About OfficialCost

Our mission

OfficialCost exists because "how much does it cost?" almost never has a one-number answer. A root canal is priced by tooth and by whether a crown follows. An LLC costs the state fee plus a publication notice, a registered agent, and a franchise tax that arrives eleven months later. A streaming plan costs whatever your billing country decides it should. We publish the whole bill — base options, mandatory surcharges, optional add-ons, and the local range — so that people paying out of pocket can budget, compare, and push back on quotes with real numbers in hand.

We are an independent consumer-information publisher. We do not sell the services we cover, we do not accept payment for placement in any table, and no provider, agency, or subscription service can edit its own figures.

Where the numbers come from

Every record on this site is generated from a curated baseline dataset, never from a search phrase alone. The baselines are maintained in the open in our codebase and fall into three families:

• Medical and dental. National cash-pay ranges compiled from published price-transparency benchmarks (FAIR Health consumer estimates, Healthcare Bluebook, hospital machine-readable price files required under the federal Hospital Price Transparency rule, and dental fee-survey ranges). State pages apply a documented cost-of-care index that blends regional physician-fee and facility-fee data.
• Business filing. Fee schedules published by each state's Secretary of State or equivalent agency, plus minimum recurring taxes published by state revenue departments. Registered-agent and formation-service ranges reflect the market spread among the largest national providers.
• Subscriptions. Each service's own regional pricing page, converted to U.S. dollars at a pinned exchange-rate snapshot whose date is printed on every subscription page so that a reader can judge how current the conversion is.

If a query we discover cannot be matched to a baseline entity, it is placed in a review queue and is not published. We would rather have fewer pages than a page with an invented number.

Verification and update cycle

Records are regenerated on a weekly schedule. A record's "last updated" date changes only when its underlying data changes — not when the page is merely rebuilt — so the date is a real signal. Each build runs an automated quality gate: prices must be internally consistent (low ≤ typical ≤ high), every page must itemize at least one mandatory fee and at least two options, every FAQ must contain a substantive answer, and every page title and description must fall inside strict length limits so that what appears in search results is complete and accurate.

Baselines are reviewed against their sources on a rolling basis, prioritizing fees that change by legislative session (state filing fees, franchise-tax minimums) and prices that change by announcement (subscription plans). When a source changes, the baseline is edited once and every dependent page regenerates.

Editorial standards

• Estimates, clearly labeled. Every figure is presented as a typical or expected amount, with a range, and is not a quote, a guarantee, or advice. See our disclaimer.
• Sources on every page. The footer of each guide names the baseline family and, where applicable, the agency whose schedule it reflects.
• No pay-to-play. Advertising on this site, when present, is clearly identified and has no influence on the data.
• Corrections. Anyone can report an outdated or incorrect fee through the contact page. Reports are logged, the baseline is re-verified against the primary source, and the fix ships in the next weekly build.

What we do not do

We do not provide medical, legal, tax, or financial advice. We do not recommend a specific provider, law firm, formation service, or subscription reseller. We do not collect quotes on your behalf, and we do not store any information you enter into a calculator — every calculator runs entirely in your browser.

Contact

Questions, corrections, and data requests: contact page. The site currently publishes 366 cost guides across medical and dental care, business filing, and subscriptions.