Various crowdfunding websites are used by artists and creators to raise money and funds for their projects and ideas. Crowdfunding websites are even used by entrepreneurs to monetize their money and by other online creators to monetize their online audience. The two most popular crowdfunding websites are Patreon and Kickstarter.
Patreon vs Kickstarter
The main difference between Patreon and Kickstarter is that Patreon has an ongoing nature of support with less diversity in creativity. On the other hand, Kickstarter has and time-limited endeavor with more diversity in the projects. Patreon is a newer crowdfunding platform while Kickstarter is an older fundraising platform.
The tools and integrations on the Patreon platform offer the highest diversity and variety in range. The current CEO of Patreon is Jack Conte. The focus of Patreon is to help creators and artists bring recurring funds. The artists of the Patreon platform usually launch products and services regularly.
While the tools and integration on the Kickstarter platform are comparatively of smaller range and diversity for the creators on the platform. The current CEO of Kickstarter is Aziz Hasan. The focus of Kickstarter is to help creators and artists accomplish one-time projects.
Comparison Table Between Patreon and Kickstarter
| Parameters of Comparison | Patreon | Kickstarter |
| Model of funding | Recurring type which can be a monthly basis or based on per creation | One-time funding type which can be all or nothing |
| Payouts | The artists or creators receive the payouts every month | The artists or the creators received the payouts after the campaign is completed |
| Size | Patreon has over 2 million active patrons on the platform and about 1 lakh active artists and creators | Kickstarter has over 20 million backers who could fund around 2050 projects |
| Year of foundation | 2013 | 2009 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, US | Brooklyn, New York, US |
What is Patreon?
Patreon is a platform of American membership that caters business tools on a subscription service to various content creators. The platform helps artists and creators generate revenue by providing perks and rewards to their subscribers. The commission rate of Patreon is about 9 to 12% from the monthly income of the creator. The commission is an addition to the payment processing fees.
The membership platform has its headquarters in San Francisco, California in the US. The platform is available in the English language. The founders of Patreon are Sam Yam and Jack Conte. The current CEO of the platform is Jack Conte. Patreon had around 400 employees as of 2021. The users of the platform need to mandatorily register themselves before accessing the membership platform.
Patreon has around 3,000,000 active users on the platforms. The users of Patreon are also known as patrons. The membership platform was launched on 2nd May in the year 2013. The users of the platform are mainly YouTube videographer podcasters, adult content creators, webcomic artists, musicians writers, and creators from other domains and categories who am to post online regularly.
Patreon aims to provide artists with funding which could be directly from their fans on the work of art or the recurring basis. The content creators of the membership platform can configure their page. This configuration allows the artist to receive some funds from every Patreon after the release of a new piece of art from the artist. The patrons also have the access to cancel their payments whenever they wish to.
What is Kickstarter?
Kickstarter is public benefit cooperation. The company aims in maintaining global crowdfunding which is solely focused on innovation and creativity. It is an American platform. The mission stated by the company is to help in bringing creative projects to life. The crowdfunding site is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York in the US.
Kickstarter was founded by Charles Adler, Yancey Strickler, and Perry Shane. The current CEO of the company is Aziz Hasan. The company belongs to the industry of financial services on the Internet. The company had even received nearly about 6 billion dollars in the form of pledges at the end of July 2021. The pledges were from 20 million backers who were ready to fund around 205,000 projects from various domains like video games journalism films, publishing, music, food-related, stage shows, technology, comics, and other projects.
Kickstarter was launched on 28th April in the year 2009. Before may 2020 the company had around 140 employees. Users who are ready to back the projects of Kickstarter are often provided with experiences or tangible rewards as an exchange for their pledges. The company was called the “Best inventions of 2010” by Time.
The business model of Kickstarter is a subscription model. It is based on art patronage and allows the artists to directly communicate with their audience to have funds for their work. The company has even been involved in various controversies. The most popular is the Huffington Post article of 2015. To minimize such controversies, the company had even announced plans for unionizing efforts and building a decentralized protocol like the blockchain platform.
Main Differences Between Patreon and Kickstarter
- Patreon is ideal for users who want recurring donations while Kickstarter is ideal for users who want to create big funding all at once.
- Patreon is best for artists who would create content or products regularly while Kickstarter is best for artists who would create content and products once per year or even later.
- Patreon integrates with Discord, Crowdcast, Discourse, WordPress, and others while Kickstarter integrates with Google Analytics, Shopify, and various other platforms.
- Creators who already have an audience should choose Patreon while creators and artists who would go for one-off projects and do not have any existing audience should choose Kickstarter.
- The funding model of Patreon is ongoing support and membership while the funding model of Kickstarter is about one-time projects.
Conclusion
Both the platforms have a common aim of raising money for artists with creative endeavors. However, the business models and the use cases of both platforms are different from each other. Both platforms are ideal for different types of creators and artists.
The funding models of both platforms are distinctly different from each other. It is essential for the understanding to evaluate all the points of distinction offered by both platforms before making a final choice of decision with any.
References
- http://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs115/readings/patreon-bars-antifeminist.pdf
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3406865.3418332