What should I look for in a Cap Table platform?

Every platform in this category will show you who owns what. The differences show up later, usually the first time you need to change something quickly, or when the renewal arrives. These are the eight things worth checking, and most of them are answerable before you ever talk to a salesperson.

1. Onboarding and migration support

The question people skip, because the fear of migrating is usually what keeps a company on a platform long after it has stopped wanting it.

Worth knowing up front whether migration is handled for you or left to you, how long it takes, and whether it is charged separately. In practice it is usually a few report exports and a handover. On Cake, the Customer Success team rebuilds your Cap Table for you.

2. Ease of use

The practical test is whether a non-financial executive can pull their own numbers without booking a call.

Equity software gets used occasionally by most of the people who need it, which means it has to work for someone who never learns it properly. Not just the admin who lives in it, but the finance lead checking a figure before a board meeting and the counsel confirming a grant. Reading a Cap Table across its summary, fully diluted and outstanding views is the thing to try during a trial.

3. The equity tools themselves

Coverage of what you actually hold, not what the demo shows. Cap Tables get complicated in predictable ways.

Check the instruments already on your Cap Table, including SAFEs, convertible notes, warrants, RSUs and RSAs, not just shares and options. Then check vesting properly: schedules, cliffs, milestone vesting, and what happens to vested and unvested grants when someone leaves, which is where most platforms get thin. Setting up an incentive plan end to end is a reasonable trial exercise.

4. Fundraising and scenario modelling

Modelling that lives outside the Cap Table drifts away from it, which is why this belongs in the platform rather than a spreadsheet beside it.

What to look for: pre and post-money modelling, SAFE and note conversions at different caps, and exit scenarios. Companies most often want this before a term sheet is signed, when the question is what a round does to everyone's position. Cake models dilution from SAFEs and priced rounds against your live Cap Table.

5. Security, data control and compliance

Two separate questions that usually get asked as one.

Compliance, judged one stage ahead of where you are now. 409A valuations, ASC 718 reporting for your auditors, Form 3921 for ISO exercises, Rule 701 tracking and 83(b) elections. Discovering a gap in the middle of an audit is expensive, and these are the layers companies typically grow into rather than start with.

Data control, which is simpler to test. Ask for a full export including grants and vesting history, and check it is self-serve rather than a support ticket. A platform you can leave has to keep earning you.

6. Pricing transparency

Transparent pricing matters more than low pricing. Most platforms cost more as your Cap Table grows, ours included, and that is normal.

What causes trouble is not being able to see it. If you have to book a call to find the number, you also cannot see what moves you into the next tier, or what your third year looks like. The complaint heard most in this market is not the first invoice. It is the renewal nobody saw coming. Cake's plans and what each includes are published.

7. Quality of support

Whether you can reach a person, how quickly, and whether the self-service material is good enough that you usually do not need to.

Worth asking what onboarding actually includes, since that is where support quality shows first. Cake includes a Power Up call where the team walks through your migrated Cap Table with you and reconciles it line by line, before you pay for a plan.

8. Investor and employee access

The one that gets forgotten until it is a problem, and the one that decides whether equity does anything beyond sitting in a record.

If employees and investors have to email you for their numbers, you have become the bottleneck for your own Cap Table. Equity nobody can see motivates nobody. Ask to see the stakeholder view, not just the admin view: in Cake, company view and the stakeholder portal are separate, and every stakeholder can be invited to their own to see what they hold, what has vested and what it is worth.

Checking before you commit

Most of the eight are answerable from a platform's own documentation, before you talk to anyone.

With Cake you can go a step further than reading about it. Bring your existing Cap Table across, have our team reconcile it with you, and read all of it in your own account before you pay for a plan.

Still need help?

Contact our support team via chat or email hello@cakeequity.com and we will help you out.