Cap Table: What it is and why you need one
A capitalisation table shows who owns what in a company. We explain what a cap table is, why startups need one, and the...
We know the younger a start-up is, the more sensitive an issue capital is. Concerns over the cost of legal advice mean a large number of crucially important legal questions founders have frequently go unanswered. Checking in on that vague employment term phrasing or confirming the exact nuance of that odd liability cause in the company articles of association becomes just too costly to do every time it is needed. The exorbitant cost of legal support, by accident or design, forces founders to cut corners and expose themselves to serious but avoidable risk.
We want to remove those barriers.
We stand firmly against charging engagement fees just for talking and invoicing on the eight-minute. We stand for billing customers once we have helped them solve their legal issue.
In our mission to democratise legals we have uncoupled price from the amount of time something takes to do. With 82% of start-ups failing due to cash flow, we have to be smart with early capital. That is why at SeedLegals, we set ourselves up to give customers the precise level of legal support they need, based on their level of knowledge, their situation right now, and their legal strategy moving forward without a second thought to the massive bill racked up on pay by the minute costs.
SeedLegals offers all-you-can-eat legal support, on-demand for subscribers. The real value of subscribing to one of our monthly plans is the direct unmetered access to expertise otherwise out of budget.
Set up the legal essentials and foundational legal documents without the conflicting pressures of needing close attention to detail and being next to a ticking clock.
So, we took all of the everyday stuff like drafting contracts, writing company policies, managing a cap table, and holding board meetings, as well as the big multi-step complex things, like doing a funding round, or setting up an option scheme, and made them as founder-friendly, affordable and self-service as possible.
All your business legals. Sorted.
In this article, we’ll cover:
Want to read more? Please take a look at our full breakdown of pricing.
All customers get 7 days to try all features across all our plans for free. No credit card needed. We want to hit home to deliver this value first idea.
You can get started using all the features of our scale plan right away; sign up, create your company and start exploring the platform. Some founders solve the problem they most urgently need solving while in their free trial and head off into the sunset, successful founders. On the other hand, they often discover other painful legal requirements they can now get done faster and more efficiently on SeedLegals and subscribe.
While on the free trial, you’ll experience the platform as a paying customer, with its incredibly fast, accurate, and dedicated support from our team of live legal experts on chat. – any questions about getting started or anything at all, start a chat.
You won’t be subscribed automatically to a paid plan when your trial expires; we’d rather you make a choice. There won’t be any unwanted charges on your bank statement if you forget to cancel. That’s too close to the traditional legal pricing model for our liking.
As your company grows, so will your legal needs. SeedLegals subscription plans scale in price and value in step with business growth, aiming to give you exactly what you need as you Start, Run and Scale your business.
You can choose to pay for any of our plans monthly or annually. Annual plans are 15% cheaper when compared to monthly prices, but our customers tell us they opt for annual, not for the saving, but to ensure they have consistent, uninterrupted, on-demand access to legal support for those just-in-case moments.
With the Start plan, you can create up to 5 Employment and Founder Agreements plus unlimited essential agreements including, NDAs and IP assignments.
The start plan aims to officialise your pre-existing relationships and stakeholder agreements, setting out a firm legal footing as early as possible, visualise your current company configuration and make impactful change.
Creating your cap table using our company equity wizard, creating new share certificates, allocating pre-existing shares and splitting equity between holders through share splits are all included in the Start plan.
Start gives powerful tools to optimise shareholding between a founding team, historical investors, and non-founding talent before you start to look ahead to a fundraise. Having a well-curated, balanced and dynamically calculated cap table is a key instability flag that switched-on and exit-dilution-conscious (and therefore likely much higher quality) investors will look to tick before even considering entertaining a pitch.
Start subscriptions also enable active management of any employee options schemes, rewarding your team with share options granted easily and efficiently.
The Start plan is made for companies that have just started and need the basics.
It’s ideal for setting up your cap table, getting your initial shareholding in order, and sorting out the essential contracts you’ll need to get investment-ready.
If you’re a little bit more established and looking to manage a team of more than 5 founders + employees, or looking for board minutes, staff handbook and more, the Run plan is for you.
Run includes everything from the Start plan, but it provides you with more now you’ve started to grow your team. Run includes up to 25 employment + founder agreements. It allows for contract variation, along with the set up of a company handbook, website privacy policy, zero-hour contracts, intern agreement, and more. You can also access our on-platform Board features, which allow you to appoint and remove directors, hold board meetings, do 20+ common approvals, create confirmation statements, and manage your company calendar.Â
Is this the right plan for me? Run is ideal for companies of up to 25 people where you are growing but haven’t quite scaled your business to the point where you need unlimited contracts or options grants. If you are at the scaling stage, the Scale plan is for you.
The Scale plan is ideal for when you’ve grown your business to over 25 people and you’re now looking for unlimited contracts and priority support.
The Scale plan includes everything from the Run plan, but you get even more: an unlimited number of employees and contracts, unlimited options grants and management where you purchase one of our Options schemes, and priority support.
And, importantly, it includes SeedLegals Data Room: The best way to securely share documents with investors.
In addition to the on-platform features, as a SeedLegals subscriber, you also get exclusive access to webinars and articles to help you build your knowledge and skillset as you grow your business. These exclusive high-profile events include our most recent Investor Series.
When you subscribe to any SeedLegals annual plan, you’ll also get access to exclusive offers and discounts on selected services.
SeedLegals Perks helps our annual subscribers save money on services from:
We’re always updating our perks offering to help founders expand their access to helpful tools and services.
You can unsubscribe from any of our plans by visiting the subscriptions area of your company settings. You’ll retain access for any period you’ve already paid for, and all your documents will be saved securely, keeping your progress saved for you to pick up later. Once unsubscribed you’ll no longer be able to access your documents, draft new agreements nor use any other features. That’s why we recommend making sure to download all of your documents and storing them off-platform before unsubscribing.
You can change your subscription plan at any time. Just visit your company settings and select a new plan. Though be mindful that any processes, workflows or documents not included in the downgraded plan will no longer be available, and should you have started any, you’d not be able to complete them post-downgrade.
We provide three plans for the three key stages of your company’s life: Start, Run, and Scale.
Which plan is right for you depends largely on the size of your team and what you’re looking to do, e.g. manage your board, set up large numbers of Share Option grants, or build out your Company policies.
Here’s a full list of all the features on each plan so you can compare them side-by-side:
At SeedLegals, we are here to help throughout the whole process, no matter what plan you decide to use. If you’ve any questions about which plan is most suitable for you, simply start a chat with a member of our expert support team.