Kickstarter makes money by charging commission fees on the project fundraisers that it hosts. It also charges fees to process payments to creators from the people who back their projects. These fees are only collected after a project fundraiser ends, and only if the project successfully met its fundraising goal.
How much does Kickstarter take?
Kickstarter itself keeps 5% of the total money that each project raises. It also sends a portion of the project’s total funds to Stripe, the company that processes payments on Kickstarter. Stripe usually gets between 3% and 5% of a project’s total funds, plus a small fee for each pledge that was made.
The amount of money that Stripe gets may vary slightly based on what country a project originates in. You can see the fee breakdown for each country here.
What payment methods does Kickstarter accept?
Kickstarter accepts most major credit or debit cards (even prepaid ones), including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. Discover cards can be used, but only for US-based projects. Kickstarter does not currently support PayPal, nor does it currently support JCB, Diners Club, Maestro, or Visa Electron cards.
That’s a bit of information about how Kickstarter makes money, how much it takes from successful fundraising projects, and what forms of payment it accepts for pledges to projects!
