The rules, the costs and the work that starts when the offer closes, with free tools to test your numbers first.
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Equity crowdfunding looks like marketing until the offer closes. After that the company has hundreds of small shareholders to verify, allot to and put on a register. A campaign is a few weeks. The company it creates runs for years.
This is general information, not advice. CatenaHQ is software. Nothing on this page is legal, financial, tax or investment advice, and it does not take account of your circumstances. Speak to a lawyer, accountant or other qualified adviser about your own position.
The full rules, including what a proprietary company takes on, are in the equity crowdfunding guide. Check them before you spend anything.
Two free tools answer the first questions. The ECF readiness assessment is ten questions with a score and a list of where to focus. The ECF cost estimator takes your raise target and shows platform fees, video, marketing and legal review, with net proceeds after all costs. At a $10,000 cap per investor, a $2 million raise needs at least 200 investors, so model the cost against the target before you commit.
CatenaHQ’s campaign module checks your offer document against RG 261 and names what is missing, turns expressions of interest into investor records so nothing is typed twice, and shows progress against target in one view. It is a $49 a month add-on, only while you run a campaign. The intermediary makes the offer. CatenaHQ is software and does not hold client money.
Settlement means allotment, certificates and notices for every investor, and each becomes a line on the register with a shareholder portal. From then on the company has communications, voting and transfers to run, plus the obligations a proprietary company picks up: at least two directors, annual financial and directors’ reports, an audit once $3 million has been raised through CSF, and the public-company related party rules. This is where a company that ran its campaign in a spreadsheet stops coping, and where one record pays off. See the cap table and register and investor relations modules.
One interaction worth knowing early: a company with more than fifty shareholders may be widely held and so excluded from the ESIC tax incentive, and a crowdfunding raise is designed to produce hundreds of shareholders. The ESIC guide sets out the test.
The rules come from CatenaHQ’s equity crowdfunding guide, which is written from ASIC’s published guidance and current as at October 2026. The product points come from the campaign module page and the pricing page.
A company may raise up to $5 million in any 12-month period through CSF offers. A retail investor may put in at most $10,000 per company per 12 months.
No. A CSF offer must be made through a CSF intermediary holding an Australian financial services licence authorised to provide crowd-sourced funding services.
Retail investors have a five-day cooling-off period, during which they can withdraw and get their money back. The raise is not closed when the target is hit.
It provides software to prepare the offer, manage the campaign and settle it. The offer document is checked against RG 261, expressions of interest become investor records, and settlement puts investors on the share register. The licensed intermediary makes the offer.
$49 a month on top of your plan, billed monthly, and only while you are running a campaign.
Each of these is written from the Act and the regulations, or describes a module of the platform.
Eligibility, caps, the intermediary and proprietary company obligations.
Offer document check, EOIs, pipeline and settlement.
What hundreds of new shareholders mean for the register.
Why the campaign sits on the same record as the register and the board.