Cap table software pricing in 2026: 7 vendors compared

Cap table software pricing runs from genuinely free to a sales call with no number attached. Five of the seven vendors in this category publish a real dollar or pound figure for at least their entry paid tier on their own site: Pulley, Mantle, Cake Equity, Eqvista, and Vestd. Carta, the market leader, and Ledgy don't. Carta's paid plans (Build, Grow, Scale) are all custom quotes, and Ledgy keeps every paid tier past its free plan behind a sales conversation too.

The table below pulls every verified entry-level and top-tier price we could find on each vendor's own pricing page, checked July 16, 2026. Where a vendor won't publish a number, we say so instead of guessing.

Across the seven tools we track, published entry pricing runs from Eqvista's $2 per stakeholder per month up to Vestd's £2,200 a year, while Carta and Ledgy publish nothing at all past their free plans.

Every vendor's price, side by side

All prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, checked July 16, 2026. Enterprise and quote-only tiers are negotiated per customer; get your own quote before comparing against this table.

Read the table across rather than down and the shape of the market is obvious: a free tier is close to universal, but only Pulley, Cake Equity, Eqvista, Mantle, and Vestd will tell you what happens the day you outgrow it.

Two columns matter more than the headline price. The first is what the tier caps at, because that is what decides how often you get repriced. The second is whether a valuation is bundled, because that single add-on can move the real bill more than the difference between two vendors' entry plans.

Carta and Ledgy: the two vendors that won't give you a number

Carta is the more extreme case. Its pricing page shows zero dollar figures past the free Launch plan. Build, Grow, and Scale all require a demo, and what you pay depends on stakeholder count and which add-ons (409A valuations, ASC 718 reporting, IPO advisory) you attach. Third-party aggregation of real customer contracts puts typical paid plans around $1,000-$2,500 a year for small cap tables, with 409A valuations often billed on top, but that figure is not Carta's own and Carta does not confirm it. The lack of a price list is also the top reason cited in switch reviews: customers describe renewal increases that arrive without warning, including one account moving from $99 to $3,000.

Ledgy is opaque in a different way. Every paid tier past its free 50-stakeholder Launch plan, Scale, Enterprise, and Public, sits behind a "contact sales" button, and Ledgy doesn't publish a number for any of them that you can rely on.

Every other vendor in the category, Pulley, Mantle, Cake Equity, Eqvista, and Vestd, has decided to compete by showing a number instead. Five vendors are betting that publishing a price wins deals from Carta's and Ledgy's opacity.

If you need a budget line before you can get approval to buy, Carta and Ledgy are the wrong two vendors to start with, because the only honest answer to "what does it cost" is "book a call".

Quote-only pricing is not automatically bad. It usually means the vendor expects to negotiate scope, and if you are running a multi-entity structure or preparing for an audit, a negotiated contract can be worth more than a published number. What it does mean is that renewal, not signature, is the moment to watch. Ask for the renewal cap in writing, ask what triggers a move to the next tier, and ask what the add-ons cost separately rather than as part of a bundled quote.

Per-stakeholder or flat fee: how the seven vendors price by headcount

The seven vendors split into two pricing philosophies. Mantle charges a flat annual fee ($1,200 Essentials, $3,000 Growth) regardless of headcount, so hiring or granting more equity never bumps you to a pricier tier. Everyone else charges by stakeholder count in some form. Cake Equity caps a tier at a stakeholder number and charges extra per head past it, $1 more on Build and $5 more on Team. Pulley caps its tiers too, but once you cross 25 stakeholders on Startup or 40 on Growth, it pushes you straight to a custom Enterprise quote instead of billing a per-head overage. Eqvista bills a flat $2 per stakeholder per month. Carta and Ledgy fold stakeholder count into a quote you only see after a sales call.

If your cap table is going to grow fast through hiring or option grants, a flat-fee plan avoids repricing every time you cross a threshold. If it's going to stay small and slow-growing, a per-stakeholder plan with a real published number, like Eqvista's $2/stakeholder/month or Cake Equity's tiers, can cost less in absolute terms.

The billing shape matters more than the entry price, because a per-head plan bills your hiring plan and a flat plan does not.

What a 409A valuation adds to the real bill

A 409A valuation is where the sticker price and the real bill diverge most. Mantle and Pulley bundle one valuation into their top published tier ($3,000 and $3,500 a year respectively). Cake Equity bundles two a year into Team at $2,750. Eqvista sells 409A as its own annual bundle, starting at $990 for a pre-revenue company and stepping up to $2,590 at Series A, with unlimited updates included at whatever tier you land on. Carta and Ledgy both treat 409A as an extra layered on top of an already quote-only plan, so the true cost of a Carta or Ledgy cap table with a valuation attached isn't visible anywhere on either pricing page.

Vestd is the outlier. It runs on UK HMRC valuations rather than US-style 409A, since it's built around EMI, CSOP, and growth share schemes for UK companies, not US equity compensation.

Compare the tiers that bundle a valuation rather than the entry tiers, because the cheapest cap table plan is almost never the cheapest annual bill once a 409A is attached to it.

If you expect to issue options more than once a year, or you are mid-raise and your valuation will move, the number of refreshes included matters as much as the price. Cake Equity's two per year on Team and Eqvista's unlimited updates within a bundle behave very differently from a single bundled valuation when your circumstances change twice in twelve months.

What the free tiers actually stop covering

Every vendor except Pulley and Vestd offers something free, but the caps are not comparable. Carta's Launch plan stops at 25 stakeholders or $1M raised, whichever you hit first, so a modest priced round can end the free ride before your headcount does. Ledgy is the most generous on people, at under 50 stakeholders. Cake Equity's free plan is the tightest at under 5 stakeholders, which covers founders and little else. Eqvista sits between them at under 20. Mantle allows unlimited stakeholders on free, and charges for capability instead.

Free tiers here are a place to hold a founders-only or pre-seed cap table, not a place to run an option pool, and the cap that catches you first is usually a funding milestone rather than a headcount.

The practical test is what you lose at the boundary. Scenario modelling, waterfall analysis, board and investor reporting, employee portals and valuation support are the features that tend to sit behind the first paid tier across this category, and those are exactly the things you need the week you start granting equity.

What changes between 5 and 25 stakeholders

At 5 stakeholders you are still inside almost everyone's free plan, and the only vendors asking for money are Pulley, which has no free tier at $1,200 a year, and Vestd at £2,200. At 25 stakeholders the picture inverts. Carta's free plan has run out by definition, Cake Equity's Build tier caps exactly there, and Pulley's Startup tier caps exactly there too, meaning your next hire moves you toward Growth at $3,500 or an Enterprise quote.

Twenty five stakeholders is the threshold this whole category is built around, so if you are anywhere near it, price the tier above the one you are about to buy.

Between those two points, per-head pricing like Eqvista's $2 per stakeholder per month is the cheapest way to hold a small cap table with real features attached. Past them, flat pricing stops looking expensive and starts looking predictable, which is the argument Mantle is making with a $1,200 and $3,000 pair that does not move with headcount.

Who each tool is wrong for

No tool here is wrong on price alone; each one is wrong for a specific buyer, and the mismatch is usually geography, growth rate, or procurement style.

Vestd is wrong for any US company, because it is built for UK schemes and HMRC valuations rather than 409A. Its Self-Serve tier at £2,200 is also limited to existing customers, so new buyers are effectively starting at Guided. Pulley is wrong for anyone who needs a free plan to start on, since it has none. Cake Equity's free tier is wrong for a company that has already brought on advisors and early employees, given the under 5 stakeholder cap. Eqvista's per-head model is wrong for a company about to run a large option grant, because the bill grows with every stakeholder added. Mantle's flat fee is wrong for a two person cap table that will stay that way, because you are paying for headroom you will not use. Carta and Ledgy are wrong for anyone whose finance process cannot accommodate a quote-only renewal.

How to compare before you sign

If you want to compare costs before booking a single sales call, Pulley, Cake Equity, Eqvista, and Mantle are the four vendors that let you do that end to end, including for a bundled 409A valuation. Vestd publishes real prices for Self-Serve and Guided, though its top Full Service tier is quote-only. Carta and Ledgy are the two vendors where you can't get a reliable number for any paid tier without talking to sales. For a full ranked comparison of who fits which buyer, see our Carta alternatives and Pulley alternatives guides.

Whichever vendor you're evaluating, treat every number on this page as a starting point, not your quote. Stakeholder count, funding stage, and add-ons move the final price on every tool here except the truly flat-fee plans.

Price the plan you will be on in a year rather than the one you qualify for today, and ask every shortlisted vendor the same three questions: what caps this tier, what a valuation costs on top, and what happens at renewal.