Choose your business structure with a clear head, not a sales pitch
Deciding how to structure your business — sole proprietorship, LLC, an S-Corp election, or a C-Corporation — is one of the first big decisions you make as an owner, and one of the most confusing. Many “free” guides online are really a formation service’s funnel, nudging you toward the option that earns them a fee. The Business-Entity Decision Helper does the opposite: it gets the trade-offs out of the sales pitch and onto one page, so you can score the choice instead of agonizing over it.
It’s a weighted decision scorecard built as a workbook you own. You set a weight for each thing that matters to you — tax treatment, liability protection, setup cost, ongoing admin, ownership flexibility, and more — then rate each of the four structures from 1 to 5. The workbook returns a single weighted score per structure and ranks them, so the best overall fit rises to the top instead of whichever one you were talked into.
Put a dollar figure on the S-Corp question
The one question everyone guesses at is tax — usually as a vague “an S-Corp saves me money” with no idea whether that’s true at their profit. The built-in Tax & Cost Estimator replaces the guess with a number. Enter your expected annual net profit and, for the S-Corp, the reasonable salary you’d pay yourself, and the tab estimates each structure’s self-employment or payroll tax — the tax that entity choice most directly changes for the pass-through structures — adds an illustrative annual admin cost, and shows what an S-Corp election would save you, and how much of that saving the extra payroll and paperwork eat back. You make the S-Corp call on your numbers, not a rule of thumb you heard secondhand.
The estimate is deliberately simplified: it models self-employment / payroll tax only — not income tax, the QBI deduction, or state taxes, and it leaves the C-Corp’s corporate and dividend tax out entirely (so the C-Corp isn’t part of the cost comparison). It’s a planning estimate to ground your rating and your CPA conversation — not tax advice.
Understand the four structures at a glance
The curated Entity Facts tab lays sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp, and C-Corporation side by side in plain English — the liability shield, how each is taxed, whether self-employment tax hits all profit or just a salary, what it takes to form, the annual filings, how many owners it allows, whether it can issue stock, and whether it requires payroll. It turns “LLC versus S-Corp” from a vague debate into a concrete comparison.
Score, rank, and confirm your choice
- Compare all four structures side by side on the criteria you choose and weight.
- Rank them automatically by a weighted score on a clean 1–5 scale.
- Estimate the tax with the Tax & Cost Estimator, so the S-Corp question is grounded in real dollars.
- See the price of fit — the Results tab shows your best-fit structure next to your lowest-cost one and names the gap as an illustrative dollar figure.
- Walk into your CPA meeting prepared — with the trade-offs mapped and a sharp question, not a blank page.
- Revisit as you grow — score it again when profit rises or you take on partners.
What’s inside
A 7-tab workbook (.xlsx) plus three PDF guides:
- Decision Scorecard — set a weight per criterion, rate each structure 1–5; the weighted score and ranking fill in automatically.
- Tax & Cost Estimator — your expected profit folded into an illustrative self-employment / payroll tax figure and annual cost per structure.
- Entity Facts — the four structures compared on liability, taxation, setup, filings, ownership, and payroll.
- Results & Ranking — structures ranked by score, with the best-fit/lowest-cost gap named as an illustrative dollar figure.
- How to Score — the 1–5 scale, the eight criteria, and how to set your weights.
- Notes & Next Steps — your open questions, your final choice, and the reasons behind it.
- Read Me — how the tabs fit together, and where to start.
- Three PDF guides — a Start Here guide, a Structure & Scoring guide with a worked example, and a Setup & Next-Steps checklist with a printable scorecard.
Works in Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice
Use the .xlsx in Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc, or open the included one-click link and choose Make a copy for a ready-made native Google Sheets version in your own Drive — no importing, nothing to set up. It comes pre-loaded with illustrative ratings for a typical owner-run business so you can see the method working before you tune it to yourself.
Try it free first
Want to feel the method before you buy? The free Business-Entity Web Scorer weighs two structures across the five core criteria — tax, liability, setup cost, ongoing admin, and ownership flexibility — right in your browser, no sign-up. The full workbook expands those five into eight criteria, adds all four structures side by side, the Tax & Cost Estimator, and a file you keep.
Own it, don’t rent it
This sits between a blank spreadsheet (free, but you build everything) and a formation service’s upsell funnel (pushing the option that earns them a fee). It’s the structure you keep: a connected, owned workbook for a decision worth getting right — and you can reuse it as the business grows and the right structure changes.
Who it’s for
New business owners deciding how to register before they open — freelancers, consultants, makers, and contractors going full-time. Established sole proprietors and LLC owners wondering whether it’s time to form an entity or elect S-Corp treatment as profit grows. Anyone drowning in conflicting online advice who wants a neutral, structured way to compare the options against their own priorities.
A decision-making and planning template — not legal, tax, or financial advice, and it creates no professional relationship. The four structures are described in general terms and the estimator’s figures are illustrative; rules, fees, and tax treatment vary by state and change over time. A weighted score is a tool for thinking, not a verdict: it’s there to organize the trade-offs and sharpen the question you bring to a CPA or attorney, who can confirm the choice for your situation. The decision, and the responsibility for it, stay yours.
