An affordable company secretary for a Malaysian startup is not the one with the lowest headline price — it is the one whose scope matches your stage. The law fixes a small mandatory core that every Sdn Bhd must pay for: a named company secretary, a registered office and the annual SSM filings. Beyond that core, a pre-revenue startup needs far less than most packages include, and knowing the difference is where the real savings are.
The mandatory core: what every Sdn Bhd must have
Four obligations are not optional, whatever your stage:
- A named company secretary. Section 235 of the Companies Act 2016 requires every company to appoint at least one secretary — a natural person aged 18 or above, ordinarily resident in Malaysia and qualified to act — with the first appointment made within 30 days of incorporation. Founders almost never qualify to act as their own secretary, so this is a service you will buy.
- A registered office. A Malaysian address where the statutory records are kept and official documents can be served.
- The annual return, lodged within 30 days of each anniversary of incorporation.
- Financial statements, circulated to members within six months of the financial year end and lodged with SSM through the MBRS system within 30 days after circulation.
Add the running duties — statutory registers kept current, resolutions properly drafted, and changes to directors or other registered particulars notified to SSM within 14 days — and that is the complete legal floor. The underlying requirements are published by SSM; our SSM filings and compliance page explains each filing in plain terms.
What a pre-revenue startup genuinely needs
If your company is pre-revenue with one or two founders and ordinary shares, your actual annual consumption of secretarial work is small: the core above, plus a handful of resolutions — opening a bank account, confirming the financial year end, perhaps recording founder share arrangements. A private company does not even need to hold an AGM; decisions are passed by written resolution instead. Ten to fifteen documents a year is a realistic volume for most early-stage companies.
That matters because it tells you what to buy: the mandatory core, delivered accurately and on time, with resolutions drafted promptly when you ask. Nothing about being a startup requires a premium package.
One practical add-on that usually is worth having from day one is putting the registered office at your secretary's address rather than a founder's home: statutory mail then arrives where the people responsible for acting on it sit, and you avoid publishing a home address on the public record. Providers normally fold this into the recurring fee rather than charging it as a separate line.
What you can usually defer
- Complex share structures. Preference shares, employee option paperwork and multiple share classes belong to your first serious fundraise. Setting them up "ready for investors" before any investor exists means paying today for documents you may well redraft anyway.
- Meeting attendance and minute-taking services. A two-founder startup passes written resolutions; paying for physical meeting support is rarely justified early on.
- Bundled extras you did not ask for — mail-handling volume you will not use, or periodic reviews of registers that are only months old. Useful later; padding now.
Deferring is not neglecting. Everything above can be added within days when the trigger event — a fundraise, a new class of shares, a larger board — actually arrives.
How company secretary fees are structured
Providers price the same work in different shapes, and understanding the shapes matters more than any single number:
- Monthly or annual retainer. One recurring fee covers the named secretary, the registered office and routine compliance. Predictable, and usually the right shape for an active startup — but ask precisely which filings and how many resolutions sit inside the retainer.
- Per-filing pricing. A lower base fee, with each resolution, form and lodgement charged individually. This can be economical for a genuinely dormant company; for an active startup the per-item charges accumulate invisibly.
- Bundled first-year packages. Incorporation plus the first year of secretarial service in one price. Convenient — but check what the second year costs before you commit, because the bundle price is not the renewal price.
- Disbursements. Whatever the structure, statutory fees paid to SSM are usually passed through on top of the service fee. That is normal; what matters is that they are itemised so you can see them.
None of these shapes is dishonest. The false economy is choosing one without knowing which shape it is — a cheap retainer that excludes every filing is per-filing pricing wearing a retainer's clothes.
False economies that cost more later
Missed deadlines. The annual return is due within 30 days of your incorporation anniversary; the financial statements run on their own six-month and 30-day clocks through SSM's systems. A provider who is slow or silent at deadline time exposes the company and its directors to consequences that dwarf any fee saving.
Reconstructed registers. The cheapest providers sometimes keep the thinnest records. Companies discover this during due diligence, when an investor's lawyer asks for the register of members and the resolution trail behind every share movement — and rebuilding years of records costs a multiple of what accurate upkeep would have.
Do-it-yourself paperwork. Copying a resolution template off the internet feels free. But resolutions that misstate share numbers or skip required particulars create defects in the register that surface at the worst possible time — and notifiable changes still have to reach SSM within 14 days regardless of who drafted the document.
The unreachable secretary. A fundraise, a grant application or a bank facility will one day need documents within days, not weeks. A provider who takes a week to answer email is affordable right up until that moment.
Honest questions to ask about fees — before you sign
- What exactly does the recurring fee include, and what is charged per item?
- Are SSM statutory fees passed through at cost, and are they itemised on the invoice?
- What does a standard resolution cost, and what is the turnaround time?
- If year one is a bundle, what will year two cost?
- If we leave, what does handover of the registers and records cost?
- Who exactly is our named secretary, and how fast do they respond? Ask for the stated standard in writing.
Any provider comfortable answering those in writing is probably safe to hire, whatever their price point. For transparency: we are one of the options you might ask. PT Corporate Services is a corporate secretarial firm in Kota Damansara serving startups across the Klang Valley; we confirm scope and fee upfront before any work starts, and we answer in plain language within the working day. Our company secretary service page and FAQ set out how the engagement works — put our answers to the questions above beside anyone else's and decide on the substance.