Crowdfunding on Shopify: Goal-Based Pre-Order Campaigns
Crowdfunding on Shopify means running a pre-order campaign with a funding goal on your own store, through an app, instead of on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The app adds the goal, the progress bar and the backer tiers; Shopify’s pre-order system decides when and how backers pay. The payment side comes from Shopify’s pre-orders page (read October 23, 2026) and three crowdfunding apps as their App Store listings showed them on October 31, 2026.
How crowdfunding works on a Shopify store
Shopify has no crowdfunding feature of its own. You install a pre-order or crowdfunding app, set the campaign up in the app, and manage the resulting orders in the Shopify admin like any others. Four rules from Shopify’s page shape every campaign:
- Payments: pre-orders work only for stores using Shopify Payments or PayPal Express. A store on another provider cannot run one of these campaigns until it switches; our Shopify Payments guide covers the setup.
- When backers pay: a pre-order can collect the full price, part of it, or nothing at checkout. When it collects less than the full price, Shopify stores the customer’s payment method and you collect the rest later, usually when you fulfill.
- Data: if you uninstall the app, its pre-order data (not the payment details) is deleted after 48 hours, unless the app keeps a backup. Do not switch apps in the middle of a campaign.
- Law: you have to follow the laws of your country and your customers’ countries, plus Shopify’s terms and the Shopify Payments terms for your country.
The second rule is where crowdfunding differs from a plain pre-order. Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing model, where backers pay only if the project reaches its goal, maps to the no-payment option: the backer’s card is stored, and you charge everyone once the goal is reached. Charging the full price at checkout is simpler and gives you the cash early, but if the campaign fails, every backer needs a refund. Pick the model before you pick the app, because the apps differ most here.
Crowdfunding apps compared
| App | Payment options the listing names | Backer tiers | Pricing | Price grows with | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crowdfunder: Pre-Order Promos (Ethercycle) | Payments or pledges processed through your store; works with Downpay for deposits | “Limited runs or rewards” | $24 a month, unlimited campaigns and orders, 7-day trial | Nothing: one flat plan | 4.8 (68 reviews) |
| Fundlify Crowdfund & Pre-order | Pay at checkout, or charge later by draft order invoice; deposits, split and deferred payments | Reward tiers, early-bird prices, add-ons, referral rewards | Free plan with a 5% fee on campaign sales; $39 / $99 / $299 a month with 4% / 3% / 2% | Campaign sales | 3.7 (11 reviews) |
| LM: Preorder & Crowdfunding (LaunchMate) | Pledge upfront, pay the balance when the campaign ends, through Shopify’s selling plans | Tiered backer campaigns, plus donation and hybrid types | $4.99 / $9.99 / $19.99 a month, with a campaign fee of 1% / 0.75% / 0.5% (the listing shows a $999 cap) and a 7-day trial | Active campaigns (5 / 15 / unlimited) and campaign sales | No reviews yet (launched May 2026) |
The fee column changes the bill more than the monthly price. On a campaign that raises $20,000, Fundlify’s free plan keeps $1,000 (5%), its $99 plan costs $99 plus $600 (3%), and Crowdfunder costs $24 for each month the campaign runs. The break-even is low: once a campaign brings in more than about $480 in a month, Crowdfunder’s flat $24 costs less than a 5% fee.
None of the three listings says what happens to orders when a goal is missed. Ask the developer before you install, and get the answer in writing: do unpaid pledges get canceled automatically, and do paid ones get refunded by the app or by you?
Plan the campaign
- Set the goal from your costs. Start from the supplier’s minimum order quantity and price, add packaging, shipping and the app’s fee, and divide by your price per unit. That number of units is the goal, because below it the production run does not pay for itself.
- Write two or three tiers, not ten. A common set is an early-bird price for the first backers, the standard product, and a bundle. Every tier is another variant to produce and ship.
- Choose the payment model from the section above and state it on the product page in one sentence: when the card is charged, and what happens if the goal is not reached.
- Give a delivery month you can keep. Put it in the product description and in the order confirmation. Without a date, every backer who wants to know has to email you.
- Build the list before launch. A campaign that opens to an empty audience shows a progress bar stuck at zero. Collect emails for a few weeks first; the launch sequence is in our product launch guide.
- Send updates to backers at least at each production milestone: goal reached, production started, shipping date confirmed, shipped.
- Fulfill and collect. When the product ships, collect any remaining balance and fulfill the orders in the admin. Watch for stored cards that fail when you charge them; Fundlify, for one, lists payment reminders among its features.
If you only want to sell a product before it is in stock, without a goal or tiers, a plain pre-order app is simpler; see Shopify pre-orders setup. Other store setup guides are in the running a store hub.
Frequently asked questions
Can I crowdfund on Shopify instead of Kickstarter? You can run the same kind of campaign on your own store with a crowdfunding app, and you keep the customer list and the orders in your admin. What you give up is the platform’s own audience of backers, so you have to bring the traffic yourself.
When are backers charged? That depends on the option you set. Shopify’s pre-orders can take the full price, a part of it or nothing at checkout, and when less than the full price is paid, Shopify stores the payment method so the rest can be collected later.
What if I miss the goal? The listings compared here do not describe it, so the answer depends on the app and on the payment model. With no payment at checkout, you cancel the pledges and nobody is charged; with full payment at checkout, you refund every backer.