# Kickstarter Campaigns Scraper (`devilscrapes/kickstarter-campaigns-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Kickstarter reward-based crowdfunding campaigns by category or search term — funding progress, backer counts, creator, location, and optional reward-tier detail. One clean row per campaign. Built for market researchers and crowdfunding trend-spotters.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/devilscrapes/kickstarter-campaigns-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [DevilScrapes](https://apify.com/devilscrapes) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Marketing
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.40 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

<div align="center">
  <img src=".actor/icon.svg" width="160" alt="Devil Scrapes mark" />

## Kickstarter Campaigns Scraper

**💰 $2.42 / 1 000 results**  ·  pay only for results  ·  no credit card to try

*We do the dirty work so your dataset stays clean.* 😈

Scrape Kickstarter reward-based crowdfunding campaigns by category or search term — funding progress, backer counts, creator, location, and optional reward-tier detail. One clean row per campaign. Built for market researchers and crowdfunding trend-spotters.

</div>

***

### 🎯 What this scrapes

Kickstarter has no official public API for campaign discovery — we read the site's own internal discovery endpoint and the campaign-detail payload embedded in each project page, so you get structured funding progress, backer counts, creator and location data, and (optionally) full reward-tier and add-on detail without hand-scraping the Discover page yourself.

### 🔥 What we handle for you

- 🛡️ **Browser fingerprint rotation + cookie warmup** — `curl-cffi` impersonates real Chrome / Firefox / Safari TLS handshakes and warms cookies on the public Discover page before every session, so Kickstarter's internal endpoints see a real browser.
- 🧩 **We parse Kickstarter's undocumented wire format for you** — the JSON-and-unicode-escaped `window.current_project` payload embedded in each project page, isolated in one parser module so a format change doesn't break your pipeline.
- 🔁 **Retries with exponential backoff** on `408 / 429 / 503` — up to 5 attempts, fresh session on every retry.
- 🧱 **A single bad reward-tier page never drops a row** — you get listing-only fields with a clear log instead of a failed run.
- 🧊 **Clean, typed dataset rows** — Pydantic-validated, ISO-8601 timestamps, stable IDs, JSON / CSV / Excel export straight from the Apify Console.
- 💰 **Pay-Per-Event pricing** — you only pay for results that hit your dataset. No data, no charge.

### 💡 Use cases

- **Competitive product-launch tracking** — monitor new campaigns in your category before they hit the mainstream press.
- **Crowdfunding trend-spotting** — pull a category's live campaigns to see what's gaining traction and how fast.
- **Market research** — analyze funding goals, pledge velocity, and backer counts across a niche before launching your own campaign.
- **Reward-tier benchmarking** — compare pricing and reward structures across competing campaigns in the same category.

### ⚙️ How to use it

1. Click **Try for free** at the top of the page.
2. Fill in the input form — most fields have sensible defaults.
3. Click **Start**. Output streams into the run's dataset.
4. Export from **Storage → Dataset** as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or fetch via the API.

### 📥 Input

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Notes |
|---|---|:--:|---|---|
| `category` | `string` | no | 'technology' | Kickstarter category slug to filter by. Leave unset to browse the unfiltered feed. |
| `searchTerm` | `string` | no | '—' | Free-text search query, combinable with Category. Leave empty to browse without a keyword filter. |
| `sort` | `string` | no | 'magic' | Result ordering passed to Kickstarter's discovery endpoint. Only 'magic' is independently verified; the others follow… |
| `maxItems` | `integer` | no | 50 | Hard cap on total campaigns returned across pagination — the priced dimension. |
| `includeRewardTiers` | `boolean` | no | True | When true, fetches each campaign's detail page for reward tiers, add-ons, comments/updates counts, and tags. Roughly… |
| `proxyConfiguration` | `object` | no | {'useApifyProxy': True} | Apify Proxy config. apifyProxyGroups is left unset (datacenter default) — no residential-proxy requirement observed for… |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "category": "technology",
  "maxItems": 3,
  "includeRewardTiers": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

### 📤 Output

Every row is one dataset item.

| Field | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `campaign_id` | `integer` | Kickstarter's own numeric project ID. |
| `name` | `string` | Campaign title. |
| `blurb` | `['string', 'null']` | One-line campaign pitch. |
| `slug` | `string` | Canonical URL slug for the campaign. |
| `state` | `string` | live / successful / failed / canceled / suspended. |
| `goal_usd` | `number` | Funding goal, normalized to USD. |
| `pledged_usd` | `number` | Amount pledged so far, normalized to USD. |
| `percent_funded` | `number` | Percent of goal funded; derived from pledged/goal when not present on the payload. |
| `backers_count` | `integer` | Number of backers. |
| `currency` | `string` | Campaign's native currency code. |
| `country` | `string` | Campaign's country code. |
| `deadline` | `string` | ISO-8601 campaign deadline. |
| `created_at` | `string` | ISO-8601 campaign creation timestamp. |
| `launched_at` | `string` | ISO-8601 campaign launch timestamp. |
| `staff_pick` | `boolean` | Whether Kickstarter staff featured this campaign. |
| `creator_id` | `integer` | Creator's numeric Kickstarter ID. |
| `creator_name` | `string` | Creator display name. |
| `location_name` | `['string', 'null']` | Creator/campaign location display name. |
| `location_state` | `['string', 'null']` | Location state/province, when disclosed. |
| `location_country` | `['string', 'null']` | Location country code, when disclosed. |
| `category_id` | `integer` | Kickstarter numeric category ID. |
| `category_name` | `string` | Kickstarter category name. |
| `category_parent_name` | `['string', 'null']` | Parent category name, when the category is a subcategory. |
| `project_url` | `string` | Canonical campaign detail URL. |
| `image_url` | `['string', 'null']` | Campaign cover photo URL. |
| `comments_count` | `['integer', 'null']` | Comment count from the detail page; null when reward tiers were not fetched. |
| `updates_count` | `['integer', 'null']` | Update-post count from the detail page; null when reward tiers were not fetched. |
| `tags` | `array` | Campaign tags from the detail page; empty list when not fetched. |
| `reward_tiers` | `['array', 'null']` | List of reward-tier objects (reward\_id, title, minimum\_usd, description, backers\_count, estimated\_delivery,… |
| `scraped_at` | `string` | ISO-8601 UTC timestamp when this row was recorded. |

#### Example output

```json
{
  "campaign_id": 1234567890,
  "name": "Nomad Drone: The Foldable 4K Explorer",
  "blurb": "A pocket-sized 4K drone that folds flat and flies for 40 minutes.",
  "slug": "nomad-drone-4k-explorer",
  "state": "live",
  "goal_usd": 25000.0,
  "pledged_usd": 41823.5,
  "percent_funded": 167.29,
  "backers_count": 612,
  "currency": "USD",
  "country": "US",
  "deadline": "2026-09-01T17:00:00Z",
  "created_at": "2026-06-10T14:22:00Z",
  "launched_at": "2026-07-05T15:00:00Z",
  "staff_pick": true,
  "creator_id": 987654321,
  "creator_name": "Nomad Aero Labs",
  "location_name": "Austin, TX",
  "location_state": "TX",
  "location_country": "US",
  "category_id": 16,
  "category_name": "Gadgets",
  "category_parent_name": "Technology",
  "project_url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/987654321/nomad-drone-4k-explorer",
  "image_url": "https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/example.jpg",
  "comments_count": 214,
  "updates_count": 9,
  "tags": [
    "Editor's Pick"
  ],
  "reward_tiers": [
    {
      "reward_id": 111,
      "title": "Early Bird Nomad Drone",
      "minimum_usd": 149.0,
      "description": "One Nomad Drone at the early-bird price. Ships worldwide.",
      "backers_count": 340,
      "estimated_delivery": "2026-12-01T00:00:00Z",
      "shipping_enabled": true,
      "available": true
    }
  ],
  "scraped_at": "2026-08-02T09:15:00Z"
}
```

### 💰 Pricing

Pay-Per-Event — you pay only when these events fire:

| Event | USD | What it is |
|---|---:|---|
| `actor-start` | $0.02 | One-off warm-up charge per run |
| `result-row` | $0.0024 | Per unique dataset item |

Example: 1 000 results at the rates above ≈ **$2.42**. No subscription, no minimum, no card to start — Apify gives every new account $5 of free credit.

### 🚧 Limitations

Authenticated / backer-only data (pledge history, backer identities, private survey responses) is out of scope. Comment thread content and update post content are not scraped — only comments\_count and updates\_count. Non-USD currency conversion is limited to what Kickstarter's own payload already provides. Each run is a fresh snapshot; historical/time-series tracking across runs is on the buyer via scheduling.

### ❓ FAQ

**Do I need to provide a category or search term?**

No — both are optional. Leave both empty to browse Kickstarter's unfiltered, magic-sorted campaign feed.

**What does includeRewardTiers add?**

It fetches each campaign's own project page for reward\_tiers, add-ons, comments\_count, updates\_count, and tags. It roughly doubles request volume, so turn it off if you only need funding-progress fields.

**Is percent\_funded always present?**

Kickstarter doesn't always include it in the listing payload — when it's missing we derive it as pledged / goal \* 100.

**Can I get backer identities or pledge history?**

No — that data requires an authenticated backer session and is out of scope. This Actor only reads Kickstarter's public campaign data.

### 💬 Your feedback

Spotted a bug, hit a weird edge case, or need a new field? Open an
issue on the Actor's **Issues** tab on Apify Console — we ship
fixes weekly and we read every report.

***

<div align="center">

Built by **[Devil Scrapes](https://apify.com/DevilScrapes)** 😈 — a small fleet of
opinionated public-data Actors. Honest pricing, real engineering, zero fine print.

</div>

# Actor input Schema

## `category` (type: `string`):

Kickstarter category slug to filter by. Leave unset to browse the unfiltered feed.

## `searchTerm` (type: `string`):

Free-text search query, combinable with Category. Leave empty to browse without a keyword filter.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Result ordering passed to Kickstarter's discovery endpoint. Only 'magic' is independently verified; the others follow Kickstarter's documented discovery UI.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on total campaigns returned across pagination — the priced dimension.

## `includeRewardTiers` (type: `boolean`):

When true, fetches each campaign's detail page for reward tiers, add-ons, comments/updates counts, and tags. Roughly doubles request volume.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify Proxy config. apifyProxyGroups is left unset (datacenter default) — no residential-proxy requirement observed for this target, and the FREE tier has zero residential IPs provisioned.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "category": "technology",
  "sort": "magic",
  "maxItems": 5,
  "includeRewardTiers": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `datasetItems` (type: `string`):

All dataset items as JSON.

## `datasetItemsCsv` (type: `string`):

Same data exported to CSV.

## `datasetView` (type: `string`):

Open the run dataset in the Console.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "category": "technology",
    "maxItems": 5,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("devilscrapes/kickstarter-campaigns-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "category": "technology",
    "maxItems": 5,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("devilscrapes/kickstarter-campaigns-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "category": "technology",
  "maxItems": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call devilscrapes/kickstarter-campaigns-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=devilscrapes/kickstarter-campaigns-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/XOXFStHHKcuFqm7JR/builds/gNGbRcTevLaEwfSIv/openapi.json