Free Kickstarter tools: ten that answer a real question

Most lists of free Kickstarter tools are lists of software. This isn’t one.

Every tool below answers a specific question that comes up in a real launch, in roughly the order the questions arrive. I built most of them because a client asked me something and I was tired of doing the same arithmetic in a spreadsheet. The rest are Kickstarter’s own, which are free, under-used, and better than the paid alternatives at the same job.

The free Kickstarter tools worth your time, by the question they answer

Before you commit

Should I launch on Kickstarter at all? The readiness quiz is twenty questions and it is deliberately written to talk some people out of it. If your product is finished, your list is empty and your launch is six weeks away, that is worth knowing before you spend anything.

Is my product even allowed? This one walks the current prohibited rules, which changed recently and catch people out. Supplements are no longer banned outright, energy drinks mostly are, and crypto, NFTs and service businesses are all out. I wrote up the full current list separately.

How far off am I, really? The launch readiness check scores where you actually are against where you need to be. Most founders come out further back than they expected, which is uncomfortable and useful in that order.

Working out the numbers

What should I charge? The pricing calculator builds a price from your unit cost, your margin and the discount you plan to give backers. Pricing off a competitor’s shelf price is how campaigns fund and then lose money.

What do I actually keep? Kickstarter takes 5% and payment processing takes roughly 3% plus a small per-pledge fee, so you keep about 91 to 92% of the headline number before you have paid for anything. The fees calculator does that properly, including the per-pledge part everyone forgets.

How many backers does my target need? The backers calculator turns the number you want into the number of people who have to say yes, then works backwards to the size of email list behind them. It also accounts for the fact that roughly half your orders come from Kickstarter itself once you have funded quickly, so the list you build only has to cover your half.

Can my current list clear the goal on day one? The day one calculator is the same problem from the other end: you already have a list, so will it fund? It weighs VIPs who paid a deposit against plain wait-list signups, because one converts at roughly 25% and the other at 2%.

That gap between the two is the single most useful thing on this page. It is why a small list of people who have paid you something beats a large list of people who once typed an email into a form.

Once money is going out

What does a backer cost me? The ROAS calculator gives you break-even before you scale anything. The rule underneath it: if your cost per acquisition is above about 30% of average order value, the campaign does not work no matter how good the creative is.

Is this newsletter deal worth it? Someone will offer to email their list for a flat fee plus commission. Run the numbers first. “£800 plus 15%” sounds reasonable until you work out how many backers it has to produce before it washes its face.

Who should I trust with this? The agency reviews page collects what creators actually paid and what happened. Useful mostly as a sanity check on quotes, because the spread is enormous for what is often the same scope.

Kickstarter’s own free tools, which almost nobody uses properly

Worth saying plainly: the platform gives you more than most creators touch.

The pre-launch page collects followers before you go live, and it is free the moment your project is approved. Approval takes three to six business days, which is exactly why you submit early with placeholder tiers rather than waiting until everything is finished.

The Promotion tab shows where your traffic came from, including how much Kickstarter sent you itself. That number is the one that tells you whether the algorithm has picked you up, and it is far more honest than your ad dashboard.

Discover, filtered by category and by successful projects, is free competitor research. An afternoon reading the top ten funded campaigns in your category teaches you more about page structure than any guide, mine included.

Backer surveys are built in. They are not a pledge manager and you will want a proper one for add-ons and address changes, but for a small campaign they are enough.

Running one number through the lot

Worth showing how they connect, because used in order they answer each other.

Say you want to raise £50,000 and you think you will sell at £75.

Start with the price. The pricing calculator says £75 works only if your unit cost is under about £19, once you have allowed for the backer discount and a margin that survives fulfilment. If your cost is £30, the price is wrong and every number below it is fiction. Fix that first.

Then what you keep. £50,000 raised leaves roughly £45,800 after Kickstarter’s 5%, processing at 3% and the per-pledge fee. Before you have made anything.

Then the backers. £50,000 at £75 is 667 backers. That is the number to hold in your head, because it is people rather than money.

Then the list. Half of those arrive from Kickstarter once you fund fast, so you are responsible for about 334. At a 30/70 split between VIPs and plain signups, that is roughly 400 VIPs and 11,700 wait-list emails. Change the mix to 80% VIPs and the list drops to about 4,400 in total.

That last line is the whole argument for running a VIP stage, and it takes ten seconds to see rather than a thousand words to explain.

Then the ads. With a cost per acquisition ceiling of 30% of your £75 order value, you have about £22 to spend acquiring each backer. The ROAS calculator turns that into what your funnel has to achieve before scaling makes sense.

Then the goal. Here is the bit that catches people: your Kickstarter goal should not be £50,000. It should be what your list clears in the first 48 hours. If that is £12,000, that is your goal, and the remaining £38,000 comes from platform traffic, add-ons and stretch goals once you have funded fast. Set the page at £50,000 and you sit at 24% for a fortnight looking like a failing campaign.

What no free tool can do for you

Some honesty, since this is a page full of my own tools.

A calculator can tell you that you need 46,000 wait-list signups. It cannot tell you whether your product is one people will queue for, whether your price is right for your market rather than merely profitable, or whether eight weeks is enough runway for your particular category.

Those are judgement calls, and judgement is the thing that does not come free. What these tools do is get the arithmetic out of the way so the judgement is about the right things — which is most of the value, and it costs you nothing.

Key takeaways

• Start with whether to launch at all; it is the only answer that makes the rest irrelevant.
• Price off your unit cost and margin, never off a competitor’s shelf price.
• You keep roughly 91 to 92% of what you raise before production costs.
• Your target and your funding goal are different numbers with different answers.
• A VIP who paid a deposit converts at about 25%; a free signup at about 2%.
• Roughly half your orders come from Kickstarter’s own traffic once you fund fast.
• The pre-launch page, Promotion tab and Discover are free and under-used.
• No calculator replaces judgement about product, price and timing.

Want the arithmetic checked by someone who has done it?

The tools give you numbers. What they cannot give you is whether your particular numbers make sense for your particular product, which is the bit founders most often get wrong on their own.

A £60 strategy call is sixty minutes on your actual figures. Bring your unit cost, your list size and the number you want to raise, and we will find out quickly whether the plan holds.