Why I haven't run an Indiegogo campaign

I have run 2 successful Kickstarter campaigns in the tabletop RPG/boardgame niche, and yeah this isn't just distasteful, it's pure low-effort greed.

It's one of those things that I can imagine a PM presenting to the upper management "We ran this test and we discovered we can get a lot of free money by adding this simple dropdown!".

I was fine with the 15% attribution fee because it can be quite cheap in comparison to paid traffic - still, as it's stated, Kickstarter doesn't charge for their attributed sales... it's part of the value they bring with the 5% fee.

But given this behavior, one should watch out for how Indiegogo attributes sales. If they're going the extra mile to scrape off money, they can take some liberties attributing traffic you generate as their own, and I doubt you will have a way to dispute it.

But this "tip" is just disgusting. So not only you're paying more for everything, but they will even try to profit on top of that + on the traffic you bring in such a shady way... nasty stuff and a complete disrespect for the creators.

I always entertained the idea that Indiegogo could be a nice complement to a Kickstarter campaign, either to run it side by side or in a form of extending the campaign to a new audience... now they will be the prime example of red flags one should stay away from.

Thank you for sharing this!

People probably wouldn't complain if they took one or two percent 'tips', but 25% is absolutely outrageous on top of already higher fees.

That makes their total fee for your campaign what, 30%? And they're promising you 8. Absolutely incredible.

I can only imagine Uber asking for tips for themselves. So distasteful.

Dark pattern for sure. Hate to see it. I’d put my foot down too if I were in that situation.