Transitioning off Pulley: Free Options vs Leveling up to Story.law

Published September 25, 2026 by the Story.law team

Pulley is winding down. The equity management platform announced this week that it was shutting down, with a final day of operations of December 8, and it has partnered with its rival, Carta, to offload customers and is redirecting prospective clients to Carta. If you are a Pulley customer, you are staring at a records problem with a calendar attached, and the default answer (Carta) is not the only answer. This guide walks through which Pulley features our own customers actually used and valued, which of those you can rebuild for free in Google Sheets, and where you need more than a spreadsheet. We wrote this from the Story.law seat because we run these migrations every day, and we have opinions.

Why This Decision Cannot Wait

The timeline is tight and the dates are not interchangeable. Pulley's shutdown FAQ dated September 15 sets November 30, 2026, as the cutoff for opting into the collaborative Carta migration, ends the normal app experience and customer support on December 8, and promises only limited access to customer data through January 31, 2027. We're on the phone all day, all with people in the same spot. Every Pulley refugee is running the same anxious calculus: do you take the assisted ride to Carta, roll your ledger into a spreadsheet and cu the costs, or move to a modern lawyer-in-the-loop practice like Story.law. This piece is written to help you make that call deliberately, not by default.

PS - the one question no one is asking and should be: where's my refund for the term of my contract Pulley can't fulfill?

The Problems an Equity Management Product ACTUALLY Has to Solve

Keeping an accurate legal record of who owns what, tied to actual signed documents
Handling terminations, vesting cascades, and grant lifecycles without silent gaps
Producing diligence-ready outputs (data room, pro forma, board consents) on demand
Doing all of the above cheaply enough that a pre-Series A company can afford it

A spreadsheet solves the first problem badly. Carta solves it expensively. We built Story.law's Aegis platform to solve it from your documents' reality, not from your closest guess or your sweat.

What to Look for in a Pulley Replacement

The temptation after a shutdown is to grab the first thing that looks like Pulley and move on. Do not do that. You can do that, and get a very expensive CSV and a bunch of work to maintain it, get it wrong, and then pay lawyers way more to clean up the mess. The reason many Pulley ledgers were wrong is not random data entry error. It is that Pulley never validated prerequisites (409A, equity plan, signed agreements) before generating documents upon founder request - and the founders have no idea THAT the prerequisites exist-, so gaps compounded silently for months. If you replace one leaky bucket with another, you inherit the same problem.

Features That Actually Matter After Pulley

Document-driven ledger: the system reads your signed papers and extracts the ledger, rather than asking you to type numbers into a form
Prerequisite checking: the system blocks you from generating a board consent or an option grant until the underlying plan, valuation, and signatures actually exist
One-click terminations that cascade vesting across every related grant
Built-in e-signature and clickthrough that is enforceable, not a bolt-on DocuSign bill
Real-time sync between the ledger, the data room, and every stakeholder view
Month-to-month billing, so switching is not another 90-day novel to escape
Lawyer-in-the-loop review, so the numbers are defensible when a diligence firm actually reads them

At Story.law we check every one of these boxes. We are not a legal tech tool or a marketplace. We are an AI-accelerated law firm with lawyers in the lead. Specifically, investor counsel design our cap table rules; commercial counsel design our del frameworks. Your subscription comes with access to actual lawyers, orchestrated by the Aegis platform.

How Pulley Refugees Are Moving to Story.law

Our onboarding for Pulley customers looks like this. Export your Pulley data room as a zip and drop it into Aegis. Processing runs at roughly one to two days per fifty documents, including time for humans to confirm all the data. During the 7-day free trial, we reconcile your ledger against the source papers and flag every prerequisite gap Pulley never caught. For Pulley refugees, we waive the standard $1,000 onboarding fee, and we have extended the trial for teams that need extra runway to switch cleanly.

Once you are live:

Terminate an employee once, and Aegis cascades the vesting stop across every related grant. Carta makes you do that as two separate maneuvers.
Draft a board consent in about 30 seconds instead of the 30 minutes it takes to hand-build one.
Sign new instruments, and both your ledger and your data room update in real time.
Give every counterparty (equity holders, employees, contractors) a free stakeholder account that scopes them to their own documents, across every company they touch.
Query your own data in natural language through Slack, Linear, or MCP integrations.

That is the difference between a document generator and a practice. Processes, not templates.

Competitor Comparison: Post-Pulley Equity Management Options

The table below is a quick side-by-side of the realistic options for a Pulley customer today. It is not exhaustive; it is the shortlist most of our prospects are actually weighing.

Provider	Model	Starting Price	Lawyer-in-the-Loop	Document-Driven Ledger	Suitable For
Story.law (Aegis)	AI-native law firm	$49/mo (SMB Essentials); packages priced separately	Yes	Yes	Small and medium businesses who want legal work handled, not just tracked
Carta	Equity management SaaS	Free tier, then annual paid	No	No	Later-stage companies whose equity holders already know the brand
Cake Equity	Equity management SaaS	Free up to 5 stakeholders, then $1,000/yr	No	Partial	Seed to Series C teams focused on employee equity
Eqvista	Equity management SaaS + valuation firm	Free up to 20 shareholders, then $2/shareholder/mo	No (in-house valuation team)	Partial	Companies who want in-house 409A and basic equity management
Google Sheets	Spreadsheet	Free	No	No	Solo operators with fewer than five stakeholders and no signed paper yet

Story.law is the only entry on this list that is a law firm. The others are software vendors. That is the actual choice you are making after Pulley, and it matters more than any feature checkbox.

Which Pulley Features You Can Rebuild for Free in Google Sheets, and What Requires More

Here is the honest answer to the question every Pulley refugee is asking. A spreadsheet can carry more of the load than most vendors will admit. It also cannot carry everything, and the parts it cannot carry are the parts that get you sued or blow up a diligence process. But, if you have $0 and a simple cap table, don't spend your $0 on software you get for free from Google.

1. Story.law (Aegis)

Story.law is the only AI-native law firm on this list. We built Aegis so you can upload your mess of Pulley exports and get back an automated ledger, a diligence-ready data room, a pro forma, and a health check score, with lawyer-defined rules and zero operator work. We are 70% cheaper than BigLaw and break-even in a single avoided mistake. If you are a Pulley customer whose ledger numbers have been quietly wrong for months, this is the answer.

Key Features:

Document-driven ledger: we split your signed papers into a graph of sections and types, fit them into a legal taxonomy, and extract the data into a legal event ledger, a legal asset ledger, and a stakeholder ledger
Prerequisite checking: Aegis blocks you from generating a board consent or an option grant until the underlying plan, valuation, and signatures exist
One-click terminations that cascade vesting across every related grant
Built-in clickthrough e-signature, the most enforceable form our lawyers will do short of a pen on paper
Free stakeholder accounts for every counterparty, scoped by attorney-client privilege
Slack, Linear, and MCP integrations so you can query your own data in natural language
Month-to-month billing; cancel anytime; no 90-day novel required

Pulley Migration Offerings:

Zip export from Pulley dropped into Aegis; roughly 1 to 2 days of processing per 50 documents
7-day free trial before any charge; extended trials available for Pulley refugees
$1,000 onboarding fee waived for Pulley migrations
Data kept for seven years under attorney-client privilege, never sold, never used to train a model against you

Pricing: SMB Essentials at $49/mo, SMB Customer Contracting at $79/mo, SMB Full Suite at $99/mo. Packages for small businesses priced separately. Design your perfect package and try it free for 7 days at story.law.

Pros: Lawyer-in-the-loop, hallucination-proof. Built from your documents' reality. Month-to-month. Attorney-client privilege on your data. Replaces Clerky + Carta + DocuSign + ChatGPT + BigLaw ad hoc in one subscription.

Cons: No modeling of a hypothetical unsigned SAFE against a future priced round yet. No stock-based compensation accounting entry report yet. No tax form generation yet. US-only for on-platform employee hiring; international hires go through a contractor agreement. Unusual manual recapitalizations (e.g., shares moved into an unrelated trust) are not supported.

2. Carta

Carta is the default path Pulley is pointing customers toward. Moving to Carta is the path of least resistance (and highest cost), and for many companies without near-term IPO aspirations, it will be the right call. However, it is worth understanding what it involves. Pricing is matched for the first year; however, a new contract with Carta will need to be signed. Companies currently on a monthly billing plan will need to move to quarterly or annual terms, since monthly billing is not offered by Carta.

Key Features: Equity management, 409A valuations, equity plan administration, fund administration, secondary transactions, and an equity holder network.

Pulley Migration Offerings: After it is signed, Carta and Pulley coordinate the technical migration of ledger data, transaction history, equity records and documents; the customer then reviews the resulting account and flags discrepancies before accepting it for use. Pulley's published arrangement also allows Carta to accept an existing Pulley 409A valuation and fair market value when the customer supplies a copy, with Carta taking over when that valuation expires.

Pricing: Free Launch tier up to 25 stakeholders; paid tiers on annual or quarterly contracts.

Pros: Brand recognition with equity holders and law firms. Broad feature set. Mature 409A practice.

Cons: In January 2024, Linear's CEO accused Carta of misusing confidential data from a customer's ledger to build out its own order book for secondary stock trading. Annual contracts with a 90-day cancellation window. Customers still pay lawyers to operate the software correctly.

3. Cake Equity

Cake positions itself as a mid-market alternative to Carta and Pulley, with a stronger focus on the employee equity experience.

Key Features: Equity management, vesting management, options management, and compensation management for equity administration. It also includes equity holder reporting, valuation management, portfolio management, and deal management, along with document management, role-based permissions, workflow management, real-time analytics, customizable reports, and audit trail features.

Pulley Migration Offerings: Cake is offering a free transition from Pulley within 48 hours.

Pricing: Cake Equity plans start free for up to 5 stakeholders. Build plan starts at $1,000/year for up to 25 stakeholders (or $375/quarter), and Team plan starts at $2,750/year with 409A valuations included.

Pros: Free tier for small ledgers. Free migration support. Focus on employee equity experience.

Cons: Software vendor, not a law firm. Customers still need outside counsel to interpret and defend the output or do data entry. No prerequisite checking that blocks bad drafts.

4. Eqvista

Eqvista bundles equity management software with an in-house 409A valuation practice, which is unusual in the category.

Key Features: Combines 409A valuations from in-house NACVA-certified professionals with Real-Time Company Valuation technology. Manages common stock, preferred shares, options, RSUs, warrants, and convertible securities with advanced vesting and real-time updates. Every stakeholder gets portal access to their equity information. Every 409A valuation includes lifetime audit support and full IRS defense, integrated with the ledger at no additional cost. Handles ASC 718, 83(b) elections, QSBS attestation, and IRS filings.

Pulley Migration Offerings: Migrate your ledger from another provider or spreadsheet to Eqvista, and enjoy white-glove onboarding with the support of a dedicated team.

Pricing: Tiered plans starting free for up to 20 shareholders, then $2 per shareholder monthly for premium features.

Pros: In-house 409A team. Free tier scales further than most competitors. Compliance filings covered.

Cons: Software vendor plus valuation firm, not a full law firm. Customers still need counsel for equity plan drafting, board consents, and diligence review. Support for complex transaction si unclear, but is understood to require lawyer bills to structure data for correct entry.

5. Google Sheets

This is the option nobody sells you but plenty of operators actually use. A former Pulley employee reportedly said on record that Pulley was not so much competing with Carta as it was with spreadsheets. That is a real observation, not a joke. Here is what a spreadsheet can and cannot do.

Key Features: A grid. Formulas. Version history. Sharing permissions. Free forever.

Pulley Feature Coverage in Google Sheets:

Basic ledger of stakeholders, share classes, and outstanding amounts: yes, trivially
Waterfall and dilution modeling for a priced round: yes, if you can build the formulas and you are honest about the assumptions
SAFE conversion math: yes, with a template
Vesting schedule tracking: yes, if you accept it will not cascade on termination
Board consent drafting: no, this is not a spreadsheet job
E-signature: no, requires DocuSign or similar
Prerequisite checking against signed documents: no, the spreadsheet does not know what you signed
409A valuation: no, requires a separate provider
Data room and diligence outputs: no, requires a separate provider
Stakeholder portal for equity holders and employees: no
Legal defensibility when a diligence firm audits your numbers: no, the spreadsheet is not the record; the signed documents are

Pricing: Free.

Pros: Zero cost. Fully under your control. Everyone already knows how to use it.

Cons: No prerequisite checking. No document-driven ledger. No lawyer in the loop. No enforceable e-signature. No 409A. Every mistake is silent until a diligence firm finds it.

Which Pulley Features You Can Actually Get Free in Google Sheets

Here is the direct answer to the query, laid out cleanly.

Get for free in Google Sheets:

The static ledger of shares outstanding by holder and class
Waterfall and dilution modeling if you can write the formulas
SAFE conversion math with a well-built template
Vesting schedule tracking, though only as a static calculation

Requires more than a spreadsheet:

Prerequisite checking that blocks a bad board consent or option grant before it is generated
One-click termination that cascades vesting across every related grant
Enforceable clickthrough e-signature integrated with the ledger
Real-time sync between the ledger, the data room, and stakeholder views
409A valuation that will survive an IRS or audit challenge
A diligence-ready data room your next equity holder's counsel will accept
Board consent drafting in seconds instead of half an hour by hand
Attorney-client privilege on your equity records
A lawyer who is actually responsible when something is wrong

If your ledger is under five stakeholders, all operators, and no signed paper beyond incorporation, Google Sheets is genuinely fine. If you have signed even one SAFE, hired one employee on options, or plan to raise a priced round in the next 18 months, you need more than a spreadsheet. That is the honest line.

Evaluation Rubric for Post-Pulley Equity Management Providers

We use the following weighting when we help a customer decide where to land after Pulley. You should use something similar.

Accuracy of the ledger against signed documents (30%): does the system read your papers or does it ask you to guess
Prerequisite checking before drafting (20%): does the system block bad drafts or generate them anyway
Legal defensibility (15%): is a lawyer responsible, or just a vendor
Pricing transparency and lock-in (15%): month-to-month or 90-day cancellation novel
Diligence readiness (10%): can you hand the data room to an equity holder's counsel without cleanup
Migration mechanics (10%): does the provider handle the transfer, or do you

Why Story.law Is the Right Move for Pulley Refugees

Story.law is not a software vendor with a legal partner bolted on. We are the law firm. Aegis is our practice, running lawyer-in-the-loop and hallucination-proof. When a Pulley customer moves to us, they get a document-driven ledger built from the reality of what they actually signed, a prerequisite check that catches the gaps Pulley let compound for months, and a subscription that includes access to real attorneys, not a chatbot pretending to be one. We are 70% cheaper than BigLaw. We break even in a single avoided mistake. And we bill month to month, so if we are wrong for you, you leave. Try it free for 7 days at story.law.

FAQs About Transitioning off Pulley

Why do Pulley customers need to switch now?

The final day of operations and services is December 8, 2026, after which the application becomes inaccessible. Limited data access from Pulley is expected to end entirely by January 31, 2027. That is the hard stop. If you do nothing, your ledger records go dark. At Story.law we are onboarding Pulley refugees every week under a waived onboarding fee and an extended trial. Our advice is not to wait until November to start; the reconciliation work of catching the prerequisite gaps Pulley never checked takes longer than the file transfer itself.

What is a document-driven ledger?

A document-driven ledger reads your signed papers (incorporation documents, SAFEs, option grants, board consents) and extracts the ledger from them, rather than asking you to type numbers into a form and hope you got it right. At Story.law we split your documents into a graph of sections and types, fit them into a legal taxonomy, and build a legal event ledger, a legal asset ledger, and a stakeholder ledger from the actual paper. The ledger becomes a view over the documents, not a separate spreadsheet you have to reconcile.

Can I just use Google Sheets after Pulley shuts down?

Honestly, if you have fewer than five stakeholders, no signed SAFEs, no option grants, and no near-term raise, Google Sheets is fine. It is free, it is under your control, and everyone knows how to use it. What Google Sheets cannot do is prerequisite checking, enforceable e-signature, 409A valuations, cascading vesting on termination, a diligence-ready data room, or attorney-client privilege on your equity records. Story.law handles all of those. Pick the spreadsheet if your ledger is genuinely simple. Pick us when it is not.

What are the realistic equity management providers for Pulley refugees in 2026?

The realistic shortlist is Story.law, Carta, Cake Equity, Eqvista, and Google Sheets. Story.law is the only option on that list that is a law firm rather than a software vendor, which matters because a ledger is a legal record, not a spreadsheet. Carta is the default path Pulley is pointing customers toward and will suit companies whose equity holders already know the brand. Cake and Eqvista are solid software choices with generous free tiers. Google Sheets works if your ledger is genuinely trivial. Design your perfect package at story.law and try it free for 7 days.

How is Story.law different from Carta after the Pulley shutdown?

Three differences matter. First, we are a law firm; Carta is a software vendor whose customers still pay outside counsel to operate the platform correctly. Second, we bill month-to-month with cancel anytime; Carta requires annual or quarterly billing and a 90-day cancellation window. Third, we treat your data the way a lawyer treats it: extra privileged, extra confidential, kept seven years unless you tell us to delete it, and never sold. Carta has a documented track record of data-use scandals. For a Pulley customer choosing where to land, those three differences tend to decide it.