Carta Reviews

“Love-Hate Relationship with Carta

Pros

When I have issues with this software (which is often), Carta's support team is usually very responsive and works with me on the issue. The software itself works fine, I guess, as it rarely has technical problems. The offered tutorial does help, and I appreciate the Carta team for putting it together.

Cons

Not very intuitive to use! A major part is requiring a good foundation in securities and stock options knowledge, which I clearly do not have. One HUGE gripe I have with Carta is that there is no quick way to bulk update a set of option grants. Instead, I have to go into EACH option grant, upload the document I need to upload, add a note of what I am updating, wait for 5 seconds for the update to occur, and repeat with the rest of the 1000+ option grants. I have been uploading/updating these option grants for a few days now while trying to do my other work, and I am still updating as I write this review on a Saturday evening. I don't know whether to keep on updating while cursing at the Carta screen or just call it quits for the day. Also, the update generates an email notification for the option holders, and of course, a good number of them send me questions afterward despite our team having already prepared a mass message for our Chief Sales Officer to send out that explains these notifications. I'm at the point where I'm inclined to curse out the next sales employee that asks me what these Carta notifications are for.

“All in one platform

Pros

I never knew such platforms existed until we started using one. It's a nice, simple-to-use platform, providing us with information about everything ESOP-related within the organization.

Cons

It would have been great if there had been more information on how to navigate through the platform.

“Easy way to manage stock options

Pros

Their documentation and blog are very helpful for me in understanding all the terms and nuances of stock options.

Cons

There is nothing that I don't like, the software does a solid job servicing our need for managing stock options.

“Easy for users, simple interface

Pros

The interface is uncluttered and very obvious where to click and navigate. It's nice for me to track my overall equity and individual grants. The best feature is the ability to easily forecast overall share allotments across varying vesting schedules.

Cons

There is not a robust feature set beyond the basics to track my equity, but I'm not sure how much more I would need for that.

“Imposible to use because its always so SLOW

Pros

In theory, it should be simple for me to manage our portfolio of over 50 different holdings.

Cons

We are investors, not issuers. As investors, we have three big issues: A) The site is SO SLOW, I literally end up emailing the portfolio company to ask for the information. B) The UX for the portfolio is nonsensical. For example, if you accept a certificate, you are not taken to the holding, but rather to some summary page from which you then have to search for what you just accepted, and if you are not in the right "portfolio," it doesn't show up. C) Carta makes it very difficult to keep a backup.

“Great Product!

Pros

This product is simple to operate, and I am very pleased with it.

Cons

I can't think of anything to improve at the moment.

“Great Cap Table Management and Scenario Modeling

Pros

I love having a constantly updated Cap Table and being able to quickly model exit and funding round scenarios. The integrated stock ledger and 409A valuations are a bonus. I plan to add investor and board communication to the platform this year.

Cons

I wish the scenario modeling provided options for convertible notes. However, the file outputs allowed me to manipulate the data in Excel very easily, and they were presentation-ready.

“The most painful experience imaginable

Pros

It's overly complicated with terrible UX and customer support.

Cons

The setup is extremely painful. The support staff is incredibly arrogant, and everything about your business has to conform to Carta. You can't even stop the annual subscription without going through the 'Carta offboarding process,' which is just as hard as onboarding and seems designed to benefit their finance team. It's a classic lack of customer focus and truly painful in every way. Seriously, avoid it unless you're a huge company with time to waste.

“Very simple interface for viewing, managing, and monitoring my stock options

Pros

No hassle, very simple to operate. It has a clean layout and makes it easy for me to view all my paperwork. It sends an email each time more stock options vest.

Cons

I haven't had any issues with it so far. My only complaint is that it's a very specific tool for legal document management, which could be shared and managed another way. But it works well and has a clear goal, so it's fine.

“Super easy to keep track of my stock options

Pros

I love how Carta automatically updates me when I have more vested options and shows a progress bar for my stock options vesting.

Cons

No complaints, but I probably haven't used this software deeply enough to find anything difficult or something to dislike about it.

“Great App for Managing Private Equity

Pros

I can keep track of multiple companies in one account. It has great data visualization tools for exercised vs. vested options and serves as a repository for important documents.

Cons

The mobile application lacks some features that the web app has, like the documentation repository. Sometimes it's difficult to understand the workflow required to accomplish a task. There are multiple ways to do the same thing, which can leave me feeling a bit lost at times.

“Stock Options: Managed

Pros

The iOS app and web portal require Two Factor Authentication before use, adding an extra layer of security to ensure that only I can access my sensitive financial information.

Cons

The password requirements are kind of funny. It starts off by saying, "Your password needs to be at least good and 9 characters long," then changes the message as more characters are typed. The definition of "good" is eventually revealed.

“Easy way to monitor employee stock options

Pros

I'm not a finance expert or a lawyer, which is why I appreciate Carta for managing my employee stock benefits. It keeps all records and information in one place that's easily accessible, with helpful guides and tutorials. I also really like the interactive vesting schedule and option exercise calculator, which help me visualize my stock benefits.

Cons

I don't really have a complaint about Carta other than I wish it integrated with other employee benefits platforms like Justworks. Obviously, Carta is much more specialized than Justworks, and there are probably legal/security reasons it is separate, but it would be cool to have everything in one place.

“Carta Review

Pros

It's very simple to set up and operate. I can easily track my stock options and see when I can exercise them.

Cons

No cons that I can think of. It's pretty basic but works very well.

“Simple way to manage equity in a startup.

Pros

Carta is simple to see when I can exercise shares and my current holdings.

Cons

It's such a bare website. I would like more features, maybe educationally-focused links, and ways to track the value of the shares if there is any information.

“Carta keeps me in the loop

Pros

I love their communication skills, especially the emails they send when I've vested shares.

Cons

I have no qualms or issues with Carta at this time.

“Great Equity Management

Pros

It's an easy and efficient way to check on equity status. I also appreciate the language and articles Carta provides about stocks and stock options.

Cons

The platform is simple and easy to navigate. I have no complaints.

“Stocks in One Place!

Pros

I really like using Carta to manage our stock options for employees. I find it simple to operate for both administrators and employees who are creating accounts and reviewing options.

Cons

Sometimes I find the reports tedious to complete because there are many options to select. It does take some time to make multiple changes.

“Huge timesaver, great value and has improved continuously over time

Pros

Carta solved a costly problem very easily. I used to manage our cap table in Excel, print out paperwork, and issue stock certificates. Every time I looked at software options, I ended up returning to the same system. Using lawyers was prohibitively expensive, so we managed it in-house. After talking to users of competitive products and hearing about errors leading to board-level action and expensive fixes, I chose Carta. It was far superior in ease of operation, data accuracy, security, rapid product development, and scalability. They could make any necessary adjustments without costly external counsel or board interaction.

Cons

When we first started using it nearly five years ago, we found a few bugs in accounting reporting on edge cases (we had a couple of unusual cases for a company of our size at the time). The Carta team quickly made adjustments to their software to resolve the problems and have continued to respond quickly to feedback.

“We use this to distribute/organize stocks

Pros

Our company gives employees stock options, and we use Carta to organize, distribute, and view them. It is quite helpful and simple to operate. I can check each stock option separately, knowing exactly when I received each amount and when it vests.

Cons

I don't have anything I don't like about it. I guess I just wish I knew what else the website can do, as I only really know about accepting/viewing my stock options.