Kickstarter vs. IndieGoGo

[cameronchapman]

I'm about to start fundraising for my feature, and for the first round, I'm planning on using some crowdfunding. (Tentative plan at this point is raise enough with crowdfunding to secure cast and crew, then either do a second round of crowdfunding for production or seek more traditional financing once I have actors and crew attached and know I can pay them regardless of what happens).

So the big decision at this point is which site do I want to use? Or, more accurately, on which site am I more likely to be successful?

The way I see it, these are the pros and cons of each?

Kickstarter Pros:
- Seems to have more traffic (Quantcast puts them at around 100k-150k US visitors/month).
- Possibly a more recognizable brand.
- ETA: Seems to fund more large-budget projects successfully (with a number of film projects getting over $100k in funding).

Kickstarter Cons:
- Charges a 5% processing fee, plus 3-5% credit card processing fee.
- Only get money if goal is reached. If the goal isn't reached, then none of the money goes through.
- ETA: Must have a US bank account to start a project.

IndieGoGo Pros:
- Lower processing fee of only 4%, plus 3% credit card processing fee if you reach your goal (9% if you don't).
- You get to keep whatever money is raised, even if you don't reach your goal.

IndieGoGo Cons:
- Doesn't seem to have as much traffic/name recognition as Kickstarter.
- Has significantly less traffic than Kickstarter (Quantcast puts them at only 5.5k US visitors/month).
- ETA: Seems to work best with projects that need less than $10k in funds (and even better when they only need to raise around $5k).

But I'd love to hear any first-hand experiences people have had using either. I guess the big hangup I have is that with Kickstarter, I could get within a few hundred dollars of my goal, not reach it, and have to start all over again. But they also seem to be the more recognized of the two sites.

 

[WalterB]

ok thanks for that. so if your worried about getting nothing or not reaching the goal. just set it low?

Or run a decent campaign

 

[SkyCopeland]

Or run a decent campaign

^^^^^ That's some good advise. If your project means a lot to you, this isn't too much of a task.

 

[davidevans10]

Or run a decent campaign

i mentioned earlier though. some people arent good at social media or have time and arent asking for much

A page with a real trailer and worthwhile relevant plot and reasons is worth more than socially begging . As far as im concerned.


So.. since your page goes up the ranks from money start up(not how good what you have is) if your looking for random people as you say. Kickstarter is better?

 

[davidevans10]

david seems to mean: "Should I use IndieGoGo when I set a goal and I'm not sure I will reach that goal, because I stay away from social media, but not reaching the goal will not stop the project from being finished. I just need every extra dollar I can get to make it even better than it otherwise will be."

It has been discussed before:
1) people tend to give less to flexible funded projects that seem to 'fail' reaching their goal, because that often means the project can't be made the way it was promised. Even if you can finish it without extra funding you should ask yourself: "What are people buying if I raise only a little money? Me composing the score on a my first sony cassettedeck instead of using the great songs I promised them?"

2) if you don't want to run a campaign you are depending on coincidental visitors: that pool of people is larger on KS, but KS only does 'all or nothing' campaigns. No flexible funding like IGG.

So it seems that on IGG yo don't have to stress about your campaign reaching it's goal, but at the same time reaching that goal is also less likely if you don't want to get it out there.

Doing a crowdfunding with a campaign is like opening a shop nobody can find: it's hard to sell something that way...

yes good points. I really dont want to stress about it. enough stress with the film. THing is i dont have a goal. I need some money for marketing and music.

So what do you think?

 

[SkyCopeland]

i mentioned earlier though. some people arent good at social media or have time and arent asking for much

A page with a real trailer and worthwhile relevant plot and reasons is worth more than socially begging . As far as im concerned.


So.. since your page goes up the ranks from money start up(not how good what you have is) if your looking for random people as you say. Kickstarter is better?

I'm not sure what you mean by money start up.... but if you mean your project raises through the pages by people pledging in a short amount of time, yes, with no social presence it's more likely to happen on Kickstarter than any other crowdfunding site.

But the quality of your content determines if those randoms actually back or not. If it looks bad, they still won't give you money. They don't know you. If it looks good, they might take the chance. But with no social presence you're pretty limited to having to do a really good KS page.

You know there are companies that will run the Kickstarter for you, right? They'll market it and everything.

 

[davidevans10]

I'm not sure what you mean by money start up.... but if you mean your project raises through the pages by people pledging in a short amount of time, yes, with no social presence it's more likely to happen on Kickstarter than any other crowdfunding site.

But the quality of your content determines if those randoms actually back or not. If it looks bad, they still won't give you money. They don't know you. If it looks good, they might take the chance. But with no social presence you're pretty limited to having to do a really good KS page.

You know there are companies that will run the Kickstarter for you, right? They'll market it and everything.

Cool yes exactly what I'm lookin to do.

I have been talking to a pr person. What are these companies? Starting fee cost?

Thanks man

 

[WalterB]

........

A page with a real trailer and worthwhile relevant plot and reasons is worth more than socially begging . As far as im concerned.
................

Using social media isn't socially begging: it is showing the people who are interested that you are crowdfunding.
Otherwise they might never see the real trailer and relevant plot and reasons.

It is called crowdfunding, because you don't ask one party for a large sum of money, but because you try to gather it from numerous people. That means those people need to know about it.
How are you going to make sure people know they can help you with your great movie?
Not telling anyone and wait is like a message in a bottle thrown in the ocean hoping to get a reply within 30 days... Posting it on the mail with the right address really increases your odds of delivering the message and getting a response.
Otherwise you'll be depending on pure chance...

 

[davidevans10]

Using social media isn't socially begging: it is showing the people who are interested that you are crowdfunding.
Otherwise they might never see the real trailer and relevant plot and reasons.

It is called crowdfunding, because you don't ask one party for a large sum of money, but because you try to gather it from numerous people. That means those people need to know about it.
How are you going to make sure people know they can help you with your great movie?
Not telling anyone and wait is like a message in a bottle thrown in the ocean hoping to get a reply within 30 days... Posting it on the mail with the right address really increases your odds of delivering the message and getting a response.
Otherwise you'll be depending on pure chance...

yes i understand . i do have a few chances to word to spread. but social media and doing what everyone else does isnt for me. And i consider it stupid