Kickstarter Campaign Scraper

Checking how a Kickstarter campaign is doing usually means opening it in the browser and reading the numbers off the page one at a time. That gets old fast when you are watching a whole category. Give this scraper a keyword like "Board Games" or "Solar" and it walks through Kickstarter's search results, pulling the funding goal, the amount pledged, backer counts, the founder, deadlines, and status for every campaign it finds. Each one comes back as a tidy row you can drop straight into a sheet, a database, or a model.

What you get

Every campaign turns into one row with a steady set of columns, so results stay easy to load and filter. Each record holds three kinds of data:

• Campaign — projectTitle, projectTagline, projectUrl, categoryName, subcategoryName, coverImageUrl, pitchVideoUrl
• Funding — goalAmount, pledgedAmount, fundedPercent, backersTotal, currencyCode, campaignStatus, staffPicked, startDate, endDate
• Creator and run info — founderName, founderUrl, creatorLocation, countryCode, matchedTerm, collectedAt, errorMessage

Quick start

1. Hit Try for free and open the input form.
2. Type one or more keywords into Search queries (for example Board Games or Gadgets).
3. Set Results per query to cap how many campaigns you pull for each keyword.
4. Press Start, then export the results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML when the run finishes.

Use cases

• Crowdfunding research — see which campaigns are live in a category and how well they are funding
• Trend spotting — track new launches in games, tech, or design before they hit the mainstream
• Competitor tracking — watch rival campaigns' pledges, backers, and deadlines as they move
• Lead building — collect founders and project links from active campaigns in your niche
• Market sizing — total up goals and pledges across a category to gauge demand
• Press and analytics — feed funding data into a story, a dashboard, or a report

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQueries	array of strings	Yes	Keywords to look up on Kickstarter; one result set is fetched per query. Prefilled with Board Games.
resultsLimit	integer	No	Most campaigns to gather per query. Default 50; caps at 1000.
timeoutSeconds	integer	No	Seconds to wait on each request before giving up. Default 45.

Example input

{
    "searchQueries": ["Board Games", "Gadgets", "Comics"],
    "resultsLimit": 50,
    "timeoutSeconds": 45
}

Output

Each campaign in the search results becomes one row, and the actor pages through automatically up to your limit. Values Kickstarter does not expose for a given campaign come back as null, so your columns stay consistent.

Example output

{
    "projectUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atlasforge/dungeon-depths-board-game",
    "projectTitle": "Dungeon Depths: A Cooperative Board Game",
    "projectTagline": "Battle through shifting dungeons with friends in this fully cooperative tabletop adventure.",
    "founderName": "Atlas Forge Games",
    "founderUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/atlasforge",
    "categoryName": "Games",
    "subcategoryName": "Tabletop Games",
    "creatorLocation": "Portland, OR",
    "countryCode": "US",
    "goalAmount": 45000.0,
    "pledgedAmount": 218430.0,
    "fundedPercent": 485.4,
    "backersTotal": 4127,
    "currencyCode": "USD",
    "endDate": "2026-07-20T18:00:00+00:00",
    "startDate": "2026-06-20T15:00:00+00:00",
    "campaignStatus": "live",
    "staffPicked": true,
    "coverImageUrl": "https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/example/cover.jpg",
    "pitchVideoUrl": "https://v.kickstarter.com/example/pitch.mp4",
    "matchedTerm": "Board Games",
    "collectedAt": "2026-06-29T12:00:00.000000+00:00",
    "errorMessage": null
}

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
projectUrl	string	Direct link to the campaign page
projectTitle	string	Headline of the campaign
projectTagline	string	One-line pitch shown under the title
founderName	string	Person or team running the campaign
founderUrl	string	Link to the founder's Kickstarter profile
categoryName	string	Top-level category such as Games, Technology, or Art
subcategoryName	string	Narrower category like Tabletop Games or Video Games
creatorLocation	string	City and country listed for the creator
countryCode	string	Two-letter country code, for example US, GB, or CA
goalAmount	number	Funding target in the campaign's currency
pledgedAmount	number	Money raised from backers so far
fundedPercent	number	Share of the goal met, as a percentage
backersTotal	integer	How many backers have pledged
currencyCode	string	Currency of the goal and pledged figures, such as USD or GBP
endDate	string	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp when the campaign closes
startDate	string	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp when the campaign went live
campaignStatus	string	live, successful, failed, canceled, or suspended
staffPicked	boolean	True when Kickstarter editors featured the campaign
coverImageUrl	string	Link to the main cover image
pitchVideoUrl	string	Link to the pitch video, best quality available
matchedTerm	string	The search query that surfaced this campaign
collectedAt	string	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of when the row was captured
errorMessage	string	Why a campaign failed to read; null on success

Tips for best results

• Start with one keyword. Run a single query first to confirm the output fits your pipeline before pulling several at once.
• Use resultsLimit to control spend. Kickstarter returns campaigns 12 to a page; a lower limit means fewer pages and a cheaper run.
• Be specific with queries. A narrow keyword like Solar Energy returns tighter, more relevant results than a broad one like Tech.
• Raise timeoutSeconds to around 60 if you see timeout errors on slower connections.
• One bad campaign won't stop the run. If a single record fails to parse, the actor logs an error row and keeps going, so a partial result is still usable.

How can I use Kickstarter campaign data?

How can I use the Kickstarter Campaign Scraper to track crowdfunding trends? Run a keyword like Board Games or Wearables on a schedule. Each row carries pledgedAmount, backersTotal, fundedPercent, and endDate, so you can chart how campaigns in a category fund over time and flag the breakout projects early.

How can I find Kickstarter campaigns and their founders in a niche? Drop in the keywords that describe your niche and set a results limit. Every campaign comes back with founderName, founderUrl, projectUrl, and creatorLocation, turning a search into a structured list of projects and the people behind them.

How can I export Kickstarter funding data for a market report? Add one or more search queries, raise resultsLimit to the volume you need, and export to CSV or Excel. The result is a clean dataset of goals, pledges, backer counts, and statuses you can total up or compare across categories for your own analysis.

Is it legal to scrape data?

Our actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses or private contact information. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our actors, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe.

However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

You can also read Apify's blog post on the legality of web scraping.

Support

Questions, feature requests, or a field you'd like added? Reach out at data.apify@proton.me and we'll get back to you.