# Cap table management for small business buyers: 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 small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/corporate/cap-table-management/2026-09/smb

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since.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/smb/index.md

**Standing:** Pulley leads with 30% of first choices; verdict contested. 56 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Pulley](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/pulley/index.md) | 30% | 18% | 57 |
| 2 | [Cake Equity](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/cake-equity/index.md) | 20% | 0% | 44 |
| 3 | [Eqvista](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/eqvista/index.md) | 16% | 7% | 41 |
| 4 | [Carta Equity](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/carta-equity/index.md) | 16% | 44% | 62 |
| 5 | [Qapita](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/qapita/index.md) | 5% | 7% | 15 |
| 11 | [Ledgy](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/ledgy/index.md) | 0% | 3% | 29 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 33 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: Mantle; alternatives Cake Equity, EquityList
- GPT-5.4 mini: Eqvista; alternatives Carta Equity
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Carta Equity; alternatives Cake Equity, Eqvista, Ledgy, Mantle
- Perplexity Sonar: Pulley; alternatives Carta Equity, Qapita
- Grok 4.20: Cake Equity, Eqvista; alternatives Carta Equity, Pulley
- Mistral Small: Pulley; alternatives Cake Equity, Carta Equity
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Pulley; alternatives Cake Equity, Eqvista, Gust Equity Management
- Llama 4 Maverick: Pulley; alternatives Carta Equity
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Pulley; alternatives Carta Equity, Eqvista
- Kimi K2: Carta Equity, Pulley; alternatives Eqvista
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Pulley; alternatives Cake Equity, Carta Equity
- MiniMax M2.5: Carta Equity; alternatives Cake Equity

## Sources the answers cite

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

- cakeequity.com: 57 answers, 70 citations
- eqvista.com: 41 answers, 61 citations
- guideflow.com: 38 answers, 42 citations
- waveup.com: 34 answers, 34 citations
- qapita.com: 33 answers, 50 citations
- cheqly.com: 28 answers, 28 citations
- pulley.com: 25 answers, 43 citations
- valueaddvc.com: 22 answers, 27 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cakeequity.com/guides/best-cap-table-software (43 answers)
- https://waveup.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (34 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/cap-table-management-software (31 answers)
- https://eqvista.com/cap-table-management-software-startups (28 answers)
- https://cheqly.com/best-cap-table-software-startups (28 answers)
- https://valueaddvc.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-tools-in-2026-carta-pulley-angellist-capdesk-ranked (21 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-equity-management-software (19 answers)
- https://qapita.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (18 answers)
- https://aifundingtracker.com/best-cap-table-management-software (17 answers)
- https://qapita.com/blog/best-equity-management-software (15 answers)

## Warned against

- Carta Equity: 27 of 62 labels negative. "Avoid Carta unless your investors explicitly demand it" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Pulley: 10 of 57 labels negative. "You should avoid signing up for Pulley, and if you are currently using it, you need to initiate a migration immediately." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, direct prompt)
- Shareworks: 6 of 9 labels negative. "Shareworks may not be suitable for small businesses or early-stage startups due to its complexity and higher cost" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- AngelList Stack: 5 of 6 labels negative. "stopped accepting new customers in August 2026, so it's no longer a viable choice for new teams" (Kimi K2, comparative 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.