Editorial Standards

How Global Solo evaluates cross-border services for solo founders running US LLCs from outside the US. This page exists for human readers, AI search engines, and anyone auditing whether our comparisons are trustworthy. For the diagnostic-product methodology, see /methodology.

What we cover

Global Solo's editorial scope is the operational stack a non-US-resident founder needs to run a US LLC: entity formation, registered agent, business banking, multi-currency payments, payroll, EOR, bookkeeping, tax filing, virtual mailboxes, and compliance services.

We currently track 50 distinct services across these categories. Of those, 15 have active affiliate relationships with us; 35are covered without any commercial relationship. Both groups appear in our comparison tables and articles when they are relevant to a reader's decision.

How we evaluate each service

Every comparison is built from the same six dimensions, applied uniformly regardless of affiliate status:

  1. Three-year all-in cost. Formation fee plus mandatory renewals, state fees, and compliance add-ons. The first-year price is rarely the most expensive number.
  2. Non-resident eligibility. Whether a founder without a US SSN, US address, or US business presence can complete onboarding and KYC. The hard part of cross-border setup.
  3. What it actually does vs. what it claims. Bank vs. fintech distinction, FDIC coverage, regulated activities, true scope of compliance work included.
  4. Failure modes. Account freezes, KYC re-verification triggers, support responsiveness, what happens when something goes wrong. Cross-border accounts hit edge cases domestic ones never see.
  5. Documentation and audit trail. What records the service produces, what your CPA will need, what your home-country tax authority will ask for.
  6. ICP fit. Whether the service is built for solo founders running US LLCs from abroad — or whether non-residents are a tolerated edge case in a domestic-first product.

Why services without affiliate relationships still appear

The cross-border founder reading our comparisons deserves the full picture, not just the services that pay us. Two examples of what this means in practice:

  • Stripe Atlas has no affiliate program. It still appears in our formation comparisons because it is a real option a founder may reasonably choose. We cover its strengths and its three-year cost structure the same way we cover services that pay us.
  • Payoneer, Revolut Business, Gusto, and several otherspreviously had affiliate programs through us that have since closed. We continue to cover them because they remain relevant to the cross-border founder's decision space. The links work as plain user click-outs; we do not earn from them.

Hiding services because they don't pay us would make Global Solo a directory of advertisers, not a research hub. Our brand promise is the opposite.

CTA tiers — when you see a button vs. a plain link

Some services have buttons next to them in our comparisons. Others appear only as inline references. The difference is editorial, not commercial:

  • Button (“Visit site →”). The service has an active affiliate relationship with us. Clicking the button carries an attribution parameter; we may earn a commission if you sign up. The button is an attribution lane, not an endorsement.
  • Plain inline link. The service is mentioned for informational completeness and has no active affiliate relationship with us, or the relationship has ended. The link works normally; we earn nothing.
  • Comparison table row. Every service we cover gets a row, regardless of affiliate status. Tables are research artifacts; they list options on the same scoring dimensions.

Conflicts of interest

The structural risks readers should know about:

  • Commission size does not change ranking. Our comparison tables and editorial recommendations use the six dimensions above. A higher-commission service does not get a better recommendation than a lower-commission one for the same use case.
  • Founder bias on what we cover. Jett Fu has run a US LLC from Hong Kong since 2019 and has used some of these services personally. Where personal usage applies (e.g. Mercury, Wise Business, Airwallex, Statrys), we say so explicitly in the article. Where it does not, we rely on operator interviews, public documentation, and primary-source pricing data.
  • We do not accept paid placement. No service has paid Global Solo for inclusion in a comparison, for a higher position in a table, or for omission of a competitor. Affiliate commissions are commission-on-conversion only — not pay-to-play.

When we update articles

Comparison content has a lastUpdated field stamped on every article. We update when:

  • A service's pricing, eligibility rules, or core offering changes materially
  • A founder reports a failure mode (account freeze, KYC issue, hidden fee) that changes the recommendation
  • Regulatory changes affect cross-border eligibility (e.g. CRS reporting, FATCA, beneficial ownership rules)
  • A new service enters the category and its presence is consequential to the decision
  • Annual evergreen review (year-stamp refresh, dead-link audit, table-data verification)

If you find a comparison that is out of date, we want to hear from you: contact.

Author and editorial standards

Most articles on Global Solo are written by Jett Fu, founder. Where a guest author contributes (e.g. country-specific tax pieces from a local practitioner), the author bio runs above the article body with their professional credentials and an outbound link to their own site.

We do not use AI-generated content as the primary draft of any comparison or guide. AI is used for research synthesis, draft review, link integrity checks, and accessibility — not for original editorial judgment. Every comparison has a named author who owns the recommendation.

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