If you're comparing seedlegals alternatives, you're probably past the point of wondering whether you need a cofounder agreement. You need one. The real question is which tool gets you there, and whether a legal-document generator is actually the whole job. It isn't. Below is a plain look at SeedLegals, Clerky, and Capbase — what each one does well, who they're built for — and where documenting the partnership itself, not just the paperwork, fits alongside them.
SeedLegals: the UK founder's all-in-one
SeedLegals is a UK-based platform built around the full lifecycle of an early-stage company: founder agreements, cap table management, SEIS/EIS paperwork, and investment-round documents, all under one membership. Its founder agreement product covers two stages — a Founder Pledge for the pre-salary, pre-funding period, and a Founder Service Agreement for once founders start drawing pay or approaching a raise. Both are built to set out obligations, director duties, and a vesting schedule for shares.
SeedLegals' pricing runs on tiered annual or monthly membership plans, with separate tiers for general access versus active fundraising rounds — worth checking directly since plans change.
Who it's for: UK and EU founders who expect to raise investment and want fundraising-specific documents (SEIS/EIS advance assurance, SAFEs, investment agreements) generated by the same platform that holds their cap table. If you're outside that jurisdiction, or you're not fundraising yet, the fit is weaker.
Clerky: the US incorporation specialist
Clerky takes a narrower, deeper approach. It's built specifically for Delaware C-corp formation and the standard paperwork that follows: founder stock purchase agreements, IP assignment, bylaws, SAFEs, and hiring documents including stock option grants. Its founder stock documents default to a four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff and a non-modifiable double-trigger acceleration provision — a widely used standard, not a bespoke term.
Clerky doesn't run ongoing cap table management the way SeedLegals or Capbase do — founders typically pair it with a separate equity-tracking tool once the company has more than a couple of shareholders. It's a document tool built by startup attorneys, and it's popular precisely because it sticks to that lane rather than trying to be an all-in-one back-end.
Who it's for: US-track founders, often Y Combinator or accelerator-adjacent, who want fast, standard-form Delaware paperwork and plan to bring in a lawyer for anything non-standard.
Capbase: incorporation plus a live cap table
Capbase sits between the two. Like Clerky, it's US-focused and Delaware-oriented. Like SeedLegals, it tries to cover more of the back-end in one place — incorporation, automatic cap table updates as you sign equity documents, compliance tracking, a registered agent, and contractor/employee equity issuance. Where Clerky generates a document and stops, Capbase's stated differentiation is that the same action also updates your live cap table, so the numbers stay current without manual re-entry.
Who it's for: founders who want incorporation, equity issuance, and compliance tracking in a single subscription and are willing to trade some of Clerky's narrow-tool simplicity for broader coverage.
What all three have in common
Each of these platforms is genuinely good at what it's for: generating a legally sound, jurisdiction-correct document, quickly. That's real value — messy or missing paperwork is a solvable problem, and these tools solve it.
But a document is a snapshot. It captures whatever you and your cofounders had already agreed to at the moment you filled in the fields. None of these platforms help you get to that agreement in the first place — how you'll split decisions, what happens if one of you wants to step back, what "full-time" actually means to each of you. If you haven't had that conversation, the generated document just formalizes a guess. Our cofounder agreement checklist walks through the substance that needs deciding before any platform's template is worth filling in.
Equity math has the same problem. A vesting clause is easy to generate; deciding the split and the vesting logic that's fair to your specific situation is not. See how to split cofounder equity and how vesting schedules actually work if you're still working that part out.
Where a documentation-first approach fits
Founders Align isn't a substitute for a legal-document platform — you'll still want SeedLegals, Clerky, Capbase, or a lawyer to produce something binding. What it does instead is make the cofounder agreement a living record rather than a one-time form. Roles, equity logic, decision rights, and exit terms get documented as commitments you both actually agreed to — not boilerplate clauses neither of you re-reads after signing.
That distinction matters most after the document is signed. Partnerships shift: one cofounder takes on more of the fundraising, priorities change, a decision gets made in a hallway conversation and never written down. A static PDF doesn't catch that drift. A platform built to surface where you and your cofounder actually disagree — and turn it into something documented — does. If you want a quick read on where the gaps are in your own partnership, the cofounder alignment check is a fast starting point, and free founders-agreement templates are there if you'd rather start from a document and work backward.
How to choose
Start with jurisdiction and stage: UK or EU and fundraising soon, look at SeedLegals; US and Delaware-track, look at Clerky or Capbase, depending on whether you want a narrow tool or a broader one. Then, regardless of which legal platform you pick, do the harder work first — agree on the terms, not just the template. Turn assumptions into agreements before you turn agreements into PDFs.
None of these tools compete with each other in the way it might first appear. A legal-document platform and a partnership-documentation approach solve different halves of the same problem: one makes the agreement binding, the other makes sure it's the right agreement to begin with.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the main difference between SeedLegals and Clerky?
- SeedLegals is built for UK and EU founders and bundles founder agreements, cap table management, and fundraising paperwork (SEIS/EIS, investment rounds) into one membership. Clerky is US-focused and specializes in Delaware C-corp incorporation and standard-form legal paperwork — founder stock, SAFEs, hiring documents — without built-in live cap table management, so founders often pair it with a separate equity tool.
- Is Capbase a good SeedLegals alternative?
- Capbase is closer to Clerky in geography (US-focused, Delaware-oriented) but closer to SeedLegals in scope — it combines incorporation, live cap table updates, compliance tracking, and equity issuance in one platform, positioning itself as a fuller back-end than a document generator alone.
- Do I still need a cofounder agreement if I use SeedLegals, Clerky, or Capbase?
- Yes. Each platform can generate the legal document — a founder agreement, restricted stock purchase agreement, or similar — but the document only reflects what you've already decided. None of them help you and your cofounders work out roles, decision rights, or what happens if someone wants to leave. That conversation has to happen before the document is worth signing.
- Can I use a legal document platform and an alignment tool together?
- Yes, and many founders do. Legal platforms are the right place to generate a binding, jurisdiction-correct document. A documentation-first approach like Founders Align is the right place to have the conversation that determines what goes in it, and to keep that record current as your partnership changes.
- What should early-stage founders prioritize before choosing any of these tools?
- Agree on the substance first: equity split, vesting, roles, and what happens in a dispute or exit. Use a checklist to make sure you haven't skipped a clause, then pick whichever legal-document platform fits your jurisdiction and stage.
