How to get Kickstarter Projects We Love: 2026 playbook

Editors at Kickstarter don’t take applications for Projects We Love. There’s no form, no submission button, no partner backdoor. The badge lands on your page because a human at Kickstarter opened your campaign, liked what they saw, and clicked a button. That’s the whole mechanism.

Which means the real question isn’t “how to get projects we love kickstarter” as if it’s a hack. It’s “how do I make a campaign that a Kickstarter editor would be pleased to feature.” Slightly different framing, wildly different answer. As an official Kickstarter Expert Partner, I’ve watched enough campaigns get the badge (and enough miss it) to see the pattern.

I’ve already written the explainer on how editors actually pick Projects We Love. This post is the tactical companion. Nine specific things you can do before and at launch to stack the odds, plus what kills your chances outright.

What Projects We Love actually is (quick version)

It’s an editorial badge. Kickstarter’s category editors scan new and upcoming campaigns and flag the ones they think show creativity, clear storytelling, and momentum. Once picked you get the heart icon on your card and eligibility for the Projects We Love feed, which is one of Kickstarter’s own internal traffic sources.

It’s hand-picked, not algorithmic. Roughly 10 to 15% of live campaigns get it. Most don’t. That’s not a failure signal, it’s the baseline. If you want the deep-dive on the criteria, read the explainer post. This one is for the founders who’ve read that and now want the “so what do I actually do” version.

Here’s what the badge is worth in practice. A client of mine took investment and moved to a big agency for their launch, so I was out of the picture. They had a decent campaign but never got the Projects We Love badge, and they ended up ranking around 180 in Kickstarter’s own search. Effectively invisible on the platform. They came back to me later. We made targeted changes to the page and story, they got the badge, and jumped inside the top 20. Thousands of pounds of pledges came in from Kickstarter’s organic traffic alone after that. The badge isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s an organic discovery switch.

Why most founders get this wrong

Two common mistakes. First, treating Projects We Love as a lottery. It isn’t. There’s a real pattern in what gets picked. Second, treating it as something you request. Emailing Kickstarter to ask for the badge is a one-way ticket to being politely ignored. Kickstarter has been clear on this for years: there’s no shortcut.

The badge is a signal you earn by shipping a campaign that ticks the specific boxes editors care about. Some of those boxes are officially documented. Some of them you only spot after watching enough launches. The list below is a mix of both.

The nine things that move the Projects We Love needle

1. An original pitch, not another wallet

Editors are pattern-matching against thousands of campaigns. If your product is the seventeenth minimalist wallet or the ninth “world’s best” travel bag they’ve seen this month, you’d better have something genuinely different in the mechanism, material, or use case. Originality isn’t about being weird. It’s about being clearly not-the-same as everything else in the category.

If you can describe your product in one line and it doesn’t sound like a category cliché, you’re in decent shape. If your one-liner uses the words “reimagined” or “redesigned”, have a rethink.

2. A founder-to-camera video, not an agency reel

Editors can spot a corporate video in the first three seconds. Slow-motion b-roll, dramatic music, no human on screen, a voiceover that sounds like it was written for a Toyota advert. It reads as inauthentic even when the product is genuinely good.

A founder standing there explaining what they’ve built and why, with actual eye contact, wins every time. Not because it’s cheaper (though it is), but because it signals that a real person is behind this. Kickstarter is a platform of creators, not brands. Editors weight accordingly. My piece on the Kickstarter video that converts goes into the structure.

3. Video under 90 seconds

Editors scan. They don’t sit through a 4-minute product film with popcorn. If your video takes 40 seconds to reveal what the product does, they’ve already tabbed away. Under 90 seconds forces you to lead with the product, cut the fluff, and respect the viewer’s time. Which happens to also be what backers want.

4. A hero image that reads at thumbnail size

Your campaign card is a small tile in a feed. If your hero image is the product on a busy background with overlaid text saying “NEW”, “50% OFF” or your logo, it’s noise at thumbnail scale. Clean, product-in-context, no text, high contrast against whatever background it’s on. That’s the brief.

I’ve written a whole piece on the Kickstarter hero image because this one image does more heavy lifting than any other asset on the page. Editors are looking at thumbnails when they browse. Yours needs to earn the click.

5. A story block that opens with a specific personal moment

“In today’s world, people are looking for…” No. Bin it. Editors have read that opener a thousand times this week. The picked campaigns tend to open with a small, specific scene. A moment where the founder noticed the problem. A conversation with their mum. A frustration with an existing product. Something concrete, not a Ted Talk intro.

The specificity is what makes it land. Anyone can write “we wanted to solve X”. Only you can write about the moment you realised X was worth solving. That’s the bit editors respond to.

6. Real photography. No AI images, no placeholder renders

Kickstarter’s own hardware and product rules ban photorealistic renders passing as real product photos. Editors enforce this. If your hero image is a render dressed up to look like a shot, you’re not getting the badge. You’re also risking your campaign getting flagged.

Real photography of the actual thing, in real light, on real surfaces. If you’re pre-production, a working prototype photographed properly beats a beautiful render every time. AI images anywhere on the page are a red flag in 2026, not a shortcut.

7. A fast funding curve in the first 48 hours

Editors are more likely to notice a project that’s already moving. Hitting 30 to 50% of your funding goal in the first 48 hours signals real demand, and that’s a signal editors weight even if they don’t say so explicitly. It’s not the only thing. But it moves you up the pile.

The way you get that curve is by having a proper pre-launch email list and priming it hard for day one. Not by hoping Kickstarter traffic magics it into existence. My first 48 hours post covers the mechanics.

8. Active updates and comment responses from day one

Editors check the comments. They check the updates tab. A campaign with a wall of unanswered backer questions or zero updates a week in reads as a creator who won’t actually deliver. Editors have watched too many campaigns go dark post-funding to hand out badges to creators showing early warning signs.

Respond to every comment in the first week. Post an update on day one, another on day three, another end of week one. Not marketing spam. Actual news, actual thanks, actual answers. This is one of the signals Kickstarter’s own guidance to backers highlights as a due-diligence check, and editors look at the same signals.

9. Underrepresented categories are easier to break through

Games and tech are crowded. Editors see hundreds of tabletop and gadget campaigns a month and the bar to stand out is high. Food and drink, design, publishing, dance, journalism have fewer submissions, more slots relative to volume. If your product could plausibly sit in more than one category, pick the one with less PWL competition.

I’m not suggesting miscategorise your project. Editors are category-specific and if you file a board game as Product Design because you thought it sounded premium, the Games editor never sees you. But if you’ve got a genuine choice, take the quieter room.

Wondering whether your page is in Projects We Love territory or still needs work? My £60 strategy call is the quickest way to get an honest sanity check before you launch, not after.

Timing: when the badge actually gets added

Not always launch day. Sometimes hours in, sometimes a week or two, sometimes never. The editors work through their queue on their own rhythm and there’s no timeline you can rely on.

Don’t panic if you don’t get it on day one. Don’t email Kickstarter asking. Don’t post an update saying “still hoping for that badge”. Keep running the campaign properly, keep the momentum, keep the page tight. If it comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, you’ll still have run a strong campaign.

What kills your Projects We Love chances instantly

The negative list is more actionable than the positive one, honestly. “Be creative” is hard to action. “Don’t do these things” is easy.

Photorealistic renders passing as real product. Text or badges overlaid on your hero image. Stock photography anywhere near the top of the page. Boilerplate founder stories (“we’re a small team who wanted to create…”). Any hype language: “revolutionary”, “the world’s first”, “game-changing”. Anything that pattern-matches to MLM, dropshipping, or “as seen on Shark Tank” copy.

Also fatal: a Creator Tab with no bio, no photo, no history. Editors check. A blank creator profile reads as a fly-by-night, even when you’re not.

What editors reward differently by category

Not every editor is looking for the same thing. Rough patterns from watching the platform:

Design and product: originality of the concept and cleanliness of the page. Photography quality matters most here.

Tabletop games: art quality and video charm. A well-produced gameplay video with actual playthrough footage does a lot of work. Publishing house name recognition helps.

Publishing: the founder story and the first-page hook. Editors read the sample. Make it count.

Food and drink: production values, sourcing story, and regional angle. UK regional food campaigns tend to punch above their weight because there’s less competition than in US-heavy categories.

Tech and hardware: functioning prototype demonstrated on video, plus a realistic manufacturing timeline. Editors have seen too many tech campaigns go three years late.

The thing nobody quite says out loud

Editors are humans, not a checklist. If your campaign delights them, they’ll pick it. If it feels like it’s been optimised by a consultant who read a listicle, they’ll skip it, even if it ticks every box on paper.

Optimising for the criteria is fine. Optimising for “would a Kickstarter editor be genuinely pleased to feature this on the homepage” is better. Those are related but not identical goals. The first gets you a well-made campaign. The second gets you one that stands out.

The way you get the second is by making the campaign a bit yourself. A voice on the page that sounds like a person. A photography style that isn’t stock-lookalike. A rewards list that reads like it was thought through, not templated. A video where the founder is actually there. Small human choices compound into something that reads as considered rather than manufactured.

Which, coincidentally, is also what backers respond to. So there’s no trade-off.

Key takeaways

• You cannot apply for Projects We Love; the badge is hand-picked by Kickstarter editors, not algorithmic.
• Roughly 10 to 15% of live campaigns get the badge; most don’t, and that’s the baseline.
• The badge can be added at any point in your campaign, not only on launch day.
• Nine signals move the needle: original pitch, founder video, sub-90-second length, thumbnail-ready hero, specific story opener, real photography, fast day-one curve, active updates, quieter category.
• Fatal errors: AI or stock imagery, overlaid hero text, boilerplate founder story, hype language, blank Creator Tab.
• Editors are humans; optimise for “would they be pleased to feature this”, not just for a checklist.

Want a hand with yours?

If you’re pre-launch and want a page that gives you a real shot at the badge (and, more importantly, at funding), the coaching programme at £750 is built exactly for this. Six weeks of hands-on work on your page, video, rewards and pre-launch, before you go live. If you’d rather I ran the whole thing for you, the done-for-you Kickstarter service at £5,000 covers the full build. And if you just want a one-hour sanity check on where you’re at, the £60 strategy call is the low-friction way in.