Cap table software alternatives, honestly compared.
Carta, Pulley, Mantle, Cake Equity, Octelligence. Five platforms, five different bets on what a cap table tool should be. This page is our honest read on each, written for founders, counsel, and CFOs who'd rather see the trade-offs than another feature checklist.
Pricing, jurisdictions, and the one thing each tool is actually built for.
Plain recommendations by stage, jurisdiction, and use case.
A dedicated alternatives page for each platform on the list.
Most "alternatives" pages are sales pitches. This one isn't.
We build Octelligence, so we're not neutral. But we're also not going to pretend Carta is bad software, or that Pulley doesn't have a better UI than us in places, or that Cake Equity isn't a real option if you're running employee equity across multiple jurisdictions.
What we do believe is that most cap table tools stop at the cap table, then leave you to handle the rest of your corporate records in a shared drive. That's the gap Octelligence was built to close. If you don't need that, one of the others on this page is probably the right pick. We'll tell you which.
Use this page to narrow your shortlist, then read the deeper alternatives page for whichever tool you're seriously considering.
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Where are you incorporated?
Delaware C-corp? Canadian CBCA or provincial? Multiple entities? Jurisdiction support varies wildly.
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Do you need verifiable share certificates?
Banks, counsel, and auditors increasingly want certificates with public verification, not just a PDF.
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Do you also need a minute book?
Most cap table tools don't include one. You'll need a second tool, or a shared drive, for everything else.
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What's your real budget?
Public pricing ranges from $0 to several thousand per year. Some vendors won't show pricing at all.
Five platforms, side by side
Drawn from each vendor's public website as of May 2026. Verify before you commit; pricing pages change.
All vendors handle SAFEs, stock options, warrants, and scenarios in some form. Differences are in pricing, depth, and what's bundled.
What each platform is actually for
Best for: private corporations and counsel who want one structured system for the entire corporate record (minute book, share certificates, share register, and cap table), not a cap-table-only tool stitched to a shared drive. Strong on Canadian + US dual-jurisdiction work. Free for one corporation; $19 to $149/mo paid tiers.
Trade-off: we don't issue 409A valuations or run fund administration. If those are your primary needs, look at Carta.
Best for: US-incorporated startups raising priced rounds where the cap table tool needs to play with VCs, fund admin, and 409A all in one ecosystem. Broadest feature set in the category.
Trade-off: price escalates fast at scale. Serving founders, VCs, and law firms simultaneously means trade-offs in focus. Doesn't handle minute books or broader corporate records.
Best for: founders and finance teams who want a clean, fast cap table tool with transparent pricing ($1,200/yr starting tier on their site). Built for founders, not for serving every party at once.
Trade-off: primarily US-focused. Doesn't include minute books, corporate records, or share certificates as a real product surface.
Best for: early North American founders who want a clean, fast cap table with AI-assisted document handling and US-incorporation help built in. Pitches "no per-seat pricing."
Trade-off: pricing not public. No corporate records / minute book layer. Newer in the market, with less third-party review depth than Carta or Pulley.
Best for: companies running employee equity (options, RSUs, RSAs) across multiple countries. Strong employee-facing app. Australian origin, now US-headquartered.
Trade-off: pricing not public on the homepage. No corporate records / minute book scope. Less recognized in the Canadian market specifically.
Best for: a company with one founder, one share class, no SAFEs, and no priced round in the near future. It really is free and works until it doesn't.
Trade-off: drifts from the share register the moment the first SAFE lands. Diligence finds the gap. By then you're cleaning up under deadline, which is the worst time.
Comparisons against what most companies actually use
The biggest competitor isn't another cap-table tool, it's the shared drive, the spreadsheet, or the incorporation service that left records to someone else. Honest comparisons against each.
The real #1 competitor. Dropbox, SharePoint, Google Drive, where most private corporations actually keep their minute book. Works until a financing, diligence, or audit surfaces the gaps.
Read: the five failure modes, the cost of reconstruction, and what to migrate to.
Where SAFE math breaks. Excel and Google Sheets work through seed, then fail at Series A when the SAFE conversion math gets done by hand. Honest read on when to move and what you gain.
Read: where the math fails, where the structure fails, and the cost when it does.
The enterprise entity-management option. Both serve law firms managing client corporations. Athennian targets enterprise (1,000+ entities). Octelligence Portfolio Licensing targets mid-sized firms (25-500).
Read: price per entity, scope differences, when each fits.
The day-after-incorporation gap. Atlas is great at incorporating a Delaware C-corp. After day 30, the ongoing records (minute book, share register, certificates) aren't its job. Octelligence picks up.
Read: they're sequential, not competitive. Use both.
Canadian incorporation, then what? Ownr (RBC Ventures) is excellent at filing a CBCA, ON, AB, or BC corporation and bundling an RBC account. After the first SAFE, option grant, or US expansion, you'll need a real records and cap-table layer.
Read: when to keep Ownr, when to switch, and the free migration offer.
Different categories of tool. Clerky generates startup legal documents (excellent at this). Octelligence maintains the corporate record those documents live in. Most early-stage US startups need both.
Read: the optimal Clerky + Octelligence pairing.
Looking for multi-product buyer's guides?
Seven buyer's guides: cap table software (general, Delaware, Canada, UK, law firms) plus minute book and corporate records software. Scored by jurisdiction depth, governance integration, and workflow fit.
Browse buyer's guidesWhich one should you pick?
Plain answers. If your situation isn't covered here, talk to us. We'll tell you honestly which platform fits, even if it isn't ours.
Octelligence Free covers your minute book, share register, and a basic cap table from day one. When you raise priced, Growth at $69/mo unlocks SAFE conversion and scenarios. Mantle and Pulley are also reasonable picks if you don't need the records layer.
Octelligence is built for Canadian + US dual-jurisdiction work and ships a real minute book, which Canadian counsel will expect. Mantle is the other natural option if you only need the cap table side.
Carta is the path of least resistance, since your investors already know it. Pulley is the credible alternative if you want transparent pricing. Run Octelligence alongside if you want one source of truth for your corporate records.
Cake Equity is the most natural fit, since it was built for this. Carta also has the surface area but at a higher price point.
Octelligence Portfolio Licensing is the only option on this page built explicitly for firms managing 50–500+ client corporations as a recordkeeping layer. Cap-table-only tools don't cover the work counsel actually does.
Octelligence Scale at $149/mo handles up to 25 entities under one organization with branded outputs and IP allowlisting. Carta also scales here but at materially higher cost.
More ways to evaluate Octelligence
What you get beyond a cap table, from digital minute books to cap tables & financing.
Explore solutionsPractical walkthroughs like how to issue shares and how to transfer shares.
Browse all guidesRequirements that differ by province and state, across minute books and share registers.
Explore jurisdictionsPlain-language definitions for terms like cap table and share certificate.
Open the glossaryTell us about your corporation in a sentence or two. If Octelligence isn't the right fit, we'll say so and point you at the platform that is. Free for one corporation if it turns out to be us.