All categories
Six Kickstarter categories analyzed. Each report is 16 pages — eight findings, every chart, every caveat. Free.
253.9K projects across 6 categories · 2009–2026
Hardware, gadgets, wearables, robotics. The largest goals — and the steepest failure curve.
Tabletop, video games, playing cards. The only category where 100%+ funding is the norm.
Product design, EDC, home goods. Hardware-lite — strong demand, lower failure than Tech.
Books, zines, comics, journalism. Small budgets, loyal communities, the highest Staff Pick rate.
Documentaries, narrative film, web series. Long deadlines, sentimental backers, modest goals.
Albums, tours, music videos. Most launches per day across the whole platform.
Subcategory benchmarks
The five biggest subcategories on Kickstarter, each with their own success rate, goal patterns, and geography. The ones below are our first PoC pages — more rolling out monthly.
Phones, accessories, audio gear, lighting, power. The bright spot of Tech — and the reason backers haven't given up on hardware crowdfunding entirely.
Mobile and desktop apps, services, SaaS launches. The single worst-performing subcategory we measure — and the data is brutally clear about why.
Smaller hardware projects: cable organizers, EDC tools, kitchen widgets, novelty electronics. The most reliable Tech subcategory by success rate.
Desktop tools, plugins, OS-level utilities. Better than Apps, worse than anything physical — caught between two markets that don't include Kickstarter.
Smartwatches, fitness trackers, smart rings, health monitors. Hardware's slightly riskier sibling — physical objects backers love, but with extra trust friction around health claims.
Arduino kits, soldering tools, breadboard accessories, hobbyist boards. The subcategory where customers and creators speak the same language — and crowdfunding works because of it.
Printers, filaments, accessories, modular print farms. The Tech subcategory most defined by repeat backers — most buyers already own a printer and are upgrading.
Board games, RPGs, card games, miniatures. The single highest-success-rate subcategory on Kickstarter — and the structural reason crowdfunding became synonymous with tabletop.
Indie video game development, expansions, retro games, niche titles. The largest Games subcategory after Tabletop — and the riskier cousin.
Custom decks, art-driven playing cards, magic and cardistry sets. A surprisingly large niche — and the most-backed sub of Games after Tabletop.
EDC, accessories, home goods, premium packaging. The most aesthetically-driven subcategory — and where backers fund taste, not just function.
Novels, short story collections, novellas, fantasy, sci-fi, romance. The base layer of Publishing's backlist economy — and the most accessible category for self-published authors.
Picture books, early readers, illustrated tales, educational books for kids. A high-volume, even-success subcategory — illustration-driven, parent-funded.
Memoir, essays, business, self-help, hobby and craft. The hardest publishing subcategory to crowdfund — but the most lucrative when it works.
Illustration collections, photography, art history, tarot decks, artist monographs. Object-driven publishing — where the book is the art, not the container for it.
Feature documentaries, short docs, journalistic projects. The middle of Film & Video — and the only cinema-adjacent format where Kickstarter funds first-time filmmakers.
Animated shorts, pilots, web animation, anime co-productions. The dominant subcategory in the Film & Video top 20 — and the format Kickstarter actually fits.
Short films, festival entries, proof-of-concept reels. The highest-success subcategory in Film — and the most realistic entry point for first-time directors.
Indie narrative features, micro-budget cinema, dramatic films. A subcategory caught between budget reality and Kickstarter ceiling.
Indie rock, classic rock, alt rock, emo, punk-adjacent. The largest Music subcategory by volume — and a textbook example of small-tribe music monetization.
What every report covers
Each category report runs the same eight findings against its own dataset — so the categories are directly comparable. Numbers vary; the framework is fixed.
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