Bizee vs. Doola for Independent Consultants: Entity Basics

Corporate clients, especially larger ones, frequently attach non-compete or exclusivity language to consulting engagements that can restrict which competitors you work with for months after the project ends. This matters more to an independent consultant than to a large firm, since one restrictive clause can meaningfully shrink your available client pool. Negotiate this language before signing, not after, since it's far easier to narrow an overbroad clause during contract review than to get out of one you already signed. A short email confirming the scope of any restriction in plain language is worth the awkwardness of asking.

Check these contract points before signing any statement of work:

• Read any non-compete or exclusivity language, since it can restrict which competitors you work with for months after the project ends.
• Confirm the scope of any restriction in a short plain-language email before you sign.
• Specify what the client owns versus which frameworks, diagnostics and methodologies you keep the right to reuse with future clients.
• Keep a copy of every signed engagement letter alongside your entity records.
• Run the S-corp numbers with a CPA once annual profit regularly clears a reasonable salary for your role.

If you're US-based and your practice is a single owner with occasional subcontractors, Bizee's flat filing fee and included first-year registered agent get you formed at the lowest cost. It's a formation and compliance-reminder tool only, so bookkeeping, contracts, and invoicing are still yours to set up separately. Keep a copy of every signed engagement letter alongside your entity records, since both matter equally if a dispute ever surfaces.

Independent consulting attracts a genuinely international workforce, and it's common for a consultant serving US clients to be based elsewhere. Doola's EIN filing as a third-party designee skips the Social Security number requirement, and the bundled bookkeeping subscription is useful if you don't already have a relationship with a US accountant.

A consultant who develops a proprietary framework, diagnostic tool, or methodology while working for a client needs to be explicit in the contract about what the client owns versus what you retain the right to reuse with future clients. Without that language, a client can reasonably argue they own everything produced during the engagement, including the general-purpose parts of your own intellectual property that you'll want to reuse on the next project.

As a default LLC, all your consulting profit is subject to self-employment tax. Once your annual profit regularly clears what a reasonable salary for a consultant at your experience level would be, electing S-corp tax treatment lets you split pay between salary and distribution, with only the salary portion carrying self-employment tax. Run the actual numbers with a CPA, since S-corp status adds payroll administration that isn't worth it below a certain profit level.

Accountants and auditors earn a median annual wage of $83,680 nationally, with the middle half earning between $67,020 and $109,810¹. For a management consultant, that range is a reasonable sanity check when setting your own rates: if your effective hourly rate after overhead lands below what a mid-career accountant earns on salary, your pricing likely needs a second look.

Say you develop a diagnostic scoring model for a client's sales process during a six-month engagement, then want to reuse a version of it with your next client. If your contract assigned the client full ownership of everything produced during the engagement, technically including the general scoring logic, they could reasonably object to you reusing it elsewhere. A better contract draws the line explicitly: the client owns the specific data, findings, and recommendations produced for their business, while you retain the underlying methodology and scoring framework as your own pre-existing and independently developed IP. Draft that language before the engagement starts, since negotiating it after a client has seen the value of the framework is a much harder conversation.

State filing fees average $132 nationally², so the fee itself shouldn't drive the decision. If you're US-based and comfortable with your own annual filings, Bizee is the cheaper path. If you're outside the US or want bookkeeping handled for you from the start, Doola's bundle is worth the extra cost. Keep that split in writing on file for every engagement, not just the ones where a dispute seems likely.