Tool profile
Cake Equity: cost, fit and limits
Cake Equity is a cap table and equity management platform for startups that handles shares, options, SAFEs and convertible notes, with a free tier, annual paid plans and an MCP connection that lets outside AI assistants answer questions from the cap table.
What to know first
Cake Equity prints four plans: Free for 5 stakeholders, Build at $1,000 a year for 25, Team at $2,750 a year for 40, and a custom Pro plan. The AI hook is Cake MCP, listed as AI access on Team. The security page states ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and AWS hosting in Australia, and the pricing page adds a $1,500 yearly 409A add-on. Quarterly Build exists but its price is not published.
Cake Equity at a glance
| Maker | Cake Equity (legal entity not stated on the pages opened), United States |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Entry price | $0, Build $1,000 per year |
| API access | No |
| Category | Best AI Cap Table Management Software in 2026, rank 2 of 11 |
| Website | cakeequity.com |
Who Cake Equity is best for
Seed-stage founders
Free handles the cap table, stock options and SAFE notes for five stakeholders, which covers a founding team plus a first angel round without paying.
Teams issuing SAFEs and convertibles
Build adds SAFE and convertible notes, shareholder vesting, templated option grants, a board approval flow and e-signing for up to 25 stakeholders.
Companies wanting AI inside their own assistant
Team lists Cake MCP, so a person can ask plain-English questions of the cap table from the AI tool they already use instead of opening a separate dashboard.
Cake Equity plans and pricing
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Cap table, stock options and SAFE notes for up to 5 stakeholders, no credit card required. |
| Build | $1000 annually | Up to 25 stakeholders, SAFE and convertible notes, shareholder vesting, templated option grants, board approval flow and e-signing. |
| Team | $2750 annually | Up to 40 stakeholders, two 409A valuations a year, AI access (MCP), incentive plans, contract editor, employee portal and free migration. |
| Pro | Custom | ASC 718 reporting, 409A valuations, Form 3921, international option pools, bare trusts, managed migration and Slack support. |
Checked November 2026.
What Cake Equity does
- Cake MCP
- MCP gives an outside AI assistant read access to the cap table, so ownership questions get plain-English answers. The pricing page lists AI access on Team, not on Build.
- SAFEs and convertible notes
- Build tracks SAFE and convertible notes next to equity, which keeps pre-priced round instruments in the same ledger as common stock and shows how they would convert into shares at the next priced round.
- Templated option grants
- Option grants come from templates and run through a board approval flow with integrated e-signing, which removes the PDF-and-email loop for each hire and leaves an approval record attached to the grant.
- My Cake and employee portal
- Shareholders get private access through My Cake, and Team adds an employee portal where holders see their grants and vesting, so people can look up their own holdings without asking a founder.
- Benchmarking and modelling
- The site lists equity benchmarking and fundraising modelling, which helps a founder see how a planned round dilutes the team and how a proposed pool compares with other companies before agreeing to terms.
How Cake Equity handles your data
The security page states ISO/IEC 27001:2022 in its FAQ and names AWS as host in Australia (ap-southeast-2). It says data is destroyed when no longer needed but gives no retention periods. SOC 2 is not stated. The pages opened do not say whether customer data trains AI models, so the policy behind Cake MCP was not checked. The security page is also inconsistent on whether Pro customers must use two-factor authentication, which is worth clarifying in a security review.
Where Cake Equity falls short in practice
- Tight stakeholder caps. Free stops at 5 stakeholders, Build at 25 and Team at 40, so a company with many advisors and employees reaches the custom Pro tier sooner than the headline prices suggest.
- AI only on Team. MCP access is listed on Team at $2,750 a year, so a company on Build does not get it. Teams that want the AI hook pay more than twice the Build price.
- Annual-only Team. Team is billed annually only, and quarterly Build has no published price, so a company cannot pay month to month on the plans with the richest features.
Works with
Alternatives to Cake Equity
Cake Equity: common questions
What is Cake MCP?
Cake MCP lets AI tools a team already uses answer plain-English questions from the cap table. The pricing page lists AI access (MCP) on Team. The pages opened do not name which assistants are supported or state how the data is handled.
How many stakeholders does Cake Equity allow?
Free allows 5, Build 25 and Team 40. Pro is custom and the page does not state a cap. Build and Team show annual pricing with a 10 percent saving, while a quarterly Build option exists without a published price.
Is Cake Equity ISO 27001 certified?
The security page FAQ states ISO/IEC 27001:2022. SOC 2 is not stated on the pages opened. The same page names AWS in Australia as the host, which matters to companies with data residency rules. A buyer can request that evidence before signing.
Does Cake Equity include 409A valuations?
Team includes two 409A valuations a year and Pro lists 409A valuations. On other plans a 409A add-on costs $1,500 per year. Terms for the add-on, such as turnaround, were not stated on the page opened. Compare that cost with the Team plan, which bundles two valuations.
Can I migrate my cap table into Cake Equity?
Team lists free migration and Pro lists managed migration. Free and Build do not mention migration help. Ask for a trial import of your spreadsheet before paying, because vesting and exercise history are the hardest parts to move. Confirm what counts as a stakeholder during the import.