# Cap table management: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Finance AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "cap table management software" and as "equity management platform", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://finance-ai-index.com/corporate/cap-table-management/

**Standing:** Carta leads with 44% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 59 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carta | 44% | 22% | 65 |
| 2 | Qapita | 14% | 4% | 26 |
| 3 | Eqvista | 12% | 0% | 35 |
| 4 | Pulley | 8% | 30% | 56 |
| 5 | Cake Equity | 7% | 0% | 38 |
| 6 | Ledgy | 3% | 6% | 36 |
| 7 | Shareworks | 3% | 27% | 26 |
| 8 | Fidelity Private Shares | 2% | 0% | 14 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Carta; alternatives Cake Equity, Pulley, Qapita
- GPT-5.4 mini: Carta; alternatives Eqvista, Ledgy, Shareworks
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Carta; alternatives ClosingWell, Ledgy, Pulley, Qapita
- Perplexity Sonar: Carta; alternatives Qapita
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Carta; alternatives Ledgy, Pulley
- Mistral Small: Carta, Qapita
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Carta, Qapita; alternatives Ledgy
- Llama 4 Maverick: Carta, Pulley, Qapita
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Carta; alternatives Pulley, Qapita
- Kimi K2: Carta; alternatives Cake Equity, Eqvista, Ledgy, Pulley
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Qapita; alternatives Cake Equity, Capshare, Mantle, Pulley
- MiniMax M2.5: Carta, Shareworks; alternatives EquityZen, Ledgy

## Sources the answers cite

64 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- cakeequity.com: 45 answers, 54 citations
- qapita.com: 31 answers, 43 citations
- guideflow.com: 31 answers, 33 citations
- waveup.com: 31 answers, 31 citations
- eqvista.com: 28 answers, 33 citations
- valueaddvc.com: 23 answers, 28 citations
- aifundingtracker.com: 21 answers, 21 citations
- pulley.com: 18 answers, 24 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cakeequity.com/guides/best-cap-table-software (38 answers)
- https://waveup.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (31 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/cap-table-management-software (29 answers)
- https://qapita.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (22 answers)
- https://aifundingtracker.com/best-cap-table-management-software (21 answers)
- https://valueaddvc.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-tools-in-2026-carta-pulley-angellist-capdesk-ranked (20 answers)
- https://ctacquisitions.com/best-cap-table-software-2026 (17 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-equity-management-software (17 answers)
- https://eqvista.com/cap-table-management-software-startups (16 answers)
- https://story.law/blog/best-cap-table-management-software-2026 (15 answers)

## Warned against

- Carta: 14 of 65 labels negative. "Skip enterprise tools like Carta's paid plans (Build/Grow can run $3,000–$12,000/year" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Pulley: 17 of 56 labels negative. "When to avoid: Immediately if considering now—migrate risks data loss or disruption... obsolete." (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- Shareworks: 7 of 26 labels negative. "treat any enterprise-level platform (Shareworks, Morgan Stanley) as a contract trap for early-stage companies" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Spreadsheets: 3 of 3 labels negative. "These are risky because: No audit trail, Formula errors can cause costly mistakes, Version control chaos" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://finance-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://finance-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Finance AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, finance-ai-index.com.