Kickstarter Projects Scraper

Kickstarter Projects Scraper: goals, pledges and backers for any search on Kickstarter

Search Kickstarter the way its discover page does and get one row per project: what it asked for, what it raised, how many people backed it, when it closes, who made it and where they are. Every filter is checked before the search goes out, because Kickstarter quietly ignores a setting it does not recognise and hands back its whole catalogue instead. The one limit it cannot get round is Kickstarter's own ceiling of 9,600 projects per search, so a big category has to be narrowed.

🔍 What Kickstarter Projects Scraper does

Money arrives twice: in the project's own currency and in US dollars, converted at the rate Kickstarter applies. So a campaign in euros and one in dollars sort against each other correctly, and the goal and raised bands mean the same thing for every project. A 100,000 JPY goal counts as about $626, not $100,000.

Kickstarter answers a filter value it does not understand with a normal-looking page of everything. One letter is enough. In a test on 20 September, state=cancelled returned 683,846 projects in every state; canceled returned 67,077. So each value is checked first, and one that does not match stops the run with a free BAD_INPUT row naming what it accepts. The British "cancelled" is simply corrected.

Rows are checked again on the way out. A sub-category is only a hint on Kickstarter's side, and about one row in six belongs to a neighbouring category; those are dropped and not charged. A place you give is looked up first, then every row is checked to come from there.

Paste a search from kickstarter.com/discover and its settings go through the same checks. Where the URL and the form both set something, the URL wins, place included. Whatever the URL leaves out comes from the form, which starts with live and games/tabletop games filled in, so a URL with no state or category of its own still gets those two unless you clear them. A URL is searched exactly as it stands, once per state if it names several, or not at all: one carrying a setting that cannot be sent, like a custom goal range, is skipped, and a free BAD_INPUT row names that setting.

📥 What you give it

{
  "state": "live",
  "category": "games/tabletop games",
  "fundingStatus": "funded",
  "sortBy": "most_backed",
  "maxItems": 100
}

📤 What you get back

A real row from a real run on 30 September 2026, with the image link cut short:

{
  "ok": true,
  "charged": true,
  "recordType": "project",
  "searchLabel": "live projects in games/tabletop games",
  "projectId": "837103376",
  "name": "Stefan Feld City Collection 13: Orlando",
  "blurb": "Manage your own Feldland theme park with new and unique mechanics.",
  "creatorName": "Queen Games",
  "categoryName": "Tabletop Games",
  "categorySlug": "games/tabletop games",
  "categoryId": 34,
  "state": "live",
  "goal": 10000,
  "pledged": 76590,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "goalUsd": 11386.4,
  "pledgedUsd": 87208.41,
  "percentFunded": 765.9,
  "backersCount": 462,
  "deadline": "2026-10-12T19:00:00.000Z",
  "launchedAt": "2026-09-29T14:25:27.000Z",
  "createdAt": "2026-04-27T11:12:08.000Z",
  "stateChangedAt": "2026-09-29T14:25:31.000Z",
  "projectUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/queen-games/stefan-feld-city-collection-troms",
  "country": "DE",
  "locationName": "Bonn, Germany",
  "staffPick": true,
  "isStaffSpotlight": false,
  "hasVideo": true,
  "imageUrl": "https://i.kickstarter.com/assets/055/310/891/41cb2cdf7e5f15b6eac0597a289530d9_original.jpg?...",
  "creatorUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/queen-games",
  "resultPage": 1,
  "totalMatches": 492,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-30T02:30:00.710Z"
}

On an upcoming project the goal, pledged, backer and funding fields are null rather than zero, because it has not started raising anything.

🧾 Reading the output

recordType alone will not do, because the free sample row says project too.

charged: true is what separates a real project from the sample and diagnostic rows, so filter on it, or drop every row carrying _sample or _diagnostic.

▶️ How to run it

1. Open Kickstarter Projects Scraper and click Try for free. 2. Pick a Project state and a Category, add Search terms or a Location if you want, or paste a search into Paste a Kickstarter discover URL. 3. Narrow it with Funding progress, Goal size or Amount raised if you like. 4. Set Maximum rows, low while you are testing. 5. Click Start, then download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it from the API.

💰 How much does it cost?

$0.92 per 1,000 projects, flat on every Apify plan: no volume tiers, no subscription. A hundred projects come to just over 9 cents.

Not charged: the sample row, every diagnostic row, projects that failed the filter check, a project two of your searches both found, and a run stopped for a bad setting. If you set a maximum charge for the run, it stops at the last row that fits.

💡 What people use it for

• Watching a category you sell into. Run games/tabletop games daily, compare projectId, and you

see every new campaign the morning it launches.

• Working out a realistic goal before launching your own: pull a few hundred funded projects in your

category and look at goalUsd against backersCount.

• Finding creators to approach by place and category, with their project and profile links in the

row.

• Catching campaigns in their last stretch: sort by end_date and filter on 75_to_100.

🚧 What it does not do

• No campaign page. No story text, reward tiers, updates, comments or backer list: only the

listing.

• No more than 9,600 projects per search. Narrow with a category, a place or a funding band to

reach the rest. A search that hits the ceiling says so in a free row.

• No keyword check on the rows. Kickstarter searches the whole campaign page, so a correct match

may not repeat your word in its name or blurb. Every other filter is checked.

• No contact details. The creator's public name and profile link, nothing more.
• No category added after 20 September 2026. The category list was read off Kickstarter then;

a newer one is rejected until the list is updated, rather than run as an unfiltered search.

• No live counter. Pledges and backers are a snapshot taken when the row was read.

🧭 Which funding and launch scraper do you need?

❓ Questions people ask

Can I get the campaign text, rewards or backer list? No. This reads the project listing: the numbers, the dates, the category, the creator and the links.

Why did I get fewer rows than the match count? Kickstarter's sub-category results include projects from neighbouring categories, about one in six, and those are dropped before they are charged; the run log gives the count. And one search stops at 9,600 projects however many matches it reports, which a free row tells you.

What happens if I mistype a category or a state? The run stops before searching and writes a free row saying what it accepts. A mistake in a pasted URL skips just that URL. Neither falls back to a wider search.

How do I compare projects in different currencies? Use goalUsd and pledgedUsd. The goal and raised bands work on those figures too.

Can I run it on a schedule? Yes. Nothing is kept between runs, so the same input is safe to repeat. Compare projectId to see what is new since last time.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the input and the run ID; the BAD_INPUT or NO_RESULTS rows usually name the reason.