Every document your
startup needs.
Startup documents arrive in stages: incorporation papers when the company exists, policies when the website goes live, contracts when money moves, hiring paperwork when people join, and a due diligence reading list when investors arrive.
This page is the whole list in that order, in plain English. Where the StartupDocs library covers a document, it links to exactly what the template contains. Where a document is really a Companies House process or a specialist's job, it says so, because a checklist you cannot trust is not a checklist.
Incorporation papers.
The first startup documents arrive with the company itself. Most are produced by the incorporation process, and one, the founders' agreement, is the document founders most regret skipping.
COMPANIES HOUSE
Certificate of incorporation and articles
Created when you register the company. Most startups adopt the model articles at first and replace them at their first priced round.
IN THE LIBRARY
Founders' agreement
Equity split, vesting with a cliff, roles, IP assignment, and what happens when a founder leaves, agreed while everyone still agrees.
COMPANY RECORDS DUTY
Statutory registers
Registers of members, directors, and people with significant control. A legal duty from day one, and one of the first things diligence checks.
The website set.
A contact form, a signup box, or analytics makes you a data controller, and three documents become required reading for UK GDPR and PECR. This is the earliest set customers and regulators actually look for.
IN THE LIBRARY
Privacy policy
What you collect, why, how long you keep it, and users' rights. The first document a security review or investor's counsel asks to see.
IN THE LIBRARY
Cookie policy
What your site sets, split into strictly necessary and optional, paired with a consent banner that tells the same story.
IN THE LIBRARY
Terms of service
The contract between you and everyone using the site: acceptable use, intellectual property, liability, governing law.
Customer contracts.
The first serious customer changes the documents from policies you publish to contracts you negotiate. Two of these tend to arrive as ultimatums from the other side's legal team, which is the wrong week to start drafting.
IN THE LIBRARY
Data processing agreement
Required by UK GDPR Article 28 the moment you process personal data for business customers. Deals stall in procurement waiting for it.
IN THE LIBRARY
Mutual NDA
The most-signed startup document: partnerships, pilots, data rooms. A balanced mutual form signs in days instead of redline rounds.
IN THE LIBRARY
Sales agreement
What you deliver, what they pay, and the liability cap, so negotiated deals start from your terms rather than each customer's.
Hiring paperwork.
UK law requires the written statement of employment particulars on or before day one, and investor diligence later asks whether everyone who built anything assigned the IP in writing. Both are cheaper to get right at the start.
IN THE LIBRARY
Employment contract
The legally required particulars plus the startup-critical clauses: IP assignment, confidentiality, notice, and restrictions that hold up.
IN THE LIBRARY
Contractor agreement
Without an express assignment, a contractor keeps the copyright in work you paid for. This is the document that makes it yours.
IN THE LIBRARY
Advisor agreement
Scope, a small equity grant vesting monthly, and conflict disclosure, so a handshake advisory role becomes a real commitment.
SPECIALIST JOB
Share option scheme
EMI options need HMRC valuation and scheme rules done properly. Set it up with a specialist platform or counsel, not a template.
What due diligence reads.
A fundraise does not create many new documents; it audits the ones above. Diligence checks that founders have vesting, employees assigned IP, customers are on signed terms, and the registers match the cap table. The round documents themselves are specialist work.
IN THE LIBRARY
The operating set, consistent
Founders' agreement, employment and contractor IP assignments, customer contracts, and policies that agree with each other. This is the part StartupDocs keeps in order.
SPECIALIST JOB
Cap table and SEIS/EIS
Investors expect a clean cap table and, for UK angels, SEIS/EIS advance assurance. Both live on specialist platforms.
COUNSEL / SPECIALIST
Term sheet and shareholders' agreement
The round documents are negotiated with counsel or a funding-round platform. No template site should tell you otherwise, including this one.
Write them before they are demanded.
Every document above has a moment when somebody else demands it: a customer's procurement, a new hire's first day, an investor's counsel. The expensive way to run startup documents is to draft each one that week, under deadline, from whatever template a search turns up.
The cheap way is the order on this page: a stage ahead of the demand, drafted from checked templates, kept consistent in one place, and re-checked when the company or the rules change. That second part is the actual product.
Fair questions.
What documents does a startup need on day one?
Legally: the incorporation papers and statutory registers, which Companies House and your registration process produce, and the written statement of employment particulars for anyone you employ from day one.
Practically: a founders' agreement if there is more than one of you, and the website set (privacy policy, cookie policy, terms) the day your site collects anything. UK GDPR applies from your first user; there is no small-company exemption.
What is the minimum set before selling to businesses?
Terms of service or a sales agreement covering what you deliver and the liability cap, a privacy policy that matches reality, a data processing agreement for the first customer whose procurement asks, and a mutual NDA for the conversations before the contract. B2B deals rarely fail on missing documents; they stall in procurement waiting for them, which kills momentum just as effectively.
Which startup documents can StartupDocs actually draft?
Ten of them: privacy policy, terms of service, cookie policy, DPA, mutual NDA, employment contract, contractor agreement, advisor agreement, founders' agreement, and sales agreement, each drafted for England & Wales from settings you control, checked against rulepacks, and exported to sign.
And honestly, not the rest: incorporation filings and registers are Companies House processes, EMI option schemes and funding rounds belong with specialist platforms or counsel, and anything unusual, contested, or high-value deserves a solicitor's eyes. Every template says the same on its face.
What do investors check in due diligence?
Whether the paperwork agrees with the pitch: founders' equity with vesting in writing, IP assigned by every employee and contractor who built anything, customers on signed terms, registers matching the cap table, and data protection documents that match how the product actually works. None of it is exotic; all of it is miserable to fix mid-raise, which is why the checklist above is ordered by stage rather than by urgency.
Three more questions.
What exactly is in each template?
Privacy policy to founders' agreement: every template, what it covers, and the settings you control.
What is compliance?
If the word means nothing to you yet, start here. What the rules are, who they apply to, and what a check does.
What does it cost?
Three plans from £19 a month, 7 days free, five documents in week one or every penny back.
Start with the first-week five.
Privacy policy, terms, cookie policy, DPA, and your first contract: the first two stages of this page, drafted, checked, and exported inside the 7-day free trial. Pay and not have them? One email within 30 days refunds every penny.