Indiegogo vs Kickstarter has a clearer answer in 2026 than it did two years ago: for most product founders, Kickstarter is the stronger launch platform. Indiegogo wins a smaller set of cases, and for founders in those cases, it wins clearly.

The gap opened in 2025. Gamefound announced it was buying Indiegogo on July 24, 2025, moved it onto its own technology in October and ended flexible funding for new campaigns. Kickstarter spent the same year adding Secret Rewards, its own Pledge Manager and Pledge Over Time.

We’re a Kickstarter Premier Partner and run campaigns on both platforms, so this Kickstarter vs Indiegogo comparison comes from the creator dashboard. We’ve put the two platforms side by side on 16 factors, worked out what each one takes from a $10,000 raise, and looked at where 2026’s million-dollar campaigns chose to launch.

Key Takeaways

• Kickstarter fits most product launches in 2026. Indiegogo makes more sense for inventory-ready products, creators based in countries Kickstarter skips, and campaigns with a large European backer base.
• Both platforms run all-or-nothing campaigns now. Indiegogo ended flexible funding in October 2025. Its newer Express Crowdfunding mode has no goal: backers pay at checkout, and creators get paid during the campaign.
• Kickstarter is far busier. On October 10, 2026, it had 3,464 live campaigns. Indiegogo had 224.
• Kickstarter’s last published success rate is 42.74% (January 2026), and over 26 million people have backed a project there. Indiegogo publishes no success rate.
• Fees come out almost even. Both charge 5%. Processing adds 3% + $0.30 per pledge on Kickstarter (US) and 3% + $0.20 per transaction on Indiegogo, which also holds back 5% for 180 days in most cases.
• Indiegogo’s edge is reach and payment choice: 37 creator countries against Kickstarter’s 25, 19 checkout methods including iDEAL and BLIK, and installment plans of 2 to 10 payments through Stretch Pay.
• Kickstarter’s edge is audience and tooling: editorial featuring through Projects We Love, EU VAT collection in its Pledge Manager, up to 100 reward tiers, and invite-only Secret Rewards.
• You can use both. Indiegogo’s Late Pledge and Pledge Manager also take campaigns that ran on Kickstarter, so you can launch on one and keep selling on the other.

Kickstarter vs Indiegogo at a Glance

Short on time? Start here. The table puts all 16 factors side by side, and the sections below explain every verdict.

What Won’t Work on Indiegogo and Kickstarter?

Some products fit neither Kickstarter nor Indiegogo, and it’s better to know that before you spend months on a pre-launch.

• Software and apps.

Kickstarter accepts apps that fit one of its categories and show a working prototype. Still, in the campaigns we’ve run, backers on both platforms pledge for things they can hold. A companion app works best as one feature of a physical product.

• Charity fundraising.

Indiegogo’s content policy lists charities among its prohibited categories, and Kickstarter doesn’t allow fundraising for one. Kickstarter does let creators give part of their funds to a charity, as long as they say so on the campaign page.

• B2B products.

In our experience, backers pledge as individuals buying for themselves. A product that needs a company’s purchasing team to approve it has a small audience on either platform.

• Investment offers and money-making schemes.

Both platforms ban them. Kickstarter’s rules prohibit equity, financial returns and monetary rewards, and Indiegogo’s content policy bans pyramid schemes. If your backers would expect a payout, you need an equity crowdfunding platform.

Which Categories Do Well on Each Platform?

On Kickstarter, the money follows hardware. Of the 115 Kickstarter campaigns that launched in 2026 and passed $1M, 56 were technology, 31 games and 19 design. Home projectors and desktop 3D and UV printers sit near the top of the list.

These figures were taken on 10th October 2026 from the most funded listings on each platform. The analysis covered every campaign launched in 2026 that had raised $1M or more by that date (based on the platform's reported USD amounts). Some campaigns were still running at the time of the data collection so the figures may have increased.

Over its whole history, games still lead Kickstarter. As of January 2026, Kickstarter’s last published stats showed games at $2.85B of the $9.42B pledged on the platform, with technology next at $2.01B.

Indiegogo’s list is much shorter. Seven Indiegogo campaigns launched in 2026 and passed $1M, and five of them were handheld gaming PCs or 3D printers. Four of the seven ran as Express campaigns.

You’ll also see big tabletop games in Indiegogo’s search results. Those campaigns run on Gamefound, which bought Indiegogo in 2025, and Indiegogo lists them alongside its own.

For a hardware product, the data favors Kickstarter by a wide margin. Board games do well on Kickstarter and on Gamefound, and a Gamefound campaign also reaches Indiegogo’s audience through its search.

Indiegogo and Kickstarter in 2026

Indiegogo

Indiegogo opened in 2008, a year before Kickstarter, and for most of its history it was the more flexible of the two. That changed in 2025. Gamefound bought Indiegogo in July, when the platform counted 38 million members and had raised nearly $3 billion. On October 16, 2025, it moved every campaign onto Gamefound’s technology.

The move rewrote the basics. Regular campaigns now run all-or-nothing, and backers pay only after a campaign reaches its goal. Payments go through Adyen, creators build pages in a new section-based editor, and InDemand became Late Pledge, which feeds straight into Indiegogo’s own Pledge Manager.

Two bigger changes followed in 2026:

• February: Express Crowdfunding dropped the goal completely. Backers pay at checkout and the creator gets paid during the campaign.
• August 4: Indiegogo paused its EU VAT handling, although its fee page still advertises it.

The relaunch also merged the two platforms’ shop windows. Gamefound's tabletop campaigns appear in Indiegogo's search results with a link back to gamefound.com. So if you go and scroll through the Indiegogo 'most funded' list today it's pretty much all board games that are  hosted on Gamefound.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter went live on 28th April 2009 and the fundamental model has remained unchanged since. Campaigns are 1 to 60 days long, it's all-or-nothing funding and backers only pay if the campaign reaches its goal. Kickstarter's last published stats in January 2026 were $9.42bn pledged and 42.74% of projects having reached their goal.

Most of Kickstarter’s recent changes went into the tools around the campaign itself. Since Everette Taylor became CEO in September 2022, Kickstarter has built in much of what creators used to get from third-party tools:

• May 2024: Late Pledges for all creators
• February 2025: Secret Rewards and Featured Rewards
• May 2025: the Pledge Manager and Pledge Over Time
• August 2025: EU and UK VAT collection in the Pledge Manager
• April 2026: the option to handle VAT yourself instead
• August 2026: backer self-serve add-ons and Discovery Mode, a vertical-video feed in the app

Kickstarter vs Indiegogo: 16 Factors Compared

We grouped the 16 factors into six rounds, from audience through to what happens after the campaign, and gave each factor a winner. By the end of Round 6, you’ll know whether you're a Kickstarter founder or one of the cases Indiegogo fits better.

Round 1: Audience and discovery

1. Audience size

Over 26M people have backed a Kickstarter project giving it the larger audience by any measure either platform shares. Indiegogo’s 2025 figure of 38M members looks bigger, but it counts accounts, not backers, and Indiegogo has never said how many of those people pledged.

Activity shows the gap more clearly. On October 10, 2026, Kickstarter had 3,464 live campaigns. Indiegogo had 224.

We counted both on that day from each platform’s own search: live Kickstarter projects, and Indiegogo campaigns in the Crowdfunding phase, regular and Express. Campaigns in Late Pledge or the Pledge Manager aren’t included, and neither are Gamefound campaigns listed in Indiegogo’s search.

Winner: Kickstarter.

2. Featuring and promotion

Kickstarter’s staff choose campaigns for Projects We Love, a badge that can lead to homepage and newsletter features. You can't buy it, and Kickstarter offers no paid promotion service. Since August 2026, a short vertical video also puts your campaign into Discovery Mode, the swipe feed in Kickstarter’s app.

Indiegogo lists its homepage banner, main-page features and newsletter as free placements at its discretion. It also sells performance marketing through Adfound, at 10% of the ad revenue it generates, and Adfound clients get priority access to those free placements. So on Indiegogo, the queue for free exposure has a paid lane.

Winner: Kickstarter for organic reach. Indiegogo if you plan to run paid ads anyway.

Round 2: Rules and approval

3. Project rules and review

Kickstarter asks for more proof up front. Indiegogo asks for more paperwork.

On Kickstarter, Design & Technology projects have to show a working prototype, and the rules say prototype demos can’t use CGI or special effects to show features that don’t exist yet. Some projects get approved automatically, but every Design & Technology project goes through a manual review that takes up to 3 business days.

Indiegogo has no prototype rule. They review every campaign and you must request that review at least 7 days before launch. New creators go through a compliance review, an identity and bank check. First-time creators also complete a track record and risk assessment as part of the Creator Guidelines. Several creators on Trustpilot have noted that these checks can push their launch back by weeks, so make sure to leave yourself enough time.

Both platforms require you to disclose any use of generative AI.

Winner: Indiegogo, for products without a working prototype yet. Plan for a longer runway.

4. Who can launch

Kickstarter accepts creators from 25 countries, and Indiegogo’s payout currency list covers 37. They share 23. The 14 countries only Indiegogo accepts are all in Europe: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia. Kickstarter’s extra two are Japan and Mexico.

Kickstarter does offer a workaround. Creators outside its 25 countries can set up a business in one of them, most often the US, and launch from there.

Both platforms take backers from anywhere in the world.

Winner: Indiegogo, for creators in the 14 European countries it accepts and Kickstarter doesn’t. Kickstarter, for Japan and Mexico. A tie for everyone in the 23 shared countries.

Round 3: Funding and cash flow

5. Funding model

Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo now run regular campaigns all-or-nothing. If a campaign ends short of its goal, nobody pays, and the creator receives nothing. Kickstarter has worked this way since 2009. Indiegogo switched to this model for all new campaigns on October 16, 2025, and backers on regular campaigns now pay only once the campaign succeeds.

The exception is instant payment methods: those charge the backer at checkout, but Indiegogo holds the money until the campaign ends and refunds it in full if the goal is missed.

Indiegogo kept one route around the goal. Express Crowdfunding, launched in February 2026, has no goal. Backers pay in full at checkout, orders stay locked once placed, and payouts can start while the campaign is still running. It suits brands with stock ready to ship. On October 10, 2026, 23 of Indiegogo’s 224 live campaigns ran on Express.

Winner: tie. Indiegogo, if your product is ready to ship and you want money during the campaign.

6. Payouts and reserves

Kickstarter pays once and holds nothing back. Payouts begin 14 days after your deadline and take 3 to 14 more business days to reach your bank.

Indiegogo pays in installments. It keeps collecting payments for up to 2 weeks after the campaign ends and pays out every Friday as payments clear. In most cases, it also holds back 5% of the total for 180 days, and it can raise that share for projects it rates as higher risk. Once every reward has shipped, you can ask Indiegogo’s support team to release the reserve early.

So Indiegogo money starts arriving sooner, and Kickstarter money arrives in one piece.

Winner: Kickstarter, unless that first week of cash matters more to you than the last 5%.

7. Campaign length and extensions

Both platforms cap campaigns at 60 days, but Kickstarter recommends 30 days or less. On Kickstarter, support can extend a campaign during its final week as long as it's still short of its goal.

Indiegogo locks the end date at launch, except in exceptional cases, and offers Endgame for the last minutes, where any pledge in the final 10 minutes resets the clock to 10 minutes. Each backer can trigger it once.

Winner: Kickstarter, for the option of an extension.

Round 4: Fees and payments

8. Kickstarter and Indiegogo fees

Fees come out close. Both platforms take 5% of what you raise, plus payment processing, and neither charges anything if a campaign ends short of its goal.

On Kickstarter, US campaigns pay 3% + $0.30 per pledge for processing. Pledges under $10 have a discounted micropledge fee of 5% + $0.08 per pledge. Rates differ by country.

Indiegogo charges 3% + $0.20 per transaction in the project’s currency, with the same rates in its Pledge Manager. Each Stretch Pay installment counts as its own transaction, so a backer who pays in five installments costs you five fixed fees.

On a $100 pledge, the difference between the two platforms is 10 cents.

Winner: tie.

9. Payment methods and installments

Indiegogo gives backers far more ways to pay. For campaigns launched since October 16, 2025, its checkout takes 19 payment methods, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK, TWINT and Klarna Pay Now. Kickstarter takes Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards, plus Discover, JCB and UnionPay on US projects. Backers can also use Apple Pay in its iOS app. Neither platform takes PayPal.

The installment options differ too. Indiegogo’s Stretch Pay lets you set 2 to 10 monthly payments, a minimum order and a payoff date, and it works during the campaign, in Late Pledge and in the Pledge Manager.

Kickstarter’s Pledge Over Time splits pledges that meet a set minimum ($125 in the US) into 3 payments, during the campaign only, and you have to switch it on before launch. Kickstarter pays out the second and third payments about 8 and 12 weeks after the campaign ends.

Winner: Indiegogo.

10. Taxes and VAT

Kickstarter collects tax in its Pledge Manager after the campaign: US sales tax, Canadian GST/HST, and EU and UK VAT. It has collected and remitted EU and UK VAT since August 2025, and since April 2026 you can opt out and handle VAT yourself.

Indiegogo charges tax at checkout in every phase, at rates you set. UK VAT is collected for you on orders under £135. EU VAT used to be too, until Indiegogo paused that service on August 4, 2026. That means any VAT owed on EU orders is now yours to file, whatever Indiegogo’s fee page still says.

For a campaign with many European backers, that settles it. On Kickstarter, the platform can deal with EU VAT for you. On Indiegogo, your accountant does.

Winner: Kickstarter, for anyone selling into the EU.

Round 5: Campaign page and tools

11. Page and video

Kickstarter hosts your video itself. You can upload files up to 5,120 MB, and since August 2026 you can add a short vertical video that also runs in the app’s Discovery Mode feed.

Indiegogo builds pages from sections in its new editor, and each campaign stage can show different content. It takes YouTube embeds and MP4 or WebM uploads up to 20MB, which covers short clips and animations. For a full campaign video, you’ll need to use YouTube.

Winner: Kickstarter.

12. Rewards

Kickstarter allows 100 reward tiers and 100 add-ons per project, with a maximum tier value of $10,000 for US projects. Secret Rewards and Secret Add-Ons give selected backers a private link to an offer, which suits deposit holders from your pre-launch list.

Indiegogo doesn’t publish a limit on how many rewards you can create, and each reward can bundle several items, each with its own options and stock cap. Private offers, say for your deposit holders, go in a product group that controls who sees them. The one thing you can’t set is the order. Rewards always appear from cheapest to most expensive, though you can pin one to the top.

Winner: Kickstarter.

13. Updates and messaging

Both platforms let you save updates as drafts and add polls. On Indiegogo, publishing an update notifies no one until you send notifications yourself, to everyone, to backers only, or to a specific group. Indiegogo added scheduled updates in June 2026. Kickstarter lets you message followers at any stage, including people who followed past projects.

Winner: tie.

14. Tracking, analytics and backer data

Tracking is close to even. Both platforms accept a Meta Pixel, a Meta Conversions API token and Google Analytics. Kickstarter’s referral tags show pledges and money raised per link. Indiegogo’s referral links add 1-day and 7-day attribution.

Backer data is where they differ. Kickstarter shows backer emails only after a campaign ends successfully. Indiegogo gives you backer contact information as soon as someone pledges.

Winner: tie.

Round 6: After the campaign

15. Late pledges and pledge manager

Both platforms now run the post-campaign phase themselves. Kickstarter added Late Pledges in 2024 and its own Pledge Manager in 2025, and in August 2026 it let backers add add-ons themselves. Indiegogo moves campaigns from Funded into an optional Late Pledge phase, then into its Pledge Manager.

Two differences matter in practice:

• Failed payments. On Indiegogo campaigns launched since December 2025, unpaid orders stay open, so a backer whose card failed can finish paying later. On Kickstarter, that backer has to pledge again through Late Pledges.
• Campaigns run elsewhere. Indiegogo’s Late Pledge and Pledge Manager also take campaigns that ran on other platforms, so you can launch on Kickstarter and keep selling on Indiegogo. The reverse is harder: BackerKit imports Kickstarter campaigns, and Indiegogo campaigns are missing from its list.

Kickbooster affiliate tracking works on both platforms during the campaign and in late pledges. Indiegogo also supports it in the Pledge Manager.

Winner: tie.

16. Backer protection

Indiegogo puts more of its rules on the backer side. Every creator has to publish a refund and cancellation policy under the Creator Guidelines, and backers on regular campaigns can cancel their pledge. Creators can also opt into Stable Pledge before launch: if post-campaign costs push prices more than 10% above the estimate, backers get 14 days to claim a full refund. For creators that Indiegogo rates as higher risk, it can hold more funds or require a card authorization or cash deposit.

Kickstarter sets out what creators owe backers in its Terms of Use, and leaves refunds after a funded campaign to the creator.

Winner: Indiegogo, for backer trust. It’s also more paperwork for you.

What Kickstarter and Indiegogo Fees Cost on a $10,000 Raise?

Here’s the same campaign on both platforms: a US creator raises $10,000 from 100 backers, who each pledge $100 by card, with no installments.

The fees land within $10 of each other. Timing is where the platforms split. Indiegogo starts paying sooner, but it keeps $500 for six months. Kickstarter makes you wait a little longer, then pays the full $9,170 at once.

Two things move these numbers. On Indiegogo, each Stretch Pay installment counts as its own transaction, so a backer paying in four installments adds $0.60 in fixed fees. On Kickstarter, fees on pledges under $10 drop to 5% + $0.08.

TCF Campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo

Every campaign we've published as a case study since 2024 ran on Kickstarter, which named us a Premier Partner in September 2026. Our Indiegogo campaigns came before Gamefound rebuilt the platform, so on today’s Indiegogo, most of our experience comes from what happens after the campaign.

Looking back, the split followed price. On Kickstarter, we mostly launched consumer tech at everyday prices. Our Indiegogo campaigns skewed expensive or unusual: e-bikes priced above $4,000, a $999 machine that makes drinking water from air, and a hotel in the Cascade Mountains.

Several factors from the comparison showed up in these results. Kara Pure’s installment plan brought in an extra $200,000 during InDemand, Indiegogo’s old post-campaign phase. GoChess raised $2,083,603 on Kickstarter, then moved its backers into Indiegogo’s pledge manager, bringing the combined total to $4,049,770. And on Kickstarter itself, BB-777 added $151K in late pledges at a 6.5 return on ad spend.

Kickstarter or Indiegogo: Which to Choose?

If you skipped straight to this part, we get it. Sixteen factors is a lot of reading when all you want to know is where to launch. The table below sums up the whole comparison by situation: find the rows that sound like your campaign, and see which column most of them land in.

For most product founders, the left column fits. The right column describes a narrower group, and for founders in it, Indiegogo’s extras matter more than Kickstarter’s bigger audience.

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FAQ

Should I use Kickstarter or Indiegogo?

Use Kickstarter for most product launches. It has the bigger audience, editorial featuring through Projects We Love, and EU VAT handling in its Pledge Manager. Use Indiegogo if your product is ready to ship and you want payment during the campaign, if you’re in one of the 14 European countries Kickstarter skips, or if your backers need local payment methods or longer installment plans.

Which is bigger, Indiegogo or Kickstarter?

Kickstarter. On October 10, 2026, it had about 15 times as many live campaigns as Indiegogo.  Over 26 million people have backed a Kickstarter project, while Indiegogo doesn't publish a backer count.

What percentage does Indiegogo take?

Indiegogo takes 5% of the money you raise, plus 3% for payment processing and $0.20 per transaction. The same rates apply in Late Pledge and the Pledge Manager. In most cases, Indiegogo also holds back 5% of your total for 180 days. If a regular campaign misses its goal, you pay nothing.

What percentage does Kickstarter take?

Kickstarter takes 5% of the money you raise, plus 3% + $0.30 per pledge for payment processing for US campaigns. For pledges under $10, fees drop to 5% + $0.08. If your campaign misses its goal, Kickstarter takes nothing.

Is Indiegogo still operating in 2026??

Yes. Gamefound bought Indiegogo in July 2025 and relaunched it that October. Its own big launches are holding steady: 6 Indiegogo campaigns launched in 2025 passed $1M, and 7 launched in 2026 had passed it by October 10. Four of 2026’s seven used Express, the goal-free mode Indiegogo added in February.

Is Kickstarter still operating in 2026?

Yes, and it’s growing. 116 Kickstarter campaigns launched in 2025 passed $1M. Of the campaigns launched in 2026, 115 had already passed it by October 10, with almost three months left in the year. The platform has also added a new creator tool every few months since 2024.

What happens if an Indiegogo project fails?

If a regular Indiegogo campaign ends short of its goal, you get no money. Backers who paid by card are never charged. Backers who paid with an instant payment method were charged at checkout, and Indiegogo refunds them in full.

How many Kickstarter projects fail?

About 57% of Kickstarter projects end short of their goal. As of January 2026, Kickstarter’s last published stats showed 42.74% of projects reached their goal. Because funding is all-or-nothing, backers of those projects never pay, and the creator can relaunch with a smaller goal or a stronger pre-launch list.

What is better than Kickstarter?

For most product launches in 2026, no platform matches Kickstarter’s audience. A few beat it in specific cases. Indiegogo suits products that are ready to ship, creators in its 14 extra countries, and backers who need local payment methods. Gamefound leads for tabletop games. Our comparison of Kickstarter vs Gamefound vs BackerKit covers the other options.

What are the downsides of Kickstarter?

Kickstarter asks Design & Technology projects for a working prototype and accepts creators from 25 countries, against Indiegogo’s 37. Backers can pay by card, Apple Pay in the app or, on some German projects, SEPA, and installments end when the campaign does. Your money also arrives no sooner than 14 days after your deadline.