Indiegogo Review

Pros

• Crowdfunding for both tech and creative projects
• Choose all-or-nothing funding or keep-it-all funding
• Run a Patreon-style ongoing crowdfunding campaign after initial campaign
• Good customer support
• Does not prescreen campaigns

Cons

• Limited communication between campaigners and backers
• Backers don’t always get promised rewards
• Less site traffic than Kickstarter

What Is Indiegogo?

Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform for creative, tech, and community projects. Often mentioned alongside Kickstarter, Indiegogo distinguishes itself from its larger competitor with the flexibility it allows campaigners in terms of how they raise money and how they run their campaigns.

Indiegogo has a lot going for it. You won’t have to go through a prescreening process, platform fees are competitive, and you have the option to keep your funds even if your goal isn’t met. On the other hand, there have been some user complaints about Indiegogo — although most come from backers who don’t receive promised perks.

Keep reading to learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of Indiegogo and whether this platform is the right option for your crowdfunding needs.

Services Offered By Indiegogo

Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform where users can raise funds from individual backers for business and community projects. When launching a fundraising campaign, you can choose from the following categories:

Indiegogo Project Qualifications

To launch an Indiegogo campaign, you have to be 18+ or between the ages of 13 and 17 with an 18+ guardian responsible for following the terms of use.

Beyond that, you can’t raise money for a project that is illegal, harmful to others, or a scam. You also can’t offer prohibited perks, such as alcohol/drug paraphernalia, weapons, or any form of financial investment.

Here are the kind of crowdfunding campaigns Indiegogo supports:

• For-profit campaigns
• Campaigns benefitting nonprofit organizations or nonprofit beneficiaries
• Campaigns for products
• Anything within “Community Projects” that is not a personal cause
• Educational campaigns in the Tech and Innovation category

If you’re looking to raise money for a personal cause, such as a medical emergency or a memorial, you should look into GoFundMe or another cause-oriented crowdfunder instead.

Overall, it’s pretty easy to meet the qualifications of Indiegogo.

Indiegogo Terms & Fees

These are the terms and fees for Indiegogo’s crowdfunding campaigns:

Indiegogo uses Stripe as its credit card processor. Apple Pay and Google Pay are also accepted.

When you launch an Indiegogo campaign, you can choose between a flexible campaign and a fixed campaign. With a flexible campaign, you can keep whatever you raise from backers, even if you don’t reach your funding goal.

By contrast, if you’ve launched a fixed crowdfunding campaign, you must reach your funding goal to collect what you’ve raised. If your fixed campaign doesn’t meet its fundraising goals, all contributions are refunded (and therefore, no fees are taken).

With Indiegogo, you have the option of offering perks to your contributors, but you’re not required to do so. Indiegogo recommends that you do offer perks, though, noting that campaigns offering perks raise 143% more money than those that don’t.

This flexibility stands in contrast to Kickstarter, which requires campaigners to run “fixed” funding campaigns and requires that perks be offered.

Keep in mind that while your Indiegogo campaign can run for up to 60 days, Indiegogo advises that a funding period of 30-40 days is optimal for success, according to the company’s data.

Indiegogo’s Application Process

Indiegogo places a greater emphasis on flexibility than other platforms — such as Kickstarter — do.

When you fill out the application and apply to start your campaign, approval is automatic — you won’t have to wait to be approved.

In fact, there are cases of crowdfunding projects that were suspended from Kickstarter and subsequently moved over to Indiegogo, where their campaign was allowed to run to completion.

Overall, the application process is extremely easy and straightforward.

Once your application is approved and your campaign has run, Indiegogo states that it makes all attempts to disburse funding to your account within 15 days after your campaign ends. It may take additional time for funds to actually hit your account once they’ve been sent. This is a slight drawback, as some platforms offer instant cash-outs or funds within a couple of days.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Crowdfunding platforms typically aren’t heavy on deceptive sales-y gimmicks, and Indiegogo is no exception. Everything is spelled out quite thoroughly, and there are no nasty surprises for project creators. For backers, it’s a different story, but that’s part of having a flexible crowdfunding platform.

Indiegogo Customer Service & Technical Support

Indiegogo’s customer service is well-regarded by crowdfunding standards. There’s an extensive help section, and if your question isn’t answered in the information given, there’s a contact form you can use to get in touch with Indiegogo.

Sadly, there is no phone support or live chat. Nonetheless, judging by the opinion landscape, Indiegogo’s responsiveness to user concerns seems to be above average for the industry.

User Reviews

Indiegogo doesn’t have the best user reviews, but don’t let that deter you from launching a crowdfunding campaign. The majority of the negative reviews come from angry backers over projects that did not come to fruition, did not distribute promised perks, or distributed defective perks. Users also fault the limited communication Indiegogo facilitates between campaigners and backers.

Indiegogo receives a 3.1/5 (based on 35 reviews) on G2, and a 1.3/5 (based on 1,700+ reviews) on Trustpilot.

Negative Reviews & Complaints

We’ll emphasize again that the majority of complaints come from backers who did not receive promised perks (or received defective items). In terms of launching a campaign, here’s what unsatisfied reviewers have to say:

• Fees: Some users complain about the platform fees and processing fees, which can cut into profits. (We’d like to note here that the majority of crowdfunding platforms charge these fees, and Indiegogo’s are pretty standard.)
• Unresponsive Support: This report comes primarily from backers who feel as though they were scammed. These complaints state that customer support was unhelpful or took a long time to respond.

If you’re backing a project on Indiegogo, you have to go into it with a certain mindset. You’re not necessarily making a purchase or an investment but rather contributing to a project or cause you’d like to help succeed, with no guarantee that you’ll see anything in return. A more controlled crowdfunding platform might provide better value to the backer, but it could also cut against Indiegogo’s ethos of providing a platform to the broadest range of campaigners.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

There are plenty of positive reviews about fundraising on Indiegogo, including:

• Flexible Funding: Users like that they can set fixed (all-or-nothing) or flexible (keep-it-all) campaigns.
• No Prescreening: Many people like that Indiegogo doesn’t have an extensive (or any) prescreening process. Others noted that they were able to use Indiegogo after Kickstarter rejected their projects.
• Easy To Use: Positive reviews state that Indiegogo is very easy to use, with campaigns going live within minutes.
• Good Customer Service: Despite the complaints from backers, users raising funds on Indiegogo praise the company for good customer support.

Is Indiegogo Right For You?

Indiegogo doesn’t have the following that Kickstarter has, which can be an issue when it comes to attracting backers. However, the platform makes a strong play for being the crowdfunder for the rest of us.

Certain kinds of expertly conceived projects may be better off going with another crowdfunding platform, but for projects and causes that might have a hard time qualifying for funding on Kickstarter, Indiegogo is a solid choice. Indiegogo provides the opportunity to solicit funding from the widest possible range of folks from all over the globe.

Backers may be taking a risk by sinking their hard-earned cash into an Indiegogo campaign, but risks are inherent in Indiegogo’s open-armed approach. Despite its flaws, from the perspective of those seeking to raise money for a business/creative project, Indiegogo stays true to the original spirit of crowdfunding.

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