Congratulations. You're funded. Now what? It's hard to know exactly what to expect after your Kickstarter campaign ends so we thought you'd appreciate a heads up on everything that's to come.

Getting paid

Kickstarter captures payment for a backer's pledge immediately following the campaign. In the event that a backer's credit card is declined they will have 14 days to update their billing information. Kickstarter will deposit funding to your specified account after this 14-day window has closed. 

When should I send surveys?

We recommend sending surveys to backers 14-days after your campaign ends (see below for more details.)

Backer report and Kickstarter surveys

The main information you get from Kickstarter following your campaign is a backer's email, username, pledge total, and reward type. This information can be accessed any time after you campaign via the backer report page of your project dashboard. You can export all backer/reward groups together or individually as .zip and .csv formats.

Most backer data is available unfiltered by payment status after your campaign and before the 14-day payment window has closed (i.e. a backer report will group paid and unpaid backers together.) Critical details like whether or not a backer has paid and their shipping country are only available after you have been paid from Kickstarter. As we need this information for sending surveys, we strongly advise against uploading backer data to Crowd Control before the payment window has closed since the backer report is incomplete. 

Backers that did not pay for their pledge can be found on the backer report page within the all backers tab under 'dropped backers.'

Find some zen

Running a successful campaign with hundreds or thousands of backers is super exciting but can also feel overwhelming. We've seen too many projects get stressed out by backer pressures when the reality is that most of the pressure is self-inflicted. Here are a few tips for keeping your cool:

Don't make promises you can't keep - You know that surefire deadline that you totally won't miss because you're so prepared and have done all your homework? You're going to miss it. Always stress estimates with your backers. The moment you give a specific time for an event - be it surveys, shipping or whatever - you'll get people calling you out if/when you miss that deadline. Make things a little easier on yourself and avoid the anxiety that comes from worrying about making someone unhappy when you're doing a damn fine job.

Relax - It is inevitable that you will be threatened by the wrath of an unhappy backer. Relax. The majority of backers understand that Kickstarter is for startups and rewards don't ship from Amazon the day after a campaign ends. You will be surprised by the spectrum of support and excitement, frustration and anger that you will see from this segmented group of people that are all being given the exact same experience. Just breathe; you're killing it.