Back a project, and know exactly where the money is

What backing means

Backing is saying yes to a project so it gets made. You pledge toward a creator's goal. If enough people do the same by the deadline, the creator gets the money and makes the thing, and you get what they promised: the product, early access, your name on the wall. That's reward crowdfunding, the only kind here.

It's not an investment. You're not buying shares, lending money or getting a cut of what the project makes later. If it becomes hugely valuable, you still get the reward and nothing more. If it fails after it's funded, you have whatever the law gives you against the creator.

Where your pledge sits, and how it comes back

When you back a campaign, your pledge doesn't go to the creator or to us. It goes into an account held by a program on a public network: an address whose balance anyone, you included, can look up.

Your pledge sits in an escrow account the program controls, not in a CoFunders account. Under the program's rules, only the creator can claim a campaign's funds once it reaches its goal, and only you can take your pledge back if it misses. The program can still be upgraded, and today one key we hold can upgrade it (see /security).

If the goal isn't met by the deadline, you take your pledge back from escrow with one tap, and nobody has to approve it. What comes back is the amount held for you: your pledge minus the fees taken when you backed (the platform fee, the flat fee, any tip and any share reward the campaign pays).

The contract also has a third path: a pledge can leave before the deadline, for a platform fee plus a fee the creator set. The app doesn't let you take a pledge back before the deadline.

What happens to your money follows a pledge through every case: a missed goal, an overshot one, a creator who never delivers, and us shutting down.

What a campaign is

• A goal and a deadline, both on the page and enforced by the contract, not by us.
• A minimum pledge of $10, the smallest amount the contract accepts.
• Reward tiers: levels of pledge, each saying what you get. Read the one you back: it's the creator's promise to you.
• A story, a cover image, comments from other backers and a way to message the creator.
• A share reward rate on the card, from nothing up to the ceiling: what the creator pays whoever brings them a backer. You can earn it by sharing, below.
• A currency: campaigns collect in USDC, a stablecoin designed to stay at one dollar.

Every campaign here is a reward campaign. Backing pays no financial return, and a campaign that offered one wouldn't be allowed here as things stand.

Paying for a pledge

You pay a pledge in USDC, a stablecoin designed to stay at one dollar. Campaigns collect in nothing else, and it's what you get back if you take a pledge back.

There are two ways to get USDC into your account, at different costs.

• By card. You add money by card on our payment partner's own page, with Apple Pay, Google Pay or a card. It lands first in a deposit wallet for your account, and we move it to your own wallet within minutes, minus our fee of 0.25% plus a flat $0.99, and the network fee. The partner shows its own fee on its page. Those minutes in the deposit wallet are the one point in the whole product where we hold money that's yours.
• By sending a stablecoin. If you already hold USDC, send it straight to your account's address. It skips the deposit wallet and our fee, and costs only the network fee.

How the money is held covers the deposit wallet and the keys in more detail, and how to add money to CoFunders goes through both ways, step by step.

Do you need a crypto wallet?

No. You sign in with your email, and a wallet is created for you in the background. There's 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.

The escrow does need an account on the network to hold your pledge: that's what makes the release rule enforced, not just promised. But you don't have to manage it. It's created and secured for you when you create your account, like the account number an online bank gives you, which you rarely look at.

There's no list of 12 words you must never lose: if you lose access, you get it back the same way you sign in. There's no browser extension, no hardware wallet and nothing to approve in a second window while you pay.

Already hold USDC in another wallet? You can't sign in with that wallet or back a campaign from it, but you can move the money in: open Add money, choose Direct transfer and send it to the address shown there.

Getting money out is in withdrawing your money, below. The network is here for what it gives you: an escrow anyone can inspect, which releases on a rule, not on someone's decision. You shouldn't have to learn how it works to benefit from it, so you don't.

Earning while you back, or without backing at all

You never have to back anything. Browsing is free, and each way below pays on its own terms.

• Share a campaign. Every campaign can pay a share reward to whoever brings it a backer, at a rate the creator chose, from nothing up to 18.5% of each pledge. Copy the campaign's link and send it to someone. When they back through it, the contract pays you inside the pledge itself. On a campaign that pays a tenth, one friend's pledge puts a tenth of it in your wallet.
• Invite a friend. Your account has an invite code. Someone who creates an account with it and backs projects pays you 0.75% of each pledge they make, which is 50% of our fee, for as long as they keep backing. On top of that, you get 10% of the fee revenue they generate, plus a fixed reward each time one of them generates another step of revenue.
• Finish the onboarding: 6 steps, plus 10 people you invited who each launch and back a campaign, pay a reward once, after a person reviews the claim. We can refuse it for any reason.

None of this is income you can plan on. Each is a rate on what other people choose to do, and no one, us included, can tell you what that adds up to. The earning page lists every rate and reward, and what each depends on.

Fees and the holding cost

Backing costs nothing on top of your pledge but the network fee, which you see before you confirm, and we charge nothing to withdraw. Only two of our costs are yours alone: the fee on money you add by card, if you don't send a stablecoin instead, and the holding cost on a balance you leave idle.

The holding cost never touches a pledge, which sits in a campaign's escrow, not in your account, and never comes out of the amount you send. The holding cost section of the pricing page works it through in numbers, and the comparison with six other platforms sets each figure beside what they charge.

The feed, and Discover

The feed shows one campaign at a time, full screen: a cover, a line about what the money buys, how far along it is and one button. Swipe to the next, tap to back, about 30 seconds a project. It's built around your own country, so someone in Portugal sees Portuguese campaigns in Portuguese, from people they could meet. A project down the road is easier to judge, and its reward easier to receive, than one on another continent.

Discover is for when you're looking for something: a search box and a grid, ordered by boosts first, then spotlight, then plan, then by your pick of Hot, New or Top. Both are open without an account, and neither asks you to back anything to keep looking.

The app runs in your browser and installs to your home screen from there, on iPhone and Android, with no app store and nothing to pay. Once installed, it opens full screen like any app and keeps you signed in.

Staying safe

Two risks get confused, and the escrow covers only one. The first is custody: could the money disappear between your tap and the project starting? That's handled by structure, not trust.

The second is delivery, and the escrow doesn't cover it. Once a campaign reaches its goal, the money goes to the creator and can't be returned. The creator may be late, ship something worse than described or fail entirely, usually because making things is hard, not because anyone lied. That's the risk you take when you back a funded campaign, and it's real. Back what you can afford to part with.

We don't verify that a project is what it says it is. What lowers the risk is what you check before backing. Has this person made anything before? Does the goal fit what they're promising? Does the page say what the money buys, in what order, by when, and what happens if a supplier is late? Real plans have numbers that can turn out wrong. Vague ones stay vague, because detail can be checked. How to spot a crowdfunding scam goes through the checks in order.

• Read the reward tier you're backing. It's the creator's promise, and what you can hold them to.
• Ask in the comments or by message. A creator who answers clearly is a good sign. One who doesn't is telling you something too.
• Use the report button on a campaign that looks wrong. A person reads each report.
• No one genuine will ever ask for your recovery phrase or password: not our help team, not a moderator, not a "verification step". Anyone who asks is trying to steal from you.
• A pledge, a withdrawal and a transfer all need your own tap on your own phone. Two things move without one: money you add by card leaving its deposit wallet, and the holding cost, taken just after your next movement once it comes to $1 or more.
• Rewards we pay, like the onboarding reward, are reviewed by a person before anything is sent.

The security page sets out which keys exist, who holds them and what each can do, including the one that can replace the program.

Withdrawing your money

Your balance is yours at every moment. Money you haven't pledged, and money you took back from a campaign that missed its goal, leaves whenever you say, with no platform fee, no minimum and no waiting period. What comes off is the network fee, and any holding cost already accrued is taken from your balance just after, once it comes to $1 or more. The only money that can't come back is a pledge to a campaign that reached its goal: it's with the creator, making the thing.

You can send your stablecoin to any address you choose. The network fee comes out of your balance, and you see it before you confirm. Selling it for your local currency, to a card or a bank account, happens on a licensed provider's own screen, which verifies you and sets its own fee. The app offers that only where it's available.

Step by step: how to withdraw money to your bank or card, and how to send USDC to another wallet.

Adding money has two routes, each with its cost, in paying for a pledge above. You don't need to know anything about crypto for either: you create an account with your email and pay by card.

Questions backers ask

What do you get for backing a project?

The reward the creator promised: the product, early access or whatever the campaign describes. Backing isn't an investment, so there's no share of profits and no financial return.

What happens to your pledge if the campaign misses its goal?

If the goal isn't met by the deadline, you take your pledge back from escrow with one tap, and nobody has to approve it. What comes back is the amount held for you: your pledge minus the fees taken when you backed (the platform fee, the flat fee, any tip and any share reward the campaign pays).

Can you cancel a pledge before the deadline?

The app doesn't let you take a pledge back before the deadline. Once the campaign reaches its goal, the money is the creator's to claim and can't come back.

How much does backing cost?

Nothing on top of your pledge but the network fee, which you see before you confirm. The percentage fee on a pledge follows the plan of the account making it. It's taken when the pledge is made, so it isn't returned if the campaign misses its goal. Paid plans aren't on sale today, so the published fee is the free plan's fee. Adding money by card costs 0.25% plus a flat $0.99. You add money by card on our payment partner's own page, with Apple Pay, Google Pay or a card. It lands first in a deposit wallet for your account, and we move it to your own wallet within minutes, minus our fee of 0.25% plus a flat $0.99, and the network fee. The partner shows its own fee on its page. Sending a stablecoin straight to your account costs only the network fee.

Start

Open the feed and look around. There's nothing to pay and nothing to back until you find something you want to exist.

Every way you can earn · What a creator sees · How the money is held · How fees compare with Kickstarter and others