European Alternatives to Carta
Looking for a European alternative to Carta? Carta is the trading name of eShares, Inc., and its support site gives a San Francisco, California address and states that the company is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a transfer agent.
The same help centre lists separate areas for company admins, Carta Launch, LLCs, fund administration, Total Compensation, LP portfolio analytics and Carta CRM, and carta.com sat behind a bot check when we tried to read its pricing, so no Carta price is quoted here.
The European tools below keep the register under local company law: Ledgy and Vestd cover option schemes such as EMI, Equify and Blockpulse follow French BSPCE practice, and Kvanta and NVR are built around the Swedish share ledger.
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Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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11 European Alternatives to Carta
Ledgy
Zurich platform linking cap tables, HRIS data and option plans
Vestd
UK cap table with HMRC-aware share schemes and valuations
Equify
French register-backed cap table with BSPCE and governance modules
SeedLegals
Startup legals bundle with an unlimited-shareholder cap table
Capboard
Spanish cap table and ESOP tool with board and data room modules
Kvanta
Swedish digital share ledger priced per company, not per holder
NVR
Gothenburg share ledger service with a free entry plan
Shareflo
New UK cap table, free to 20 stakeholders, flat EMI paperwork fee
Blockpulse
Roubaix securities register with cap table and eIDAS signing
Optio Incentives
Oslo equity plan administration across 100+ countries
captable.de
Low-cost German cap table for GmbHs, UGs and small holdings
Key takeaways
- Carta is the trading name of eShares, Inc., with a San Francisco address on its support site and an SEC transfer agent registration.
- Carta's help centre lists company admin, Carta Launch, LLCs, fund administration, Total Compensation, LP portfolio analytics and Carta CRM as separate areas.
- Kvanta charges a flat 1,000 SEK a month per company for unlimited shareholders, a model that does not grow with the number of holders.
- Shareflo is free up to 20 stakeholders, but its privacy policy says the platform runs on AWS servers in the United States.
- Equify and Capboard both state that cap table data is stored in France.
Why people leave Carta
Carta is the trading name of eShares, Inc., and its own support site gives an address in San Francisco, California. The same help centre says the company is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a transfer agent. That puts the product in the American tradition of cap tables: Delaware corporations, common and preferred stock, 409A valuations and US option plans are the default case, and everything else is an adaptation.
The help centre also shows how far the product has grown beyond a share register. It lists separate areas for company admins, Carta Launch, LLCs, fund administration, Total Compensation, LP portfolio analytics and Carta CRM. A founder who only needs a register of shares and a way to grant options is looking at a menu built for venture funds and late-stage companies.
We could not read Carta's pricing or terms: carta.com sat behind a bot check when we tried, and we did not work around it. So this page quotes no Carta price and says nothing about its contract terms or governing law. What follows compares the European tools with what Carta publicly says it is, and with what a European company has to keep in a register by law.
- The register has to follow your national law A UK limited company files with Companies House, a French SAS keeps a register of securities movements, a Swedish AB keeps an aktiebok and a German GmbH publishes a Gesellschafterliste. Carta describes itself through a US transfer agent registration and US product lines. A tool built around those registers, such as Vestd, Equify, Kvanta or captable.de, produces the document your authority actually asks for.
- Local employee plans are not Delaware plans EMI options in the UK, BSPCE in France and the Danish 7P regime in Denmark are tax-driven instruments with their own paperwork. The European tools on this page name these instruments in their feature lists. Carta's public help centre, as far as we read it, points to Total Compensation and LLC areas, which tells you little about handling these local schemes.
- Many small companies pay for a platform they use a tenth of Carta lists fund administration, LP analytics and a CRM next to the cap table. If you run a ten-person company with one funding round behind it, that breadth is paid for whether or not you open it. Kvanta charges 1,000 SEK a month per company, captable.de starts at €12 a year and NVR has a free Basic plan, so the price of staying small is much lower elsewhere.
- Where the share register is stored A register holds names, addresses and holdings. Equify and Capboard state data centres in France, and Kvanta describes EU hosting in Frankfurt. We did not read where Carta hosts data, so we cannot compare it, but a company with strict location rules can at least ask the European vendors for a written answer.
What you have to replace, not just match
Moving off Carta means replacing more than a list of holders. The cap table is the visible part.
Behind it sit the vesting schedules of each employee, the signed grant documents, the valuation reports used when options were priced, and the history of every issue and transfer. Before you choose, write down which of those you use: some of the tools below, such as NVR and Kvanta, are ledgers first and offer only light option handling, while Ledgy and Optio Incentives are built around employee plans.
If you used Carta for fund administration, LP reporting or its CRM, none of the European cap table tools here is a like-for-like answer, since they are aimed at the company side.
For the company side, match by country: Vestd, Shareflo or SeedLegals for England and Wales, Equify or Blockpulse for a French SAS, Kvanta or NVR for a Swedish AB, captable.de for a German GmbH or UG, and Ledgy, Capboard or Optio Incentives where you grant to staff in several countries.
Do not forget the integrations. Ledgy lists more than 70 HRIS connections on its Scale plan, Equify mentions HRIS integration on Business and Optio Incentives lists HR integrations. Tools that serve a single national ledger mostly skip them.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Ledgy | Zurich, Switzerland | Launch plan free (up to 50 stakeholders); Scale from EUR 5,000/year; other plans on request | Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #2 | Vestd | London, United Kingdom | Essentials from £25/month; Starter from £225/month; Guided service from £435/month; Enterprise on request (200+ stakeholders); minimum 12-month term, excluding VAT | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #3 | Equify | Neuilly-sur-Seine, France | Starter €500/year (up to 20 active members); Essential, Business and Enterprise on request; annual pricing as of 1 June 2026 | EU (France) |
| #4 | SeedLegals | United Kingdom, United Kingdom | GBP 649 per year + VAT for the platform plan; SEIS/EIS Advance Assurance GBP 499, SEIS/EIS Compliance GBP 599, issuing shares GBP 299 (own pricing page) | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #5 | Capboard | Barcelona, Spain | Per-stakeholder plan with free trial (figures not visible on the server-rendered pricing page); basic onboarding €300 one-time; premium support €50/month; Scale-up plan custom | EU (Spain) |
| #6 | Kvanta | Stockholm, Sweden | Pro 1,000 SEK/month per company, free for shareholders, unlimited users and shareholders; Enterprise on request | EU (Sweden) |
| #7 | NVR | Gothenburg, Sweden | Basic 0 kr/month; Starter from 49 kr/month (per shareholder); Pro from 750 kr/month (per stakeholder); some features on request | EU (Sweden) |
| #8 | Shareflo | London, United Kingdom | Free up to 20 stakeholders; above that £5 per stakeholder per month billed annually (£6 monthly); EMI wordings £1,500 a year flat | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #9 | Blockpulse | Roubaix, France | Compliance base from €600/year (under 20 people) to €12,000/year (1,000 to 10,000), excl. VAT; Experience option +€2,000/year; Global option +€5,000/year; transaction fees on live operations | EU (France) |
| #10 | Optio Incentives | Oslo, Norway | Four plans (Self-Serve, Scale, Pre IPO, Public); no prices published, contact sales | EEA, not EU (Norway) |
| #11 | captable.de | Rheinbreitbach, Germany | 30-day free trial; 1 company €12/year, 3 companies €25/year, 10 companies €79/year; “Meine Beteiligungen” view free for shareholders | EU (Germany) |
How each alternative compares to Carta
Best for: Growing companies with employees in several countries and an HR system to connect
Ledgy AG is a Swiss stock corporation in Zurich, and its Launch plan is free for cap tables up to 50 stakeholders with simple vesting. That is the one place where it undercuts the entry level of nearly every other platform here. Scale starts at EUR 5,000 a year and adds more than 70 HRIS integrations, including Personio, HiBob and Lucca, together with automated granting and DocuSign signing.
Against Carta, Ledgy is the tool that reaches furthest on the same ground: share plans, deferred compensation, and a carried interest product that is still announced, not released. Switzerland sits outside the EEA under an adequacy decision, and the hosting region is not stated. Scale is the first paid step, so the jump from free to €5,000 is large.
What Ledgy does better than Carta
- Free plan up to 50 stakeholders instead of a paid entry point
- Public price for the Scale plan
- HRIS connections to Personio, HiBob and Lucca
- Contracting entity is a Swiss company, not a US corporation
Where Ledgy is a step down from Carta
- No salary planning or benchmarks
- Hosting region not stated
- Large price step from free to Scale
Standout against Carta. The only tool on this page that joins a cap table, share plan administration and deferred compensation under one Swiss contract.
Best for: English companies planning an EMI scheme with advisers who prepare the HMRC work
Vestd Ltd in London has run since 2014 and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Plans range from Essentials at £25 a month, for a cap table with Companies House filing, to a Guided service from £435 a month that opens EMI, CSOP and phantom shares and includes unlimited HMRC valuations. Every plan carries a minimum 12-month term and excludes VAT.
Compared with Carta, Vestd trades breadth for UK depth: it speaks HMRC, not Delaware. Foresight VCT entities appear as persons with significant control at Companies House, so ownership stays in the UK. A company outside England and Wales would get little from it, and the Starter plan stops at five scheme recipients.
What Vestd does better than Carta
- EMI, CSOP and growth shares handled by named specialists
- Companies House link on every plan
- Prices from £25 a month are public
- FCA authorisation number is published
Where Vestd is a step down from Carta
- 12-month minimum term on all plans
- Useful mainly for UK limited companies
- EMI sits behind the £435 Guided plan
Standout against Carta. Vestd gives you unlimited HMRC valuations and scheme design in the Guided plan, which a software-only cap table does not offer.
Best for: French SAS companies issuing BSPCE or BSA that want governance in the same system
Equify is the trading name of ECAPITALIO SAS in Neuilly-sur-Seine, founded in 2017. Its cap table updates from the securities transaction register, so the ownership view and the legal record cannot drift apart. Ordinary and preferred shares, BSA, BSPCE, AGA and convertible bonds are native instruments, and the data sits in French data centres.
Only the Starter price is public: €500 a year for up to 20 active members, with 200 transactions and 10 e-signatures. Essential, Business and Enterprise are quoted. Next to Carta's separate product lines, Equify keeps governance meetings, a shareholder portal and a legal library in one French product, but its legal notices sat on Notion pages we could not read.
What Equify does better than Carta
- French Tech instruments are first-class, not add-ons
- Data stated to be stored in France
- Public Starter price at €500 a year
- Governance meetings and minutes in the same product
Where Equify is a step down from Carta
- Plans above Starter are quoted on request
- Value drops outside French company law
- Legal notices not readable for our review
Standout against Carta. The cap table is generated from the register of securities movements, which is the document a French company must keep.
Best for: UK founders who want contracts, round documents and the share register in one account
SeedLegals Limited, from London, sells a yearly platform plan at £649 plus VAT that bundles founder agreements, board documents, a pitch page with data room and a cap table for unlimited shareholders. Events that change ownership are priced apart: SEIS/EIS Advance Assurance at £499, SEIS/EIS Compliance at £599 and issuing shares at £299.
Set against Carta, the difference is the starting point. SeedLegals begins with the paperwork of a funding round and fits the cap table around it, so a new hire's contract and the option grant refer to the same register. It is all English law, and the data location is not stated. A company that only wants a ledger pays for legal tools it never opens.
What SeedLegals does better than Carta
- Funding-round documents and cap table in one account
- Per-event fees are published before a round starts
- Unlimited shareholders on the cap table
Where SeedLegals is a step down from Carta
- Several event fees come on top of the yearly plan
- English law only
- Data location not stated
Standout against Carta. A round's documents, tax relief filings and the cap table share one account, with each event priced in advance.
Best for: Founders running more than one legal entity who want round simulations and board tools
Capboard Tech, S.L. is the contracting party in the terms, and the about page names Alex Bisbe as CEO. The product models funding rounds with dilution and SAFE conversion, handles ESOP pools with phantom shares, warrants and SARs, and adds investor updates, board meetings and a virtual data room. Cap table data is stored in a data centre in France according to the privacy policy.
The weak spot is pricing. The core per-stakeholder figures are filled in by script and were not readable, so no monthly price is quoted here. Visible extras are onboarding at €300 once and premium support at €50 a month, plus a US-only 409A valuation in dollars. Like Carta it reaches toward the US market, which the dollar add-ons show.
What Capboard does better than Carta
- Cap table data stated to sit in France
- Funding round simulations with SAFE conversion
- Free trial available
- Self-hosted version on the Scale-up plan
Where Capboard is a step down from Carta
- Core prices not readable without scripts
- Part of the price list is in US dollars
Standout against Carta. Capboard pairs round simulations and a data room with a register held in French data centres.
Best for: Swedish aktiebolag and advisers who want a fixed monthly price per company
Kvanta AB of Stockholm builds the cap table on top of the Swedish share ledger, so every event updates both at once and a company can set who must approve an event before it is booked. The Pro plan costs 1,000 SEK a month per company, free for shareholders, with unlimited administrators and shareholders. BankID signing and a mobile interface come with it.
That fee is the argument against per-holder models. Five shareholders cost the same as a hundred. The privacy policy describes EU hosting in Frankfurt and also a US version, so an EU-only requirement has to be written into the order. There is no free tier, and the pages do not give a founding year. Outside Sweden it is a narrow fit.
What Kvanta does better than Carta
- One flat price per company, however many holders
- Approval policy before an event enters the ledger
- BankID signing included in Pro
Where Kvanta is a step down from Carta
- No free plan
- US hosting version also exists
- Only useful for Swedish companies
Standout against Carta. Pricing depends on companies, not holders, so a growing shareholder list never raises the bill.
Best for: Swedish companies with few shareholders, and accountants managing many ledgers
NVR is run by Reguity Group AB in Gothenburg and says it has existed since 2005. The Basic plan costs 0 kr and gives a digital register, a watermarked PDF export and sync with the Swedish Companies Registration Office and Tax Agency. Starter is priced per shareholder from 49 kr a month; Pro from 750 kr a month adds options, derivatives and full dilution.
NVR also offers to build a ledger from scratch or recover a lost one, which a pure software product like Carta does not. The catch is that options sit on Pro, whose price rises with the stakeholder band, and Excel export is on request. Hosting region is not stated, so ask before loading a register with personal data.
What NVR does better than Carta
- Free Basic plan with sync to Swedish authorities
- Service to create or recover a lost share ledger
- Accountants can manage many clients in one place
Where NVR is a step down from Carta
- Options require the Pro plan
- Hosting region not stated
- Swedish law only
Standout against Carta. NVR will rebuild an incorrect or missing share ledger as a service, not only store a correct one.
Best for: Pre-seed to Series A UK companies comfortable with a company incorporated in 2026
Shareflo Ltd was incorporated on 2 February 2026 and sits at City Road in London. Its founder says that after scaling a previous company he found Carta expensive and US-centric and wrote a cap table in Airtable. The single plan is free up to 20 stakeholders, then £5 per stakeholder per month on the annual plan; 35 stakeholders cost £2,100 a year in the vendor's own example.
EMI wordings cost £1,500 a year flat. Buybacks, warrants and convertible notes are scheduled for early 2027, and CSOP and growth shares are marked as planned. The privacy policy says the platform runs on Bubble with AWS servers in the United States, which matters if you require UK or EU hosting. The short history is the other risk.
What Shareflo does better than Carta
- Full product free to 20 stakeholders
- Roadmap dates published on the pricing page
- Two-way sync with Companies House
Where Shareflo is a step down from Carta
- Incorporated in 2026, little history
- Platform hosted on US servers
- CSOP, growth shares and convertibles not live yet
Standout against Carta. A single published plan with worked price examples, though the vendor is the youngest on the page.
Best for: French SAS companies running raises and transfers who want signing and KYC in the flow
NEOFIPAR SAS, trading as Blockpulse, was created on 6 December 2018 and has its registered office in Roubaix. Its legal notice says the register kept through it follows the French DEEP regime. The base fee starts at €600 a year for under 20 people and reaches €12,000 for 1,000 to 10,000, and includes the cap table, eIDAS signature and two administrator seats.
Operations that move cash go through a dedicated Swan account with automatic reconciliation, and carry a take rate by tier. Non-cash operations carry a per-participant fee from €60 down to €15. That three-part pricing is harder to forecast than a flat fee. The application hosting region is not stated; the website is hosted by Netlify in the United States.
What Blockpulse does better than Carta
- Register stated to comply with the French DEEP regime
- eIDAS signature included in the base fee
- Capital raises can settle through a dedicated Swan account
Where Blockpulse is a step down from Carta
- Cost is harder to predict than a flat fee
- Application hosting region not stated
- French law focus
Standout against Carta. Share issues can be paid in and booked to the register in one flow through a linked payment institution.
Best for: Scale-ups and listed companies with structured equity programs across Europe
Optio Incentives AS in Oslo approaches the cap table from the employee side, with an employee portal, an admin portal, valuation and accounting reports, and cap table management in one system. Its pages list local rules for Germany, Sweden, Italy, the UK, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and France, and the homepage announces the acquisition of EquityPeople.
There are four plans, Self-Serve, Scale, Pre IPO and Public, and none shows a price, so budgeting starts with a sales call. Compared with Carta it covers listed-company needs such as Sharesave (SAYE), share custody and settlement. It is overbuilt for a small startup, and neither hosting region nor ultimate owner is stated.
What Optio Incentives does better than Carta
- Local plan rules listed for several European countries
- Public-company features such as SAYE and share custody
- Interface in English, German and Swedish
Where Optio Incentives is a step down from Carta
- No published prices
- Too heavy for early-stage startups
- Hosting region and owner not stated
Standout against Carta. The most country-specific employee plan coverage of the eleven, from German tax deductions to the Danish 7P scheme.
Best for: Small GmbHs, UGs and holding companies that need a legal list and simple ESOP tracking
Tartaros Investment GmbH in Rheinbreitbach, listed in the commercial register at Montabaur under HRB 24006, runs captable.de. The shareholder list follows section 40 of the GmbH Act and exports as a PDF. Billing is per company after a 30-day trial: €12 a year for one company, €25 for three, €79 for ten, and the shareholder view stays free.
It also covers priced round simulation, convertible loans and SAFEs read from a PDF with AI, an exit waterfall, ESOP and VSOP pools with cliffs, and written resolutions with digital signature. Compared with Carta it is deliberately plain: the pages mention no AG or foreign entity, no HR integrations, and no hosting region. AI drafts need a lawyer's check.
What captable.de does better than Carta
- Prices from €12 a year per company
- Section 40 GmbHG list as PDF, the document a German registry expects
- 30-day trial without a credit card
Where captable.de is a step down from Carta
- Only GmbHs and UGs are covered
- No HR system integrations mentioned
Standout against Carta. At €12 a year it is the cheapest legal shareholder list on the page, with an exit waterfall included.
What actually breaks when you switch
The first problem is data you cannot see in a spreadsheet. A Carta export gives holders and totals, but vesting schedules, board approvals and the signed grant letters live as separate documents. Download them before you cancel, and check each option holder's vesting dates in the new tool against the old figures. A mismatch of one month on a cliff is easy to miss and expensive to explain later.
The second problem is the register itself. Moving to a French, Swedish, German or UK tool means the tool becomes the record your authority relies on, so confirm who may sign off the import and keep the legal opening balance dated. Integrations come last: payroll and HR connections exist at Ledgy and Optio Incentives but not in the single-country ledgers, and your investors may need new view access.
Can I import my Carta cap table into a European tool?
Most of the tools here accept an import, although none of them promises a Carta-specific route. Export your holdings, share classes, option grants and vesting dates from Carta as a spreadsheet, then compare totals with the tool after loading. captable.de reads Excel and CSV files, Equify says its team helps import and check the securities transaction history, and Vestd offers to digitise an existing scheme.
Keep the signed documents too. A cap table without the grant letters and board approvals behind each line is hard to defend in a due diligence, so download the PDFs before you close the old account.
Does my company need a European tool if investors are American?
Not always. If a US investor expects Delaware paper and a 409A valuation, a US platform may still be the practical choice, and Capboard and Optio Incentives both mention US valuation work. A European company with European shareholders has a separate duty, though: the national register must be right whatever else you keep.
A common arrangement is to keep the legal register in a local tool and share a read-only cap table view with the investor. Ask each vendor whether an investor can be given view access without becoming a paying stakeholder.
Which one to pick
Pick by company form first, then by how many people hold equity. Vestd or Shareflo for an English limited company, Equify or Blockpulse for a French SAS, Kvanta or NVR for a Swedish AB, and captable.de for a small German GmbH. Shareflo is free to 20 stakeholders but runs on US servers, so check that against your own rules.
Choose Ledgy or Optio Incentives when employees in several countries receive shares, Capboard when you want round modelling and board tools together, and SeedLegals when you also need the contracts and round paperwork. Whichever you pick, ask for a trial, import a copy of your own cap table and compare every total before you leave Carta.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on where the company is registered. Ledgy from Zurich suits companies with employees in several countries, Vestd and Shareflo serve UK limited companies using EMI options, Equify and Blockpulse follow French SAS practice, Kvanta and NVR fit the Swedish share ledger, and captable.de covers German GmbHs and UGs.
Carta's support site names eShares, Inc. doing business as Carta, Inc., with an address in San Francisco, California, and says the company is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a transfer agent. We could not read its terms, so we do not state its governing law.
Yes. Ledgy has a free Launch plan up to 50 stakeholders, Shareflo is free up to 20 stakeholders, and NVR has a Basic plan at 0 kr a month for Swedish companies. captable.de offers a 30-day trial before its €12 a year price.
Equify and Blockpulse manage French BSPCE plans, and Ledgy lists BSPCE valuations in its Scale plan. For EMI, Vestd puts the scheme on its Guided service plan, Shareflo prepares EMI wordings for £1,500 a year, SeedLegals lists EMI schemes and Ledgy mentions EMI reporting.
We cannot say. Carta's pricing sat behind a bot check when we tried to read it and we did not bypass it. The European tools publish their entry prices, from €12 a year at captable.de to €500 a year for Equify's Starter plan.
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