About ten minutes · Free access for life
Creators have no way of knowing which Kickstarter marketing agencies are worth paying. The agencies publish their wins and nothing else, so everybody finds out the same way — by spending the money.
This is the fix. Creators put in what they paid and what came back, and everyone who contributes can see the whole thing. Add yours and you get access for life, including every campaign added after yours.
What you need
What happens
The file is read in your browser and never uploaded. We name the agencies hiding behind
tags like 044.jcf and work out
what each one brought.
What you do
Tick the ones you paid for and type what they cost. Everything else is already filled in. Your answers save as you type.
What gets shared
Agency names and figures only — never your campaign name, your name or your backers. Other creators see the numbers, not you.
Used an agency that never gave you a tracking link? Some of the most expensive ones never appear in the export at all. There is a short written form further down for those.
Contribute your data · 10 minutes · Help other creators
Upload your Kickstarter referrers export and tell us what you paid. We work out what each agency actually returned, and the ROAS you needed for it to be worth paying them. The file never leaves your browser.
Paid someone who never used your tracking link?
Add them too. A company that does not use your link cannot appear in the export at any price, so the money you gave them is invisible here until you enter it. That absence is not proof they did nothing, and it is not proof they did something either. It is the ambiguity, and it is worth recording.
What you need before you start
Your answers are kept in this browser as you type, so closing the tab does not lose them. Nothing is sent anywhere until you choose to send it.
Your campaign dashboard, then the referrers section, then export. You get a CSV named
something like your-project-referrers-2026-10-05.csv.
It lists every source that sent you a pledge.
Used Kickbooster? Your referrers file shows its
affiliates as hashes like 33d67c9e.kb,
which tells you nothing. Add the affiliates export from Kickbooster and each one gets its
real name and the exact commission it was paid — no typing, no remembering.
affiliates-YYYY-MM-DD.csv.The columns that matter are Name, Referral Tags and Total Commission. Leave the file exactly as it downloaded.
The commission filled in is what the affiliate was paid. If Kickbooster also charged you a platform fee on top, add it under "Not sure of the total?" on those rows.
No file, or paid someone who never used your tracking link? — a company that did not use your link can never appear in the export, however much you paid.
Tick the ones you paid for, and enter what you paid.
Kickstarter's own traffic is already excluded. What is left is everything else that sent you a pledge, biggest first, so the rest is usually press, your own site or your own list.
Is that good, or just what you got?
Your numbers only mean something next to other campaigns. I am building that comparison from creators' own figures, agency by agency: what they paid, what came back, and who is worth a second campaign.
It is not published and it is not free, because figures this honest are not worth much once anyone can scrape them.
Send me your own results and you have it for life, every campaign from here on, at no cost. Coaching clients get it as part of the work. Everyone else pays for it.
Either way you have to show you ran the campaign. A link to it and the email on the Kickstarter account is enough. Agencies do not get in, which is the only reason the numbers inside are worth reading.
Your figures stay anonymous in the database. Agency, numbers and verdict only, never your name or your campaign.
A source that sent no pledges never appears in the export, so paid press that did nothing is invisible here until you add it.
Some of the most expensive agencies never appear in a referrers export at all. A pre-launch agency that builds your email list for $7,000 sends no tagged traffic, so by the measure of that file they do not exist — and that is exactly the spend worth warning people about.
So tell the next creator what happened. Three questions and a paragraph.
Worth the money?
Would you use them again?
Would you recommend them?
Published anonymously once I have checked it. Your name and campaign are never shown.
Verified creators only. No anonymous submissions, no agencies rating themselves.