The chronilogical age of crowdfunding is upon us. From small-time inventors to famous actors to angry conspiracy theorists, everybody seems to be leveraging the internet to raise funds in the crowd. This will make perfect sense, given the wider context. At a time once the world’s disorienting currents have remaining us anxiously grasping for even the barest semblance of control, believe to raise money rather than enlist our tired, bedraggled souls in projects which make us feel as though we’re in on the construction of something unique and special?
Kickstarter and Indiegogo have emerged from the primordial crowdfunder soup from the late oughts as two of the most widely used and recognizable crowdfunding platforms. Their target audiences don’t entirely overlap, so it could be difficult to name a winner along with a loser when comparing the 2, but we can construct the facts and let you judge which of these funding vehicles makes sense for your particular needs. If you have a cool product idea you want to capture to promote or a small business you want to expand, crowdfunding holds a lot of promise for you, provided you choose the best platform.
Crowdfunding gives creators, business owners, and activists the opportunity to tap into the public’s collective thirst for meaning and funnel these unrequited desires into projects that elicit a feeling of vicarious accomplishment. Crowdfunding also gives us male rompers. So, be the hero all of us deserve. Launch a crowdfunded project. However, read on to determine how the platforms of Kickstarter and Indiegogo compare with one another.
You may also want to check out our Kickstarter review and our Indiegogo review for more detailed examinations.
Indiegogo VS Kickstarter: Main Differences
Kickstarter and Indiegogo both provide a platform for users to solicit and raise funds from individual backers. However, Kickstarter is solely for the funding of creative projects, while Indiegogo’s platform is open to a wider number of business, creative, and cause-oriented ventures.
Both services involve giving rewards, or perks, to backers who chip in to support a task. With Kickstarter, creators are required to give rewards to backers, while Indiegogo makes it voluntary (though they recommend it).
Another factor to consider may be the quantity of traffic both of these services get. Run Kickstarter and Indiegogo through Alexa and you’ll observe that Kickstarter gets increased traffic than Indiegogo, which plays a role in how much support you’re likely to attract.
Project Qualifications
Kickstarter lays out five clear rules for projects to be eligible for a crowdfunding:
- Projects must create something to see others
- Projects must be honest and clearly presented
- Projects can’t fundraise for charity
- Projects can’t offer equity
- Projects can’t involve prohibited items
Indiegogo’s rules, by design, tend to be more flexible. Any project can’t be illegal, harmful, or deceptive. You can’t offer prohibited rewards, either. However, Indiegogo does not require you to create something to see others. It merely permits you to achieve this.
At some point, Kickstarter and Indiegogo were differentiated because one could launch an Indiegogo project from almost anywhere in the world, while Kickstarter was only available to campaigners in certain countries. This was due to the fact that Indiegogo campaigns could accept PayPal payments while Kickstarter campaigns could not. However, you are able to no more accept PayPal pledges with Indiegogo.
Now that both Kickstarter and Indiegogo use Stripe his or her sole payment processing option, the 2 companies’ lists of supported countries are largely exactly the same. Both platforms allow crowdfunding campaigns in the US, UK, Canada, Austraila, most of the european union, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The differences therefore are: Only Kickstarter allows campaigns from New Zealand, Mexico, and Japan, while only Indiegogo allows campaigns from China (provided the campaigner includes a business entity and banking account in Hong Kong and runs a Hong Kong Dollar-based campaign), Finland, and Portugal.
Neither platform places any formal restrictions on where a pledge of support may come from.
Terms & Fees
These would be the terms and fees for implementing the respective platforms of Kickstarter and Indiegogo:
The differences here aren’t huge, but let’s examine them. Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo set their maximum funding duration at 60 days (though Kickstarter, citing internal data, recommends a funding period of 30 days or less to find the best possibility of success). Remember, though, by using Kickstarter, funding is bound, meaning you meet your crowdfunding goal or you get nothing.
With Indiegogo, you are able to choose fixed funding or flexible funding (in which you keep anything you raise), putting the funding period limitation inside a slightly less imposing context.
Note the fees listed here are for US Dollar-based campaigns. For campaigns collecting funds in other currencies, the fees can vary. What’s more, according to Stripe’s policies, extra fees might be taken from contributions coming from away from campaign owner’s country.
The Campaign Process
Kickstarter styles itself as a discerning crowdfunding platform with a more rigorous quality control protocol than other crowdfunders (so as to better ensure that backers of projects get the benefits they are promised). Indiegogo, on the other hand, is committed to a more relaxed platform which individuals have an easier time establishing fundraising campaigns, ensuring the broadest possible use of crowdfunding. These differing philosophies are in evidence when you compare the applying processes of these two platforms.
With both Kickstarter and Indiegogo, you complete a web-based application about yourself and also the details of your crowdfunding campaign. The difference comes in the approval process. With Kickstarter, a particular number of projects are approved automatically, however, many campaigns, in line with the details given in the applying, are flagged for more review by the company, which can take up to 72 hours. Kickstarter estimates that 80% from the projects submitted for approval on Kickstarter are approved. Given the amount of applications, however, a 20% rejection rate is not insignificant.
By contrast, a task submitted for approval to Indiegogo is automatically accepted – there’s wait time involved. Projects are only disqualified from Indiegogo if a subsequent audit deems that they’ve run afoul from the rules. However, as I said, Indiegogo’s rules are less strict than those of Kickstarter, and in fact, there are lots of installments of projects launching on Indiegogo following rejected by Kickstarter. It may be argued that Indiegogo’s ethos is more consistent with the inclusive, small-d democratic spirit of crowdfunding, while Kickstarter’s model is much better at keeping flim-flam artists along with other bad-faith campaigns off the platform.
Essentially, Kickstarter’s model provides more protections to the backer, while Indiegogo’s model is more lenient for campaigners.
There’s another difference in the campaign process I ought to mention. Whenever you launch an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, you have the choice of opting-in to InDemand, that is a feature that lets you still raise money after your initial campaign reaches its funding goal. InDemand enables you to keep raising funds indefinitely without setting any specific funding goal. Actually, your crowdfunding campaign doesn’t must have been with Indiegogo in order to use InDemand. You are able to operate a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platform, and if you reach your funding goal, you are able to move your campaign to InDemand to continue raising money.
Kickstarter does not have any equal to InDemnad.
Sales & Advertising Transparency
Neither Kickstarter nor Indiegogo are recognized for deceptive sales practices. Both lay out their terms and practices inside a rather straightforward manner. In particular, Kickstarter only earns fees from successful fundraising campaigns, so that they don't have any incentive to try and entice marginal campaigns to their platform. The same is true for fixed funding campaigns on Indiegogo, but Indiegogo campaigns aren’t necessary to have fixed funding.
Customer Service & Technical Support
Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer extensive FAQs as well as an email ticket system for responding to user issues. Neither provides a phone number for general concerns. Though the degree of support offered appears almost identical on the surface, a dive into testimonials of these two platforms indicates that Indiegogo offers a more responsive customer support experience than does Kickstarter.
Reviews, Criticisms & Complaints
Given the inherently risky nature of crowdfunding, it is perhaps understandable that both platforms get a great deal of criticism from users. Direct comparisons take time and effort here, but there’s one of the ways we can quantify public assessment of these dueling crowdfunders: Kickstarter currently receives an average user rating of 0.5 out of 10 on Trustpilot, while Indiegogo gets a 0.8 from 10. Basically, Kickstarter and Indiegogo both obtain a large amount of stick for featuring campaigns that don’t provide the goods, in addition to inadequate support for backers generally — though Indiegogo appears to draw particular ire for poor backer support. Kickstarter gets a few more complaints than does Indiegogo about poor support for creators.
This isn’t to state these services are loathed by everybody – many users, both campaigners and backers, report positive experiences with both companies. Professional reviewers are largely positive towards both companies too. Kickstarter continues to be praised for being more discerning regarding who's allowed around the platform, providing more reassurance for backers. On the flip side, Indiegogo is appreciated to be open to a wider variety of projects and causes compared to competition.
Indiegogo VS Kickstarter: Which Is Better?
So, who would win inside a crowdfunding fight between Kickstarter and Indiegogo? I can’t really declare a success with any authority. It depends on the sort of project you’ve got going. If yours is really a creative project with detailed plans and you've got the ability to provide extensive rewards, you’re probably best going with Kickstarter. If your project is a little less meticulously-conceived, you’re more prone to be approved by Indiegogo than Kickstarter. And when your campaign is not focused on producing creative goods, Indiegogo is the way to go.
Keep in your mind the communities each platform suits too. The tech community is better established on Kickstarter, out of the box the game community (Kickstarter is the epicenter of the new golden era in tabletop games). Indiegogo is really a more welcoming home for charities and NGOs, and it is more willing to host politically controversial campaigns. Additionally, Indiegogo’s audience skews more female than most competitors.
Whichever way you go, we are able to be grateful that there now exists a method to raise money without going hat-in-hand to some bank. The web has demonstrated its capacity to pit people against one another, but we shouldn’t forget the potential it holds in bringing people together to build things and help people. Remember: no recourse, no reward!
Let’s conclude having a final review of what these two platforms are best suited to.
Choose Kickstarter If…
- Your plans are well-developed and you can provide extensive rewards to backers
- You are extremely confident in your ability to meet your funding goal in Two months or less
- You are coming up with a tabletop game
Choose Indiegogo If…
- You’re raising money for any business project that does not involve “creating something to share with others”
- You’re raising money for any cause
- You want to launch a crowdfunding campaign that you can keep anything you raise, whether or not you reach your funding goal
