Carta vs Stripe: Revenue, Profit and Business Model
Carta reported $515M of revenue in FY2025 and — of net income. Stripe reported $6.8B of revenue in FY2025 and — of net income.
Latest financial snapshot
Financial summary
Carta
Carta does not publish audited financials. Henry Ward has said the company was approaching $500 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025. Sacra estimates revenue of about $373 million in 2023, $442 million in 2024 (+19%), and $515 million in 2025 (+16.5%), with growth slowing after the end of zero-rate venture funding. Carta raised its last primary round, a $500 million Series G led by Silver Lake and Lightspeed, at a $7.4 billion valuation in August 2021; a January 2022 employee secondary sale reportedly priced it at $8.5 billion. Total equity funding is roughly $1 billion.
Stripe
Stripe does not publish audited financials. Reported figures put net revenue (after card network and bank costs) at about $5.1 billion in 2024 and $6.8 billion in 2025, roughly 33% growth, while total volume rose from $1.4 trillion to $1.9 trillion. Stripe has said it is robustly profitable. Its private valuation fell to $50 billion in a 2023 funding round, recovered to $91.5 billion in a 2025 tender, and reached $159 billion in a February 2026 tender offer.
Revenue and profit by year
Carta
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $515M | — | 0.0% | +16.5% | Source |
| FY2024 | $442M | — | 0.0% | +18.5% | Source |
| FY2023 | $373M | — | 0.0% | — | Source |
Stripe
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $6.8B | — | 0.0% | +33.3% | Source |
| FY2024 | $5.1B | — | 0.0% | — | Source |
Where the revenue comes from
Carta
- Cap table and 409A valuation subscriptions
~67% (2023, Sacra estimate)
Annual subscriptions priced by company stage and stakeholder count, plus 409A valuation packages.
- Fund administration and Fund ERP
~27% (2023, Sacra estimate)
Fees tied to fund size and complexity for accounting, tax, reporting, and related software.
- Private equity, private credit, and legal services
~5% (2023, Sacra estimate; growing)
Newer PE and private credit products, plus Carta Law from 2026.
Stripe
- Payment processing fees
- Connect platform fees
- Billing and invoicing
- Tax automation
- Fraud prevention through Radar
- Issuing and Treasury
- Terminal and in-person payments
- Stablecoin and money movement infrastructure
Business model and strategy
Carta
How it makes money
Carta sells annual software subscriptions plus service fees on both sides of the private market. Companies pay for cap table management, equity plan administration, and 409A valuations, with prices rising as stakeholder counts and funding stages grow.
Growth strategy
Carta grows by selling more products to the firms already on its ledger. The playbook is to take a professional service (409A valuations, fund accounting, legal work), automate it, and tie the output to Carta's system of record. Fund ERP bundles fund administration, fund tax, portfolio valuations, data collection, forecasting, and CRM.
Competitive advantage
Carta's main advantage is its two-sided network. Startups put investors on their Carta cap tables, investors adopt Carta for fund administration, and those funds steer portfolio companies to Carta. As a registered transfer agent holding the legal record of ownership, Carta is also costly to leave: switching means migrating years of grants, vesting schedules, and investor records.
Stripe
How it makes money
Stripe earns most of its money from fees on payments it processes, typically a percentage plus a fixed fee per card transaction, with negotiated rates for large enterprises.
Growth strategy
Stripe is growing by selling more products to existing users and by moving up-market to large enterprises, while building for new payment flows. In 2025 it shipped more than 350 product updates, expanded stablecoin accounts and payouts, and launched agentic commerce tools with OpenAI.
Competitive advantage
Stripe's edge is breadth plus developer adoption. A business can start with a simple payments integration and add billing, tax, fraud, payouts, cards and stablecoin rails without switching vendors. That integration depth raises switching costs, and Stripe's data across $1.9 trillion of annual volume feeds products such as Radar and payment optimization.
Questions about Carta vs Stripe
Which company has higher revenue — Carta, Inc. or Stripe, Inc.?
Carta, Inc. reported $515.0M (FY2025), while Stripe, Inc. reported $6.8B (FY2025). By last reported revenue, Stripe, Inc. is the larger business, with Carta, Inc. reporting a smaller revenue base.
Which is more financially efficient — Carta, Inc. or Stripe, Inc.?
Carta, Inc. generates $271k / employee in revenue per employee, while Stripe, Inc. generates $756k / employee. Stripe, Inc. shows higher revenue efficiency per headcount, though this reflects business model differences — capital-light software companies routinely outperform labour-intensive manufacturers on this metric.
How do Carta, Inc. and Stripe, Inc. make money?
Carta, Inc. and Stripe, Inc. generate revenue in fundamentally different ways. Carta, Inc.: Carta sells annual software subscriptions plus service fees on both sides of the private market. Stripe, Inc.: Stripe earns most of its money from fees on payments it processes, typically a percentage plus a fixed fee per card transaction, with negotiated rates for large enterprises.
Is Carta, Inc. bigger than Stripe, Inc.?
By last reported revenue, Stripe, Inc. ($6.8B (FY2025)) is the larger company compared to Carta, Inc. ($515.0M (FY2025)). Revenue scale is one dimension of size — market capitalisation, employee count, and geographic reach are also relevant depending on the context.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Carta vs Stripe overview