Thanks to crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, it seems like almost anyone with a good idea and some hustle can raise funds for a project. But while hundreds of thousands of projects get backed with pledges and donations, how much of all that do the platforms themselves pocket? Does it vary much? Do the big guys like Kickstarter pocket a lot of the money? We thought we’d find out.
So we looked at the total fees charged by some of the most prominent crowdfunding sites. The fees are typically split up into two parts: 1) the commission for the company and 2) credit card fees (which presumably go to credit card processors, but in theory, part of it could be margin for the platform as well.)
There are lot of platforms out there so we just looked at some of the larger ones (as measured by Alexa traffic rankings and number of Facebook fans). We made a few simplifying assumptions (e.g. pledges were greater than $10 and were made using US credit cards).
For your reference, here’s how much some of the top crowdfunding platforms charge:
Interestingly, these companies don’t really take that high of a commission, compared to other platforms. Moreover, the largest ones that can send the most traffic and customers don’t charge much more than the smaller ones. Here are our sources:
1. Kickstarter: source 1, source 2
2. Indiegogo: source 1, source 2
3. Crowdtilt: source 1, source 2
4. GoFundMe: source
5. Crowdrise: source
6. Fundly: source
We’ll try to keep this list updated with the most accurate numbers on crowdfunding commissions. If we’re missing any of the big players or have a mistake in the numbers, let us know in the comments and we’ll make a fix.
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