Guide
Bundled or standalone: which 409A route suits your stage
Updated
Cap table platforms have worked out that a 409A is the thing you cannot avoid buying, and priced their middle tier around it. That is not a trick, and sometimes it is the right purchase. Here is the arithmetic that tells you which case you are in.
The bundle is a software decision wearing a valuation's clothes
Pulley puts 409A valuations on Growth at $3,500 and withholds them from Startup at $1,200. Cake Equity puts a 409A on Team at $2,750 and sells it as a $1,500 add-on below that. Fidelity Private Shares lists 409A valuations as a Growth plan feature and publishes no price for the plan.
In every case the valuation sits at the tier where the platform starts to be a serious product. Ask yourself whether you would buy that tier without the valuation. If yes, the 409A is nearly free. If no, you are paying a large premium for a report you could buy for $990.
The Cake arithmetic, worked
Cake's own ladder is the clearest illustration because it sells both ways. Team is $2,750 a year and includes two valuations, which is $1,375 each. The add-on is $1,500 for one.
So Team is better value only if you genuinely need two valuations in the year, which means you expect a material event. If you expect one valuation, the free plan plus the $1,500 add-on costs $1,500 against $2,750, and you keep $1,250.
Stakeholder count is the other half of it: Build includes 25 and charges $1 per extra, Team includes 40 and charges $5 per extra. A company with 60 stakeholders pays $35 on Build and $100 on Team, which is small either way and worth checking rather than assuming.
When standalone is obviously right
Pre-revenue and pre-seed companies, almost always. At $990 with unlimited refreshes in the year, the standalone route costs less than the gap between two tiers of any platform here, and a company at that stage does not need Rule 701 handling or HRIS integrations.
Also right for any company that already has cap table software it likes. Switching platforms to get a cheaper valuation is a bad trade: the migration costs more than the $2,500 you are arguing about.
When bundled is obviously right
Growth stage companies granting options regularly, where the compliance machinery around the valuation is the actual need. Rule 701 disclosure thresholds, Form 3921 filings and board approval workflows are real obligations, and doing them by hand costs more in time than the plan does in money.
The test is simple: count how many option grants you made last year. Under about ten, buy the valuation. Over about fifty, buy the platform. In between, price both and read what the refresh costs.