Founded in 2013, BackerKit is a crowdfunding-specific shipping and fulfillment software tool. They’ve helped over 1,000 satisfied campaign creators survey 2.42 million backers. What’s more, they’ve helped creators raise $19.1 million after their campaigns ended and resolved 90% of backer inquiries.
I know that we’ve interviewed the founder of BackerKit in the past and broken down his entrepreneurial journey, but in this article, I wanted to examine the actual service and determine whether or not you should try it out.
BackerKit specializes in Games, Film & Video and Design & Tech projects – some of the most popular categories in rewards crowdfunding. Some of their highly successful clients include LeVar Burton & Reading Rainbow, Trunkster (you can check out our interview with them here!), Rooster Teeth, Canary and Sekai Project.
First, let’s look at some reviews.
BackerKit Reviews
Most creators turn to BackerKit after they run into the confusing mess of fulfilling Kickstarter or Indiegogo rewards. BackerKit makes sense to creators because it is built for crowdfunding. From what I can tell, they have a good reputation and even though they aren’t perfect, they’ve gotten good reviews from customers and backers.
I emailed a few creators that used BackerKit for their crowdfunding campaigns to see what they thought about the platform.
Fred Hicks and Evil Hat Productions have launched eight successful tabletop game Kickstarter campaigns!
They have used BackerKit several times and have attracted between 500 and 10,000 backers with each crowdfunding campaign.
Hicks shared,“BackerKit is an essential part of our Kickstarter strategy. It’s not a fit for every circumstance, but every time we have some sort of add-on structure, or backer-configurable rewards, etc., they provide everything we could need. And every time we’ve done so, the additional funds gained have more than covered the fees for the service.
If I have any complaints, it’d simply be that they haven’t had enough time yet to make a set of robust tools available for project-runners who are doing their 7th or whatever Kickstarter with BackerKit — there’s no user-facing ability, yet, to copy your add-ons from one project to the next, for example, which would hugely save on set-up and data-entry time. But compared to the benefits, the downsides are vanishingly small.”
Initially, BackerKit was built for people who are new to reward fulfillment and crowdfunding in general. It’s clear that now that they are growing and getting repeat customers, BackerKit should begin to build more functionality for experienced users.
The next creators that I reached out to were The Doubleclicks, a self-proclaimed nerdy/sister/music duo that has successfully funded two Kickstarter campaigns and gotten between 1,000 – 2,000 backers per campaign.
They used BackerKit to save time by automating fulfillment and avoiding manual data input. They noted that, “Backerkit is great, especially for managing add-ons and digital rewards.” In fact, they made back the money they spent on BackerKit just in add-ons.
Carbon Flyer also shared their experience with BackerKit. They raised over $400K from 5,000+ backers on Indiegogo in 2015. They said “I like the Backer list searching and segmenting tools. I can very quickly go through several thousand people and organize them by just about any criteria. It makes organizing perks and payment info a lot simpler.”
As for things their team didn’t like or would change about BackerKit, they said, “I wish there were a better way to give Backers more control over their order account. It’s sometimes difficult for them to go back in and update or change things if they need to.” They added, “BackerKit is definitely worth the price. I don’t know how we could have gotten Carbon Flyer worked out without their software and support.”
Overall, it seems like for campaigns with enough backers and confusing custom orders, add-ons, and digital rewards, BackerKit can be a huge help that is worth the cost.
Ways that BackerKit Can Improve
In our in-depth online research, we’ve identified a few ways that BackerKit can improve and better service the crowdfunding community.
The forum thread is an announcement of the Lazer team continuing to accept pledges through the BackerKit software tool. Check out the reply below.
Since crowdfunding is so new, there are many backers out there skeptical of new tools and companies. When using BackerKit, each creator must take it upon themselves to educate their backers that this is a legitimate tool and that they’ll be receiving communication regarding their rewards from BackerKit.
Here is another forum discussion, where one user is questioning whether or not an email from BackerKit is legit. The other user acknowledges that yes, it is, but that BackerKit needs to improve it’s messaging.
Free League Publishing used BackerKit to help manage the survey and fulfillment project for their Kickstarter campaign, which raised $321,680 from 3,890 backers. One of their backers said this:
In our experience with the company, they’ve done a great job of securing user information. But, given the prevalence of identify theft, BackerKit would do wise to assure its users of the security of their payment information.
Another important forum topic that I wanted to point out is how one user on the Mandate Game forum had an issue with the company. This was another user’s reply.
No company is perfect, and the level of customer service we’re seeing from BackerKit gains approval in the crowdfunding community.
Finally, we’ll make one last point that the BackerKit team needs to improve awareness of their product among the community of Kickstarter backers. See the highlighted conversation below.
It’s important to note that BackerKit has sponsored our podcast in the past, which could contribute bias to this review. However, having been in the crowdfunding industry for 3 years, CrowdCrux has experienced the legitimate and not so legitimate companies in the industry.
We like BackerKit because they serve a genuine need in the industry and have stellar customer service. Take the example below, where one of our forum members asked for their money back.
BackerKit’s website also says that they love meeting new people. If you’re wondering if BackerKit is right for your campaign or have any questions, they give you the option to request a call, email them, or call their sales team directly.
When it comes to crowdfunding platforms and other services in the industry, one of the most important things to consider is customer service. Knowing that you have more than one contact method that works is a you’ve made a good choice on a service.
BackerKit’s Features
BackerKit really tries to help with all aspects of the post-crowdfunding experience. They make it easy for creators to send surveys to backers, allowing them to gather important information about rewards and give backers a chance to purchase add-ons. Their backer manager makes it easy to automate operations and keep track of your backers throughout the entire process.
Even after the campaign is over you can still accept pre-orders to help you maintain momentum as you (maybe) transition into ecommerce. And of course, BackerKit has several partnerships that can provide you with automated shipping. Depending on the nature and scale of your project, these services can save you a lot of money by improving efficiency and are great if you are new to the whole fulfillment process.
BackerKit Integrates with Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and TiltPro. Fulfillment integrations include Amplifier, Floship, Fulfillrite, ShipStation, and Shipwire. They are also partnered with Shopify and VHX.
Pricing Plans
BackerKit offers you four different plans to choose from. Standard, Entrepreneur, Premium, or Enterprise. You can give their features a try using their free trial – you only pay when your project goes live on BackerKit.
Getting started on BackerKit requires a setup fee of $299 (unless you sign up before your campaign ends, which gives you a discounted fee of $149). For add-ons and pre-orders there is also a Stripe transaction fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. Aside from that, BackerKit’s pricing varies from project to project:
“The exact cost of each plan is determined by the size of your project and the amount that you raise from add-on sales.
The vast majority of our project creators earn enough profit (not just revenue) from add-on sales and pledge upgrades to pay for BackerKit itself. ” – Source.
Here is a look at what each of the four plans offer:
Standard: BackerKit Surveys, Backer Management, Digital Downloads, Pre-Orders, Data Management, Shipping, Support
Entrepreneur: all of the features from the Standard plan, plus Admin Phone Support and a Dedicated Project Manager
Premium: all of the features from the Entrepreneur plan, plus Help Desk Integration, Custom Fulfillment Reports, Domain Specific Customization, Post-BackerKit Shopify Setup, Campaign Strategy Consultation, Fulfillment Partner Consultation, and In-Office Support (SF Bay Area only)
Enterprise: all of the features from the Entrepreneur plan, plus custom feature support.
Conclusion
Initially, crowdfunding was really a do-it-yourself fundraising option and creators were left to figure out manufacturing and fulfillment for themselves. When deciding if you will use BackerKit or any other crowdfunding service, ask yourself if you have the time and experience to do the job yourself first.
A lot of small campaigns might not need all of the tools that BackerKit offers. For larger projects with thousands of backers to manage, BackerKit can take a lot of weight off your shoulders by making the process more efficient and connecting you with the tools and integrations you need to get it all done in one place.
