Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors.

We believe that...

• A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide.
• A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.

Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

Every Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands.

Why?

1. It's less risk for everyone. If you need $5,000, it's tough having $2,000 and a bunch of people expecting you to complete a $5,000 project.


2. It allows people to test concepts (or conditionally sell stuff) without risk. If you don't receive the support you want, you're not compelled to follow through. This is huge!


3. It motivates. If people want to see a project come to life, they're going to spread the word.

REWARDS! Project creators inspire people to open their wallets by offering smart, fun, and tangible rewards (products, benefits, and experiences).

STORIES! Kickstarter projects are efforts by real people to do something they love, something fun, or at least something of note. These stories unfold through blog posts, pics, and videos as people bring their ideas to life. Take a peek around the site and see what we're talking about. Stories abound.

Nope. Project creators keep 100% ownership.

Kickstarter is focused on creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. We're a great way for artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, writers, athletes, adventurers, illustrators, explorers, curators, promoters, performers, and others to bring their projects, events, and dreams to life.

We know there are a lot of great projects that fall outside of our scope, but Kickstarter is not really for soliciting donations for causes, general business expenses, or raising funds without a specific goal. Learn more about our project guidelines.

Learn more about starting a project.

Every project has a funding goal (any dollar amount) and a time limit (from 1 - 90 days) set by the project creator. When the deadline is reached, there are either of two results:

1. Funding Successful: If a project has met or surpassed its funding goal, all backers' credit cards are instantly charged and funds go directly to the project creator. Project creators are then responsible for completing the project and delivering rewards as promised.

2. Funding Unsuccessful: If a project has NOT met its funding goal, all pledges are canceled. That's it.

To make a pledge to a project, click the green “Back This Project” button on any project page. You will be asked to pick your pledge amount and select a reward. From there, you will go through the Amazon checkout process. Note that you must finish the Amazon checkout for your pledge to be completed.

If the project you’re backing is successfully funded, your card will be charged when the project reaches its funding deadline. If the project does not reach its funding goal, your card is never charged. That's why we call them pledges.

Nothing. If funding fails, all pledges are canceled and that's that.

Nothing really. Projects continue to accept pledges until the funding deadline.

Amazon Payments processes all the pledges on Kickstarter. When you decide to make a pledge, we'll quickly send you to an Amazon Payments page to confirm. If you have an Amazon account this takes only a few clicks. If you don't have an Amazon account, Amazon will ask you to register during the pledge process — it's painless. You won't need to do anything annoying like stop in the middle and check your email.

Every project has a section that shows the Kickstarter usernames of all the backers of the project. Your profile will also show all the projects you've backed or started.

No. Only you and the project creator will be able to see your pledge amount.

Project creators see your Kickstarter username, your pledge amount, and the reward you've selected, if applicable. If funding succeeds we'll also give project creators your email address.

• Perhaps you know the project creator, or you heard about the project from a trusted source.

• Maybe they have a first-person video. That would be hard to fake. "Is it really U2?!" Well, it is if Bono's talking about the project.

• Still not sure? Ask the project creator a question via the "Send Message" button on their project page.

At the end of the day, use your internet street smarts.

We don't currently have an anonymous pledge feature. We have no control over the username you choose, so you could anonymize that way. Otherwise, we hope you're okay with showing your name and support.

Yes. You can pledge from anywhere.

If you are a non-US Amazon Mechanical Turk user you may experience a problem trying to pledge. You'll need to create a new Amazon Payments account during check-out. Sorry this is annoying. We've alerted Amazon about this bug.

We’ll send you an email when funding ends, no matter the outcome.

Kickstarter uses Amazon's Flexible Payments Service, which enables our all-or-nothing funding method. No other credit card processor currently supports our requirements. Paypal has a new service coming out soon; we'll be keeping our eye on it.

Visit the project page and click “Manage My Pledge.” At the very bottom of the next page, click on “Change Payment Method.”

If your card was declined, look for the "Action Needed" system message on your screen (a big yellow bar across the top of your screen). Follow the instructions there and you should be set.

Alternatively, you will have received an email from Kickstarter with the subject line “Action Needed” that contains the link to correct your pledge. If you don’t see an email, check your spam filter. It may have been caught there.

You have seven days to correct the payment error.

By pledging, you are committing to supporting that person’s project; canceling that commitment is discouraged. If you must cancel, visit the project page and click “Manage My Pledge.” At the bottom of the next page you’ll see the “Cancel My Pledge” button.

Sorry, Kickstarter only supports credit card payments.

If a project creator has 501c3 status, then a pledge may be tax exempt. A project creator will likely tout their tax-exempt status if they have it. If you wish to inquire further, please contact the project creator via the "Send Message" button on their project page.

Project creators sculpt their own rewards, including pricing and quantities. It's completely up to them.

Pretty much anything. Rewards inspire support and can be as simple as a download for $5 or as elaborate as a hot-air balloon ride. It's up to the project creator to create, price, and fulfill their rewards.

Investment and loan solicitations are forbidden, as are lotteries, raffles, and sweepstakes. Check Amazon Payments' Acceptable Use Policy for more.

If the project has been successfully funded, the project creator will query you for whatever information they need. You will be notified by email and an on-site message with the subject "Action Needed." This goes for addresses, shirt sizes, favorite colors, etc.

Project creators are wholly responsible for their promises. Kickstarter is a venue, like eBay or Etsy.

Yes. Every project creator must set a funding goal and a deadline between 1 - 90 days for funding.

Before they launch their first project, project creators set up an Amazon Payments account. If funding succeeds, funds go directly from backers' credit cards to the project creator's Amazon Payments account.

Amazon will hold funds for 14 days after payments are collected. Once this hold is released, project creators can transfer funds to their bank account (which can take 5-7 days).

(Note: Amazon Payments users with a six-month history of receiving credit card payments can apply to Amazon for immediate withdrawals.)

Absolutely not. Project creators keep 100% ownership of their work.

If a project is successfully funded, Kickstarter will apply a 5% fee to the funds raised. If funding isn't successful, there are no charges.

Yes. When a project is successful, Amazon will apply credit card processing fees.

There is no Amazon fee for backers.

No. Starting a project is free.

No.

Yes. Rewards can be priced anywhere from $1 to $10,000.

All projects must comply with the Amazon Payments Acceptable Use Policy, which you can read in full here. This includes things like pornography, violence, firearms, weapons, etc. Investment and loan solicitations are forbidden, as are lotteries, raffles, and sweepstakes.

To start a project, you need to create an Amazon Payments account. We'll send you to Amazon to set your account up when you start your first project. It's not a short form but it's manageable.

Currently, yes. Kickstarter's transactions are handled by Amazon Payments, which restricts the ability to receive money to people or entities with a US bank account and a US address.

Kickstarter will allow international project creators in the future.

Remember that people can pledge to projects from anywhere; it's only project creation that's restricted.

Each project has a dashboard accessible from the project page that includes:

1. Activity Feed: A real-time stream of comments, pledges, and other project activity.
2. The Backer Report: A list of all reward pledges broken out by tier and backer.
3. The Message Center: An inbox for all messages with backers.
4. Transaction History: Processing information if the project is successful.
5. Project Editing: Tweak and perfect your project.

Note that the dashboard is only viewable by the project creator.

After your project is successfully funded, you can query your backers from the Backer Report in your dashboard. Click on the "Request Info" button next to each reward tier; you can then customize what questions to ask.

Queries are handled by reward tier (only ask the T-shirt tier what size they wear, etc). The information you receive will be displayed on the Backer Report page, and can be exported as a spreadsheet.

Yes. The only things that cannot be edited after launch are:

• The funding goal
• The project deadline
• Rewards that have already been selected by a backer

Backers have the option to not receive a reward at all. Some of your supporters may have chosen this option.

Yes. Projects continue to accept pledges until their end date regardless of their funding.

No. We may add that in the future, though.

Creators should absolutely inform backers of changes to a project in process. Transparency is important.

If a change needs to be communicated, the project description may need editing, and creators should also post a project update or send a group message to their backers (from the Message Center page).

If you fundamentally change your project, are unable to fulfill the promises made to backers, or decide to abandon the project for any reason, you are expected to cancel funding. A failure to do so could result in damage to your reputation or even legal action on behalf of your backers.

Yes. A project creator has the option to cancel funding. When funding is canceled, all pledges are immediately voided. Project creators and backers can continue to post on the project, however.

Not once it has been launched to the public. Projects remain accessible on Kickstarter, even if funding fails or funding is canceled. We do this for transparency.

No. Creators are encouraged to use project updates to add new information to the project's development.

If a credit card is declined, an email is sent to the backer and this information appears on the Backer Report page. The backer has seven days to correct payment, and an email is sent every 48 hours during that period with a link for them to do so.

Warning! Credit card rules forbid project creators from paying themselves. Any pledges made by a project creator to themselves may cause Amazon to cancel a project creator’s Amazon account, making it impossible to receive or remove funds.

While Kickstarter prevents project creators from backing their own projects from the same Kickstarter account, Amazon will detect if the project creator uses a new Kickstarter account and/or a new Amazon account to make the pledge. Amazon looks for the credit card info as well as other primary information to determine if a party is attempting to pay itself. This is not an Amazon-specific policy — this type of transaction is considered an attempt to create a "cash advance" and is forbidden by all credit card companies.

Please note that Amazon may not detect this action until a project succeeds and they attempt to collect funds. While the project will appear to succeed on Kickstarter, Amazon will later suspend any Amazon Payments accounts controlled by the project creator, making it impossible to receive/remove funds.

You don’t have any obligation to reflect these amounts on Kickstarter. However, if you are concerned that these contributions are needed to make funding successful, these "outside backers" will need to have a third-party make their Kickstarter pledge for them (see previous question).

"Project Updates" is our fancy name for each project's blog. Some creators may post ten updates a day, others may do it rarely, but it's the best way to keep backers informed of a project's progress.

Creators also have the option to make each post publicly viewable or exclusive to backers. An exclusive update allows you to communicate privately with backers as a group, where backers will be able to see each other's comments.

Backers are notified by email when a project update is posted.

Project updates can transform projects from simple funding efforts to stories that backers (and other spectators) will eagerly follow. Let backers and spectators be flies on the wall as you make decisions and pursue your goal.

You can post updates with video, audio, and images.

We suggest starting with this how-to from Kickstarter member Robin Sloan. It contains tons of useful video info specific to Kickstarter.

For best results, we suggest encoding your video with standard options using a h264 video codec and either a MP3 or AAC audio codec.

Kickstarter will compress the video down to a resolution of 560x420, which is a 4:3 aspect ratio. But we support any uploaded aspect ratio, such as 16:9, by adding the appropriate padding (letterboxing).

Absolutely. Kickstarter projects are all-or-nothing — they either happen or they don't. Every project depends on their backers' and creator's networks for its survival.

There are simple buttons for the major social networks in the share section of each project. Just look under the project video slot.

Yep. You can find it right underneath the project's video/image in the share section: "grab the widget."

Yes. Click on the icons for email and the major social networks in the project page's share section.

Each project has an RSS feed of its project updates. You can find it in the project's share section. (Note that backer-only updates are not included.)

Yes. Kickstarter supports Facebook Connect, which allows you to easily sign-up using your Facebook account. Once you do this you'll be logged into Kickstarter when you're logged into Facebook. (For some of us, this is all the time.)

Yes. Follow us @kickstarter.

Yes, and you should join it.

Yes! Read it here: http://blog.kickstarter.com.

Yes, through UserVoice. Please share your thoughts!

Of course. You can contact our small customer service team of two here.

Ten people all around the US. Home base is Brooklyn, NY.

Perry Chen (Brooklyn, NY), Yancey Strickler (Brooklyn, NY), Charles Adler (Wilmette, IL), Lance Ivy (Walla Walla, WA), Andy Baio (Portland, OR), Cassie Marketos (Brooklyn, NY), Fred Benenson (NY, NY), Andrew Cornett (Brooklyn, NY), Brett Camper (Brooklyn, NY), Cindy Au (Brooklyn, NY)

We are lovingly advised by Sunny Bates (New York, NY).