Pricing Data · Updated July 2026
Fund Administration Pricing Benchmark for Emerging Managers
What fund administration costs, and why almost nobody will tell you: only 4 of the 12 plans indexed here publish a rate at all. Every figure below is quoted from a vendor’s own public pricing page, linked and dated. Vendors that do not publish pricing are listed as Custom/undisclosed. Nothing on this page is estimated or surveyed. If your question is which platform to buy rather than what it should cost, start with the fund administration software selection guide.
Written by Michael Kaufman · Reviewed against our editorial standards · Updated
Quick Answer
Only 4 of the 12 fund administration plans indexed here publish a checkable price. Flat SaaS subscriptions start at $297-$497/mo (Archstone, $3,564-$5,964/yr regardless of fund size). AngelList publishes AUM-based formulas: 0.1% of fund size + $10,000/yr (Institutional) or 0.15% + $20,000/yr (Full Service, taxes and K-1s included) — which works out to $20,000-$95,000/yr for a $10M-$50M fund, before undisclosed minimums and a one-time implementation fee. Everyone else quotes privately, Carta included: no rate card, no starting-from figure. For quote-only providers the observed market bands are roughly $25K-$75K/yr for a $10M-$50M fund, $75K-$200K+/yr from $50M-$250M, and $200K-$500K+/yr above $250M.
Published Pricing by Provider
12 provider plans. “Disclosed” means the price appears on a public page anyone can check — each source is linked. All figures as of July 2026.
| Provider | Plan | Pricing model | Published price | Disclosed | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archstone | Starter | Flat monthly subscription | $297/mo ($3,564/yr) | Yes | archstone.app/pricing |
| Archstone | Pro | Flat monthly subscription | $497/mo ($5,964/yr) | Yes | archstone.app/pricing |
| AngelList | Institutional | % of fund size + flat annual fee | 0.1% of fund size + $10,000/yr | Yes | angellist.com/pricing |
| AngelList | Full Service | % of fund size + flat annual fee | 0.15% of fund size + $20,000/yr | Yes | angellist.com/pricing |
| Carta | Fund Administration | Quote-based, tiered by fund size | Custom/undisclosed | No | VC Beast review (2026) |
| Visible | For Investors (Essential) | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | visible.vc/investor-pricing |
| Juniper Square | Fund Administration | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | junipersquare.com/pricing |
| Allvue Systems | Fund accounting & admin software | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | allvuesystems.com |
| Standish Management | Full-service fund administration | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | standishmanagement.com |
| SS&C Technologies | Fund administration services | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | ssctech.com |
| Citco | Fund administration services | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | citco.com |
| Apex Group | Fund administration services | Quote-based | Custom/undisclosed | No | apexgroup.com |
Typical Annual Cost by Fund Size
Derived by arithmetic only from the published prices above — flat monthly prices × 12, or AngelList’s published percent-of-fund-size formulas applied to example fund sizes. No estimates: providers without published pricing show a dash. Excludes implementation fees, minimums, and add-ons (see methodology).
| Provider / plan | $10M fund | $25M fund | $50M fund | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archstone (Starter) | $3,564 | $3,564 | $3,564 | Flat price × 12 |
| Archstone (Pro) | $5,964 | $5,964 | $5,964 | Flat price × 12 |
| AngelList (Institutional) | $20,000 | $35,000 | $60,000 | Published formula |
| AngelList (Full Service) | $35,000 | $57,500 | $95,000 | Published formula |
Only the four plans above have a published price to compute from; every other provider in the index quotes privately, Carta included. AngelList figures exclude the undisclosed minimum fund size and one-time implementation fee. Archstone’s flat plans do not scale with AUM; the vendor markets a custom Enterprise tier for $50M+ funds. For what the quote-only tier actually costs, see the fund-size bands below.
Download the Data
fund-admin-pricing-benchmark.csv
12 rows · provider, plan, pricing model, published price, derived annual costs, source URL, as-of date · CC BY 4.0
Methodology
What this is. A curated index of publicly documented fund administration pricing, compiled by VC Beast for emerging venture fund managers. It is not a survey — no vendors were interviewed and no private quotes are included. Every figure was quoted from a source anyone can check.
Sources and verification. Each vendor’s public pricing page was fetched and verified live on 2026-07-14, and the index was reviewed again in September 2026. Prices are quoted verbatim from those pages. Carta is the case people ask about most: its site exposes no fund-admin price list, tier table, or starting-from figure, so this benchmark shows no Carta number at all rather than repeating a third-party estimate. Our fund admin software review covers what the product does.
The no-estimates rule. When a vendor does not publish pricing, the row says Custom/undisclosed. We do not infer figures from sales calls, forums, or third-party claims, and the derived annual-cost table uses arithmetic only (flat price × 12, or a published formula applied to an example fund size).
What is excluded. One-time implementation and setup fees, minimum-fund-size thresholds, negotiated discounts, multi-year contract terms, and add-ons such as tax preparation, audit support, extra closes, or blocker entities — several vendors charge these but do not publish the amounts. Treat the derived figures as software/service list price, not total cost of ownership.
Corrections. Vendor pricing changes. If a figure here no longer matches the linked source, tell us via our corrections page and we will update the row and the as-of date. Editorial process: editorial standards.
Fund Administration Fees: The Three Pricing Models
The most useful signal in this dataset is structural, not any single price: the emerging-manager end of the market prices flat and publishes it, while the institutional end prices on AUM and quotes privately. Only 4 of the 12 plans indexed here have a checkable public price — that asymmetry is itself the story. A first-time GP comparing options is really choosing between three pricing models:
- ›Flat subscription: cost is independent of fund size — cheapest at every fund size in this index, and the only model where the $50M-fund cost equals the $10M-fund cost. You operate the software yourself.
- ›Percent of fund size + flat fee: cost scales with AUM by a published formula, so you can compute your exact list price before talking to sales — but minimums and implementation fees sit outside the formula.
- ›Custom quote: eight of the twelve plans indexed, Carta among them. Budget guidance requires a sales conversation, and comparable managers can pay materially different prices for the same service.
Which model fits depends on whether you are buying software you operate or a service that operates for you. That is a selection question rather than a cost question, and it has its own page: our software versus outsourced administration decision states it as three thresholds — capacity, credibility and complexity — and the four fund-size bands name the platform or provider that fits each one.
One consequence of the three models is worth stating plainly, because it is what makes this category hard to budget: only the flat and formula models can be compared before a sales conversation. A published formula lets you compute your own list price to the dollar. A flat price is already the answer. A custom quote can only be obtained, and comparable managers routinely pay materially different amounts for the same scope, because the quote reflects negotiation and timing as well as work.
What a Published Formula Is Actually Worth
AngelList is the only provider in this index that publishes a complete formula rather than a flat price: 0.1% of fund size plus $10,000/yr on Institutional, and 0.15% of fund size plus $20,000/yr on Full Service, with fund taxes and K-1 preparation included on the latter. Two things follow from that, and they pull in opposite directions.
The first is that you can do the arithmetic yourself before speaking to anyone, which is rare enough in this category to be worth something on its own. The second is that a percentage of fund size behaves very differently from a flat fee as the fund grows: the same plan that costs $35,000 on a $10M fund costs $95,000 on a $50M fund, while a flat software subscription costs the same at both. A formula is transparent and scaling; a flat price is transparent and static. Neither is cheaper in the abstract.
Two caveats sit on the formula and both are load-bearing. AngelList states that both plans are subject to a minimum fund size and does not publish what the minimum is, so the arithmetic at the smallest fund sizes may describe a product a fund that small cannot buy. And the one-time implementation fee varies by complexity and is not published. Neither derived figure in the table above is a total.
The structural comparison is what matters for budgeting: below roughly $25M in commitments a flat subscription is almost always the cheapest published option, between $25M and $50M the formula and the flat price converge on a decision about service scope rather than price, and above $50M a percentage-based plan starts to look like an outsourced administration fee, which is exactly what it is.
What the Quote-Only Tier Actually Costs
Eight of the twelve plans above publish nothing, which makes the table useful for verifying prices and useless for budgeting against them. These are the bands VC Beast observes in the market for those providers, grouped by fund size. They are market-observed ranges, not published prices — they are deliberately kept out of the sourced table above, and your own quote will land where your structure, close count, and LP list put it.
| Fund size | Observed range | What it typically covers | Who operates here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emerging managers — $10M to $50M fund | $25,000 - $75,000/yr | NAV calculation, capital calls, distributions, K-1 preparation, and quarterly LP reporting. | Typically Carta, AngelList, Standish Management, or a boutique administrator. Flat-priced software such as Archstone sits below this band because you operate it yourself. |
| Established funds — $50M to $250M | $75,000 - $200,000+/yr | More LPs, more complex structures, more regulatory surface: Form PF and Form D filings, multi-close mechanics, side letters. | Apex Group, SEI, NAV Fund Administration Group, and the lower end of SS&C. |
| Institutional funds — $250M+ | $200,000 - $500,000+/yr | Dedicated service teams, custom LP reporting formats, and multi-jurisdictional compliance. | SS&C, Citco, Northern Trust, and US Bank Global Fund Services. |
The step from one band to the next is driven less by AUM than by structure. Multiple closes, SPVs, blocker entities, non-US LPs, and side letters all move a quote upward at the same fund size — the full list is below.
Outsourced Fund Administration Priced in Basis Points
Full-service administration is usually quoted as basis points on committed capital plus an annual minimum, which is why an administrator’s number and a software subscription cannot be compared until one of them is converted. One basis point is 0.01% of committed capital, so a fund of $25M generates $2,500 of fee per basis point per year. The table is pure arithmetic on a rate you have been quoted: it is not a claim about what any provider charges, because no provider in this index publishes a basis-point rate at all.
| Quoted rate | $10M fund | $25M fund | $50M fund | $100M fund |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 bps | $5,000 | $12,500 | $25,000 | $50,000 |
| 10 bps | $10,000 | $25,000 | $50,000 | $100,000 |
| 15 bps | $15,000 | $37,500 | $75,000 | $150,000 |
| 25 bps | $25,000 | $62,500 | $125,000 | $250,000 |
Read the first column before the rest of the row. At small fund sizes a basis-point rate produces a number below almost every provider’s annual minimum, so the minimum is what you actually pay and the rate is decoration — which is the real reason administrators decline small funds rather than simply charging them a small fee. The rate only starts to bind somewhere above the minimum, and from that point a basis-point fee grows with every dollar you raise while a flat software subscription does not. Ask for the minimum before you ask for the rate, and ask whether the basis points apply to committed capital, called capital or NAV: the same rate on NAV produces a rising fee as the portfolio marks up, and on called capital a fee that starts small and steps up with each drawdown.
What Drives a Fund Administration Quote
Two funds of the same size are routinely quoted very differently, which makes a number a peer gives you almost useless as a benchmark. These are the seven variables that actually move it, roughly in order of how much they move it. Disclose all of them during pricing: every one of them surfaces later either way, and the ones that surface after signing arrive as an invoice rather than as a quote.
- ›LP count, not fund size: Every LP is a capital account, a subscription pack, an AML/KYC file, a K-1 and a portal login. Twenty LPs in a $50M fund is materially less work than eighty LPs in a $25M fund, and administrators price the work rather than the AUM.
- ›Number of closes: Each additional close means re-running allocations and equalising interest and management fee between earlier and later investors. A rolling or multi-close raise is the most common reason a first quote comes back above what a peer quoted for the same fund size.
- ›Entity count: Parallel vehicles, feeders, blockers and SPVs are almost always priced per entity. A $40M fund running six SPVs can cost more to administer than a $150M single-vehicle fund. If you expect sidecars, get the per-entity rate in writing before signing.
- ›Side letters and bespoke economics: Reduced management fee, different carry, co-invest rights or bespoke reporting for one investor all break the standard template and get handled manually every quarter. Disclose them during pricing; they surface later either way.
- ›NAV frequency and valuation support: Quarterly is the norm for venture and private equity. Monthly NAV, or asking the administrator to prepare valuation support rather than book the marks you supply, are separate scope items with separate prices.
- ›Audit, tax and filings: Audit support, the fund tax return, per-LP K-1s and regulatory filings such as Form D, Form PF and blue-sky are frequently outside the headline fee. Ask which are in scope and which are billed on top.
- ›Jurisdiction and LP domicile: A Delaware fund with US LPs is the cheapest case. Non-US LPs bring FATCA and CRS work; offshore feeders in Cayman or Luxembourg are a different service with different filings, and not every provider that serves Delaware serves them.
One practical consequence for anyone running an SPV programme alongside a fund: entity count compounds faster than anything else on this list, and it is the variable most often left out of the initial conversation. If you expect three sidecars a year, price three sidecars a year now. The same logic applies to the selection decision rather than the cost one — which platform tolerates many small entities is covered in the fund-size and structure framework on the selection guide.
What a Fee Schedule Should Itemize
A headline annual number is not a price. Before signing, make the administrator break the fee into line items and mark each one included or billed. The last two rows are where first-time GPs get surprised, and neither shows up in any published rate on this page.
- ›NAV calculation: How often the net asset value is struck, and whether valuation support is included or billed separately.
- ›Capital call processing: Per-call or unlimited, and whether LP notices, wire instructions, and chase-ups are in scope.
- ›Distribution waterfall: Whether the administrator models your LPA waterfall or simply books the numbers you hand them.
- ›K-1 preparation: Per-LP or bundled, and whether the fund tax return is included. AngelList Full Service bundles fund taxes and K-1s; most others quote them as an add-on.
- ›LP reporting: Quarterly and annual statements, and whether ILPA-format reporting costs extra.
- ›Regulatory filings: Form D, Form PF, and state blue-sky filings — commonly excluded from the headline fee.
- ›Bank reconciliation and cash management: Account setup, monthly reconciliation, and treasury handling.
- ›Implementation and onboarding: A one-time fee that rarely appears in any published rate and can rival a full year of service.
- ›Extra closes, SPVs, and blockers: Priced per entity almost everywhere. If you expect sidecars, get the per-entity rate in writing before you sign.
When You Need an Administrator at All
The size threshold is roughly $10M in committed capital. Below it, a GP working with an accountant can carry bookkeeping and a light capital-call process. Above it, the volume of calls, distributions, per-LP K-1s, and quarterly reporting stops fitting around the edges of an investing job.
The LP base is the harder constraint. Most institutional LPs — endowments, pensions, fund-of-funds — require an independent third-party administrator as a governance condition rather than a preference. Self-administering is read as a red flag in diligence regardless of fund size, so the trigger is often your first institutional commitment rather than your AUM.
In-house does not pencil until much later. A full-time fund controller costs $120,000-$180,000 in salary before benefits and a fund accountant adds $80,000-$120,000 — past the top of the outsourced band for any fund that would be considering the trade, and that is before audit and tax support. In-house starts to make sense at $500M+ across multiple funds, and even then most firms keep an outside administrator for independence and bring only selected functions in-house for speed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you provide an estimated price range for a fund accounting software license for a fund with approximately $500 million AUM?
We do not publish a $500M band and we will not estimate one: this index only derives annual costs where a vendor publishes a rate, and eight of the twelve plans indexed here are quote-only. What we can give you is the shape of the pricing. Flat subscription software does not move with AUM at all, percentage-of-fund-size models scale directly with it and get expensive at this level, and full-service administrators quote per fund on structure, entity count and NAV frequency rather than on a licence fee. At this size ask for a line-item fee schedule covering NAV frequency, capital call processing, per-LP K-1 preparation, implementation, and per-entity charges for additional closes, SPVs and blockers, because those charges rather than the licence drive the number.
How much does fund administration cost for a first fund?
For a $10M-$50M fund, quote-only administrators land in the $25,000-$75,000/yr range, covering NAV calculation, capital calls, distributions, K-1 preparation, and quarterly LP reporting. Published alternatives are materially cheaper: AngelList's Full Service formula works out to $35,000/yr on a $10M fund (0.15% + $20,000), and flat software such as Archstone runs $3,564-$5,964/yr regardless of fund size because you operate it yourself rather than outsourcing the work.
Why does Carta not publish fund administration pricing?
Carta prices fund administration by fund size and structural complexity and handles it through a sales process, so there is no public rate card, tier table, or starting-from figure on carta.com. That is the norm rather than the exception: eight of the twelve plans in this index are quote-only. Any specific Carta figure you see quoted online is a third-party estimate, not a published price, which is why this benchmark shows no number for it.
At what fund size do you need a fund administrator?
The practical threshold is roughly $10M in committed capital. Below that, a GP with an accountant can handle bookkeeping and a light capital-call process. Above it, the combination of capital calls, distributions, per-LP K-1s, and LP reporting starts to demand dedicated handling. The harder constraint is usually the LP base rather than the fund size: most institutional LPs (endowments, pensions, fund-of-funds) require an independent third-party administrator as a governance condition, so self-administering reads as a red flag in diligence no matter how small the fund.
Is in-house fund administration cheaper than outsourcing?
Not for Fund I through Fund III. A full-time fund controller runs $120,000-$180,000 in salary before benefits, and a fund accountant adds $80,000-$120,000 — well past the top of the outsourced range for a fund of that size, before audit and tax support. You also give up the independence institutional LPs expect. In-house starts to pencil at $500M+ across multiple funds, and even then most firms retain an outside administrator for independence and bring only selected functions in-house for speed.
What is a typical fund administration fee in basis points?
Outsourced administration is usually quoted as basis points on committed capital with an annual minimum, and the minimum is what binds at small fund sizes: at 10 bps a $10M fund generates $10,000 of fee, which is below most providers' floor, so the floor is what you pay. Converting is the only way to compare a basis-point quote against flat software pricing — 10 bps is $25,000/yr on a $25M fund and $100,000/yr on a $100M fund. No provider in this index publishes a basis-point rate, so treat any specific number you are quoted as yours rather than as the market, and ask what the minimum is before the rate.
Why do most fund administrators not publish pricing?
Because the price is a function of your structure rather than of your fund size, and because the sales process is where scope gets defined. Entity count, LP count, close count, side letters, NAV frequency and which filings are in scope all move the number, so a single published rate would either be wrong for most funds or so hedged as to be useless. Eight of the twelve plans indexed here publish nothing at all. The practical consequence for a buyer is that public price discovery does not exist in this category, which is why this page indexes what is published and records the rest as quote-only rather than estimating it.
What drives the price of a fund administration quote?
Seven things, and fund size is not the first of them: the number of LPs, the number of closes, the number of legal entities including SPVs and feeders, side letters with bespoke economics, NAV frequency and whether valuation support is included, whether audit support and per-LP K-1s are in scope, and the domicile of the fund and its investors. Two funds of the same size can be quoted very differently on entity count alone, which is why a headline number from a peer is not a benchmark for you.
Is fund administration software cheaper than a fund administrator?
On the invoice, yes, and the invoice is not the comparison. Flat-priced software runs in the low thousands per year and does not scale with AUM, while outsourced administration is a service quoted in basis points with a minimum. The honest comparison adds to the software side the internal or fractional finance time to operate it, and adds to the outsourced side the LP-credibility value of an independent party producing the numbers. Below roughly $25M in commitments, software plus an accountant usually wins on both cost and practicality. Above it, the decision is generally settled by what your institutional LPs expect rather than by the arithmetic.
What should a fund admin fee schedule itemize?
Ask for line items, not a single annual number: NAV calculation frequency, capital call processing, distribution waterfall modeling, K-1 preparation (per LP or bundled, fund tax return included or not), LP reporting including ILPA format, regulatory filings (Form D, Form PF, blue sky), bank reconciliation, one-time implementation, and per-entity pricing for extra closes, SPVs, and blockers. Implementation fees and per-entity charges are the two that most often surprise first-time GPs, and neither appears in any published rate on this page.