A broken cap table does not announce itself until you are in a Series A data room with an investor asking questions you cannot answer.
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I have watched founders lose weeks of momentum — and in one case a term sheet — because their cap table lived in a spreadsheet that had not been updated since a SAFE closed six months earlier. The right platform is infrastructure for every equity decision from first hire to exit. The market also moved: Pulley announced it ceases all operations on December 8, 2026, AngelList's cap table is now only available to companies using its Roll Up and Consolidation Vehicles, Fidelity Private Shares emerged as the serious free-to-start challenger, and Carta's real-world pricing became much better documented.
Here is the ranked breakdown of every cap table tool worth considering in 2026 — verified pricing, honest tradeoffs, and a decision framework by stage.
Last reviewed by Trace Cohen on October 23, 2026.
If You're on Pulley: Migrate Before December 8
Pulley was #2 on this list as the best early-stage pick. It is off the list now. Its homepage says Pulley "will cease all operations and services on 12/8/26" and that it has "entered into an exclusive partnership with Carta." I'm not going to recommend a product with a shutdown date.
- •December 8, 2026: the Pulley app stops being accessible, per Pulley's shutdown FAQ.
- •November 30, 2026: Pulley says that if you have not opted in to sharing your contact and contract details with Carta by then, it offers no guarantee on timing, pricing or disruption.
- •The Carta offer: Pulley says Carta migrates your cap table data, documents, transaction history and equity records, honors your current Pulley pricing for your first full year, and credits any unused prepaid balance. You get two weeks to sign once the agreement arrives.
- •January 31, 2027: limited access to your Pulley data in the app ends.
- •Before you move, keep your own copies of grant history, signed documents and your latest 409A report, and do not migrate in the middle of a priced round if you can avoid it.
Source: Pulley's shutdown FAQ and pulley.com, checked October 23, 2026. Carta is not the only option: Fidelity Private Shares and Cake Equity below both take new customers.
The Best Cap Table Software in 2026, Ranked
Qapita and Cake Equity are Value Add VC partners. Qapita is shown after the ranking, not in it; Cake Equity holds the spot it earned on these criteria before the partnership (#6 originally, #5 after Pulley's shutdown removed it from the list, and #4 since November 2026, when AngelList, which no longer takes new standalone cap-table customers, moved to the bottom). See our editorial standards.
Entry-Tier Annual Price by Platform ($/year)
Paid entry tiers start around $1,000/year, and median real-world Carta spend is $15.4K/year, so model the grown-up cost, not the entry price. Carta is not charted because we could not verify its list prices as of Nov 2026; AngelList no longer lists standalone cap-table pricing
Cake Equity and Qapita published pricing; Ledgy contract ranges and Carta median spend via Vendr, August 2026
Data
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Fidelity Private Shares | $0 until priced round |
| Cake Equity | $1,000/yr |
| Qapita | $1,600/yr (free <25) |
| Ledgy | ~€3,000/yr |
Cap Table Software Compared: Verified 2026 Pricing
| # | Platform | Entry Price | Free Tier | 409A Valuations | Best Stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carta | See carta.com/pricing (median real spend $15.4K) | Yes — <25 stakeholders, <$1M raised | In-house, bundled on paid plans | Series A+ |
| 2 | Fidelity Private Shares | $0 until first priced round | Yes — until priced financing | Via partners | Formation–Series B |
| 3 | Ledgy | ~€3,000–8,000/yr typical | Yes — entry tier | Via partners | UK/EU any stage |
| 4 | Cake Equity (partner) | $1,000/yr (Build, 25 stakeholders) | Yes — ≤5 stakeholders | Included at $2,750/yr Team | US SAFE through Series A |
| 5 | AngelList Equity (not accepting new cap-table customers) | Not listed for new customers | — | — | RUV/CV companies only |
| — | Qapita (partner) | $1,600/yr (Surge) | Yes — ≤25 stakeholders, <$1M raised | In-house at $3,000/yr Growth | Seed–IPO / global |
Sources: published pricing at carta.com, angellist.com/startups/pricing, cakeequity.com, and fidelityprivateshares.com; Vendr contract benchmarks (405 Carta contracts, median $15,400/year); Ledgy contract ranges via Vendr. Checked September 2026. AngelList status re-checked November 7, 2026 against angellist.com/startups/equity and AngelList's August 6, 2025 cap table announcement. We could not verify Carta's list prices as of November 2026; see Carta's pricing page for current paid plans. Enterprise platforms (Morgan Stanley Shareworks, J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions) serve 200+ participant late-stage companies at $20K+/year and are out of scope for this startup-focused ranking.
How We Ranked These
We weighted four criteria: compliance depth — 409A, ASC 718, Form 3921, and audit acceptance (35%); total cost at startup scale, using real contract data rather than list prices (25%); investor and ecosystem trust — what your Series A lead expects to see in diligence (25%); and founder experience, from onboarding to dilution modeling (15%). Pricing was verified against each vendor's published pricing page as of August 2026, cross-checked with Vendr's contract benchmarks (405 real Carta contracts) and AngelList's published startup pricing, because list price and negotiated reality diverge most in this category. Having sat on both sides of 75 cap tables as an investor, I also weighted what actually kills deals in diligence. Rank reflects the four criteria above, not payment: no partner was moved up for payment, and a partner that was not already ranked on these criteria appears after the list, labeled Partner. See our editorial standards. This ranking covers portfolio-company cap tables; if you're choosing between AngelList and Carta for fund-level administration (SPVs, Rolling Funds, closed-end funds) rather than a single company's equity, see our AngelList vs Carta fund administration comparison.
How to Choose by Stage
Formation / Pre-funding
Fidelity Private Shares or Carta Launch (free)
Both are $0 at this stage. Fidelity includes the data room and legal workflows; Carta Launch buys you zero-migration continuity if you expect institutional rounds. Either beats a spreadsheet the day you issue your first SAFE.
Pre-seed / Seed ($500K–$3M)
Carta Launch or Cake
Carta Launch is free while you stay under 25 stakeholders and $1M raised, and it means no migration later; Cake's $1,000/year plan (or $2,750 with a 409A included, and the top-rated G2 score in the category) is the pick once you outgrow free tiers on a budget. You will need your first 409A the moment you price a round or grant options.
Series A ($5M–$20M)
Carta
Institutional leads, their law firms, and your auditors all default to Carta. The 409A, ASC 718, and Form 3921 workflows are native, and diligence friction disappears. Migrate before the round, not during it — budget ~$6K–15K/year realistically.
UK / EU-headquartered
Ledgy (or Carta international)
EMI, VSOP, and BSPCE schemes plus GDPR handling make EU-native tooling the lower-risk choice. Since Carta absorbed Capdesk, Ledgy is the independent European leader; Carta's international product is the alternative if your investors are US-led.
The 409A Question
409A valuations — required by the IRS before issuing stock options — are the hidden line item in every platform comparison. Carta runs them in-house (roughly $1,500–5,000 standalone, bundled into most paid subscriptions). Qapita Partner from its $3,000/year Growth plan (also in-house with transparent methodology), Cake from its $2,750/year Team plan, while AngelList's cap table is no longer open to new standalone customers. Fidelity and Ledgy route to partners. You need a fresh 409A every 12 months or within 90 days of a material event — a priced round, a major contract, a tender. Read the full breakdown in our 409A valuation guide.
If your law firm or lead investor requires a Carta-issued 409A, that constraint decides the platform question for you. Ask before you commit. For a deeper head-to-head on pricing and support, see our Carta vs Pulley breakdown by stage.
Switching Costs Are Real
Migrating a cap table means reconciling every historical issuance, and I have seen founders burn 40–60 hours doing it mid-fundraise. The practical implication: pick for where you will be in 18 months, not where you are today. Most companies that start on Carta stay; most that start anywhere else stay until an investor, or a shutdown, forces the issue. The free tiers from Carta, Fidelity, and Cake mean there is no longer any economic excuse for the spreadsheet — the moment you issue a SAFE or an option grant to more than a couple of people, spreadsheet dilution math becomes a due-diligence liability, right alongside whatever else is (or isn't) organized in the folder you hand investors. For the equity mechanics themselves, start with our founder's cap table guide.
What Investors Actually Check in Your Cap Table
Having participated in 75 investments, the diligence check is less about which software and more about what the software exposes:
- •Fully diluted ownership — all SAFEs, notes, options outstanding, and the reserved pool, not just issued shares
- •Post-money dilution model for the proposed round, including the option pool top-up (which usually comes out of founder shares)
- •Clean founder vesting — 4-year with a 1-year cliff; anything less is a yellow flag
- •Option pool utilization — enough unallocated for 18–24 months of hiring
- •Complete SAFE/note terms: MFN provisions, pro-rata rights, conversion mechanics
- •Any convertible instruments with aggressive terms that create dilution surprises at conversion
The SPV Dashboard shows how special purpose vehicles affect cap table structure — worth reviewing before taking SPV capital for the first time.
The best cap table software is not the most expensive one.
It is the one that makes errors impossible to hide — and gives every stakeholder a single source of truth from SAFE to exit.
Track startup equity benchmarks and VC deal data on the Benchmarking Dashboard at Value Add VC. Originally published in the Trace Cohen newsletter.
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