AngelList vs Carta for fund administration: who should choose which

The short answer

These are the two names a first-time venture manager hears first, and they sell different shapes of the same service. AngelList sells a bundle on a template at a published price: formation, banking, accounting, tax at the Full Service tier, the LP portal, closings and audit support, for a percentage of fund size plus a flat fee, locked for ten years. Carta sells a fund ERP, Standard or Advanced, priced on request by plan and number of funds, with tax, formations, management company administration, valuations and data collection as add-ons, and an in-house team plus AI agents running reconciliation and tax monitoring behind it.

The price difference is not that one is cheaper; it is that one can be read. A $20M fund on AngelList Institutional pays $30,000 a year plus an implementation fee it will be quoted; on Full Service, $50,000 with taxes in. Carta's number arrives after a call and depends on which add-ons the fund needs, which for a fund that wants tax and formation is most of them. The fit question is where the firm's gravity is: on the LP and vehicle side, where AngelList grew up, or on the portfolio company side, where Carta's cap tables already sit.

Feature comparison

What each one actually is

AngelList is the platform on which a large share of US venture syndicates and small funds were formed, and its fund administration is the same machine applied to traditional funds: a venture fund on AngelList's documents, banking and tax, run by a dedicated account team, with the LP portal and investor closing that the syndicates use. The two plans differ mainly in whether fund taxes and portfolio operations are inside the fee. The pricing page states both plans are subject to a minimum fund size and a one-time implementation fee at first close, and that the annual price is locked for ten years.

Carta started as the cap table and became a fund ERP for the firms investing in the companies on it. The fund administration page describes capital calls, distributions and investments initiated from one place, real-time net and deal IRR, TVPI and DPI, an LP portal where LPs sign subscription documents and fund calls, AI pre-filled subdocs, KYC and AML, and a tax timeline managed with the books handed to the auditor and tax provider. The plans page sells Standard ERP for formation-stage funds and Advanced ERP for audited funds, with fund tax, formations, management company administration, valuations and data collection as add-ons on either.

What AngelList does better

A price on the page. Two formulas, the inclusions beside them, and a ten-year lock. The implementation fee and the minimum are the only numbers you have to ask for.

Speed to a first close. The platform states a launch in as little as two weeks with full-stack support, on its own fund template.

Syndicates and funds on one account. A manager who runs SPVs between funds keeps one LP base, one portal and one tax provider, with the SPV fee also published.

What Carta does better

Breadth beyond venture. Private equity and private credit are listed asset classes; AngelList's pages describe venture structures.

The portfolio side. If the companies' cap tables are on Carta, the fund's schedule of investments, valuations and data collection draw from the same records, which is the whole argument for the add-ons.

Reported performance in the portal. Net and deal IRR, TVPI and DPI are named as live metrics for LPs; AngelList lists financial reporting without the metrics.

What we did

We read both vendors' pricing and administration pages on October 15, 2026 and recorded only what was written there. Scale figures are the vendors' own and in different units. AngelList's minimum fund size and implementation fee are unpublished; Carta publishes no price at all. Neither vendor was contacted.

What to ask in both demos

1. AngelList: the minimum fund size and the implementation fee for your fund, in writing, before the term sheet. Carta: the full price with Fund Tax and Fund Formations included for one fund with 30 LPs.
2. Who signs quarter-end close, and what is their caseload.
3. Show the capital call notice in the ILPA format and the LP's experience of it.
4. Show an audit: which documents the auditor got, from whom, and when.
5. What leaving looks like: the handover package, in writing.

Who should choose which

• Choose AngelList if your fund fits its template, you want tax, banking and the portal from one provider at a price you can read, and you may run SPVs or a rolling fund beside it.
• Choose Carta if your portfolio companies are on Carta, you want an ERP whose schedule of investments draws from their cap tables, or your strategy extends into private equity or credit.
• Choose neither alone if an anchor LP requires an independent administrator named in your Form ADV; pick the administrator first and ask which platform it will run.

The pick would move to Carta the day it published a price, or for a fund whose size clears AngelList's unpublished minimum only with a waiver.