# Kickstarter Prelaunch Tracker (`bestankit/kickstarter-prelaunch-tracker`) Actor

Track Kickstarter pre-launch and live campaign metrics in one run. This actor extracts project title, creator, category, description, follower count (“Notify Me”), location, backer count, and scrape timestamp from any Kickstarter URL for easy tracking in Sheets, Notion, or BI tools.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/bestankit/kickstarter-prelaunch-tracker.md
- **Developed by:** [Ankit Bhangar](https://apify.com/bestankit) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Lead generation, E-commerce
- **Stats:** 9 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: 3.09 out of 5 stars

## Pricing

from $20.00 / 1,000 count onlies

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

## Kickstarter Pre-Launch Follower Tracker

Track your Kickstarter pre-launch **"Notify Me" follower count** and project details automatically. Schedule it daily to monitor your campaign's pre-launch growth over time.

### Why this actor?

Every Kickstarter creator running ads to their pre-launch page needs to track daily follower growth — but Kickstarter's own dashboard gives you limited visibility. This actor solves that by:

- **Scraping the live follower count** from any Kickstarter pre-launch page
- **Extracting full project details**: name, creator, category, description, location
- **Working with both pre-launch AND live campaigns** (also captures backer count when available)
- **Outputting structured data** you can pipe into Notion, Google Sheets, or any analytics tool

### Use cases

- **Daily follower growth tracking** — Schedule this actor to run once per day and build a time series of your "Notify Me" count
- **Competitor monitoring** — Track how fast competing campaigns are growing their pre-launch audience
- **Ad performance correlation** — Compare daily follower growth against your Meta/TikTok ad spend
- **Launch readiness assessment** — Know exactly when you've hit your target follower count

### How to use

1. **Enter your Kickstarter project URL** — e.g. `https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/your-name/your-project`
2. **Run the actor** — it will launch a browser, load the page, and extract all available data
3. **Get structured results** — download as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the dataset

#### Scheduling for daily tracking

To track follower growth over time:

1. Go to **Schedules** in your Apify Console
2. Create a new schedule (e.g., daily at 9:00 AM UTC)
3. Link it to this actor with your project URL as input
4. Use a **named dataset** so all runs append to the same dataset
5. Connect the dataset to Google Sheets or Notion via webhook/integration

### Output format

Output depends on the **Data Scope** you select:

#### Count only (`count`)

Lightweight — returns just the counts. Fast and cheap.

| Field | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| `url` | The Kickstarter project URL |
| `followerCount` | **"Notify Me" count** (null if < 10, as Kickstarter hides it) |
| `backerCount` | Number of backers (live/completed projects) |
| `scrapedAt` | ISO 8601 timestamp of the scrape |

```json
{
    "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creator/awesome-product",
    "followerCount": 847,
    "backerCount": null,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-04T10:30:00.000Z"
}
```

#### Full details (`full`)

Returns all project details including counts.

| Field | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| `url` | The Kickstarter project URL |
| `projectName` | Project title |
| `creatorName` | Creator's name |
| `category` | Primary category (e.g., Technology, Design) |
| `subcategory` | Subcategory if available |
| `projectDescription` | Project blurb / short description |
| `followerCount` | **"Notify Me" count** (null if < 10, as Kickstarter hides it) |
| `location` | Creator's listed location |
| `backerCount` | Number of backers (live/completed projects) |
| `scrapedAt` | ISO 8601 timestamp of the scrape |

```json
{
    "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creator/awesome-product",
    "projectName": "Awesome Product - The Future of Coffee Storage",
    "creatorName": "Awesome Creator",
    "category": "Technology",
    "subcategory": "Gadgets",
    "projectDescription": "A revolutionary modular storage system for coffee pods and beans.",
    "followerCount": 847,
    "location": "San Francisco, CA",
    "backerCount": null,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-04T10:30:00.000Z"
}
```

### Input configuration

| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-----------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| `dataScope` | string | No | `full` | `count` for counts only ($0.02), `full` for all details ($0.05) |
| `url` | string | Yes | — | Kickstarter project URL |
| `waitForSelectorTimeout` | integer | No | 30000 | Page load timeout in ms |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | No | — | Proxy settings (residential recommended) |

### Tips

- **Kickstarter hides follower count below 10** — the actor will return `null` for `followerCount` until the project crosses 10 followers
- **Use residential proxies** for the most stable results if you're running this frequently
- **Use Apify integrations or webhooks** to automatically log each day's count into Notion, Google Sheets, or your own API
- The actor works with projects in **any state** — pre-launch, live, successfully funded, or canceled

### Cost

Pricing is **Pay Per Event** based on the data scope you choose:

| Data Scope | Price | What you get |
|------------|-------|-------------|
| Count only | $0.02/request | Follower + backer counts |
| Full details | $0.05/request | All project details + counts |

### Technical details

- Built with [Crawlee](https://crawlee.dev) + Playwright (headless Chrome)
- Multi-strategy extraction: embedded JSON data → DOM scraping → text pattern matching
- Handles Kickstarter's client-side rendering (React/Next.js)
- Automatic retries on failure (3 attempts)

# Actor input Schema

## `dataScope` (type: `string`):

Choose what data to fetch.

- **Count only ($0.02)** — Just follower/backer counts. Lightweight and fast.
- **Full details ($0.05)** — All project details including name, creator, category, description, location, and counts.

## `url` (type: `string`):

URL of the Kickstarter project page (pre-launch or live). Accepts both pre-launch pages and standard project URLs.

Example: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creator-name/project-name

## `waitForSelectorTimeout` (type: `integer`):

Maximum time in milliseconds to wait for the page to render. Increase if you experience timeout errors on slow connections.

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

Proxy settings for the browser. Residential proxies are recommended for best stability with Kickstarter.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "dataScope": "full",
  "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flacodev/the-running-dev-become-the-smartest-and-the-most-paid-dev",
  "waitForSelectorTimeout": 30000
}
```

# 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 = {
    "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flacodev/the-running-dev-become-the-smartest-and-the-most-paid-dev"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("bestankit/kickstarter-prelaunch-tracker").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 = { "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flacodev/the-running-dev-become-the-smartest-and-the-most-paid-dev" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("bestankit/kickstarter-prelaunch-tracker").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 '{
  "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flacodev/the-running-dev-become-the-smartest-and-the-most-paid-dev"
}' |
apify call bestankit/kickstarter-prelaunch-tracker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/HDLKvi13Zej2W91vc/builds/Bo4CeqZp9xl2c4YjP/openapi.json