Carta

What Is Carta?

Carta is a cloud-based solution for venture firms, private equity firms, and legal teams that want to manage ownership, fundraising, and fund operations all in one location. The software includes SAFE issuance with built-in e-signatures, liquidity tools for tender offers and secondary transactions, fund forecasting for portfolio construction and reserve planning, and AI-powered contract redlining for firms handling a large volume of NDAs and deal documents. In addition, HR teams can also use wage and equity benchmarking data to support competitive hiring decisions.

What Is Carta Best For?

The platform stands out for its ‘Total Compensation’ feature, which uses large private-market equity and compensation dataset to provide companies with reliable salary and equity benchmarks by role, level, and region. Carta helps businesses manage equity pools, forecast compensation expenses, and create offer letters and total reward statements, making it easier for finance and HR teams to hire competitively and plan equity grants accurately.

How Much Does Carta Cost?

Carta pricing starts at approx. $3,000-$8,000/year based on the industry benchmarks for companies at early-stage (seed) and with less than 50 stakeholders. It also features two modules, Equity Management and Fund Management, that come with the following tiered pricing plans that increase depending on the features and number of stakeholders:

• Launch
• Build
• Grow
• Scale

In addition, businesses should keep the following potential costs in mind based on the industry benchmarks:

• Implementation: $1,000–$15,000, depending on cap table complexity, historical data migration, and deployment scope
• 409A Valuations: $500–$5,000/valuation, based on company stage and valuation complexity
• Fund Administration: $10,000–$100,000+/year, depending on assets under management, number of funds, and reporting requirements
• API Integrations And Enterprise Setup: $2,000–$20,000, depending on integration scope with HR, payroll, accounting, and legal systems
• Premium Support And Compliance Services: $2,000–$15,000/year, depending on service level and regulatory requirements

Disclaimer: Pricing references are based on publicly available third-party information and industry benchmarks. Actual costs may vary.

Carta Integrations

Carta integrates with the following third-party software, such as:

• Rippling HR
• Namely HR
• Gusto HR software
• BambooHR
• TriNet
• Sequoia
• Workday

How Does Carta Work?

Log in to the Carta platform to manage your company's equity, compensation, and compliance from a single platform. Continue with the steps below to use its key features:

• Create a cap table to securely issue, track, and manage your company's stock, with real-time ownership data for founders, workers, and investors
• Run valuations directly on the platform to obtain audit-ready 409A valuations that support your financial reporting and compliance requirements
• Issue SAFEs and other finance forms, collect signatures, and safely transfer investor funds without leaving Carta
• To prepare for audits and accounting reviews, generate financial reports, including stock-based compensation reports, with a few clicks
• Use Total Compensation, which provides salary and equity benchmarks for all roles, levels, and regions, allowing you to plan pay and equity grants based on real market data
• Manage secondary transactions with the Liquidity function, which connects directly to your cap table to ensure ownership remains precise after each exchange
• Put compliance on autopilot with Equity Compliance, which automates corporate secretarial tasks and keeps your company in line with legal obligations
• Track equity holders, assets, and portfolio activity in real time with dashboards that immediately refresh as your data changes

Who Is Carta For?

The software serves a wide range of business types, industries, and roles, including:

• Law firms
• Finance
• HR
• General partners
• Private equity
• Venture capital firms

Carta Use Cases

We evaluated Carta features, capabilities, and market positioning as an equity, fund, and compliance management platform for private law firms and came across some use cases that highlight how various professional teams rely on Carta platform to tackle their day-to-day work.

Private Companies Managing Complex Valuations And Compliance Reporting

At fast-growing private companies, finance teams spend a lot of time generating valuations, piecing together equity reports, and hunting down audit info, most of it manually. When there’s no system in place, month-end and audits can quickly turn into a mess of spreadsheets and endless email chains. Mistakes slip through and things get delayed. Carta helps finance teams get audit-ready 409A and IFRS 13 valuations, easily model scenarios for sensitivity and dilution, and generate IFRS 2 and ASC 718 expense reports automatically, all straight from the cap table. That means less manual work, faster month-end closes, and an easier time prepping for audits.

Growing Businesses Building Competitive Compensation Packages

HR teams face a real challenge when they have to put together solid compensation packages or back up pay decisions without reliable market data. It’s tough to explain offers, spot unfair pay, or help employees see what their pay is actually worth. That’s where Carta’s ‘Total Compensation’ can help. It gives you real-time wage and equity benchmarks, broken down by job, level, and region. The Employee Scorecard feature flags possible pay equity problems early, before they turn into reasons for people to leave. Moreover, Carta’s HRIS connectors automatically keep employee records in sync with the cap table, so there’s no need for manual double entry.

Law Firms Handling Equity And Compliance For Multiple Clients

Working with startups and private companies often means drowning in partner-level data entry and endless manual tasks like searching for cap table updates, double-checking equity records, and chasing down compliance filings across a bunch of client accounts. It’s easy to lose hours on these tasks, and it pulls attorneys away from the legal work that really matters. In this case, Carta helps law firms keep track of cap tables, valuations, compensation cycles, and liquidity events at every stage, from the company’s launch all the way to IPO. This helps firms stay focused on real client advice, with help from a team that understands legal workflows.

Venture Capital Firms Seeking Real-Time Fund And Portfolio Visibility

When venture capital firms manage multiple funds and portfolio companies, keeping track of everything in real time gets difficult. Data gets scattered everywhere; spreadsheets, emails, disconnected software, and suddenly, reporting slows down. It makes responding to LPs or deciding on investment opportunities tougher than it needs to be. Carta’s AI steps in and keeps an eye on fund activity nonstop, pulling together capital calls, distributions, and financial statements. You get up-to-the-minute IRR, TVPI, and DPI. Investors can just log into an LP Portal to see performance numbers and documents for themselves.

Is Carta Right For You?

Carta is the go-to option for businesses that want to move on from traditional spreadsheets and avoid juggling a bunch of separate tools to manage equity, compensation, and compliance. It helps teams issue shares, run valuations, plan compensation, and keep track of fund and portfolio data in one single platform, avoiding wasting time digging through scattered info.

The software provides a centralized platform for cap tables, valuations, compensation benchmarks, and compliance workflows, thus, reducing reliance on manual, error-prone processes. The platform prioritizes data protection and security, holding certifications such as SOC 1, SOC 2, and ISO 27001, with a stated commitment to never use client data to train internal or external generative AI models.

Still not sure if Carta is right for you? Contact our customer support team at (661) 384-7070, who will help you make the best decision.