Kickstarter vs Indiegogo for Bags: Fees, Funding and Backer Behaviour

Creators ask which platform is cheaper, and the honest answer is that the platform fee is nearly the same and it is the least interesting difference. Kickstarter and Indiegogo both typically charge around a 5 per cent platform fee, with payment processing commonly around 3-5 per cent in the US. What actually changes your bag programme is the funding model, what happens after the campaign closes, and how backers on each platform behave. Those three determine when you know your quantity, when you commit money to production, and how much unsold stock risk you carry. This article works through them in production terms, and it complements the platform-by-platform detail in our Custom Bags for Indiegogo and Multi-Platform Crowdfunding hub.

Every fee figure quoted here is a typical value as of writing and should be checked against the platform's current terms before you budget. Platform commercial terms change, and the effect of a one or two point change is larger on a bag campaign than on a digital one, because the cost of goods sits underneath it.

The short answer and what actually differs

If you want one sentence: Kickstarter gives you a known quantity at a known date and nothing afterwards, while Indiegogo gives you an open-ended sales channel and a less certain quantity. That is the real fork. On Kickstarter the campaign ends, the pledge count is fixed, you order that many bags plus a buffer, and the shop front closes. On Indiegogo you can run fixed or flexible funding, and after the campaign you can continue selling through InDemand, which means demand keeps accruing after you have already placed a production order.

For a physical reward made to a 500-piece minimum per style and colourway, that difference is structural rather than cosmetic. A known quantity lets you order once, inspect once and ship once. An open-ended channel forces you to decide how much inventory to hold against future orders, and inventory has a carrying cost and a colourway risk. Creators who move from Kickstarter to Indiegogo without adjusting for this tend to under-order, then discover that reordering hits the 500-piece floor again with a fresh 35-50 day production window.

The two platforms are also read differently by backers, and that affects what you can promise. Kickstarter backers are generally more campaign-literate and more forgiving of a documented delay, because the culture there accepts that hardware and physical goods slip. Indiegogo's audience overlaps with a more retail-oriented buyer, particularly once a project moves into InDemand, where it reads more like a shop. The same slipped date produces less friction on Kickstarter than it does in an InDemand storefront, and that should influence how conservatively you set your published delivery month.

Fee structures side by side

Both platforms take a percentage of funds raised, and both pass payment processing costs through. On Kickstarter the platform fee is typically around 5 per cent of funds raised and payment processing is commonly around 3-5 per cent in the US. On Indiegogo the platform fee is typically around 5 per cent, with payment processing in a similar range, and InDemand typically continues at around 5 per cent after the campaign. These are typical figures as of writing; check current terms.

The row that deserves attention is the last one, because it is the one that costs money. If you assume the two platforms are equivalent on cost and plan your order the same way, you will under-order on Indiegogo. A workable approach is to treat InDemand as a second demand wave and to order a deliberate inventory buffer against it, sized from the campaign's daily run rate rather than from hope. Where a creator does not want to hold inventory, the alternative is to accept a second production run later with its own 500-piece minimum and its own 35-50 day window, and to be honest with InDemand buyers about the lead time.

There is also a modest but real difference in what happens to failed or refunded pledges, and in how taxes are handled in different jurisdictions. These are platform-accounting details rather than production details, but they affect net cash, so read the current terms and model net rather than gross. The costing template in How to Price Bag Rewards is built to work from net funds for exactly this reason, and the reward-tier side is covered in Pledge Tier Strategy Using Bag Rewards.

Funding models: all-or-nothing versus fixed and flexible

Kickstarter offers one model: all-or-nothing. Set a target, and if it is not reached, nothing is collected and the project does not fund. Indiegogo offers two: fixed funding, which behaves like all-or-nothing, and flexible funding, where you keep whatever is raised even if the target is missed. Flexible funding sounds strictly better and it is not, for two reasons that matter to a bag programme.

The first is quantity risk. Under flexible funding you might raise 40 per cent of target, which means you have collected money for perhaps 200 bags when your production floor is 500 pieces per style and colourway. You now have cash that cannot buy the goods, and a choice between refunding, asking backers to accept a delay while you accumulate more demand, or funding the shortfall yourself. None of those are good. Under all-or-nothing the same shortfall simply does not fund, and you lose time rather than money. For any reward with a hard production minimum, all-or-nothing is the safer structure, because it keeps the funding outcome aligned with the production reality.

The second is signalling. An all-or-nothing campaign that hits its target carries a credibility signal that a flexible campaign at 40 per cent does not, and that signal is worth something when you are asking people to wait months for a physical object. Backers read a funded target as evidence that the project is real. They read a partially funded flexible campaign as a project that may not ship. If you use flexible funding, mitigate by setting a low, honest target that you are confident of reaching, rather than an aspirational one you hope to get close to.

The one case where flexible funding genuinely helps is when the reward is not the constraint: a digital-heavy project with a bag as a minor add-on, or a project where the creator can fund the shortfall without difficulty. In that situation keeping whatever is raised is free optionality. For a project whose entire proposition is the bag, the alignment argument wins. A fuller treatment of the two models is in Kickstarter vs Indiegogo for Bags: Fees and Funding Models.

What happens after the campaign closes

Kickstarter closes and the pledge count is final. Late pledges are handled through a pledge manager, which is typically a third-party tool, and that is where backers add add-ons, confirm addresses and upgrade tiers. Indiegogo closes and can continue through InDemand, which is effectively a storefront where the campaign keeps selling, typically at around a 5 per cent platform fee as of writing. Many creators use InDemand deliberately as a second sales phase rather than as an accident.

The production implication is direct. On Kickstarter you can place the production order at close with a known quantity. On Indiegogo you are choosing between ordering against campaign demand only and re-ordering later, or ordering a buffer against InDemand demand that may or may not materialise. The buffer decision is the single biggest inventory decision on an Indiegogo bag programme, and it should be made with numbers rather than intuition: take the campaign's average daily pledge rate over its final week, project it forward over the period you intend to keep InDemand open, and discount it heavily, because post-campaign conversion is usually well below in-campaign conversion.

A second implication is that InDemand changes what you can promise about delivery. In-campaign backers get a date. InDemand buyers are effectively retail customers, and their expectation is closer to a shop: they want a stated lead time, not an open-ended campaign schedule. If you hold inventory, you can offer a short lead time and that is a genuine competitive advantage. If you do not, say so plainly on the InDemand page. Post-campaign sales mechanics are discussed further in Post-Campaign Add-ons: Using Bags to Raise AOV.

Backer behaviour on each platform

Platform cultures differ in ways that show up in the numbers you care about. Kickstarter has a larger and more campaign-accustomed audience for design and carry goods, and its backers are used to waiting months and to receiving progress updates. Indiegogo's audience skews somewhat more towards technology and towards buyers who discovered the project later, including through InDemand, and they behave more like retail customers. Neither is better; they require different promises.

The add-on row is worth unpacking because it is the one that most often breaks a production plan. On Kickstarter, add-ons are usually collected after the campaign through a pledge manager, and creators routinely offer pouches, straps and extra colourways at that point. Sampling finished weeks earlier. If an add-on pouch needs a new fabric or a new print, it is now a new approval with its own lead time, sitting inside a 35-50 day bulk window that has already started. Decide the full add-on set before the sample is approved, and keep add-ons on shared materials wherever possible, so that they ride on the same approval rather than creating a new one.

Colour and size choice is the other one. If backers choose colourways after close, you cannot place the production order until the survey closes, and survey close can be two to four weeks after campaign close. That pushes bulk start later and eats into the delivery promise. Two mitigations work: run the survey immediately at close with a short deadline, or fix the colourway split in advance and allocate by backer choice within a pre-ordered mix. Both are covered in more detail in Choosing Bag Sizes for Backer Rewards.

What each model does to your quantity planning

Quantity planning is where the platform choice becomes money. The production floor is 500 pieces per style and per colourway, and bulk takes 35-50 days after deposit and approved sample. Those two numbers do not move with the platform. What moves is how well you can forecast demand before you commit to them. On Kickstarter the forecast is exact at close. On Indiegogo the forecast is exact at close for campaign demand and unknown for InDemand demand.

The practical consequence is that a Kickstarter programme can run closer to the minimum, because you know the number. An Indiegogo programme needs a deliberate buffer, because the alternative is a second run at the 500-piece floor with a second 35-50 day window. A useful rule of thumb: if you expect InDemand to produce more than about a third of your campaign volume again, order the buffer in the first run. If you expect less, take the second run and be explicit about the lead time on the InDemand page. Either is defensible; drifting between them is not.

Buffers also interact with colourways in an unhelpful way. If you hold buffer inventory across three colourways, you are holding three separate 500-piece minimums and three times the risk of a colourway that does not sell. Consolidate colourways when you intend to hold inventory. One colourway with a healthy buffer is far safer than three colourways each at the minimum, and it keeps the dye-lot consistency that matters when you later need to match replacement units. Quantity planning more broadly is set out in Bulk Custom Bags: How to Avoid Overordering.

Reward design consequences for bags

The platform shapes reward design more than creators expect. On Kickstarter the reward ladder is the product: multiple tiers, early-bird pricing, stretch goals and add-ons are all normal, and backers understand that structure. On Indiegogo, particularly in InDemand, the page reads more like a shop and a long ladder of near-identical tiers reads as clutter. The adjustment is straightforward: use a fuller ladder on Kickstarter and a cleaner, fewer-tier structure on Indiegogo.

For bags specifically, the risk with a deep ladder is SKU bloat. Each distinct bag size, colour and lining combination is a production variant, and variants add approvals, add inspection complexity and add the chance that a particular combination is ordered in fewer than 500 units. The safest ladder is one built from a single style with tier differentiation achieved through quantity, accessories and early-bird pricing rather than through different bags. Where a second bag is genuinely needed, a pouch or a shoe bag shares fabric and print and does not create a second main run. See Choosing a Hero Reward Bag and Pledge Tier Strategy Using Bag Rewards.

One platform-agnostic rule is worth stating plainly: do not publish a stretch goal you have not costed. A stretch goal that unlocks a new colourway, a new lining or a hardware upgrade changes the bill of materials, and on a run at or near the 500-piece floor the cost change is not linear. Our campaign bag specialist will quote the full stretch set up front, which takes the guesswork out of the page and prevents the awkward situation where unlocking a goal makes the campaign less profitable per unit.

Production timing under each model

Timing is more forgiving than people expect, because the production clock is the same on both platforms. Sampling takes 6-10 working days for a standard construction and 12-15 working days for complex builds. production 35-50 days after deposit and approved sample. Neither number cares which platform you used. What differs is how much of that clock you can overlap with the campaign.

On Kickstarter, the common pattern is to sample before launch, run the campaign with a real sample in hand, and start bulk the moment the campaign closes and the survey completes. That is the tightest possible sequence and it typically delivers inside three to four months of close. On Indiegogo, if you intend to sell through InDemand, the pattern changes: you still sample before launch, but the bulk decision has to be made while demand is still accruing, which usually means ordering before you have the final number and accepting inventory risk in exchange for a shorter lead time to InDemand buyers.

There is a hybrid that works well and is under-used: split the run. Place the main bulk order at close for confirmed demand, and hold a second, smaller decision for a few weeks into InDemand. The second run will hit the 500-piece floor again and will take another 35-50 days, so it only works if you have told InDemand buyers the truth about lead time. Where that honesty is acceptable, splitting converts inventory risk into lead-time risk, which is usually the cheaper of the two for a first campaign. The calendar mechanics are in Fast Turnaround Custom Bags: What Timelines Are Realistic.

Payment timing and cash flow

Crowdfunding cash arrives in one lump near campaign close, and production cash goes out in two stages. Our standard terms are T/T 30/70: 30 per cent deposit to start, 70 per cent balance before shipment, quoted FOB Xiamen. That structure fits both platforms, but the two platforms stress it differently. On Kickstarter the lump is known at close and the 30 per cent is a known fraction of a known number. On Indiegogo with InDemand running, cash arrives in a trickle, and the deposit still has to be paid in full at order.

The practical rule is to size the deposit decision off confirmed campaign funds, not projected InDemand funds. If the campaign raised enough to cover the deposit and the first run, place it. If you are relying on InDemand to fund the run, you are financing inventory with unearned revenue, which is the position that produces the worst outcomes in crowdfunding. Where the campaign is close to the line, reduce the order to what the confirmed funds cover, even if that means running nearer the 500-piece floor than you would like.

Also model the balance payment against the inspection report rather than the calendar. The 70 per cent balance should be released after the pre-shipment inspection passes, not on a date. On both platforms, holding that discipline is the only real quality leverage you have once production has started, and it costs nothing to write into your plan. Freight, duty and fulfilment then sit on top of the FOB price and should be modelled separately; the landed-cost build-up is in How to Price Bag Rewards and the shipping side in Kickstarter Bag Fulfilment: Shipping Plan and Timeline.

Risk profile: which failure mode each platform creates

Each platform has a characteristic failure mode, and naming them helps you insure against the right one. Kickstarter's characteristic failure is the campaign that does not fund. All-or-nothing means a project at 80 per cent produces nothing, and the mitigation is pre-launch work: a real sample, a full specification block, a mailing list built before launch, and a target set from unit economics rather than from ambition. If you are going to fail on Kickstarter, you want to fail before you have spent money on production.

Indiegogo's characteristic failure is the campaign that funds and then cannot fulfil cleanly. Flexible funding can leave you with cash below your production floor; InDemand can leave you with continuous small demand that never justifies a 500-piece run; and a retail-shaped audience has less patience for a slipped date. The mitigation is structural: use fixed funding unless you can absorb a shortfall, decide the inventory policy before launch rather than during InDemand, and publish lead times you can actually meet.

Both platforms share one failure mode that has nothing to do with the platform: the specification that was never settled. A bag described in adjectives rather than measurements, with a colourway set decided after the survey and stretch goals that changed the bill of materials, will go wrong on either platform. Sampling exists to eliminate that risk, and it costs 6-10 working days for standard constructions. There is no good reason to launch a campaign for a physical bag without having held the sample.

Choosing, or running both

Choose Kickstarter when you want a single, well-defined funding event with a known quantity and a campaign-fluent audience, and when your reward has a hard production floor. Choose Indiegogo when you want an ongoing sales channel, when your demand is likely to continue after the campaign, or when you want flexible funding and can genuinely absorb a shortfall. Neither choice changes the production plan much; both change the inventory plan a lot.

Running both is possible and is usually done sequentially rather than simultaneously: a Kickstarter campaign first, then an InDemand or Indiegogo phase afterwards, or an Indiegogo campaign with a later Kickstarter for a second product. Running two live campaigns at once for the same product is rarely wise, because it splits the demand signal you need for quantity planning and it doubles the update burden. If you do run sequentially, keep the specification identical across phases, so that the second phase can draw on leftover inventory from the first rather than starting a new run.

Whatever you choose, the production-side sequence is the same: settle the specification, sample it, quote it, then launch. Our team works to 500 pieces per style and colourway, 6-10 working days sampling for standard builds and 12-15 for complex ones, 35-50 days bulk, AQL 2.5 to ISO 2859-1, FOB Xiamen and T/T 30/70. If you want those numbers applied to your own style and quantity, send us the brief and our campaign bag specialist will return a costed plan. Start at Contact and Quote, or read the sequencing detail in The Ultimate MOQ and Lead Time FAQ.

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