To learn more about how stock options work, read our explainer here.

Issuing option grants electronically allows you to grant options to employees entirely on Pulley instead of having them sign documents offline. Before issuing or managing stock option grants, ensure you have an active equity plan with available shares, a current 409A valuation to determine the strike price, and configured templates and signatories under Company > Templates and Company > Signatories.

Overall process

1. Select "Options" as the legal agreement

To start issuing new option grants: click + New in the left navigation bar → New Contract → select Options

2. Do a one-time setup

If you're issuing options for the first time in Pulley, you'll need to do a one-time setup:

Set an Options Signatory:

Assign who from the company will e-sign all issued options.
You can invite and set yourself as the signatory.

Upload an Options Template:

⭐️ The template method removes the need to use tools like DocuSign or HelloSign. How to format a document into a Pulley template
Configure templates and signatories under Company > Templates and Company > Signatories. Pulley provides default templates, or you can upload your own.

3. Enter option grant's details

You can now start setting up options to issue. If you're a Pulley pro and need to issue multiple of the same options agreement, we recommend the "spreadsheet" method.

Special Cases

Fully Vested Grants: Select "No Vesting" from the vesting schedule dropdown when creating the grant.

4. Review your drafted options

Double-check and preview the PDFs that your grants' stakeholders will receive and e-sign.

Note: If you navigate from the page, your drafts will automatically save in the "Drafts" section in your side navigation bar under "Cap Table". You will see both an icon and alert until your drafts have been published.

5. Get or upload a board approval

Unanimous written consent from your company's board of directors is required for an option grant to be legally binding. Typically, companies send their board a batch of equity grants to approve once per quarter.

For early-stage startups: it is ok for the company to have only one board member, and it may be just you, a founder.

A) Get a new board approval via Pulley If you do not have a signed board consent for the drafted option grants yet, you can get one done under Board Approvals. To request approval via Pulley, navigate to Board Approvals > New Board Approval > Options, select the draft, add signatories, and send for signatures.

B) Upload a completed board approval
If you already have a signed board consent done outside of the Pulley platform:

Go to the option's details page
Scroll down to "Attachments" and upload the board consent:

6. Collect e-signatures 🖊

After you click Collect Signatures:

If you're the company's Options Signatory, then you'll receive both an email and a task within Pulley to e-sign the agreement.
Wait for the option grants' stakeholders to e-sign, too. You can resend the emails as needed

Managing Existing Grants

Adding More Options to an Existing Stakeholder

Issue a new grant for the additional options instead of editing the quantity on an accepted grant.

Recording Already-Signed Grants

Use the Existing Contract workflow:
- Click + New > Add signed agreement to cap table (Existing Contract).
- Select Options > Single.
Enter grant details, including stakeholder, equity plan, number of options, grant date, strike price, and vesting schedule.
Upload the signed agreement and supporting documents.
Review and click Add to Cap Table.

Locating Signed Agreements

For grants issued via Pulley, open the specific grant page and check the Attachments section.
For externally signed grants, check if the company admin has uploaded the document. Once all signatures are collected, Pulley automatically updates the cap table and generates the fully executed agreement..

How do I grant Options in Pulley?