In the UK it used to be one form and a fee of £25 or something like that. I think, nowadays, that's probably just done online as well.
That won't get you a VAT ID, which is the key thing he says he needs to be able to bill people outside of Germany. It is significantly cheaper than 9k EUR and faster than 6 months to get in the UK, however.
But I understand the admin has gone up significantly. Though I presume AI is pretty good at generating the boiler plate bureaucratic work (privacy policy, anti slavery statements, etc).