Carta Launch Alternative: What Actually Happens When You Outgrow the Free Plan

Carta Launch is free until a company crosses 25 stakeholders or $1 million raised — cross either line and Carta moves you to a paid plan, with Build, Grow, and Scale starting around $1,600 a year and climbing with per-stakeholder fees. If that limit is the only reason you're looking elsewhere, you have real alternatives, especially if your company isn't a Delaware C-corp. If you're being pushed off Launch because you need a 409A valuation, the right move is staying on Carta or going to a dedicated valuation provider — that's not a gap a cap table switch closes.

What Carta Launch actually gives you for free

Carta Launch is a real product, not a lead-gen trial. Founders get a working cap table, SAFE and option tracking, and the same underlying infrastructure Carta's paid tiers run on, for free, as long as the company stays under 25 stakeholders and under $1 million raised. Signup takes an email address and a certificate of incorporation — no card, no sales call. Carta says more than 25,000 founders have used it since 2021 to raise a combined $24 billion, and in May 2025 the company extended Launch's free tier to founders in APAC and MENA specifically, which means a Saudi or Southeast Asian founder today can open a free Carta account the same way a Delaware founder can.

That expansion matters for anyone reading this outside the US, because it changes the honest comparison. The question isn't "Carta vs. nothing" anymore for a Riyadh or Jakarta founder — it's "free Carta Launch vs. a jurisdiction-built alternative vs. paying Carta's US-shaped enterprise pricing once you outgrow Launch." Those are three different answers, and the one that fits depends entirely on why you're outgrowing it.

The two limits, and the one reason that isn't about the limits

Two numbers push a company off Launch: 25 stakeholders, or $1 million raised. Either one, on its own, triggers the move to a paid tier — a Carta support forum answer describes a 30-day window to pick a plan after that happens, though that specific window comes from a community post rather than Carta's published terms, so check your own account's notice rather than assume the exact number of days.

Both limits are easy to hit faster than founders expect. Twenty-five stakeholders sounds like a lot until you count co-founders, every option grant to an early engineer, an advisor or two, and the SAFE holders from a single oversubscribed pre-seed round — a company can clear 25 names on the cap table well before it clears a seed round. The $1 million threshold is even easier to cross: a $750k pre-seed plus a $400k SAFE bridge gets there without anyone calling it a "real" round.

There's a third, unrelated reason founders end up looking at Carta's paid tiers: a 409A valuation. US companies issuing stock options need a defensible fair-market-value valuation to avoid tax problems for option holders, and Carta's 409A service is a genuine, mature part of its paid product — not a feature Launch was ever going to include for free. If 409A is the actual trigger, switching cap table platforms doesn't solve anything; you still need a 409A valuation, and Carta (or a dedicated 409A provider) is still the right place to get one. The stakeholder and funding caps are a Launch-specific gate; 409A is a separate need entirely, and it's worth knowing which one is actually pushing you before you go shopping for alternatives.

What the paid tiers actually cost

Carta's own partner pricing page lists the ladder plainly: Build runs $1,600 a year plus $80 per stakeholder once you pass 20 (up to 50 total), Grow runs $3,900 a year plus $130 per stakeholder after 30, and Scale runs $8,000 a year plus $200 per stakeholder after 40. A company that just tripped the 25-stakeholder wire on Launch lands near the bottom of that ladder by definition — it isn't a 50-person cap table needing fund administration, it's a seed-stage company with one extra advisor grant. The jump from $0 to a four-figure annual bill, scaling with every additional name added to the cap table, is the exact moment a lot of founders start comparing options instead of just upgrading in place.

What doesn't change even where Launch is free

The APAC and MENA rollout solved access, not fit. Carta Launch — like Carta's paid tiers — is built around a US/Delaware share taxonomy and US-style option grants. It has no concept of a Saudi general assembly, where shareholder votes are weighted by shareholding, quorum has to be computed against specific thresholds, and minutes are a legal requirement, not a nice-to-have. It doesn't issue stock appreciation rights or phantom shares, instruments that show up regularly in ESOP structures outside the US. And a grant agreement generated for a non-Delaware entity through a US-first tool is a document your lawyer has to rework anyway, free tier or not.

None of that is a knock on Carta specifically — it's the predictable result of a product built for one legal system being made available in others. It's also exactly the gap worth checking before assuming "free" and "fits my company" are the same claim. The best Carta alternative for global founders goes through this in more depth for founders evaluating Carta broadly, not just the Launch tier specifically.

Who should actually move, and who shouldn't

Move if you're outgrowing Launch's stakeholder or funding cap and your company is incorporated somewhere Carta's product wasn't designed around — a Saudi, UAE, or other non-Delaware entity where general assembly governance, jurisdiction-specific grant contracts, or multi-instrument ESOP support actually matter to how you operate, not just to a feature checklist. In that case, paying Carta's Build-tier pricing buys you a US-shaped cap table tool in a jurisdiction it wasn't built for — the same gap existed before you hit the limit, the free tier just delayed when you had to decide about it. Cap table software built for MENA startups covers what that jurisdiction fit actually requires, beyond a comparison table.

Don't move if the real trigger is a 409A valuation, a secondary transaction, or fund administration for a VC or accelerator — those are areas where Carta's maturity is real, and no cap table alternative, Govy included, is trying to compete there. Switching platforms to solve a 409A requirement just adds a migration on top of a problem you still have to solve separately.

Moving a cap table off Launch, done honestly

Leaving any platform — free or paid — means reconstructing your ownership history from the original documents: incorporation records, SAFE agreements, option grant letters, and every round's cap table snapshot. There's no shortcut that skips reading your own paperwork, and any tool that implies otherwise is setting up a cap table nobody actually verified. What a good destination gets you is a place to rebuild it once and trust the result going forward.

Govy's cap table runs on an append-only, event-sourced ledger — every grant, conversion, and correction is a recorded event, not an edit to a cell, so the history you rebuild stays auditable instead of becoming another spreadsheet someone has to take on faith. It handles multiple ESOP instrument types including SARs and phantom shares, generates jurisdiction-aware grant agreements for US/Delaware and Saudi Arabia today, and runs shareholder general assembly governance — weighted voting, quorum, recorded minutes — as a built-in module, not a workaround. Govy doesn't do 409A valuations, secondary transactions, or fund administration; if that's what you need, it's honestly not the tool, and neither is any other cap table alternative. See how it fits a non-Delaware company.

FAQ

What is Carta Launch and is it actually free?

Carta Launch is Carta's free cap table product for early-stage companies, open to any company with fewer than 25 stakeholders and less than $1 million raised. Signup only needs an email address and a certificate of incorporation, and Carta says it has put more than 25,000 founders through Launch since 2021. It's genuinely free up to those limits — the catch is what happens once you cross either one, not a hidden charge beforehand.

What happens when you exceed Carta Launch's stakeholder or funding limit?

Crossing either threshold — 25 stakeholders or $1 million raised — moves your account out of free eligibility and into Carta's paid tiers. A Carta community forum answer describes a 30-day window to pick a paid plan after that happens, though that specific detail comes from a support forum post rather than Carta's published terms, so confirm the current policy on your account before assuming the exact timeline. The data and cap table history carry over; what changes is the invoice.

How much does Carta cost once you move off Launch?

Carta's own partner pricing page lists Build at $1,600 a year plus $80 per stakeholder after the first 20 (up to 50 total), Grow at $3,900 a year plus $130 per stakeholder after 30, and Scale at $8,000 a year plus $200 per stakeholder after 40. A company that just crossed 25 stakeholders is, by definition, near the bottom of that ladder — not a large enterprise — which is why the jump from free to several thousand dollars a year feels disproportionate to a lot of founders at exactly that stage.

Does Carta Launch work for a company incorporated outside the US?

Carta extended Launch's free cap table product to APAC and MENA in May 2025, so the signup itself isn't blocked by geography. What doesn't travel with it is jurisdiction-specific functionality: general assembly governance that Saudi Arabia requires by law, grant agreements written for a non-Delaware entity, or multi-instrument ESOP support for stock appreciation rights or phantom shares common outside the US. Launch gives you a free US-style cap table; it doesn't give you a cap table built around your jurisdiction's legal requirements.

If I'm hitting Carta Launch's limits because I need a 409A valuation, should I switch tools?

No — that's a different problem than the stakeholder or funding cap, and it's not one a cap table alternative solves. Carta's 409A valuation service is a real, mature part of its business, and if that's the actual reason you're being pushed to a paid tier, staying on Carta or moving to a dedicated 409A provider makes more sense than switching cap table platforms. The cases where switching helps are the ones where you're paying Carta's enterprise pricing for jurisdiction features it was never built to provide.