Apps that form your company and give you banking
Michel Myara is co-founder and product designer at looch, where he designs the tools small businesses use to get paid, manage spend, and run their books.
Updated August 2026
Two products form your company and hold your money: Stripe Atlas and looch
Most formation services do not provide the account themselves. doola and Clemta both refer you to Mercury, and Firstbase routes you to a marketplace of partners, so a second company decides whether you get an account. Two exceptions: Stripe Atlas opens a Stripe Treasury account in the Stripe Dashboard immediately after incorporation, and looch onboards you into its own accounts in the same app. Mercury does the banking half well but does not form companies at all. The figures that matter:
- Stripe Atlas: $500 one time, including state filing fees and the first year of registered agent, then $100 per year
- doola: $297 per year for the Starter formation plan, plus state fees
- Clemta: from $349 billed annually, plus state fee
- Firstbase: formation itself is free on its current offer, "Pay only your state fee"
- looch Start: $249 all-in, including the state filing fee
Last verified: August 19th, 2026.
If you are searching for one app that does both, the honest answer is that the category is smaller than the marketing suggests. Almost every "all-in-one" formation service is a formation service with a referral link. That is not a scandal, and for many founders it works fine, but it changes what you are buying and who decides whether you get an account.
This page sorts them by that one question: after you pay, who actually holds your money? Every figure is quoted from the provider's own pricing or help pages, with the date we checked it.
Who forms, who banks, and who does both
| Provider | Forms the company | Provides the account itself | Published price | Where the money actually sits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| doola | Yes | No, integrates with Mercury | From $297/year plus state fees | Mercury's partner banks |
| Clemta | Yes | No, provides application support | From $349/year plus state fee | Named partner is Mercury |
| Firstbase | Yes | No, a banking marketplace | Formation free on its current offer, plus your state fee | Whichever partner accepts you |
| Stripe Atlas | Yes, Delaware only | Yes, Stripe Treasury, plus partner options | $500 once, then $100/year | Stripe Treasury, or Mercury, Brex, Rho, Novo |
| Mercury | No | Yes | No monthly fee published for the account | Choice Financial Group and Column N.A. |
| looch | Yes | Yes, in the same app | $249 all-in | Fifth Third Bank N.A. via Stripe |
Two things fall out of that table. First, Mercury is the common endpoint: it is the named banking partner for doola and Clemta and an option inside Stripe Atlas, which means several "different" bundles can end at the same underwriting desk. Second, and this is the part worth internalizing, none of these companies is a bank today. Stripe's own disclosure says it plainly: "Stripe, Brex, Mercury, Rho, and Novo are fintech companies, not FDIC-insured banks. Banking services are provided through bank partners." looch is in exactly the same position, disclosed below. Charters can change, so check the current disclosure on whichever provider you pick.
What each one actually bundles
Stripe Atlas
The cleanest pricing in the set: $500 one time, which Stripe says "covers incorporation (plus state fees), and your first year of registered agent services. After that, we charge 100 USD annually to maintain your registered agent." It forms Delaware C corporations, LLCs, and C corporation subsidiaries, and nothing outside Delaware.
Atlas gets the EIN automatically, and it publishes the timing penalty for founders without a Social Security number honestly: 1 to 4 business days with an SSN, and 10 to 50 business days without one. It also lets you start accepting card payments and open a partner account before the EIN arrives, which is a real structural answer to that delay.
Atlas does hold money, which is the part most comparisons of this category get wrong. Stripe Treasury is "Available immediately after incorporation before you receive your EIN," with "Access directly through the Stripe Dashboard to securely store and send funds." Alongside it, Atlas routes founders to Mercury, Brex, Rho and Novo, and "Our partners determine account eligibility and might not support all Atlas businesses."
The partner list is narrower in practice than it looks for a non-US founder: Brex is "Available to C-corps only," Brex and Rho each require "at least one beneficial owner to submit a US physical address," and Novo is only "Available after you receive your EIN" and "Requires at least one beneficial owner to submit a US Social Security Number and a US physical address." Mercury is the most open of the four, accepting a legal address that "can be your company's registered agent address" and a physical address that "can be a US or non-US residential address."
Sources: Stripe Atlas and Atlas business bank accounts. Verified 8/19/2026.
doola
Formation with an annual subscription rather than a one-time fee: the Starter tier is $297/yr plus state fees, with formation also bundled into Tax and Compliance at $1,999/yr and Business-in-a-Box at $2,999/yr. Those three include formation filings, an EIN, registered agent and a virtual business address, and doola states that "State fees vary depending on the state, and are paid directly to the state through doola." Note that doola's $300/yr Pulse plan is a bookkeeping product, not a formation plan: it includes no filing, no EIN, no registered agent and no address.
On banking, doola is refreshingly direct about the referral: "Move seamlessly from formation to bank account with our direct integration with Mercury & dedicated account manager." It reproduces Mercury's own disclosure, so the money sits two steps away: doola refers to Mercury, and Mercury holds deposits at Choice Financial Group and Column N.A. doola also serves non-US founders explicitly, and says the account application needs "a passport or US government ID," not an SSN.
Source: doola pricing and doola banking. Verified 8/19/2026.
Clemta
Also a subscription: Essentials at $29/month billed annually at $349, plus the state fee, with Pro at $1,068/year and Premium at $2,879/year. Formation, EIN and registered agent are included in every plan, and the plans auto-renew.
Clemta sells "dedicated bank account application support" rather than an account, and names Mercury as its partner. On the EIN it is usefully specific for founders with no SSN: "Since you do not have a Social Security Number, you cannot use the online IRS portal. You must file Form SS-4 via fax or mail," which Clemta prepares and submits, quoting "2-4 weeks" with its expedited service. We are not quoting Clemta's standard processing time, because two readings of its own pages gave us different figures and we could not settle which is current.
Sources: Clemta pricing and Clemta EIN application. Verified 8/19/2026.
Firstbase
Firstbase forms companies and routes banking through a marketplace of partners rather than providing an account. On formation price it is currently the cheapest option on this page: its homepage carries the offer "Formation is on us. Pay only your state fee." Its ongoing services are sold as tiered subscriptions, so check what renews before you buy.
One neutral observation worth recording: unlike doola, Clemta, Stripe and Mercury, Firstbase does not publish a "not a bank" disclaimer on its homepage or incorporation page.
Source: Firstbase. Verified 8/19/2026.
Mercury
Mercury is the banking half that most of the others point at, and it is straightforwardly good at that job. It does not form companies: its own guidance tells founders "you can form a business on your own. It'll take a bit more legwork," and it requires that "Customers must be formed and registered in the United States or a U.S. territory" before an account exists.
For non-US founders it is one of the most open providers published: "Mercury supports U.S. companies with founders from around the world. You do not need to be a U.S. citizen or resident to apply," subject to a prohibited-country list keyed to where the founder lives. Our looch vs Mercury comparison covers the rest.
Source: Mercury eligibility. Verified 8/19/2026.
looch
Held to the same standard as every row above. looch Start forms the company for $249 all-in, which includes the state filing fee, the EIN, and the first year of registered agent and virtual office; the filing goes to the state within 1 business day, and the registered agent renews at $49 per year. Entity options are a Delaware C corporation, Delaware LLC, Wyoming LLC or Florida LLC. Once the entity is active, onboarding continues in the same app into no-fee accounts with account and routing numbers, Smartcards, payment acceptance and real-time accounting, which is the part the referral-based bundles hand to someone else.
The constraints, stated as plainly as the others: looch is iOS only today, with Android published as coming soon. And looch is not a bank. The published disclosure reads: "looch and the infinity-ring logo are registered trademarks of Simplicity Fintech Inc, a financial technology company... Simplicity Fintech Inc partners with Stripe Payments Company for money transmission services and account services with funds held at Fifth Third Bank N.A., Member FDIC." Accounts are eligible for FDIC pass-through insurance up to $250,000¹ per depositor when the requirements for pass-through coverage are met. Smartcards are Visa Commercial Cards issued by Celtic Bank.
Source: looch Start and the looch pricing page. Verified 8/19/2026.
Which one fits
- You want the fewest moving parts and you are on iOS. A single app that forms the entity and opens the accounts removes the second underwriting step entirely, which is the step that most often strands a new company with a certificate and nowhere to put money.
- You are raising venture money in Delaware. Stripe Atlas is purpose-built for it, bundles the equity paperwork and the 83(b) filing, and its $500 one-time price beats every subscription in the set over three years. Our Delaware LLC vs Wyoming LLC comparison covers the entity choice underneath that decision.
- You are already incorporated. Skip the formation half and go straight to an account provider. Mercury and its peers are the relevant set, and our guide to opening a US business account without an SSN covers who accepts whom.
- You want a specific bank relationship. A marketplace model like Firstbase's, or Atlas's partner list, gives you more choice of counterparty than a single-app bundle does. That is a real advantage of the referral model and worth naming.
Every account in this set, looch included, is a fintech account with deposits at a partner bank rather than a bank account in the old sense. That is now the norm for this category, not a red flag, but it is worth knowing which bank is behind the app you pick, and every provider above names theirs.
