Crowdfunding Fees Compared and What You Really Keep in 2026

Last verified against each platform's official fee pages on September 21, 2026. Fees change often, so use the links in the final section to confirm before you launch.

Every crowdfunding platform advertises a number. Kickstarter says 5%. GoFundMe says nothing at all, because its platform fee for organizers is zero. Wefunder says 7.9%. None of those numbers is the amount that vanishes between "campaign raised" and "money in the bank," and the gap between the advertised figure and the real one can be several percentage points.

For a community project raising a modest sum, that gap decides whether the garden gets built, the first batch gets manufactured or the local venture reaches its target. This guide puts the fees of eight major platforms side by side, shows the arithmetic on realistic raises, and explains the costs that never appear in a headline. It is educational, founder-first guidance and not financial advice.

The short answer

• Rewards platforms (Kickstarter, Indiegogo) cost roughly 8% to 10% of what you raise, and you pay nothing if you miss your goal.

• Donation platforms (GoFundMe) charge no platform fee to organizers in the US, but every donation carries a processing fee of about 2.9% plus $0.30, and the fixed part hurts small gifts.

• Membership platforms (Patreon) take 10% on the standard plan plus processing, which can push the real cost toward 14% to 19% on small monthly pledges.

• Equity platforms (Wefunder, Republic, StartEngine, Crowdcube) typically cost 7% to 10% of the raise in cash, often with extra fixed fees and sometimes a slice of equity, before legal and compliance costs.

Crowdfunding fees at a glance

PlatformModelPlatform feePayment processingYou pay if you miss the goal?KickstarterRewards5%Roughly 3% to 5% plus a small fixed fee per pledgeNoIndiegogoRewards5%3% plus $0.20 per transactionNoGoFundMeDonations$0 for US organizers2.9% plus $0.30 per donationNot applicable, you keep what is donatedPatreonMembership10% (new creators)Varies, for example 2.9% plus $0.30 in USDNot applicableWefunderEquity7.9% of the raise, plus an annual admin feeIncluded in the feeNoRepublicEquity7% cash plus 2% of securities offeredAdditional small costsNoStartEngineEquityCommonly reported at 7% or more plus about 2% equityVariesNoCrowdcubeEquity (UK and Europe)Up to 8% success fee plus 2.5% platform fee plus listing feeIncluded in the platform feeNo

Read the table as a starting point, not a quote. Every platform has exceptions, regional variations and legacy plans, which is exactly why the rest of this guide exists.

Why the headline percentage is misleading

A platform fee is only one layer. When you receive money from a crowd, up to five separate costs can stack on top of one another.

1. The platform fee. A percentage of what you raise, charged for using the site.

2. The payment processing fee. A percentage charged by the card processor on every transaction.

3. The fixed per-transaction fee. A flat amount, usually around 20 to 30 cents, charged on every single pledge or donation.

4. Extras. Currency conversion, international payout charges, taxes on fees, optional tip prompts and, for equity, annual administration fees.

5. The costs outside the platform. Failed pledges, shipping and fulfillment, legal filings and accountants.

The fixed per-transaction fee is the layer that surprises people, because it punishes small contributions. On GoFundMe's US rate of 2.9% plus $0.30, the effective cost changes dramatically with gift size.

GoFundMe's own help center uses the $50 case as its example, saying the recipient keeps $48.25, and the table above simply extends the same arithmetic. The lesson applies to every platform that charges a fixed fee, so campaigns built on hundreds of small pledges lose more of their total than campaigns built on fewer, larger ones.

What changed recently

If you are reading a comparison written in 2023 or earlier, treat it with suspicion. Several things have moved.

Indiegogo retired flexible funding. After Gamefound acquired Indiegogo in 2025, the platform moved onto Gamefound's technology on October 16, 2025 and ended flexible funding, the option that let creators keep money even when they missed their goal. Campaigns now run on fixed funding with stretch goals, which is the same all-or-nothing approach Kickstarter has always used. The old advice to choose Indiegogo if you wanted to keep partial funds no longer applies.

Patreon simplified its pricing. Creators who published their page after August 4, 2025 pay a standard 10% platform fee. Creators who published before that date keep their existing plan, and legacy plans can sit at 5%, 8% or 11%.

Wefunder's fee moved. Many older guides quote 7.5%. Wefunder's own help center now states 7.9% of the total raise for Regulation Crowdfunding, withheld at close.

Crowdcube's fee structure is more complex than most guides say. Older articles describe a flat 7% success fee. The current help center lists a listing fee, a 2.5% platform fee and a success fee that depends on the type of offer.

Rewards crowdfunding fees

Kickstarter

Kickstarter collects a 5% platform fee on funds raised, excluding taxes. Its payment processor, Stripe, charges a separate fee of roughly 3% to 5% on each payment. For pledges of $10 and above, the commonly cited structure is 3% plus $0.20, and pledges under $10 use a discounted micropledge rate of 5% plus $0.05. If a project does not reach its goal, no fees are collected.

Budget between 8% and 10% of your total. The fee formula is simple, but the real cost depends on your average pledge size and on how many pledges fail to process after the campaign ends. Creators commonly report that funds take around three weeks to reach a bank account after a campaign closes, so build that delay into your production and payment schedule.

Indiegogo

Indiegogo's knowledge base states a platform fee of 5% of the collected amount plus payment processing of 3% and $0.20 per transaction. Its own worked example says that a $10,000 raise across 100 transactions costs $500 in platform fees and $320 in processing, leaving a payout of $9,180. Nothing is charged if a project misses its goal.

For a deeper look at how these two platforms differ beyond fees, see our guides to Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Donation crowdfunding fees

GoFundMe

GoFundMe's platform fee for organizers in the US is $0. It charges one transaction fee per donation, listed at 2.9% plus $0.30, and reports state that fundraisers on behalf of certified nonprofits pay a lower rate of 2.2% plus $0.30. The platform earns its revenue mainly from optional tips that donors can add at checkout, and donors can reduce that tip to zero.

That makes GoFundMe the cheapest option on this list for the organizer, but two cautions apply. First, it is built for donations, so it does not offer the reward fulfillment tools of a rewards platform. Second, rates vary by country, so check the calculator on GoFundMe's pricing page for your location. Our GoFundMe guide covers who it suits best.

Membership fees

Patreon

Patreon charges creators who published after August 4, 2025 a flat 10% platform fee, calculated on the payment amount excluding sales tax. Payment processing is charged on top and varies by currency, with 2.9% plus $0.30 in USD given as an example. On the standard plan the same processing rates apply to every payment regardless of size, which is where small memberships suffer.

These figures exclude payout charges, currency conversion and taxes. Members who buy inside Patreon's iOS app pay through Apple's in-app system, which takes a 30% service fee, so where your members pay matters. Read more in our Patreon guide.

Equity crowdfunding fees

Equity platforms sell shares or similar securities to a crowd, so their fees reflect the legal work involved. They are also harder to compare, because they combine percentages, fixed fees and sometimes equity. In the US, most of these raises run under Regulation Crowdfunding, which caps an offering at $5 million in a 12-month period. This section is an educational overview, and anyone raising equity should take legal and tax advice.

Wefunder

Wefunder charges 7.9% of the total raise if the raise is successful and states that it withholds this fee at closing. There are no upfront fees. After closing, there is an annual administration fee equal to the lesser of $1,000 or 0.5% of the amount raised.

Republic

According to Republic's fee disclosure as reported by independent reviews, issuers pay 7% of capital raised in cash plus 2% of the securities offered on a successful Regulation Crowdfunding raise. Payment processing and escrow can add a further 1% to 2% through partners, according to the same reviews. Republic's UK and European arm operates on different terms, so check which entity applies to you.

StartEngine

Independent reviews report that issuers pay in the range of 7% to 10% of the capital raised plus about 2% of the securities offered as equity, which brings the all-in cost to somewhere between roughly 9% and 12%. StartEngine's terms vary by package, so treat these as indicative and request a written quote.

Crowdcube

Crowdcube publishes a clear fee structure for UK companies. Listing costs range from £4,995 for a Focus Raise, marketed only to your own network, to £9,995 for a Full Access offer that is also marketed to Crowdcube's investor base. A success fee of up to 8% applies to Full Access offers and 5% to Focus offers, both charged only on the amount raised. A platform fee of 2.5% applies to all funds raised, and an annual nominee fee of £750 or £1,000 begins after the first 12 months. VAT is payable on the platform fee.

What a crowdfunding raise really costs

Headline fees do not tell you how much money will actually reach your bank account. To make the differences easier to see, here are two worked examples using the same fundraising amounts and assumptions across platforms.

Scenario A — Raising $10,000 from 100 backers

Imagine a rewards or donation campaign that raises $10,000 from 100 people, with an average contribution of $100.

The table below shows the estimated platform and payment-processing costs, followed by the amount left after those fees.

For Kickstarter, the lower estimate assumes payment processing of 3% plus $0.20 per pledge, while the higher estimate uses 5% plus $0.20. Both include Kickstarter's 5% platform fee.

Indiegogo works out similarly in this example: a 5% platform fee plus 3% and $0.20 per transaction leaves approximately $9,180 from a $10,000 raise.

GoFundMe leaves more of the money with the organizer because it does not charge a platform fee for US fundraisers. With 100 donations of $100, the standard 2.9% plus $0.30 transaction fee produces approximately $320 in total fees, leaving $9,680.

That does not automatically make GoFundMe a substitute for Kickstarter or Indiegogo. GoFundMe is designed primarily for donations, while rewards platforms are built for campaigns that offer products or other rewards to backers.

These examples also exclude failed payments, taxes, currency conversion, shipping, manufacturing and fulfillment costs. In a real product campaign, those expenses can have a much larger effect on the final amount available to the creator.

Scenario B — Raising $100,000 through equity crowdfunding

Equity crowdfunding works differently. Instead of hundreds of small payment-processing charges, founders typically face a percentage-based success fee, and some platforms also charge listing fees, administration costs or take a small amount of equity.

Here is an approximate comparison for a $100,000 raise, looking at cash fees first.

The difference becomes substantial even at a relatively modest raise. A $100,000 Wefunder campaign, for example, would lose about $7,900 to the fundraising fee alone, before the annual administration fee and any expenses outside the platform.

Republic and StartEngine can involve another type of cost that is easy to overlook: equity. Giving the platform securities does not reduce the cash arriving in your bank account today, but it still has economic value and affects the ownership structure of the company.

Crowdcube illustrates another issue: fixed fees matter much more on smaller raises. A £4,995 or £9,995 listing fee represents a significant percentage of a £100,000 campaign before the percentage-based charges are even added.

The takeaway

The percentage advertised on a platform's pricing page is therefore only the starting point. Before choosing a crowdfunding platform, calculate what you will actually keep after platform fees, payment processing, fixed transaction charges, listing or administration fees and any equity given to the platform.

For rewards and donation campaigns, the number and size of individual contributions matter. For equity crowdfunding, the size of the raise matters because fixed fees become proportionally less significant as the campaign gets larger.

The useful question is not simply “What percentage does this platform charge?” It is “If I raise my target amount from the number of backers or investors I expect, how much money — and equity — will I actually have left?”

Five costs that do not appear on any fee page

Failed and dropped pledges. On rewards platforms, some backers' cards fail after the campaign ends. That money never arrives, but your budget assumed it would.

Taxes. Sales tax, VAT and income tax on funds raised depend on where you are and how you are structured. The platform fee is often calculated before tax, but payment processing may be charged on the full amount including tax.

Currency and international costs. If your backers pay in another currency or your bank sits outside the platform's home country, expect conversion costs and possibly extra transfer charges.

Fulfillment. Packaging, shipping and customer service for rewards frequently cost more than the fees. Our article on why so many crowdfunded products never ship shows where the money goes wrong.

Time to payout. Money is rarely available the day a campaign ends. Plan cash flow around the delay, particularly if you must pay manufacturers up front.

How to set a goal that covers your real costs

The most practical use of fee knowledge is setting a goal that leaves you with what you actually need. Use this formula.

Goal = amount you need after fees ÷ (1 minus your total fee rate)

Suppose you need $9,000 to finish a community workshop and you expect an all-in fee rate of 8.2%. Then the goal should be $9,000 ÷ 0.918, which is about $9,804. Add a buffer of another 2% to 5% for failed pledges and tax, and a goal near $10,000 to $10,300 is more realistic than $9,000.

Because rewards campaigns are all-or-nothing, an inflated goal is risky, so the formula helps you find the smallest number that is honest rather than the biggest one that feels ambitious. Our piece on what separates a funded campaign from a dead one explains why goal size matters so much.

Which fee structure fits which project

• A community project with a finished thing to give backers suits rewards crowdfunding. Accept 8% to 10% in exchange for a structure built around delivering something.

• An urgent cause or a neighborhood fundraiser suits donations. Fees are lowest, and the structure asks for nothing except trust.

• A newsletter, podcast, zine or ongoing project suits membership. Accept a higher effective rate and focus on higher-value tiers to offset the fixed fee.

• A venture that wants its community as shareholders suits equity, but only if you are ready for reporting duties, dilution and legal costs. If giving away equity worries you, look at revenue-based financing as an alternative.

Still deciding between models? Start with our guide to choosing the right crowdfunding platform for your project, then return here to test the arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions

Which crowdfunding platform has the lowest fees? For donation fundraising, GoFundMe is the cheapest for organizers in the US because it has no platform fee, though a processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 applies to each donation. For rewards and equity, no platform is universally cheapest, because fixed fees and your average pledge size change the outcome.

Does Kickstarter charge fees if I do not reach my goal? No. Kickstarter says that if a project does not reach its funding goal, no fees are collected.

Does Indiegogo still offer flexible funding? No. Indiegogo retired flexible funding on October 16, 2025, and new campaigns run on fixed funding, meaning you only collect the money if you reach your goal.

Is GoFundMe really free? It is free to start, and the platform fee for organizers in the US is zero. Each donation still carries a processing fee, and donors are asked for an optional tip that supports GoFundMe.

How much does Patreon take in 2026? New creators pay a standard 10% platform fee plus payment processing. On a $5 monthly pledge, that combination costs about 19% at a rate of 2.9% plus $0.30, before payout and currency costs.

How much does Wefunder charge? Wefunder states a fee of 7.9% of the total raise for Regulation Crowdfunding if the raise succeeds, plus an annual administration fee of the lesser of $1,000 or 0.5% of the amount raised.

Why is my payout smaller than the total on my campaign page? Platform fees, payment processing, failed payments, currency conversion and taxes all come out before the money reaches you. Use the formula in this guide to estimate the difference before you launch.

Are crowdfunding fees tax-deductible? That depends on your country, legal structure and the type of campaign. Ask a qualified accountant rather than relying on a general guide.

Check the official fee pages before you launch

Fee schedules change, sometimes with only a few weeks' notice, so treat this article as a map and the platforms' own pages as the source of truth. These were the pages used for the figures above.

• Kickstarter fees and Kickstarter's fee guide for creators

• Indiegogo fees and Indiegogo's Gamefound platform upgrade FAQs

• GoFundMe fees

• Patreon creator fees overview

• Wefunder fees

• Crowdcube fees for companies

• Republic and StartEngine publish their issuer terms on their own sites, and quotes can vary by offering, so request the current terms in writing.

Browse all eight in our funding platforms directory, including guides to Wefunder, Republic, StartEngine and Crowdcube.

This article is educational and is not financial, legal or tax advice. Figures are based on public fee disclosures and reputable reporting available on September 21, 2026, and may have changed since.