Carta Alternative
You're paying $600+/mo for a cap table you check twice a quarter — while running the rest of your fund in spreadsheets, DocSend, and Slack threads. Archstone replaces all of it for $297/mo.
Credit where it's due. Carta built the digital cap table category and there are things they do genuinely better than anyone else.
Carta's cap table product is the industry standard for a reason. Complex multi-class structures, waterfall analyses, and scenario modeling are handled with a depth that reflects over a decade of iteration. If you have a 50-row cap table with multiple preferred series, Carta manages it well.
Automated, defensible, and deeply integrated into the cap table workflow. For portfolio companies that need regular 409A valuations — especially as they approach priced rounds — Carta's process is streamlined and audit-ready. This is a legitimate strength.
Carta has deep relationships with major law firms handling venture transactions. For Series B+ rounds with complex legal structures, the direct integration between Carta and legal counsel reduces friction in ways that matter at scale.
For large funds with dedicated compliance teams, Carta's infrastructure is robust. Audit trails, reporting standards, and regulatory frameworks are built for institutions that answer to multiple regulators and LPs with strict reporting requirements.
Carta is the right tool for certain GPs. Here's who actually gets value from it.
Large VC funds ($100M+)
Funds with dedicated back-office teams who need enterprise-grade fund administration and don't mind the price tag. At $100M+, the $600/mo is a rounding error in management fees.
Series B+ startups with complex cap tables
Companies with multiple preferred rounds, convertible notes, SAFEs, and option pools that need bulletproof cap table records for their next financing or M&A event.
GPs who primarily need 409A support
If your main job is helping portfolio companies get defensible 409A valuations as part of their option grant process, Carta's automation there is genuinely best-in-class.
IPO-track companies
Companies on the path to public markets need bulletproof equity records that can withstand SEC scrutiny. Carta's track record here spans hundreds of public offerings.
If you're running a sub-$25M fund, Carta wasn't designed for you. And it shows.
Carta triages support by account size. If you're a $5M Fund I, your ticket sits behind the $500M growth fund that pays 20x what you do. It's rational for Carta's business — and brutal for yours. When you need help reconciling a capital call before a wire deadline, "we'll get back to you" isn't an answer.
Carta's 5-10% annual increases don't seem dramatic in year one. But a $600/mo plan becomes $660, then $726, then $799. Over a 10-year fund life, you're paying 60-100% more than your starting price — for the same service. Emerging managers don't have management fees that scale like that. Your costs shouldn't either.
Carta gives you a cap table. That's it. No data room. No deal pipeline. No LP communication tools. No portfolio tracking. No AI. You still need DocSend ($45/mo), Visible ($149/mo), Streak or Affinity ($50+/mo), and a spreadsheet system you maintain yourself. You're paying premium prices for one piece of a six-piece puzzle.
In 2024, Carta was caught sharing cap table data with secondary market buyers without founder consent — using its privileged position as cap table administrator to feed its CartaX marketplace. For GPs who hold fiduciary responsibility for their LPs' data, this wasn't just a PR problem. It was a fundamental breach of the trust model that fund administration requires.
Carta's interface was designed for back-office administrators at large funds — not solo GPs who need to move fast. Dense menus, nested settings, and workflows optimized for compliance teams make simple tasks feel heavy. When you just need to share an update with your LPs or check a company's ownership percentage, you shouldn't need a training session to find it.
An honest look at what each platform includes. No asterisks, no fine print.
| Feature | Archstone | Carta |
|---|---|---|
| Cap Table Management | Included | Best-in-class |
| 409A Valuations | Partner integration | Built-in |
| Data Room | Unlimited files + analytics | Not included |
| LP Portal & Reporting | Built-in quarterly reports | Basic, add-on pricing |
| Deal Flow Pipeline | Kanban + scoring | Not included |
| Portfolio Tracking | Metrics + founder updates | Not included |
| AI Operations (Archie) | Full agentic AI | Not available |
| Capital Call Automation | AI-drafted, one-click send | Manual process |
| LP Communications | Templated + AI-assisted | Not included |
| Compliance Calendar | Proactive alerts | Basic tracking |
| Document View Tracking | Per-page analytics | Not included |
| Founder Hub | Metric collection portal | Not included |
| Sub-$25M Fund Support | Purpose-built | Deprioritized |
| Transparent Pricing | $297/mo flat | $600+/mo + escalators |
| Annual Price Increases | None | 5-10% annually |
| Data Privacy | E2E encrypted, SOC 2 | 2024 scandal |
| Starting price | $297/mo | $600+/mo |
It's not about being anti-Carta. It's about having a platform that was actually designed for how you work.
You're paying Carta $600+/mo for cap table management — then paying separately for DocSend, Visible, Streak, and whatever spreadsheet system holds your deal pipeline together. Archstone is $297/mo and replaces all of them. That's not a marginal saving. That's reclaiming $15,000+ per year you can put toward portfolio support.
Carta's roadmap is driven by enterprise clients running $500M+ vehicles. When you file a support ticket about a $5M fund, you're behind hundreds of larger accounts. Archstone was designed from day one for the $3M-$30M emerging manager. You're the customer we optimize for, not the one we tolerate.
After Carta's 2024 data privacy scandal — where cap table data was shared with secondary market buyers without consent — trust became a real concern. Archstone uses end-to-end encryption with SOC 2 compliant infrastructure. We don't monetize your data. We don't have a secondary market to feed.
Archie isn't a chatbot. It's an agentic AI layer that reads your fund data and executes multi-step workflows. Say "Send a capital call to all committed LPs" and Archie calculates pro rata allocations, drafts the notices, and queues them for your review. No other fund platform has anything close.
Right now you probably check Carta for cap table, DocSend for data room analytics, a spreadsheet for deal pipeline, and Visible for LP updates. Context switching kills your productivity. Archstone puts everything in one place — so you spend your time on deals, not on toggling between tabs.
When you message Archstone support, you talk to someone who understands emerging fund operations — not a ticket queue that triages by account size. We respond in hours, not weeks. Because if your fund is stuck, our business is stuck.
Carta looks like one subscription. In reality, you need four or five tools to do what Archstone does alone.
You don't need to rip and replace overnight. Most GPs complete the transition in under a week.
Create your Archstone account and walk through the onboarding wizard. Export your cap table, LP list, and portfolio data from Carta as CSV. Upload into Archstone — the system maps fields automatically. Takes about 20 minutes.
Upload your fund documents, LPA, and pitch materials to your data room. Configure your LP portal with your fund's branding. Invite LPs — they get a clean, modern portal instead of the generic Carta interface.
Keep Carta active for a billing cycle while you verify all data is transferred correctly. Run your next LP update through Archstone. Once you're confident, cancel Carta. No lock-in, no penalties on our side.
Once your data is in Archstone, Archie — our AI operations layer — starts working immediately. Capital call drafts, LP letter templates, compliance reminders, portfolio metric collection. The things you used to do manually now happen with a single prompt.
Archstone was specifically designed for emerging VC managers running $3M-$30M funds — the exact segment Carta has deprioritized. You get cap table tracking, LP portal, data room, deal pipeline, portfolio monitoring, compliance tools, and AI operations for $297/mo. Carta charges $600+/mo for fund admin alone, with no data room, no deal pipeline, and no AI. If you're running Fund I through Fund III, Archstone gives you more coverage at less than half the cost.
Carta's fund administration starts at $600+/mo with 5-10% annual price escalators that compound over time. By year three, you could be paying $750+/mo. And that only covers basic fund admin — you still need separate tools for data room, deal flow, and LP communications. Archstone is $297/mo for the Starter plan or $497/mo for Pro, with no annual increases. The Pro plan includes unlimited AI operations, deal pipeline, compliance tools, and everything you need to run your fund.
Yes, and it's faster than you'd expect. Most GPs complete the migration in under a week. You can export your cap table data from Carta and import it into Archstone. Our onboarding process walks you through setting up your fund profile, importing LP information, and configuring your data room. You don't need to cancel Carta immediately — run both in parallel until you're confident everything is transferred.
Carta's automated 409A valuations are genuinely excellent — it's one of their core strengths, especially for portfolio companies preparing for priced rounds. Archstone integrates with 409A valuation partners rather than building this in-house. If 409A automation is your primary need (rather than fund operations), Carta may still be the right fit for that specific use case. But if you need a complete fund management platform and only occasionally need 409As, Archstone covers the other 90% of your workflow at a fraction of the cost.
Archstone was built with a fundamentally different data model. We use end-to-end encryption for sensitive fund data and operate on SOC 2 compliant infrastructure. Critically, we don't operate a secondary market or any business that would create incentives to share your data with third parties. Your cap table data, LP information, and deal pipeline are yours — we monetize through subscriptions, not data.
Archstone includes a full data room with per-page view analytics, an LP portal with quarterly report builder, a deal flow pipeline with kanban and scoring, portfolio company tracking with founder metric collection, AI-powered operations (capital calls, LP letters, compliance checks), a compliance calendar with proactive alerts, and document sharing with password protection. Carta focuses on cap table management and fund administration — everything else requires separate tools and separate subscriptions.
We'll be honest: if you're running a $100M+ fund with complex multi-class cap tables, preparing portfolio companies for IPO, or need deep law firm integrations for Series B+ transactions, Carta is probably the right choice. Their cap table infrastructure is enterprise-grade and battle-tested at scale. Archstone is built for emerging managers — Fund I through Fund III, $3M-$30M — who need a complete operations platform, not just a cap table.
For emerging VC managers, Archstone is the most comprehensive Carta alternative available. Unlike point solutions like Pulley (cap table only) or AngelList (syndicates/SPVs only, capped at ~$30M), Archstone is a full fund operations platform — data room, LP portal, deal pipeline, portfolio tracking, compliance, and AI operations — all for $297/mo. It's the only platform that replaces the entire tool stack, not just one piece of it.
14-day free trial. No credit card required. Import your Carta data and see the difference in a single afternoon.
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