The company secretary RFP usually names one product. The work does not. One buy is the board portal: packets, minutes, a Zoom or Teams room directors will actually join. The other is the entity register: cap table, officer appointments, the filing calendar that keeps a subsidiary legal. Diligent Boards, Boardable, and iBabs sell the first. Athennian sells the second. Diligent also sells Entities as a different SKU. A Boards demo does not fill a missing register.
What you actually need is a book directors open, minutes that still match the agenda, a video path that is not a forwarded .ics, and a register that still names the right officers after the last appointment. We read first-party product pages, public prices, and the old 16-row dump. The method is on How we review tools.
Packets, minutes, Zoom. Diligent Boards, Boardable, iBabs.
Cap table, filings, officers. Athennian. Diligent Entities is a second SKU.
Diligent Boards
Diligent Boards is the enterprise packet: AI-assisted board books, minutes, voting, D&O questionnaires, and a secure director workspace. It sits inside Diligent One. The directory listing at Diligent still describes the wider GRC suite. That suite is real. Boards is the SKU that actually runs the meeting.
The product page sells Smart Builder, Smart Minutes, a risk scanner on the book, live streaming, and board messaging. Integrations named there include Microsoft 365, Google Docs, DocuSign, NetSuite, and S&P Global Market Intelligence. Diligent also sells Entities as a separate product for the corporate record. Nonprofit and higher-ed boards are pointed at BoardEffect. Boards is the enterprise SKU. There is no public list price.
Best for: Public companies, large private boards, and corporate secretaries who already expect a sales-led contract and may later add Entities, audit, or ESG on the same vendor.
Key Features:
- Board book draft from uploaded source files, with a language scan and a summary directors can read before the room.
- Minutes, action tracker, e-signature voting, and D&O questionnaires on one record.
- Role-based access, encryption, and an audit trail Diligent pitches for listed-company scrutiny.
- Live streaming and board messaging so the meeting does not bounce to a personal Zoom login.
Why we like it: It is the only name here that a listed-company secretary can put in front of a chair without explaining the category. The packaging to watch is Diligent One. Boards and Entities are still two products. A GRC homepage does not mean the register is in the portal license.
Notable Limitations:
- Quote-only. Implementation, director seats, and extra modules move the bill. Do not use a third-party roundup in a budget.
- Nonprofit boards are a different SKU (BoardEffect). Do not demo Boards because the logo is familiar.
- Vendor marketing ("75% of Fortune 500") is a claim, not a feature list. Demo the book builder and the minutes path on your materials.
Pricing: Quote. No first-party grid. No AWS Marketplace listing that replaces the sales call.
Does the Boards license include Diligent Entities?
The product pages list them separately. Boards is the meeting. Entities is the corporate record. Confirm both lines on the quote if the RFP named "company secretary software" as one row.
Boardable
Boardable is the nonprofit board portal with a public price list. Agendas, packets, minutes, votes, e-signatures, and a Zoom or Teams join. The first-party plans page is the source for the dollars below. Essentials, Professional, and Professional+ are per active user, billed annually.
Anyone added to the organization counts as a user: admins, board members, committee members, and observers. Meeting guests do not. Professional+ is the tier that includes AI minutes and transcripts plus Boardable Video. Zoom and Microsoft Teams stay available on the lower plans as optional video. Data centers are US, Canada, or EU at signup. A 14-day trial of Professional does not need a plan pick first.
Best for: Nonprofit and mission-driven boards that want a portal directors will open, a Zoom path, and a number the treasurer can put in next year's budget without a sales call.
Key Features:
- Agenda builder, one-click packet, minutes, and votes in one workspace, with a mobile app.
- Zoom and Microsoft Teams joins. Boardable Video is included on Professional+ and optional below that.
- eSignatures and governance forms from Professional up. AI minutes and unlimited surveys on Professional+.
- Public site on Professional for agendas and minutes when the board has an open-meeting rule.
Why we like it: It is the only portal on this shortlist whose first-party page prints a starting price and says observers still take a seat. That last line is the one volunteer boards miss. A 12-person board plus two staff plus three committee observers is not 12 seats.
Notable Limitations:
- Built for nonprofits. A listed-company secretarial desk will outgrow the governance-forms layer.
- Essentials caps storage at 1,000 files and omits eSignatures. Confirm the packet size before you pick the cheap tier.
- It is not an entity register. Officer appointments and statutory filings still live somewhere else.
Pricing: First-party plans page. Essentials $20.99 / user / month ($251.88 billed annually). Professional $29.99. Professional+ $35.99. Volume quotes exist. Every observer is a seat.
Athennian
Athennian is the register buy. Paper Interactive ships it as Governance Ops: entity records, people, ownership, appointments, minute books, UBO tracking, structure charts, and a compliance calendar. Legal, tax, and fund teams are the named users. It does not run a board meeting.
The first-party pricing page prints one Essentials number for 100 entities, with structure charts, custom reporting, UBO tracking, and "supported e-filings." Professional (200 entities) and Enterprise (300 entities) are contact-sales. Extra entities come in bundles of 50. Athennian AI, Intelligence, SSO/SCIM, and the open API are add-ons. Integrations named on that page include iManage, DocuSign, Adobe Sign, Office 365, and Google Drive.
Best for: In-house legal and fund ops teams that have outgrown a spreadsheet of subsidiaries and need one record for officers, ownership, and filings. It will not run the next board book.
Key Features:
- Entity, people, and document records with ownership, debt, and D&O appointments on the same object.
- Minute book storage and generation, plus structure charts you can export to PPTX, PDF, PNG, or XLSX.
- Compliance tasks and a calendar for annual reports, licenses, and registrations.
- Supported e-filings on Essentials. The page does not name the jurisdictions.
Why we like it: It is the only shortlist item that treats the subsidiary as the object. A portal that also mentions "entity data" is still a portal. Athennian is the one you open when the question is "who is the director of the Delaware holdco" rather than "did the chair get the pack."
Notable Limitations:
- Not a board portal. Packets, Zoom, and director annotation are a different purchase.
- The e-filing line is the gap. Essentials lists "supported e-filings" and does not say which registries those filings actually hit. The grid does not say. Get the jurisdiction list in writing before you retire the CT or Companies House workflow.
- Professional and Enterprise are quote. AI, API, and SSO sit on the add-on list even on higher tiers.
Pricing: First-party. Essentials $25,000 / year, 100 entities. Professional and Enterprise: quote. Extra entities in 50-packs.
Which jurisdictions can we e-file from Essentials?
The pricing grid does not name them. Confirm the registry list on the quote. Do not assume US state annual reports, Canadian provincial filings, and Companies House are all in the Essentials line.
iBabs
iBabs is the EU and public-sector portal: agendas, minutes, annotations, voting, offline apps, and a video room on the same record. Euronext Corporate Solutions owns it. The live pitch is councils, healthcare, education, and mid-market boards that need GDPR-hosted servers and a public portal rather than a Fortune 500 GRC suite.
The first-party pricing page is a bundle builder (Meet, plus optional Publish, Stream, and Debrief). After you pick a country and a user count it says talk to sales. The board-portal explainer on the same domain still prints a per-user month figure and a one-off training fee. Those two pages disagree on how public the number is. Confirm the figure at checkout. ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 are on the Meet feature list. Servers are hosted in the EU.
Best for: European and public-sector boards that need a portal with a public information site, live stream, and minutes trail, and that will take a per-active-user contract rather than Diligent's enterprise suite.
Key Features:
- iBabs Meet: calendar, packets, minutes, actions, annotation, voting, offline access, Microsoft 365, and in-product video.
- Publish: a brandable public portal for agendas and minutes. Stream: live and on-demand broadcast with subtitles.
- Debrief: AI transcripts and draft minutes, sold as an add-on, GDPR-framed.
- SSO via Microsoft Entra ID, Google, Okta, and SURFconext. On-premise is a sales conversation.
Why we like it: It is the portal that still looks like a council clerk's job. Diligent is the listed-company pack. Boardable is the US nonprofit. iBabs is the one whose public portal and stream add-ons exist because the meeting is a public meeting.
Notable Limitations:
- Quote on the configurator. Treat the explainer figure as a starting claim. Confirm it at checkout.
- Publish, Stream, and Debrief are extras. A paperless-board demo can omit the public-meeting SKUs you actually need.
- Not a statutory register. Annual filings storage is a document slot. It is not Athennian's entity graph.
Pricing: Quote on the first-party configurator. The explainer still prints €12 per user per month and €995 one-off training. Confirm currency, active-user definition, and whether Publish / Stream / Debrief sit on the same line.
Other company secretary tools worth considering
BoardEffect is Diligent's nonprofit and higher-ed portal. The old page called it BroadEffect and linked the real URL. Same product, wrong name. OnBoard is still a living mid-market portal (Zoom in the meeting, director-first UI). We already list it in the directory as OnBoard. Passageways, OnBoard's parent, acquired Govenda on 23 May 2024. It stayed off the shortlist because Diligent, Boardable, and iBabs already cover the packet buy.
The Wolters Kluwe row was two errors stacked. The company is Wolters Kluwer. The company-secretary product is hCue, sold by CT Corporation, for entity and subsidiary records. The old copy then described ELM Solutions, which is legal spend and matter management. Do not demo ELM because a secretarial RFP named Wolters Kluwer.
Nasdaq Boardvantage, Azeus Convene, Aprio, iDeals Board, and Decision Time Meetings still ship. Directorpoint was folded into Diligent; new buyers get Boards. Shaparency.com now serves Future Directors, a self-serve SME portal. LexComply is a compliance calendar. It is not a secretary desk. None of those replace the packet vs register split above.
Packet or register
Does Diligent Boards replace the statutory register?
No. Boards is the meeting. Diligent Entities is the corporate record, sold separately. Athennian is the independent register on this list. If the RFP said "company secretary software" as one line, split it before the demo.
Is Boardable only for 501(c)(3) boards?
The first-party site is written for nonprofits and mission-driven boards, and the price page says the rates are already nonprofit-tailored. A private-company board can buy it. A listed-company secretary will still want Diligent's scrutiny story or iBabs' public-meeting add-ons.
Why does iBabs print a number on a guide and hide it on pricing?
The explainer still names a per-user month figure and a training fee. The pricing configurator ends on talk to sales. We kept that figure in Pricing and treated the live SKU as quote. Confirm it at checkout.
What happened to BroadEffect and Wolters Kluwe?
BroadEffect was BoardEffect, Diligent's nonprofit SKU, still at boardeffect.com. Wolters Kluwe was Wolters Kluwer. The secretarial product is hCue (CT Corporation). The old ELM copy was the wrong product family.
Can Carta stand in for Athennian?
Carta is the cap table a startup uses with investors. Athennian is the multi-entity register a legal team uses for officers, UBO, and filings across jurisdictions. They share an ownership graph. They do not share the job.
Bottom line
Name the artifact that is late this quarter. If it is the board book, start with Diligent Boards, Boardable, or iBabs. If it is a subsidiary annual return, start with Athennian. A portal that also mentions entity data on the homepage is still a portal. Get the Entities line, the e-filing jurisdictions, and the iBabs extras in writing. The next invoice is the job you did not buy.
