Kickstarter
Web: www.kickstarter.com
Funding model: All or Nothing
Fees: 5% if you meet your goal, plus payment processing fee.
Payments: Amazon Payments
The 800-pound gorilla in crowdfunding. Only hosts campaigns in particular categories and has an approval process. Also has lots of information to create and run a successful campaign.
IndieGogo
Web: www.indiegogo.com
Funding model: Keep it All or All or Nothing
Fees: 4% if goal met, 9% if you don't, plus processing fee.
Payments: Paypal, ACH, Wire Transfer, or FirstGiving
Hosts campaigns worldwide across all categories. It's more expensive if you don't reach your goal. Also has lots of documentation.
Fundable
Web: www.fundable.com
Funding model: All or Nothing
Fees: $99 per month during active campaigns plus payment processing fees.
Payments: WePay
A platform especially designed for funding startups that can offer rewards or equity in exchange for funding. According to the website, startups that offer equity typically raise up to $10 million.
BountySource
Web: www.bountysource.com
Funding model: Bounty or All or Nothing
Fees: 10% non-refundable fee for placing bounties
Payments: Paypal, cheque, Google Wallet, wire transfer
Designed for crowdfunding open source software. Hosts individual bounties to resolve open issues and feature requests, and also used to raise money for big updates or new projects.
Freedom Sponsors
Web: http://freedomsponsors.org
Funding model: Bounty
Fees: 3% + payment processing fees
Payments: Paypal and Bitcoin
Enables many users to chip in to a bounty. Bounties are post-paid only after the sponsors have verified the work. Uses Paypal's parallel payment type to split bounties between devs.
Catincan
Web: www.catincan.com
Funding model: All or Nothing
Fees: 10% after funding amount has been reached.
Payments: Paypal, Bitcoin, wire transfer
Only allows developers on existing open-source projects to create campaigns. Features are screened and developers have 60 days to reach the funding goal else the backers aren't charged.
BountyOSS
Web: https://bountyoss.com
Funding model: Bounty
Fees: 5% + payment processing fees
Payments: Credit Card or bank account
Designed to attract funding from businesses and other for-profit entities that use open source software. Only allows developers attached with an open source to create campaigns..
DIY crowdfunding platforms
There are plenty of reasons for projects to not use an existing crowdfunding platform and rather roll out their own. For some it's purely ideological. Can you imagine the FSF running a crowdfunding campaign on a closed-source proprietary platform?
But there are some pragmatic reasons as well. As larger platforms become more crowded with projects, it negatively impacts their visibility and discoverability. As crowdfunding gains acceptance as a legitimate mechanism for raising money, if you can bring your own crowd you can raise money without relying on a well established platform.
One of the most successful examples of a DIY platform campaign is that of Lockitron. The project was rejected by Kickstarter so they set up their own crowdfunding infrastructure and raised over $2 million. They then released their platform as open source software for others to use.
SelfStarter
Web: http://selfstarter.us/
Licence: MIT License
Fees: Free to use
Payments: Amazon Payments, Stripe, WePay
Developed using Ruby on Rails, the platform can be extended with custom authentication, administration and product management code. The developers suggest deploying it on Heroko application platform.
Catarse
Web: https://github.com/catarse
Licence: MIT License
Fees: Free to use
Payments: MoIP, Paypal
Another software built on Ruby on Rails. You can use it to create your own crowdfunding platform to host several campaigns. Powers the Brazailian platform http://catarse.me/en. Has minimal documentation but an active mailing list.
Goteo
Web: https://github.com/Goteo
License: GNU AGPL v3
Fees: Free to use
Payments: Paypal
The software is written in PHP and facilitates communication between users and campaign managers as well as the creation of blogs, and static pages. Besides the English installation guide, the other developer docs are in Spanish.
GitTip
Web: www.gittip.com
License: CC license
Fees: Free to use
Payments: Bitcoin, credit cards
Gittip is a crowdfunding platform to support people by giving donations weekly. You can use the software to setup your own weekly gift exchange for the various individuals involved in your project or community.
Spot.Us
Web: https://github.com/spot-us
License: GNU GPL
Fees: Free to use
Payments: Paypal
This Ruby on Rails project lets you setup a crowdfunding website to enable individuals or a group to solicit funds for commissioning freelance journalists. The project has minimal document but you can see it in action on www.spot.us.
CrowdHoster
Web: www.crowdhoster.com
License: MIT License
Fees: Free to use
Payments: Credit cards, Bitcoin
About: Proudly calls itself the "Wordpress for crowdfunding", the hosted project is currently invite-only. It's free and pretty straightforward to setup and administer since there's nothing to install. Also includes tools to manage contributors.
Ignition Deck
Web: http://ignitiondeck.com/id/
License: Proprietary
Fees: Starts at $79 (£49)
Payments: Paypal, Stripe, WePay
This tool is in fact a Wordpress plugin. It's available in several version starting $79 (£49). You can install the plugin on multiple WordPress installations and buy additional themes and features such as payment gateways and an analytics panel.
- Now why not check out 20 great new crowdfunded games
