Pulley alternatives: where to move your cap table before December 8

Pulley is shutting down on December 8, 2026, and roughly every startup on it now has the same question: move to Carta because it is the assisted path, or use the forced migration as a reason to look properly?

This is the honest version of that comparison. No affiliate links, no scores out of ten, and no pretence that a cap table decision is a feature-grid decision.

Start with the constraint nobody mentions

Pulley says it is “unable to assist a migration to a different provider in any capacity.” Read that literally. If you pick anything other than Carta, you are responsible for the export, the import and the reconciliation — and you only have a live Pulley app to export from until December 8.

So the order of operations is fixed regardless of your choice:

1. Export everything now (holder ledger, grants with full vesting schedules, 409A reports, board consents, SAFEs, 83(b) elections).
2. Then evaluate.
3. Then migrate and reconcile against your own files.

Anyone who tells you to evaluate first is costing you the only leverage you have.

The five questions that actually decide this

Where are your entities? A US-only Delaware C-corp and a company with a UK parent and an Indian subsidiary are not shopping in the same market. Geography eliminates more options than features do.

Who needs to log in? If employees, ex-employees and investors all need a portal, stakeholder experience matters more than admin features. If it is you and your lawyer, it does not.

Do you need a 409A next year? Bundled valuations are the single biggest swing in total cost. Compare the subscription plus the valuation, never the subscription alone.

What is your next financing event? If a priced round or a tender is coming, scenario modelling and waterfall quality matter. If nothing is imminent, buy less.

How hard is it to leave? The question Pulley’s customers are now asking retroactively. Ask every vendor what a full export looks like, in what format, and whether it includes documents and vesting schedules — before you sign.

The realistic shortlist

Carta

The default, and for most US companies the sensible one right now — not because it is the best product for everybody, but because it is the only path where someone else does the migration. Pulley customers who opt in keep their current Pulley pricing for their first full year on Carta, get credits for prepaid balances, and sign a new Carta agreement. Watch the year-two price and the contract term; that is where the economics land.

Best when: you are US-based, you want this finished, and a year of price protection buys you time to decide properly.

Ledgy

The usual European answer. Strong on multi-entity, multi-country employee equity and the reporting European companies actually need, with HR-system integrations that matter once you are past a few dozen employees.

Best when: your entities or your employees sit in Europe.

Cake Equity

The APAC and Australian counterpart — regional coverage, sensible pricing at the small end, and an employee experience built for teams that are not all in one country.

Best when: your company or your employees are in Australia or Asia-Pacific.

Eqvista

The cheapest defensible option for companies that need a real system of record but cannot justify a four-figure annual spend, with a valuation offering priced well below typical third-party 409A fees.

Best when: you are early, cost-sensitive, and want a valuation path bundled in.

Fidelity Private Shares

The bank-backed option, notable for free cap table management for companies before their first priced round. Institutional backing is worth something in a year when a $50M-funded challenger just shut down.

Best when: you are pre-priced-round and you value the balance sheet behind the product.

Qapita

Built for companies whose stakeholders are spread across jurisdictions, with equity compliance across many countries and flat pricing rather than a stakeholder-count curve.

Best when: your team is global and your compliance surface is the problem.

Cost: compare the bundle, not the sticker

Published pricing in this category is close to meaningless in isolation, because the line items that move the total are:

• Stakeholder count tiers, which step up exactly when you hire.
• 409A valuations, bundled or not, at $1,000–$5,000 a year depending on provider and complexity.
• Entity count, where multi-entity groups often land in an enterprise conversation.
• Contract term, where a three-year lock at a good rate is worth less than it looks when the vendor’s own future is the risk you just experienced.

Ask for the all-in number for the next two years, including the valuation, with your actual stakeholder count. Then compare.

What we would do this week

If you are US-based and nothing about Carta offends you: opt in before November 30, take the price hold, and use the year to decide properly. That is the lowest-risk path and it costs you nothing to keep open.

If you are outside the US, or you have wanted off this stack for a while: export now, shortlist two providers on geography, and run the migration in October rather than December, when every other Pulley customer will be doing the same thing and every vendor’s onboarding queue is full.

Either way, keep your own copy of everything. That is the actual lesson of this shutdown, and it is the one thing no vendor can take away from you.

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Where we fit, honestly: ESOP.fyi is an AI-native cap table, ESOP and liquidity platform opening its first cohort in Q4 2026 — after Pulley goes dark. If you need to move before December 8, move; we are not pretending to be your migration target today. If you would rather not sign a multi-year contract this quarter, join the waitlist and we will email you once, when doors open.