Kickstarter Scraper

Kickstarter Scraper

Scrape crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter Discover by category and sort order, or from a custom Discover URL. Get structured titles, funding goals, pledged amounts, backer counts, creators, categories, locations, and media as clean JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Filter Kickstarter Discover by category and sort order — magic, popularity, newest, end date, or most funded — or paste a pre-filtered Discover URL, and get 50+ fields per project including funding progress, currency, creator profile, category hierarchy, and video links.

Copy to your AI assistant

Copy this block into ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or any LLM to start using this Actor.

Actor: parsebird/kickstarter-scraper (Apify). Scrapes crowdfunding projects from Kickstarter Discover (kickstarter.com/discover). Call it with ApifyClient.
Input (all optional): startUrl (string, a Kickstarter Discover URL — query params in it like category_id/sort take precedence over the fields below, default "https://www.kickstarter.com/discover"), category (enum: Art|Comics|Design|Tech|Games|Music|Film|Food|Publishing, default none), sort (enum: magic|popularity|newest|end_date|most_funded, default "magic"), results_wanted (integer, default 20), max_pages (integer, default 5), proxyConfiguration (object, default Kickstarter residential preset — required, Kickstarter blocks the default datacenter proxy).
Output: one row per project — project_id, slug, state, title, blurb, creator, creator_id, creator_slug, creator_profile_url, creator_avatar_url, url, rewards_url, image_url, pledged, usd_pledged, funding_goal, backers, percentage_funded, days_left, currency, currency_symbol, country, country_displayable_name, staff_pick, category, category_id, parent_category, location, created_at, launched_at, deadline, video_high_url, video_hls_url, and more.
Pricing: pay-per-event, $0.99 per 1,000 projects on the Free plan (cheaper on paid plans). API docs: https://apify.com/parsebird/kickstarter-scraper/api

What does Kickstarter Scraper do?

This Actor extracts crowdfunding campaign data from Kickstarter Discover, the site's own project search and browse feed. It reads Kickstarter's Discover results directly, so every project comes back with its full funding numbers, creator details, and media links — no manual copy-pasting required.

• 🗂️ Category filtering — Art, Comics, Design, Tech, Games, Music, Film, Food, or Publishing.
• 🔀 Five sort orders — magic (Kickstarter's default relevance ranking), popularity, newest, end date, or most funded.
• 🔗 Custom Discover URL support — paste any Discover URL with your own filters already applied (e.g. ?category_id=16&sort=most_funded) and the Actor scrapes from there.
• 💰 Full funding data — goal, pledged amount, USD-converted pledged amount, percentage funded, backer count, currency, and live exchange rate.
• 👤 Creator and location details — creator name, profile URL, avatar, campaign location, and category hierarchy (category plus parent category).
• 🎬 Media links — main campaign image and, when a project has one, its pitch video in both MP4 and HLS formats.
• 🚦 Reliable by default — ships with a residential proxy preset, because Kickstarter blocks Apify's default datacenter proxy outright.

How is this different from browsing Kickstarter by hand?

Kickstarter's Discover page loads 12 projects at a time and requires manual scrolling and clicking to see funding details for each one. This Actor pages through Discover automatically and returns every project's full data — including fields not shown directly on the Discover grid, like the exact USD-converted pledge amount, exchange rate, and campaign location — as structured rows ready for analysis or a spreadsheet.

Input parameters

Every field is optional. With no start URL, category, or sort, the Actor scrapes Kickstarter's default Discover feed sorted by relevance.

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrl	string	No	https://www.kickstarter.com/discover	Custom Kickstarter Discover URL to start from.
category	string	No	—	Category filter such as Art, Comics, Design, Tech, Games, Music, Film, Food, or Publishing.
sort	string	No	magic	Sort order: magic, popularity, newest, end_date, most_funded.
results_wanted	integer	No	20	Maximum number of projects to collect.
max_pages	integer	No	5	Safety cap on pages to process (higher values allow deeper collections).
proxyConfiguration	object	No	Kickstarter residential preset	Proxy settings. Kickstarter blocks Apify's default datacenter proxy, so residential routing ships preset.

Input example

{
  "startUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/discover",
  "results_wanted": 20
}

Category-focused example

{
  "category": "Tech",
  "sort": "newest",
  "results_wanted": 50,
  "max_pages": 10
}

Custom Discover URL example

{
  "startUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=16&sort=most_funded",
  "results_wanted": 100,
  "max_pages": 20
}

Output example

{
  "project_id": "1542195646",
  "slug": "zera-mini",
  "state": "live",
  "title": "ZERA mini - The True Card-Sized Cooling Fan",
  "blurb": "TRUE Card-Sized | 13m/s Windspeed | 30,000RPM | 360° Rotatable | Intuitive Display | 69g Ultralight",
  "creator": "ZERA Sonic",
  "creator_profile_url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/zerasonic",
  "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zerasonic/zera-mini",
  "currency": "HKD",
  "funding_goal": "30000",
  "pledged": "1374487",
  "usd_pledged": "175231.05223671",
  "backers": "2522",
  "days_left": "22",
  "percentage_funded": "4581.62",
  "staff_pick": true,
  "category": "Product Design",
  "parent_category": "Design",
  "country_displayable_name": "Hong Kong",
  "location": "Hong Kong, Hong Kong",
  "created_at": "2026-06-05T06:42:08Z",
  "launched_at": "2026-07-02T12:44:59Z",
  "deadline": "2026-08-11T12:44:59Z",
  "image_url": "https://i.kickstarter.com/assets/054/736/801/501f1fa193081b32230d1e93771e623f_original.png",
  "rewards_url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zerasonic/zera-mini/rewards"
}

What data can you extract from Kickstarter?

Field	Type	Description
project_id	string	Kickstarter project identifier.
slug	string	Project slug used in the campaign URL.
state	string	Campaign state (live, successful, failed, canceled, suspended).
title	string	Campaign title.
blurb	string	Short campaign summary text.
creator / creator_profile_url	string	Creator display name and profile URL.
url / rewards_url	string	Campaign URL and rewards page URL.
currency	string	Campaign currency code.
funding_goal / pledged / usd_pledged	string	Funding goal and pledged amounts, in campaign currency and USD.
backers	string	Number of backers.
days_left	string	Estimated days until deadline.
percentage_funded	string	Percentage of goal achieved.
staff_pick	boolean	Whether the campaign is a Kickstarter staff pick.
category / parent_category	string	Category name and its parent category.
country_displayable_name / location	string	Human-readable country name and campaign location text.
created_at / launched_at / deadline	string	Campaign creation, launch, and deadline timestamps (ISO datetime).
image_url / video_high_url	string	Main campaign image and, when available, the pitch video.

The full record also includes creator ID/slug/avatar, category and location IDs and slugs, exchange rate fields (static_usd_rate, usd_exchange_rate, fx_rate), and campaign status flags (spotlight, is_starrable, is_launched, disable_communication) for deeper analysis.

How to scrape Kickstarter

1. Open the Kickstarter Scraper on Apify and click Try for free.
2. Leave Start URL as the default Discover page, or paste your own pre-filtered Discover URL.
3. Optionally pick a category and sort order — these are used only when the Start URL doesn't already specify them.
4. Set Results wanted and Max pages — start small (e.g. 20 and 5) for a fast, cheap test run.
5. Leave the proxy on the Kickstarter residential preset — Kickstarter blocks Apify's default datacenter proxy.
6. Click Start, then download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Storage tab, or pull them from the API.

For recurring collection, schedule the Actor to run daily or weekly and track how a category's campaigns perform over time.

How much does it cost to scrape Kickstarter?

This Actor uses the pay-per-event model — you are charged per project saved to the dataset, with lower rates on paid Apify plans.

Plan	Price per project	Price per 1,000 projects
Free	$0.00099	$0.99
Bronze	$0.00089	$0.89
Silver	$0.00079	$0.79
Gold	$0.00079	$0.79

Scraping 1,000 projects on the Free plan costs about $0.99. Your monthly Apify platform credits typically cover several thousand projects on top of that.

How it works

1. The Actor builds a Kickstarter Discover query from your category and sort inputs — or uses the query parameters already in your Start URL when present.
2. It requests each Discover results page (12 projects per page) and parses every project's full funding, creator, category, location, and media data.
3. It stops paginating once results_wanted is reached, max_pages is hit, or Kickstarter reports no further pages.
4. Projects are pushed to the dataset page by page, so partial results are available even on a long run.

Using the Actor via API

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("parsebird/kickstarter-scraper").call(run_input={
    "category": "Games",
    "sort": "most_funded",
    "results_wanted": 50,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["title"], "—", item.get("pledged"), item.get("currency"))

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' });

const run = await client.actor('parsebird/kickstarter-scraper').call({
    category: 'Tech',
    sort: 'newest',
    results_wanted: 50,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

The Actor runs on the Apify platform, so you also get scheduling, a full REST API, webhooks, and native integrations with Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, and Slack. Results export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS.

Use cases

• Crowdfunding market research — track which categories and project types are trending on Kickstarter right now.
• Competitor monitoring — watch a category or niche for new launches and funding milestones.
• Investment and trend scouting — surface the most-funded or fastest-growing campaigns in a category.
• Creator research — study successful campaigns' blurbs, funding goals, and reward structures before launching your own.
• Media and journalism — source fresh crowdfunding stories with verified funding numbers.

FAQ

Do I need a Kickstarter account? No. The Actor reads only public Discover listings. You need an Apify account to run it.

Why is a residential proxy required? Kickstarter is behind Cloudflare and blocks Apify's default datacenter proxy outright. The Actor ships with a residential proxy preset and automatically rotates sessions if one is blocked, so you don't need to configure anything.

Can I use a Kickstarter Discover URL I already built in my browser? Yes. Paste it into Start URL — any category_id, sort, or other filter already in its query string takes precedence over the Category and Sort inputs.

Why are some fields empty? video_high_url and video_hls_url are only populated for campaigns that have a pitch video. Fields like location_state depend on what Kickstarter itself records for that campaign's location.

Does this Actor scrape individual project pages? No — it scrapes Kickstarter's Discover search results, which already include full funding, creator, category, and media data for each project without an extra page load per project.

Can I schedule recurring runs? Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to run this Actor daily or weekly and export new results automatically. Found a problem? Open an issue on the Issues tab.

Related Actors

• Substack Leaderboard Scraper — top Substack newsletters and their subscriber estimates.
• Polymarket Leaderboard Scraper — top prediction-market traders and their positions.
• Browse the full ParseBird publisher page for more scrapers.

Legal and compliance

This Actor collects only publicly available campaign listings from Kickstarter — data any visitor can view without logging in. It does not access private data or bypass authentication. You are responsible for using the scraped data lawfully, including respecting Kickstarter's terms and applicable data-protection laws such as GDPR or CCPA where relevant. Do not use the output to spam creators or backers. If you plan to scrape at scale or redistribute the data commercially, seek legal advice first. See Apify's guide on the legality of web scraping.