brokerages or savings accounts.
• Personalized entity choice, nexus analysis, or return preparation.
• Anything that would require inventing a Georgia control number or a still-pending SOS approval.

Corrections go to formationlane@agentmail.to. A sourced correction is a better letter than a vibe.