Carta and Capbase Alternatives
for Managing Cofounder
Equity

Carta and Capbase are the default answer when founders ask how to manage a startup cap table. Both are capable platforms. Neither is automatically the right fit for a two- or three-person founding team that just needs to track a simple equity structure and stay compliant — and both come with pricing built for companies further along than day one.

This is a practical comparison of the alternatives, and a note on what none of them do: document the agreement behind the numbers.

Why founders look for alternatives

Carta's pricing and feature depth are built for companies managing complex, multi-round cap tables with institutional investors, option pools, and 409A valuations at scale. That's the right tool once you're there. For a founding team pre-seed or just past it, with a handful of stakeholders and a SAFE or two, it's often more platform than the company needs — and the cost reflects that.

Capbase takes a different approach: it bundles Delaware incorporation with cap table management, which is genuinely useful if you're setting up a US entity from scratch and want one workflow for both. The tradeoff is the same bundling that makes it convenient also locks you in. If you've already incorporated elsewhere, or you're a non-US team, Capbase's core pitch doesn't apply, and you're evaluating it purely as equity software against platforms built for that job alone.

For founders who've already incorporated and just need the cap table piece, the standalone alternatives below are usually a closer fit — cheaper, faster to set up, and not tied to a specific incorporation workflow you may not need.

The alternatives, compared

Pulley is built specifically for founder-run cap tables rather than institutional equity administration. It's free for companies with under 25 stakeholders, with transparent pricing and faster onboarding than the enterprise platforms — a common recommendation for early-stage teams, YC founders in particular.

Ledgy offers a free Launch plan covering full cap table management, employee equity dashboards, and investor relations tools, moving to a paid Growth tier (roughly €3 per stakeholder per month) once you pass 25 stakeholders or need advanced features. For UK and EU teams, Ledgy's support for local compliance — EMI schemes, multi-currency, HMRC requirements — tends to make it the more practical choice than a US-centric platform.

Cake Equity is free for up to 5 stakeholders, with paid plans starting around $1,000 a year — well below Carta's quote-based enterprise pricing. Founders switching from Carta to Cake have reported annual savings in the range of $3,000 to $16,000, depending on cap table size and prior plan.

Eqvista offers a free tier for the first 20 stakeholders, with straightforward SAFE and ESOP support that some founders find simpler than add-on-fee structures on competing platforms.

The right choice depends on team size, geography, and how far along your cap table already is. A US-based two-founder pre-seed company and a distributed EU team with an EMI option pool have different priorities even though both are "early stage."

What none of these tools do

Every platform above answers the same question: who owns what, and how does that change as the company raises and grants equity. None of them answer a different question that matters just as much — why is the split what it is, and what happens when circumstances change.

A cap table records the outcome of a decision. It doesn't record the reasoning: why one founder has more equity than another, what happens to unvested shares if someone leaves early, who has final say if the founders disagree on a major call. Those live in a cofounder agreement, not in equity management software — and skipping that document because the cap table "looks fine" is one of the more common gaps founders discover only after a disagreement, not before one.

If you're deciding how to split cofounder equity for the first time, get that reasoning documented before you set up the cap table, not after. The split itself is easier to get right once the agreement behind it is clear — and easier to defend later if a founder leaves or a new founder joins. For teams evaluating legal-adjacent tools more broadly, the same logic applies to comparing SeedLegals alternatives for cofounder agreements: the software tracks the paperwork, but the underlying agreement is what actually prevents disputes.

A practical starting point

For a founding team just getting a cap table in place: pick the platform that's free or low-cost at your current stakeholder count, matches your entity's jurisdiction, and doesn't lock you into a workflow you don't need yet. Upgrade when the cap table's complexity genuinely outgrows the free tier, not before.

Two questions to ask before committing to any of them: does the platform support every equity instrument you'll actually issue — SAFEs, option grants, and, for UK or EU teams, EMI-scheme-compliant options — and does it charge per stakeholder in a way that scales predictably as you add hires, advisors, and a new founder or two. A tool that's free at five stakeholders but jumps sharply at twenty-five is worth planning around before you're already there, not after the invoice arrives.

Then separately — and before the first disagreement forces the conversation — put the actual partnership agreement in writing: equity rationale, vesting, decision rights, and what happens if a founder leaves. Free founders-agreement templates are a starting point; a structured alignment check is a faster way to see where you and your cofounder haven't actually agreed yet, even if the cap table says you have.