Straight answers about crowdfunding

• What happens to your money if a crowdfunding campaign does not reach its goal?

  You get your escrowed pledge back. On CoFunders the pledge never reaches the founder in the first place: it is held by a program on a public network, and if the goal is missed by the deadline every backer can withdraw what was held for them. Fees paid at pledge time are not returned.

• Can you get a refund from crowdfunding?

  Sometimes, and the honest answer depends entirely on whether the campaign hit its goal. Missed goal: yes, your escrowed pledge, with one tap; the fees paid when you backed are not returned. Reached goal: no, because the money is already with the founder.

• Is crowdfunding safe?

  Your money is safe from the platform and from the founder taking it early. It is not safe from the project failing, and no platform can make it so. Those are two different risks and they get conflated constantly.

• How much do crowdfunding platforms charge?

  Most take between 5% and 8% of what a campaign raises once the platform fee and the payment processing are added together. CoFunders takes 1.5% on the free plan, down to 0.5%, plus 0.99 per pledge.

• Is reward crowdfunding an investment?

  No. Backing a project buys you no share, no equity and no right to any profit it makes. The most you can receive is the reward the creator offered, and there is no financial return of any kind.

• Is crowdfunding regulated in Portugal?

  Yes. Lei n.º 102/2015 sets the legal framework for all four kinds of crowdfunding in Portugal, and Lei n.º 3/2018 added the penalties. Which authority supervises a platform depends on which kind it runs.

• What is the difference between crowdfunding and a donation?

  A donation buys you nothing and expects nothing back. A reward pledge obliges the creator to deliver the thing they described. Portuguese law treats them as two separate modalities for exactly that reason.

• Who actually receives the money when you back a project?

  Nobody, at first. Your pledge goes into an on-chain escrow account, not to the founder and not to us. It reaches the founder only if the campaign hits its goal, minus the platform fee and the flat 0.99 per pledge.

• What does it mean when crowdfunding money is held in escrow?

  It means the money sits with a neutral third party until an agreed condition is met, rather than going straight to the person raising it. On CoFunders that third party is a program on a public network, not a company.

• How do you spot a crowdfunding scam?

  Look for a named person who can be found elsewhere, a plan specific enough to be wrong, and a promised return. The first two being absent and the third being present is the pattern almost every crowdfunding scam shares.

• Is CoFunders the same as co-founders?

  No, and it is not a typo either. CoFunders is a compound of co and funders — the people funding a project together. It is a reward crowdfunding platform, not a co-founder matching service, and backing a campaign gives you no share of the company.

• What if the creator never delivers the reward?

  The escrow does not cover this, and no crowdfunding platform's does. Once a campaign reaches its goal the money is released to the creator and the refund path closes permanently — so the protection here is against a campaign that fails to fund, not against one that funds and then disappoints.

• What happens to your money if CoFunders shuts down?

  Pledges are not held by us, so there is nothing of yours on our balance sheet to be lost, frozen or distributed to creditors. They sit in an account controlled by a program on a public network, and the rules that release them keep working whether or not this company does.

• Do you need a crypto wallet to back a project?

  No. You sign in with an email address and a wallet is created for you in the background — there is no seed phrase to write down, no extension to install and no exchange account to open. Most people who back a campaign here never think about it.

• How can you pay for a pledge?

  By card, or by transferring digital dollars or euros you already hold. The minimum pledge is $10, and what the campaign receives is the amount you sent minus 1.5% plus $0.99 on the creator's free plan.

• What happens if a campaign raises more than its goal?

  It keeps going and the creator keeps the excess. Passing the goal does not close a campaign — it closes the refund window, because from that moment the money is committed to being released rather than returned.

• How do you start a crowdfunding campaign?

  You describe what you are making, set the amount that makes it possible and a deadline, and say what backers get. There is nothing to pay to open a campaign here — the fee comes out of what you raise, and only if you raise it.

• When does a creator actually get the money?

  Once the campaign has reached its goal. The payout instruction refuses to run before that point, so there is no arrangement, no exception and no support request that releases funds from a campaign that has not funded.

• How long should a crowdfunding campaign run?

  Around thirty days for most projects. Campaigns raise almost everything in their first and last week, and the flat middle of a long campaign does very little except give you more time to lose momentum.

• Do you need a company to run a crowdfunding campaign?

  Not to open one here — an individual can run a campaign. Whether you should is a different question, and it turns on tax and liability rather than on our requirements.

• Do you pay tax on crowdfunding money?

  Usually yes, for the creator. Reward crowdfunding is normally treated as revenue rather than as a gift, because backers receive something in exchange — which is exactly the distinction tax authorities care about. We do not withhold anything, so the full amount arrives and the obligation is yours.

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