Carta

Cap table, equity and 409A valuation software built around United States private company practice

As of 30 August 2026, Carta starts at $29/month. Carta keeps the share register, option grants and vesting schedules for private companies and issues the 409A valuations that price options. Softwr lists it under Accounting. Carta is made by Carta Inc, launched in 2012, available on Web, iOS, Android.

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Overview

What Carta does

Carta is equity management software for private companies, their investors and their law firms. It holds the capitalisation table, issues and tracks share and option grants, runs vesting and exercise workflows, models financing rounds and waterfall outcomes, and produces the 409A valuations that United States companies need in order to set option strike prices defensibly. A separate line of business does fund administration and SPV administration for venture funds. It is browser based, with role scoped access for founders, employees, investors and counsel. What sets it apart is that it is the record other people read, not just a document you keep. Investors receive their holdings there, employees see their grants and exercise there, auditors and diligence teams are pointed at it, and the 409A comes from the same vendor that holds the underlying data. That combination is the commercial hook and it is also what makes the choice sticky: a cap table is a legal record built up over years of board consents and grant documents, and rebuilding it in another system means re-entering every historical transaction and having someone competent confirm the result reconciles to the signed paperwork. The buyers are venture backed startups, usually from the seed round onward when a law firm or an investor asks where the cap table lives, and the funds that invest in them. The trade offs are cost shape and jurisdiction. Pricing scales with the number of stakeholders on the table, so a company that has issued options widely pays for people who log in once a year to look at a grant. And the product is shaped around United States practice, Delaware corporations, 409A and ASC 718 stock compensation expense; companies incorporated elsewhere can use it for record keeping but the valuation and compliance machinery that justifies the price is largely a United States artefact.

What people use it for

A startup that has just closed a priced round and whose investors and counsel expect the cap table to live somewhere they can read it
A company issuing options to employees for the first time and needing a defensible 409A before it can set a strike price
A finance team preparing its first audit and needing ASC 718 stock compensation schedules that tie to the grant records
A venture fund that wants LP reporting, capital calls and SPV administration handled outside a spreadsheet

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Carta.

Pricing scales with the number of stakeholders on the cap table, so a company that grants options broadly pays a rising annual fee for employees and small angels who sign in once a year, and the cost keeps climbing after the round that justified it is spent.
The cap table is a legal record assembled from years of board consents, so migrating to another provider means re-entering historical transactions and having counsel confirm the rebuilt table matches the signed documents, which is why most companies stay whatever they think of the service.
The product is built around United States company law and tax practice, Delaware entities, 409A and ASC 718, so a company incorporated in the United Kingdom, Europe or elsewhere gets a record keeping tool while the valuation and compliance features that carry the price are of limited or no use.
409A valuations are delivered on a cadence and require a refresh after each material event or every twelve months, so a company that raises or changes materially is repeatedly back in a valuation process with fees and turnaround time attached, and a late valuation blocks option issuance.
Carta drew sustained criticism in 2024 over how customer cap table data intersected with its secondary trading business, and although it exited that activity the episode is a live reason to check what a vendor holding your ownership record is permitted to do with it.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Carta

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

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Pricing

What Carta costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Launch

Free

Cap table
Stakeholder management

Seed

$360 /yr

409A valuations
Option exercising
Scenarios

Capabilities

Features

Cap table of record
Maintains share classes, certificates, options, warrants and convertibles as a single ownership record
409A valuations
Independent valuations used to set option strike prices, delivered by Carta's own valuation team
Electronic issuance
Issues share certificates and option grants with electronic signature and board consent tracking
Vesting and exercise
Tracks cliffs and schedules, and handles employee exercise including early exercise and 83(b) prompts
Employee portal
Gives holders a view of their grants, vested amounts and exercise cost without the finance team fielding questions
Scenario modelling
Models new rounds, option pool increases and dilution before terms are signed
Waterfall analysis
Calculates proceeds by share class at a given exit value, including preferences and participation
ASC 718 expense reporting
Produces stock compensation expense schedules for the accounts and the auditors
Investor access
Gives named investors read access to their own position rather than emailing spreadsheets
Diligence and audit exports
Structured exports and read only access for auditors and acquirer diligence teams
Fund administration
Separate service handling capital calls, distributions, LP reporting and fund accounting
SPV administration
Formation and ongoing administration of special purpose vehicles for single deal investments

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Do I need Carta before I have employees with options?

No. Before options exist a spreadsheet reviewed by your lawyer is usually enough. The pressure to move normally comes at a priced round, or the first time you need a 409A to set a strike price.

Is the 409A included in the subscription?

The subscription tiers bundle valuations differently and refreshes after material events can carry additional cost. Check what triggers a chargeable revaluation before you sign, because raising a round is exactly the moment you will need one.

Can my accountant get the stock compensation numbers out of it?

Yes, it produces ASC 718 expense schedules and exports. If your accounts are prepared under a different framework, expect the schedules to be a starting point that your accountant reworks rather than something they post directly.

Is it useful for a company outside the United States?

It can hold the share register and grants, and it does support some non United States structures. The 409A and United States tax workflow will not apply to you, so weigh it against local alternatives that understand your filings.

How hard is it to leave?

Harder than the export button suggests. You can export the data, but the receiving system has to reproduce every historical grant, cancellation and transfer, and someone has to verify the result against the original signed consents.

Who normally pays for it, the company or the investors?

The company, even though investors and counsel are frequent users. That is the usual complaint about the pricing model: the party paying is not the only party benefiting.

Behind it

Who makes Carta

Company: Carta Inc
Based in: San Francisco, CA

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Carta, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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