Cap Table Software 2026: Pricing, Free Plans and When You Need One
Fastlancer Team · Updated: Aug 18, 2026
Key takeaways
What a cap table is, and what the software does
A cap table — short for capitalisation table — is the record of who owns which share of a company: the founders' split, whatever an advisor was promised, the option pool set aside for early hires, and anything that converts into shares later from a SAFE or a convertible note.
Cap table software turns that record into a system rather than a file. The useful parts are narrower than the marketing suggests, and they are the same across every provider on this page:
- A single source of truth. One record with one owner, instead of five spreadsheet versions in five inboxes.
- Vesting that runs by itself. Each grant has its own start date, cliff and schedule; the platform recalculates vested amounts as the calendar moves.
- Round modelling. What a new investment, a valuation and an option-pool top-up do to every holder's percentage, before you sign anything.
- Documents attached to entries. The signed grant, the SAFE, the board consent — filed against the row it belongs to.
- A stakeholder view. Employees and investors can see their own holdings without you emailing a screenshot every quarter.
An honest note on how we compiled this: these are published prices and plan limits, read off each vendor's own pricing page on 18 August 2026 and quoted here as they appear. Fastlancer has not run these platforms hands-on, so this guide ranks nothing and recommends no single winner — it tells you what each one costs and where the limits sit.
When the spreadsheet stops being enough
Most companies start in a spreadsheet, and for a founders-only split that is genuinely fine. Three things break it, and they tend to arrive within months of each other:
- Vesting. Once grants vest over time, actual ownership shifts every month even in a quarter where nothing is signed. A static sheet is out of date the day after you build it, and the version you send an investor is a snapshot of a moving number.
- The first priced round. Dilution has to be modelled across every holder simultaneously — founders, advisors, the option pool, and every SAFE converting at its own cap or discount. A rounding error at this stage compounds through every round that follows.
- Due diligence. An investor's lawyer asks for the signed document behind each row. If the file has circulated by email in five versions with no single owner, reconstructing that trail is the kind of work that delays a closing.
Do you need this yet?
- You are a solo freelancer, sole proprietor or single-member LLC — there is nothing to divide, so there is no cap table to keep.
- Two founders, a fixed split, no vesting, no outside money — a spreadsheet with a named owner is honestly enough.
- Grants vest over time, or an option pool exists for future hires.
- You have raised on SAFEs or convertible notes that will convert at some future valuation.
- A priced round or an acquisition conversation is on the horizon and diligence is coming.
- You issue equity to employees in the US and need a defensible 409A strike price.
Cap table software compared: 2026 pricing
Prices as published on each provider's pricing page on 18 August 2026. Stakeholder counts are the number included in the plan, not a hard ceiling — most providers sell additional stakeholders on top.
| Provider | Free plan | Entry paid plan | Next tier | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carta | Launch — free, up to 25 stakeholders and $1M raised | Build — price on request | Grow / Scale — on request | Price per stakeholder plus a minimum annual fee |
| Pulley | None | Startup — $1,200/year, 25 stakeholders | Growth — $3,500/year, 40 stakeholders | Full price list published; angels investing $50k or less count as half a stakeholder |
| Cake Equity | Free — $0, 5 stakeholders, SAFEs included | Build — $1,000/year, 25 stakeholders | Team — $2,750/year, 40 stakeholders, 2 valuations | $60 per additional stakeholder |
| Ledgy | Launch — free (see caveat below) | Scale — from €5,000/year, 50+ stakeholders | Enterprise — from €18,000/year, 200+ | Prices in euros; European focus |
| Eqvista | Freemium — under 20 stakeholders, no card | Paid tier — price not published | Custom above 50 stakeholders | 409A valuations priced by stage from $990/year |
| Fidelity Private Shares | Launch tier — up to 25 stakeholders, under $1M raised | Startup — price on request | Growth — on request | $400 Delaware incorporation bundle includes a Launch subscription |
Free plans: what $0 actually buys
This is the part most comparison articles skip, and it is the answer for the majority of companies asking the question. Four of the six providers above run a permanent free tier — not a trial — and at the stage where you first need a cap table, the free tier is frequently the whole product you need.
- Carta Launch is free for companies with up to 25 stakeholders that have raised up to $1 million. The plan includes cap table management, securities issuance, exercising and repurchasing, the 83(b) form, ISO management, SAFE modelling, SAFE fundraising and closings, and email, chat and phone support. For a pre-seed company on SAFEs, that list has no obvious hole in it.
- Cake Equity Free is $0 for 5 stakeholders and explicitly includes cap table, stock options and SAFE notes. Five is tight — two founders, two advisors and one angel and you are out — but it is the only free tier here with no funding ceiling attached.
- Eqvista Freemium covers under 20 stakeholders with no credit card required, and includes cap table and ESOP management, vesting schedules, individual stakeholder accounts and a data room.
- Ledgy Launch is free with multi-entry cap table management, equity plans and grants, and simple vesting. One caveat worth knowing before you plan around it: the plan card states a maximum of 50 stakeholders while a note further down the same pricing page says the free plan covers up to 25. Confirm the current limit with Ledgy before you build on it.
The pattern behind those limits is worth naming: free tiers exist because a cap table platform wants to be the incumbent when you raise a priced round, hire into an option pool and start buying 409A valuations. That is not a reason to avoid them — it is a reason to check the price of the tier above the free one before you migrate your records in, because that is the number you will actually pay.
Carta: the default, with prices on request
Carta is the name most US investors expect to see, and its free Launch tier is the single most generous entry point in the category. Above Launch there are three packages — Build (up to 50 stakeholders, adding priced round modelling, deal closings and white-glove onboarding), Grow (adding 409A valuations, board meetings and Form 3921) and Scale.
None of the three carries a published price. Carta's own pricing FAQ explains the model plainly: each package has a price per stakeholder with a minimum annual fee, and the total depends on how many stakeholders sit on your cap table plus whichever add-ons you take. In practice that means you cannot budget for Carta from the website — you have to ask, and the answer scales with your own growth.
Pulley: transparent pricing, no free tier
Pulley is the opposite trade-off: no free plan at all, but every number is on the page. Startup is $1,200 per year with the first 25 stakeholders included, covering cap table management, share certificates, templated SAFE, option and RSA agreements with e-signature, a fundraise modeller, interactive offer letters and concierge onboarding.
Growth is $3,500 per year with 40 stakeholders, and adds the compliance layer that arrives with employees: 409A valuations, custom agreement templates, option exercises, Rule 701, Form 3921, board approvals and HRIS integrations. Enterprise is quoted on request. One quirk in Pulley's favour when you count heads: angel investors writing cheques of $50,000 or less count as half a stakeholder.
Cake Equity: the cheapest published step up from free
Cake Equity runs the tightest ladder in the comparison. Free covers 5 stakeholders; Build is $1,000 annually for 25 stakeholders with SAFE and convertible round closings, 83(b) elections, option, RSU and RSA grants, a board approval flow and a stakeholder portal; Team is $2,750 annually for 40 stakeholders and bundles two 409A valuations that Cake values at $3,000 on their own. Pro is custom-quoted and adds ASC 718 expensing, Form 3921 filing and Rule 701 tracking.
Above the included headcount, both paid plans charge $60 per additional stakeholder — a rare case of a published overage rate, which makes the cost of hiring into your option pool predictable rather than a renegotiation.
Ledgy: European pricing, a large gap after free
Ledgy quotes in euros and is built around European share plans, which matters if your entity is not a Delaware C-Corp. The free Launch tier is real, but the step above it is the steepest here: Scale starts at €5,000 per year with 50+ stakeholders included, and Enterprise starts at €18,000 per year with 200+ stakeholders. Publicly listed companies are quoted separately.
Read that gap before you migrate. Ledgy's free plan is generous enough to carry an early team a long way, and then the next rung costs several times what Pulley or Cake charge for their entry tiers — the trade being that Scale is aimed at companies running real equity plans with HRIS integrations and offboarding workflows, not at a five-person startup.
Eqvista: free under 20 stakeholders, valuations priced by stage
Eqvista leads with valuations rather than software. The freemium cap table is free under 20 stakeholders; the paid cap table tier adds e-signed certificates and SAFE agreements, board resolutions and voting, Rule 701, Form 3921, waterfall exit modelling, funding round modelling and spreadsheet import — but its price is not shown on the pricing page, and anything above 50 stakeholders is custom-quoted.
What is published is the 409A ladder, and it is the clearest in the category: $990 per year for startup or pre-revenue, $1,290 for friends-and-family or angel stage, $1,990 for seed, $2,590 for Series A, custom from Series B. Add-ons are itemised too — expedited processing from $490, QSBS attestation from $1,000, ASC 718 reporting from $500.
What cap table software is not
Three adjacent categories get mixed into the same search, and paying for the wrong one is an expensive way to learn the difference.
- It is not accounting software. Accounting tracks money — revenue, expenses, payroll, the tax return. A cap table tracks ownership. A startup on SAFEs needs both, because the note has to sit in the books as well as on the cap table; our accounting software for startups guide covers that half, including why SAFEs, convertible notes and vesting equity are the specific reason startups outgrow general-purpose bookkeeping tools.
- It is not equity compensation management. Running an employee share plan at scale — grant approvals, exercise windows, tax withholding across countries, participant communications — is a bigger job than recording ownership, and it is what the expensive tiers on this page are actually selling. A three-person company does not need it.
- It is not a 409A valuation. The valuation is an independent appraisal delivered as a service; the software stores the result and applies the strike price. Every provider here either sells it separately or bundles a fixed number of them into a mid tier.
How to choose without overbuying
The decision is smaller than the category makes it look, and it comes down to three questions in order.
- Does anyone else own part of the company? If no, stop — you do not have a cap table. If yes, count the stakeholders, and count them the way the vendors do: every founder, every advisor with a grant, every option holder, every noteholder.
- Does a free tier cover that number? Under 20 to 25 stakeholders with less than $1 million raised, at least three of the providers above cost nothing. Start there, keep the record clean, and let the platform earn its fee when you outgrow it.
- What does the next tier cost? This is the question that actually decides it, because migrating a cap table under time pressure during a round is the worst possible moment to compare vendors. If you want a number you can budget for today, Pulley and Cake publish theirs. If you want the platform your future investors already use, that is Carta — and you will need to request a quote.
One structural point that no software solves: a cap table is a legal record with tax consequences for everyone on it. Vesting schedules, 83(b) elections, option strike prices and the terms of a SAFE all have effects you cannot undo later by editing a row. Get the structure itself reviewed by a startup lawyer and a CPA before you issue anything — the software is the ledger, not the advice.
If you have not settled the entity question underneath all of this, that comes first: our LLC vs sole proprietor guide covers which structure actually needs shares in the first place.
This article is for general information only and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Prices and plan limits were verified on each provider's own pricing page on 18 August 2026 and change without notice — confirm current terms with the vendor before you commit.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is cap table software?
Cap table software is the system of record for who owns which share of a company. It holds every founder split, share issuance, option grant, SAFE and convertible note in one place, keeps vesting up to date automatically as time passes, models what a funding round does to everyone's percentage, and stores the signed document behind each entry. The alternative is a spreadsheet plus a folder of PDFs, which works until grants start vesting or an investor's lawyer asks for the paper trail.
Do I need cap table software?
Only if someone other than you owns part of the company. A sole proprietorship has no shares at all, and a single-member LLC has one member and a one-line ownership record — neither has a cap table to keep. The need appears when a co-founder joins, an advisor is promised equity, you set aside an option pool for early hires, or you raise money on a SAFE or convertible note that converts into shares later. Our LLC vs sole proprietor guide covers the entity decision that usually comes first.
Is there free cap table software?
Yes, and for early-stage companies the free tiers are usually enough. Carta Launch is free for companies with up to 25 stakeholders that have raised up to $1 million. Cake Equity has a permanent $0 plan for 5 stakeholders including SAFE notes and option grants. Eqvista offers a freemium tier for under 20 stakeholders with no credit card required. Ledgy has a free Launch plan. Verified on each vendor's pricing page on 18 August 2026.
How much does cap table software cost?
Published entry prices in August 2026 run from $1,000 to $1,200 per year: Cake Equity Build is $1,000 annually for 25 stakeholders, Pulley Startup is $1,200 per year for 25 stakeholders. The next tier roughly triples that — Cake Team $2,750 per year, Pulley Growth $3,500 per year — because it bundles 409A valuations. Ledgy quotes in euros and starts its paid Scale plan at €5,000 per year. Carta publishes no price above its free tier: it charges a price per stakeholder with a minimum annual fee, quoted on request.
Is a spreadsheet good enough for a cap table?
For a founders-only split with no vesting and no outside money, yes — and there is no shame in it. Three things break it, usually within months of each other. Vesting means ownership changes every month even when nobody signs anything, so a static sheet is stale the day after you build it. The first priced round requires modelling dilution across every holder at once, where a small rounding error compounds through every round that follows. And due diligence means an investor's lawyer wants the signed document behind each row, which is painful when the file has circulated by email in five versions with no single owner.
What is the difference between cap table software and accounting software?
They answer different questions. Accounting software tracks money in and out — revenue, expenses, payroll, the tax return. Cap table software tracks ownership: shares, options, vesting, dilution. Neither replaces the other, and a startup that raises on SAFEs typically needs both, because the note has to appear in the books as well as on the cap table. See our accounting software for startups guide for the bookkeeping half.
What is a 409A valuation and does cap table software include it?
A 409A valuation is an independent appraisal of the fair market value of a US company's common stock, used to set the strike price for option grants so the IRS accepts them. It is a service, not a software feature, and it is priced separately almost everywhere. Eqvista publishes rates by stage — $990 per year for pre-revenue, $1,290 for friends-and-family or angel, $1,990 for seed, $2,590 for Series A. Cake Equity bundles two valuations into its $2,750 Team plan. Pulley bundles them into its published $3,500 Growth plan; Carta includes them from its Grow package upward but publishes no price.
