What it actually costs to ship a crowdfunding campaign
Nine cost lines, five of which creators routinely miss. When to charge backers for shipping and why the answer is almost never "in the campaign". And the international rules, including the ones changing this year.
Funded projects rarely fail because the product could not be made
They fail because the money ran out between funding and delivery. And the largest single reason for that is shipping, because it is the cost most often estimated a year early, at the exact moment the creator knows least about the finished product.
At the point a campaign page goes live, the final carton does not exist, the weight is a guess, the backer mix by country is unknown, and carrier rates twelve months out are unknowable. Committing to a shipping price at that moment, and then being held to it by four thousand people who have already paid, is how a successful campaign becomes a cautionary tale.
Everything below is aimed at not doing that.
Nine lines, and the five that get missed
Freight in is the one everybody models. It is not the one that breaks campaigns.
| Cost | Charged | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Freight in | Per shipment | Getting the goods from the factory to a warehouse: ocean or air, plus customs entry, duty, and the fees at the border. This is usually modelled correctly, because it is the one everybody remembers. |
| Receiving | Per container or pallet | Unloading and counting the shipment in. A floor-loaded container costs more than a palletized one because somebody is doing it carton by carton. |
| Storage | Per pallet or bin, per month | From the day goods land until the day the last backer's parcel goes out. On a campaign with a long survey tail that can be several months, not several days.Most often missed |
| Pick and pack | Per order, plus per extra item | The labor of assembling one backer's specific combination of tiers and add-ons. Crowdfunding orders are far more varied than ecommerce orders, which makes them slower to pick. |
| Packaging | Per parcel | Boxes, mailers, void fill, and anything branded. Reward tiers that vary wildly in size need several box sizes, and the wrong box costs you twice: once in materials and once in dimensional weight.Most often missed |
| Postage | Per parcel | The carrier's charge. Priced on dimensional weight as often as actual weight, which is why a light bulky reward can cost more to ship than a heavy small one. |
| International duties and taxes | Per parcel, by country | The line that turns a funded campaign into an angry comments section when backers get asked for money at their door. Rules differ by destination and several are changing right now.Most often missed |
| Returns and reships | Per occurrence | Wrong addresses, undeliverables, damage in transit, and the backer who moved between pledging and delivery. On a large campaign this is a predictable percentage, not an exception.Most often missed |
| The long tail | Ongoing | Backers who answer the survey six months late, address changes, replacement parts, and the support inbox that stays open long after the wave has shipped.Most often missed |
When to charge backers for shipping
This one choice does more damage, or more good, than every other decision on this page combined.
In the campaign
RiskyShipping is baked into the pledge price or added as a fixed amount at checkout.
- Backers see one number and convert slightly better.
- Simple to communicate on the campaign page.
- You are pricing shipping before you know the final weight, the final carton, the backer mix by country, or what rates will be in twelve months.
- It is effectively unfixable. Once the campaign funds, that number is a promise.
- One heavy international tier can quietly consume the margin on the whole run.
In the pledge manager survey
RecommendedShipping is charged after the campaign, in the survey, once the product is real and the backer's address is known.
- Charged against the carton that actually exists, to the country the backer actually lives in.
- Add-ons get priced properly instead of shipping free by accident.
- You can zone the rates rather than averaging them, so domestic backers are not subsidizing the expensive ones.
- Some backers drop off when the shipping charge appears. Setting expectations on the campaign page reduces this a great deal and pretending it will not happen does not.
- It requires the pledge manager to be set up properly before the survey goes out, which is a job with a deadline attached.
Where the rules are, and where they are moving
Backers who get asked for unexpected money at their door do not blame the carrier. They blame you, in public, in the comments.
United Kingdom
Settled, and it catches peopleFor a consignment of £135 or less sold directly to a UK consumer, the overseas seller is required to register for UK VAT and account for it at the point of sale. Above £135, normal import VAT and duty apply on arrival. This is not optional and it is not the carrier's problem: it is the seller's registration.
Verified against HMRC's own published guidance.
European Union
Actively changing in 2026The EU has agreed to remove the €150 customs duty exemption during 2026, with a temporary duty-calculation arrangement running until the EU Customs Data Hub is ready around mid-2028. VAT and duty are separate questions, and IOSS handles the VAT side.
The European Commission's own announcement does not give a specific date inside 2026. Anyone quoting you one is guessing. Confirm before you set EU shipping charges.
Canada and Australia
Their own thresholds and their own rulesBoth apply GST to imported goods with their own low-value thresholds and their own registration rules for overseas sellers. Neither behaves like the US and neither behaves like the EU.
Worth pricing explicitly rather than lumping into a 'rest of world' rate.
United States
The de minimis changeThe $800 Section 321 duty-free exemption that a great deal of direct-to-consumer importing was built on is suspended. Low-value shipments now require an entry with duty paid.
If you are shipping into the US from an overseas fulfillment partner rather than from US stock, this changes your arithmetic substantially.
This is the most volatile area on this site. Treat every rule above as a starting point for a conversation with your broker or tax advisor, not as advice, and re-check it before you set a shipping charge you cannot change.
Five rules that keep fulfillment from eating the raise
Reward tiers are designed to convert. They also decide what your fulfillment costs, and that half is usually an afterthought.
Keep the number of physical variants low
Colors, sizes and language editions multiply into distinct pick lines. Three colors across four tiers is twelve things to hold, count and pick, not four.
Make add-ons ship inside the main box
An add-on that does not fit the main carton is a second parcel at full postage. Decide the box before you offer the add-on, not after four thousand people have bought it.
Beware the cheap heavy tier
A low-priced reward that is heavy or bulky can cost more to deliver than it raised. Run the numbers on the actual carton before that tier goes on the page.
Do not promise a delivery month you have not planned backwards from
Production, inspection, freight, customs and the survey tail all have to fit inside it. Most missed crowdfunding dates were missed on the day they were promised.
Say the shipping arrangement on the campaign page
If shipping is charged later, say so clearly and give an honest range. Backers accept this readily when told up front and take it badly when it appears as a surprise.
Frequently asked
What does it cost to ship a Kickstarter?
Per backer, it depends on the finished carton's weight and dimensions, where they live, and what they added on. There is no useful average, which is why nobody honest publishes one. What we can do is take your reward tiers and your expected backer mix and cost the whole thing line by line before you commit to a number on the campaign page.
Should I charge shipping in the campaign or in the survey?
In the survey, in almost every case. Charging in the campaign means committing to a shipping price before you know the final carton, the backer mix by country, or what rates will look like a year later. It is the single most common way a funded campaign ends up losing money.
Why do so many funded projects fail to deliver?
Rarely because the product could not be made. Usually because the money ran out between funding and delivery, and shipping is the biggest single reason: it is the cost most often estimated a year early, at the moment the creator knows least about the product. Add production overruns, a failed inspection nobody left time for, and a delivery date that was never planned backwards, and the campaign funds successfully and still fails.
Do you work with BackerKit, PledgeBox and Gamefound?
Yes, all three, inside your own account on your own subscription. We are a fulfillment vendor reading the export, not a certified or preferred partner of any of them, and we get no preferential pricing to pass on. What we do is get the survey structured so the export is pickable, which is a great deal easier before it goes out than after.
What happens to backers who never answer the survey?
A percentage always will not, and you should budget for chasing them. We hold the inventory, ship the stragglers as they come in, and keep the tail open rather than closing it and leaving those backers with nothing. The cost is real and it is much smaller than the reputational cost of the alternative.
Can you ship internationally from the US?
Yes, and for a campaign with a heavy overseas backer base it is worth deciding deliberately whether that is the right structure, because the tax and duty treatment differs by destination and several of those rules are changing right now. That decision belongs at the planning stage, not at the shipping stage.
We already under-collected shipping. What now?
It is recoverable more often than people assume, and it is nearly always worse the longer it is left. The options are rezoning what has not shipped, consolidating multi-parcel backers into single cartons, changing the carrier mix by destination, and in some cases going back to backers honestly about a supplement, which works better than creators expect when it is explained properly. Send us the numbers and we will tell you which of those actually helps.
Send us the tiers and we will cost the whole thing
Reward tiers, rough carton dimensions and the countries you intend to ship to is enough to price every line above. Doing it before the campaign launches costs nothing and is the difference between a funded project and a delivered one.