It adds analysis. Establishing whether an invoicing arrangement can support the qualifying year, and advising on an owner-operator's structure, is legal work that precedes drafting. Filing fees are separate and should be read from the current USCIS fee schedule.
Buy the assessment before buying the petition
Ask for the employment-history question to be scoped and priced on its own, with a clear deliverable: can this history support the requirement, and if not, what would. That answer determines whether there is a petition worth preparing, so paying for it first is the efficient order. Where the conclusion is that a period of genuine employment needs to be established, the company also has a payroll and tax decision to make in Canada, which may involve its own accountant. Budget for that conversation too. Family businesses often try to compress all of this into one meeting; separating the corporate, tax and immigration questions tends to produce clearer answers and fewer repeated fees.
Hypothetical example: Armand's translation-agency group wants a quick transfer and assumes its accountant can answer every immigration question. An opening assessment separates corporate-document work, employment-history analysis, petition preparation, and dependent planning into priced tasks. Payroll records and governance documents determine whether extra accounting work is genuinely needed. Put the decision sequence in writing: test the qualifying relationship and the foreign employment first, then spend on the petition. The expensive mistake is commissioning a polished package before learning that the employment interval or proposed role needs restructuring. An adviser can give a useful limited-scope opinion if the company supplies unfiltered records.