# Cap table management for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, October 2026

Finance AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "cap table management software" and as "equity management platform", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://finance-ai-index.com/corporate/cap-table-management/smb/

**Standing:** Eqvista leads with 29% of first choices; verdict contested. 56 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eqvista | 29% | 0% | 55 |
| 2 | Carta | 21% | 35% | 77 |
| 3 | Pulley | 21% | 39% | 70 |
| 4 | Cake Equity | 16% | 0% | 42 |
| 5 | Qapita | 4% | 7% | 15 |
| 6 | Capboard | 2% | 0% | 21 |
| 7 | Ledgy | 0% | 10% | 30 |
| 8 | Fidelity Private Shares | 0% | 0% | 11 |
| 9 | AngelList Stack | 0% | 47% | 17 |
| 10 | Shareworks | 0% | 67% | 12 |

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cake Equity, Eqvista; alternatives Pulley
- GPT-5.4 mini: Pulley; alternatives Carta, Eqvista
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cake Equity; alternatives Carta, Eqvista, Fidelity Private Shares, Qapita
- Perplexity Sonar: Pulley; alternatives Eqvista
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Carta; alternatives Capboard, Ledgy, Pulley
- Mistral Small: Carta, Pulley; alternatives Cake Equity
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Pulley; alternatives Cake Equity, Eqvista
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Carta, Pulley; alternatives Capdesk
- Kimi K2: Pulley; alternatives Eqvista, Fidelity Private Shares
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Carta; alternatives Capboard, Eqvista, Qapita
- MiniMax M2.5: Capboard, Eqvista; alternatives Carta
- GPT-6 Luna: Carta; alternatives Eqvista
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Eqvista; alternatives Cake Equity, Capboard, Carta, Fidelity Private Shares

## Sources the answers cite

77 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- cakeequity.com: 45 answers, 60 citations
- guideflow.com: 44 answers, 48 citations
- qapita.com: 40 answers, 51 citations
- waveup.com: 40 answers, 40 citations
- eqvista.com: 32 answers, 42 citations
- valueaddvc.com: 29 answers, 33 citations
- thecfoclub.com: 25 answers, 26 citations
- resources.rework.com: 24 answers, 41 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://waveup.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (40 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/cap-table-management-software (39 answers)
- https://cakeequity.com/guides/best-cap-table-software (34 answers)
- https://qapita.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-software (32 answers)
- https://valueaddvc.com/blog/best-cap-table-management-tools-in-2026-carta-pulley-angellist-capdesk-ranked (28 answers)
- https://thecfoclub.com/tools/best-cap-table-management-software (23 answers)
- https://hirechore.com/startups/best-cap-table-management-solutions-for-startups-top-vendors (20 answers)
- https://equitylist.co/blog-post/best-cap-table-software-2024 (16 answers)
- https://eqvista.com/cap-table-management-software-startups (16 answers)
- https://resources.rework.com/tools/equity-cap-table/best-cap-table-software-2026 (15 answers)

## Warned against

- Carta: 27 of 77 labels negative. "Avoid or be very cautious with: Carta unless you're well-funded and have complex needs — the pricing opacity and service complaints are significant risks" (Kimi K2, negative prompt)
- Pulley: 27 of 70 labels negative. "be aware that Pulley—historically one of the most popular platforms for early-stage startups—is shutting down all operations and services on December 8, 2026" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, comparative prompt)
- Shareworks: 8 of 12 labels negative. "Enterprise tools like Shareworks or Morgan Stanley at Work: Quote-based, designed for pre-IPO/public companies; irrelevant and expensive for small businesses." (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- AngelList Stack: 8 of 17 labels negative. "AngelList Stack stopped accepting new customers in August 2026 and is being phased out, making it a poor choice" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 10 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
New leader: Pulley (30%) to Eqvista (27%). Margin 2 points, within noise.

- Eqvista: 16% to 27%, +10. Cleared the floor by 0 points · rank 3 → 1 of 47.
- Pulley: 30% to 24%, −6. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 1 → 2 of 47.
- Carta: 16% to 20%, +4. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 4 → 3 of 47.
- Cake Equity: 20% to 16%, −3. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 2 → 4 of 47.
- Capboard: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 13 → 7 of 47.
- Qapita: 5% to 4%, −1. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 5 of 47, unchanged.
- Ledgy: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 11 → 9 of 47.
- AngelList Stack: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 33 → 37 of 47.
- Shareworks: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 32 → 47 of 47.

## Record

- Method: https://finance-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://finance-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Finance AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, finance-ai-index.com.