Kickstarter launches 'late pledges' for completed campaigns

by with No Comment Tech

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Image Credits: Getty Images

Once a Kickstarter campaign is complete, you need to turn to a creator’s own page to buy the products after the campaign clock has ticked down — that is, until now. Today, Kickstarter announced that it is (finally!) including preorder functionality as part of its core platform once the campaign is over. It calls the feature “late pledges,” and the platform says it’s planning to make it available to all creators “soon.” Those following the industry will probably meet the announcement with an eyeroll and a “welcome to the club,” as Indiegogo launched its equivalent — InDemand — almost a decade ago.

Indiegogo Launches InDemand, A Way To Sell On The Site After Crowdfunding Stops

Late to the party-ness aside, since its inception in 2009, Kickstarter has been a trailblazer in the crowdfunding space. The introduction of late pledges is a welcome addition to its support of creative individuals. The feature opens up new avenues for backers who missed the initial campaign but also simplifies the process of post-campaign contributions, making it a win-win for all parties involved — not least Kickstarter, which until this point has seen post-campaign presales go off-site, which means the platform wasn’t able to skim its usual 5% platform fee off the top. Which, of course, it will do for late pledges as well.

Bit of a no-brainer, really. 

How it works

When creating their campaign, creators can activate late pledges from their dashboard, so the party can continue once a project is successfully funded. This adds a dedicated “Late Pledges” section to their project page, where new backers can choose rewards and pledge their support at their convenience, just like in the initial campaign phase. A spokesperson for Kickstarter assures us that Late Pledges is seamlessly integrated within the Kickstarter platform, ensuring a smooth and efficient experience for all users.

For founders, the late pledges feature makes a lot of sense. A product’s Kickstarter page often has an enormous amount of Google clout, and will frequently show up in the top search results. Driving people toward spending money is an obvious next step. That makes late pledges an excellent way to leverage the momentum from successful campaigns. Potential backers discovering the project later can still participate and secure their desired rewards without waiting for a separate preorder campaign. Creators can also offer exclusive rewards or limited-time incentives to attract additional support, maintaining excitement and visibility of their projects.

It’s not all rainbows and unicorns, however: Crowdfunding campaigns can be excruciatingly hard to deliver in some cases, and there’s often a post-campaign period where the real gets really real, and manufacturing and design challenges start showing up. Continuing to take preorders at that stage could represent a risk: managing an increased volume of backers, fulfilling rewards and potentially affecting the initial urgency that drives many crowdfunding campaigns. Additionally, creators may need to carefully consider the timing and duration of the late pledges period to avoid diluting the impact of their initial campaign.

Despite potential challenges, the late pledges feature offers substantial benefits to Kickstarter creators. Backers gain more flexibility and the opportunity to support projects they might have missed initially. It’s also easy to imagine a world where the feature could contribute to a more sustainable crowdfunding environment by allowing projects to generate ongoing support.

It’ll be interesting to see where Kickstarter takes the feature going forward — it’s easy to imagine the platform introducing enhancements like time-limited pledge windows or integration with other platform features to boost project visibility and success. The evolution of this feature could lead to broader changes in Kickstarter’s strategy, emphasizing long-term creator-backer relationships and expanding support tools for creators.

If you want to see what it looks like, Kickstarter has enabled the functionality on the recently completed Master of Realms campaign.

Kickstarter now lets you pledge after a campaign closes

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Ian Tuttle/Getty Images for TechCrunch

Kickstarter on Tuesday announced a new set of creator tools designed to breathe new life into the crowdfunding platform. Perhaps the most interesting of the bunch is “Late Pledge,” which represents a fundamental change to the service’s status quo. The new feature allows campaign creators to continue collecting money even after the campaign has closed.

Kickstarter began pilot testing the feature in April, noting that one participating creator was able to raise an additional 35% over their initial goal two weeks after their campaign closed. Late Pledge will only be available for those creators who hit their initial goal.

The new feature is now available to all creators. Prior to its arrival, those using the platform had to rely on third-party services to continue raising funds. Late Pledge is another piece of Kickstarter’s goal of expanding into a one-stop shop, capitalizing on various peripheral aspects of crowdfunding that had previously found the site effectively leaving money on the table.

It’s part of an extended push that began when the company appointed Everette Taylor as its new CEO toward the end of 2022. The company notes, “The Kickstarter we’re building today is more than just a crowdfunding platform; we’re evolving into a comprehensive funding and launch platform that supports independent creators and innovators at every stage of their journey.”

These moves will spell trouble for some of the services that have emerged specifically to fill in holes in the crowdfunding process. This includes campaign marketing, which is now covered by the platform’s new Performance team. Like Late Pledge, the team has already been piloted with select accounts.

“We’ve been carefully developing and testing our in-house performance marketing service with a select group of Creators, and so far, our Performance team has helped creators raise nearly $1 million in pledges,” Kickstarter says. “As we support creators’ marketing needs before, during, and after their campaign, we’re reaching beyond the core crowdfunding model to help you drive pledges and bring your idea to life.”

The other change here is a more robust survey tool that can collect backers’ addresses, clothing size and color preference for reward fulfillment purposes. The ability to pay for shipping and tax via the Kickstarter mobile app is also on the way.