Kickstarter Scraper 🚀

Extract rich, structured data from Kickstarter at scale — funding numbers, rewards, add-ons, items, creator profiles, categories, locations and more. Point it at project pages, categories, places, creator profiles or a /discover/advanced search, or just set the filters and let it crawl.

No login, no headless browser — the scraper impersonates a real browser's TLS fingerprint to sail past Cloudflare, so it's fast and cheap.

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✨ Why choose this scraper?

• 🧱 Complete records — not just the search summary. Every project is enriched with rewards, add-ons, items, add-on support and the full creator profile (biography, websites, avatar).
• 🔗 Flexible input — project / category / place / profile / discover URLs or human-friendly filters (category, location, status, pledged, goal, raised, sort).
• 🛡️ Smart proxy ladder — starts with no proxy and only escalates to datacenter then residential if Kickstarter blocks you, then sticks with residential. You never overpay for proxies you don't need.
• 💾 Live results — every project is saved the moment it's scraped, so a long run never loses work.
• 🗂️ Four ready-made views — Overview, Funding, Creators, and Rewards & Add-ons.

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🔑 Key features

Feature	Details
Input types	Project URL, Category URL, Place URL, Profile URL, /discover/advanced URL, or filters only
Filters	Search term, category, location, status, pledged, goal, raised, sort
Enrichment	Rewards, add-ons, items, creator biography / websites / avatar
Anti-blocking	curl_cffi browser TLS impersonation + escalating proxy ladder + retry/backoff
Output	Live dataset push, 4 table views, full JSON / CSV / XLSX export

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📥 Input

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games/tabletop%20games" }
  ],
  "query": "",
  "maxResults": 10,
  "category": "games/tabletop games",
  "location": "",
  "status": "Successful",
  "pledged": "All",
  "goal": "All",
  "raised": "All",
  "sort": "newest",
  "enrichProjects": true,
  "concurrency": 5,
  "requestDelay": 1.0,
  "impersonate": "chrome131",
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Field	Type	Description
startUrls	array	Bulk list of Kickstarter URLs (project / category / place / profile / discover). Leave empty to crawl from filters.
query	string	Free-text keyword search.
maxResults	integer	Max number of projects to collect.
category	string	Category slug (games/tabletop games), parent (games) or All.
location	string	Free-text location, resolved automatically.
status	string	All, Live, or Successful.
pledged / goal / raised	string	Range buckets (see dropdowns).
sort	string	newest, magic, popularity, end_date, most_funded, most_backed.
enrichProjects	boolean	Fetch full project + creator detail (default true).
concurrency	integer	Parallel project fetches.
requestDelay	number	Politeness delay (seconds) + random jitter.
impersonate	string	Browser TLS fingerprint.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy settings (residential recommended).

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📤 Output

Each dataset item is the full Kickstarter project object, with a top-level url and an enriched creator. A few flat helper fields (projectName, categoryName, creatorName, percentFunded, photoUrl, …) are added so the table views render nicely — the complete nested data is always preserved.

{
  "url": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infiniform/sci-fi-desert-relay-tower-complex...",
  "id": 933356486,
  "name": "Sci-fi Desert - Relay Tower Complex - 3D Printable STL Files",
  "blurb": "3D Printable Pieces for Wargames, Tabletop RPGs & Boardgames...",
  "goal": 100.0,
  "pledged": 729.0,
  "state": "successful",
  "backers_count": 35,
  "currency": "USD",
  "category": { "name": "Tabletop Games", "slug": "games/tabletop games", "parent_name": "Games" },
  "location": { "displayable_name": "Walla Walla, WA" },
  "creator": { "name": "InfiniForm", "biography": "...", "websites": [], "url": "..." },
  "rewards": [ { "minimum": 12.0, "title": "...", "backers_count": 24, "...": "..." } ],
  "add_ons": [ "..." ],
  "items": [ "..." ],
  "percentFunded": 729.0,
  "projectUrl": "https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infiniform/..."
}

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🚀 How to use (Apify Console)

1. Log in at console.apify.com → Actors.
2. Open Kickstarter Scraper.
3. Add Start URLs and/or set the filters (category, status, sort, …).
4. (Optional) Set proxy to Residential for the most reliable runs.
5. Click Start.
6. Watch the live log fill up with projects as they're scraped.
7. Open the Output tab — switch between the 🗂️ Overview, 💰 Funding, 👤 Creators and 🎁 Rewards views.
8. Export to JSON / CSV / XLSX.

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🤖 Use via API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/<ACTOR_ID>/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
       "category": "games/tabletop games",
       "status": "Successful",
       "maxResults": 10,
       "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
     }'

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💡 Best use cases

• Market research on a category (which projects fund, at what goals, how many backers).
• Lead generation — creator profiles, websites and locations.
• Tracking rewards / pricing strategies across successful campaigns.
• Building datasets of crowdfunding trends.

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💳 Pricing

This Actor runs on Apify's standard compute + proxy usage. Residential proxy traffic is the main cost driver, which is exactly why the scraper starts direct and only escalates when blocked — you only pay for the proxy tier you actually need.

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❓ FAQ

Do I need a proxy? Not to start — the Actor tries direct first. But Kickstarter blocks datacenter IPs aggressively, so for larger runs residential is recommended.

Why do some creator fields look empty? Those fields come from the signed creator endpoint; if a creator's profile is private or the call is rate-limited, the Actor degrades gracefully and keeps the rest of the record.

Can I scrape a single project? Yes — paste its URL into Start URLs.

Is this legal? The Actor only collects publicly available data. You are responsible for complying with Kickstarter's ToS and applicable laws (GDPR/CCPA, etc.).

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🆘 Support & feedback

Found a bug or want a new field? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab in the Apify Console.