Pulley Is Shutting Down: Best Cap Table Software Alternatives for Founders (2026)

If your cap table lives in Pulley, you have roughly a month to move it. Pulley announced in September 2026 that it is ceasing all operations and services on December 8, 2026. The app goes dark. The pricing page now reads “Pulley is shutting down on 12/8/26.”

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That deadline matters more than it sounds, because a cap table is not a CRM contact list. It is the legal record of who owns what, who has unvested options, what your 409A fair market value was, and which instruments are outstanding. Lose track of it and the problems cascade: failed audits, broken option grants, a messy Series A diligence review, and a 409A that expired before you needed it.

This guide compares the cap table software founders actually use in 2026, with published pricing pulled from vendor pages, so you can pick a destination before the clock runs out.

What Pulley’s shutdown actually means for your cap table

First, the reassuring part: your company does not lose ownership because a software vendor stops operating. Your shares, options, SAFEs, and warrants are backed by signed agreements, board approvals, and corporate records. Those do not evaporate with a SaaS platform.

What goes away is your system of record. You need somewhere else to hold the transaction history, the vesting schedules, the executed documents, and the valuation reports.

Here are the dates that matter, pulled from Pulley’s own transition materials and the vendor guidance that followed:

• September 15, 2026: Pulley published its staff FAQ explaining the shutdown.
• November 30, 2026: deadline to opt into Pulley’s arranged Carta transition offer. This only applies to that specific offer, not to your ability to choose another provider.
• December 8, 2026: Pulley ceases operations and services. This is the hard date.
• January 31, 2027: limited access to certain Pulley data is expected to remain available until this date. Do not plan your migration around it.

So you have 33 days from today. Plenty of time if you start now. Zero time if you start in the last week of November and find out your provider needs a reconciliation pass before go-live.

Does Pulley force you to move to Carta?

No. This is the part most migration guides get wrong, and it matters because the cheapest path and the best path are not always the same one.

Pulley entered an exclusive partnership with Carta to provide assisted transitions for eligible customers. Carta is Pulley’s preferred partner. It is not your only option, and it is not the only one pricing its migration offer aggressively. At least five credible platforms are actively courting Pulley refugees right now, and their offers differ in ways that will cost you real money over three years.

The comparison below prices each option on the same basis: published list price, what triggers a jump in cost, and what a migration actually involves.

Eqvista: the clearest published price in the category

Eqvista is the rare vendor in this category that publishes a full price list, which makes it the easiest one to model. Their pricing page as of November 2026 breaks down like this:

• Freemium Cap Table: $0. Up to 20 stakeholders. Includes cap table and ESOP management, vesting schedules, stakeholder accounts, and a data room. No credit card required.
• Premium Cap Table: $2 per stakeholder per month. Everything in freemium, plus e-signing for certificates and SAFE agreements, board resolutions and voting, Rule 701, Form 3921, waterfall exit modeling, funding round modeling, spreadsheet import, and cap table onboarding.
• Custom pricing above 50 stakeholders.

The 409A valuation is bundled rather than sold separately, and that bundle is where the real comparison lives:

• Pre-revenue / pre-funding: $990 per year
• F&F / Angel: $1,290 per year
• Seed: $1,990 per year
• Series A: $2,590 per year
• Series B and up: custom

Every 409A bundle includes unlimited updates and renewals plus the Premium Cap Table, which at $2 per stakeholder per month is $24 per stakeholder per year. Run the math on a 15-person cap table: $360 per year for the platform, $1,990 for a seed-stage 409A, $2,350 total.

Eqvista also publishes add-on prices, which is rare: expedited processing starts at $490, QSBS attestation starts at $1,000, ASC 718 starts at $500.

For Pulley refugees specifically, Eqvista is running an offer that includes the rest of your Pulley term added free, 30 percent off your current Pulley invoice, a year-two price lock, free white-glove migration in one to five business days, and unlimited 409A updates.

See Eqvista’s full pricing and the Pulley migration offer.

Cake Equity: cheapest per-head if your cap table stays small

Cake Equity publishes a tier structure that is more aggressive on price than Eqvista at low stakeholder counts, and more expensive past 50.

• Free: $0, up to 5 stakeholders. Cap table, stock options, and SAFE notes included.
• Build: $1,000 per year, 25 stakeholders included. Adds SAFE and convertible note tracking, templated option grants, board approval flows, equity benchmarking, fundraising modeling, integrated e-signing, and the My Cake shareholder portal. Then $1 per additional stakeholder per year.
• Team: $2,750 per year, 40 stakeholders included. This is the tier most seed and Series A companies land on. Adds two 409As per year, a full contract editor for SAFEs, convertibles, options, RSUs and RSAs, legal templates for stock options, integrated options exercising, warrants, team equity benchmarks, and free migration. Then $5 per additional stakeholder per year.
• Pro: custom pricing, aimed at finance executives. Adds audit-ready ASC 718 reporting, ESS reporting, Form 3921, ISO and NSO split handling, Rule 701 tracking, international option pools, bare trusts, and a dedicated Slack channel. Then $60 per additional stakeholder per year.

Cake’s add-ons are also published: a standalone 409A valuation is $1,500 per year (two per year included in Team and Pro), QSBS is $500, SPV management is $500, and stock-based compensation is $500.

Run the same 15-person cap table through Cake’s Team tier: $2,750 covers 40 stakeholders, so the platform cost is inside the bundle. That is more expensive than Eqvista’s $2,350 at seed stage, but Cake’s Team tier includes two 409As per year while Eqvista’s $1,990 seed bundle includes one valuation with unlimited updates. If your 409A needs to be refreshed twice in a year, the order flips. The difference is entirely about your stage and how often your valuation needs refreshing.

Cake runs a three-step managed migration where a real person reconciles your data, and you see your cap table in Cake before you pay. That is a genuinely better migration story than a self-service CSV import, and it is included free in Team and Pro.

See Cake Equity plans and the three-step managed migration.

Qapita: built for international equity, priced by custom quote

Qapita is the pick if you have employees outside the US, multiple international option pools, or a need for formal liquidity programs. Their plan names are Spark, Surge, Growth, and Enterprise, and they do not publish list prices for the platform itself.

What they do publish is the add-on structure, which tells you what the platform is actually for:

• 409A valuation report: custom pricing per report, included in Growth and Enterprise, available as an add-on for Spark and Surge.
• Equity plan (ESOP) design: custom pricing per report, all plans.
• Liquidity programs: custom pricing, available for Surge, Growth, and Enterprise.
• Employee town halls: $500 per hour, for Surge and up.
• Analyst support: $125 per hour, all plans.
• Corporate action management, expense amortization, and custom reporting: custom pricing.

The hourly analyst support is the number to watch. If your cap table has a lot of international complexity, the plan price is only part of what you will pay. Budget for advisory hours on top.

For US-only startups with a straightforward cap table, Qapita is overkill and will cost more than you need.

See Qapita’s plan structure and add-on pricing.

Carta: the default, and why that is not automatically the right answer

Carta is the biggest name in cap table software and the default recommendation everywhere, including in Pulley’s own transition. It is worth understanding what you are actually choosing.

Carta’s pricing page shows a free tier and then a wall of “contact sales.” That is the honest state of it: there is no published price list beyond the free tier. Founders who need a number for a budget will have to talk to sales.

The free tier, Carta Launch, covers companies with up to 25 stakeholders and less than $1 million raised. It includes cap table management, securities issuance, exercising and repurchasing, 83(b) form handling, and ISO management. That is genuinely generous for a pre-seed company and you should start there if you qualify.

Once you raise past $1 million or pass 25 stakeholders, you move off the free tier into a sales conversation. Carta’s advantages over the alternatives are real: it is the deepest platform for fundraise modeling and equity issuance, it has the strongest brand with investors and lawyers, and it is the named transition partner, which means the path of least resistance for a Pulley refugee is Carta.

Its disadvantage is price opacity and lock-in on the documents. Carta is also the vendor Pulley customers are being steered toward, which is a reason to at least price an alternative before you commit.

The comparison, priced at three real cap table sizes

Here is what a year of ownership management costs across the main candidates, using a seed-stage company (no revenue, one 409A needed), a Series A company (revenue, annual refresh), and a 40-person company (needs scale and reporting).

Vendor	Seed (10-15 stakeholders)	Series A (30 stakeholders)	Scale (40+ stakeholders)
Eqvista	$990 409A bundle + $360 platform = $1,350	$1,990 bundle + $720 platform = $2,710	$2,590 bundle + $1,920 platform = $4,510
Cake Equity	Build tier $1,000 + $0 409A add-on needed separately = $2,500	Team tier $2,750, 2x 409A included = $2,750	Team $2,750 + 15 extra stakeholders at $5 = $3,500
Carta	Free tier if under $1M raised, else sales quote	sales quote	sales quote
Qapita	custom quote + 409A per report	custom quote	custom quote, analyst hours at $125/hr on top

Two caveats on this table. First, Cake’s seed column adds a $1,500 standalone 409A on top of the $1,000 Build tier because Build does not include a valuation, so a seed company on Cake paying separately lands at $2,500. Second, Eqvista’s platform pricing above 50 stakeholders goes to custom, so the $4,510 scale figure is the last published number, not a ceiling.

The clear takeaway: if you can get a published price, you can plan. Carta and Qapita require a sales call to know your number. That is not automatically a dealbreaker, but it is a real difference for a founder with 33 days and a migration to run.

What to export from Pulley before December 8

This part is not optional and it is not something to delegate to a vendor’s “migration” team without checking. Save it yourself first, so you are not dependent on anyone else’s ingestion pipeline being complete.

• Current cap table and the complete transaction history
• Stakeholder and ownership records
• Common and preferred stock, with share class details
• Stock options, equity plans, and all vesting schedules
• Warrants, SAFEs, convertible notes, and other convertible instruments
• Previous 409A valuation reports

Also grab the supporting documents: signed equity agreements, board approvals, equity plan documents, and financing paperwork. Keep those together in one folder. They are what lets a new provider reconcile your cap table instead of rebuilding it from scratch.

If you are moving to Carta, Carta’s support documentation states that eligible customers get an assisted transition, that Carta keeps your Pulley price for the first year, and that unused prepaid balances are credited. Do not treat that first-year price as your steady-state number. Model year two.

How long migration actually takes

Realistic timelines from vendors currently running migrations:

• Self-service import: roughly ten minutes for a small cap table, but you are checking the math yourself.
• Managed migration with human reconciliation: one to five business days, with review of the migrated cap table before go-live.
• Sales-led, full-service administration: weeks, because it includes onboarding and advisory work.

Allow extra time if your cap table has messy history: old spreadsheets, a failed or partially completed SAFE round, an option pool that was resized without clean documentation, or shareholders who left without exercising. Those are the records that turn a five-day migration into a five-week one. Most vendors offer reconciliation of the reconciled cap table as part of the migration, but the more documentation you bring, the faster it lands.

How to choose, honestly

If you are pre-revenue and under $1 million raised, start with Carta Launch or Eqvista Freemium. Both are free. The decision you are making now is which vendor holds your data when you outgrow it, and both will let you export.

If you are seed stage and want a number you can put in a budget, Eqvista is the pick. The published $990-to-$2,590 409A bundles and $2 per stakeholder platform pricing mean your total cost is knowable in October and does not change when you call sales. Eqvista also has the most aggressive published Pulley migration offer, including a year-two price lock, which matters most to anyone who thinks the price might be a trap.

If you want the strongest migration support and expect to cross into ASC 718 reporting territory soon, Cake Equity’s Team tier at $2,750 includes two 409As per year, a contract editor, managed migration, and options exercising flows. For a company hiring 15 to 20 people this year, that is often the most sensible thing you will buy.

If you have international employees, multiple option pools, or need structured liquidity programs, you need Qapita, and you should budget for advisory hours at $125 per hour on top of the plan.

If you are already Carta or are heading to a Series A where Carta’s brand and fundraise modeling earn their keep, Carta is a defensible choice. Just get the price in writing before you migrate, and treat any first-year Pulley-rate offer as temporary.

The 33-day checklist

• This week: export everything listed above from Pulley and save it outside Pulley. Do not skip this because a vendor says they will handle the transfer.
• Week 2: shortlist two providers, not one. Price both against the table above at your real stakeholder count.
• Week 3: request a managed migration quote and confirm what is included: transaction history, securities, equity plans, vesting schedules, and documents. Ask who reconciles the data and whether you can review the result before go-live.
• Week 4: get the migration started. Five business days of reconciliation assumes you handed over a clean, complete dataset.
• Before December 8: confirm your new platform is live, your shareholders have been notified, and your 409A valuation is current.

One more thing worth doing while you are in here: pull your 409A valuation date. If it is more than 12 months old, you need a new one regardless of which platform you land on, and starting that clock early avoids a compliance gap in the middle of a migration.

The good news is that this is a solvable problem with a known deadline and five credible destinations. The bad news is that the deadline is real, and the companies that scramble are the ones who end up on a spreadsheet again.