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

Gane 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://www.gane.ai/index/finance/corporate/cap-table-management/2026-09

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/corporate/cap-table-management/index.md

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

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Carta Equity](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/carta-equity/index.md) | 44% | 22% | 65 |
| 2 | [Qapita](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/qapita/index.md) | 14% | 4% | 26 |
| 3 | [Eqvista](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/eqvista/index.md) | 12% | 0% | 35 |
| 4 | [Pulley](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/pulley/index.md) | 8% | 30% | 56 |
| 5 | [Cake Equity](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/cake-equity/index.md) | 7% | 0% | 38 |
| 6 | [Ledgy](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/ledgy/index.md) | 3% | 6% | 36 |
| 7 | [Shareworks](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/shareworks/index.md) | 3% | 27% | 26 |
| 8 | [Fidelity Private Shares](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/fidelity-private-shares/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 14 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 41 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Carta Equity; alternatives Cake Equity, Pulley, Qapita
- GPT-5.4 mini: Carta Equity; alternatives Eqvista, Ledgy, Shareworks
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Carta Equity; alternatives ClosingWell, Ledgy, Pulley, Qapita
- Perplexity Sonar: Carta Equity; alternatives Qapita
- Grok 4.20: Carta Equity; alternatives Ledgy, Pulley
- Mistral Small: Carta Equity, Qapita
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Carta Equity, Qapita; alternatives Ledgy
- Llama 4 Maverick: Carta Equity, Pulley, Qapita
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Carta Equity; alternatives Pulley, Qapita
- Kimi K2: Carta Equity; alternatives Cake Equity, Eqvista, Ledgy, Pulley
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Qapita; alternatives Cake Equity, Capshare, Mantle, Pulley
- MiniMax M2.5: Carta Equity, 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: 49 answers, 60 citations
- qapita.com: 36 answers, 50 citations
- guideflow.com: 34 answers, 36 citations
- eqvista.com: 32 answers, 42 citations
- waveup.com: 31 answers, 31 citations
- valueaddvc.com: 28 answers, 37 citations
- aifundingtracker.com: 21 answers, 21 citations
- pulley.com: 19 answers, 25 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cakeequity.com/guides/best-cap-table-software (42 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/cap-table-management-software (32 answers)
- https://waveup.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (31 answers)
- https://qapita.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (25 answers)
- https://valueaddvc.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-tools-in-2026-carta-pulley-angellist-capdesk-ranked (24 answers)
- https://aifundingtracker.com/best-cap-table-management-software (21 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-equity-management-software (18 answers)
- https://eqvista.com/cap-table-management-software-startups (17 answers)
- https://ctacquisitions.com/best-cap-table-software-2026 (17 answers)
- https://story.law/blog/best-cap-table-management-software-2026 (15 answers)

## Warned against

- Carta Equity: 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 4.20, 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://www.gane.ai/index/finance/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/finance.