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Crowdfunding / Hardware

The crowdfunding agency for hardware products.

The best crowdfunding agency for hardware is one that has shipped physical products before, builds the audience before launch day and stays for fulfilment and the store afterwards. Blazon has run 300+ crowdfunding campaigns, most of them physical products: $5.1M for Filippo Loreti, $2.5M for Pillo Health, 8,541% funded for Lens Lizard.300+ campaigns · $120M+ raised · Kickstarter and Indiegogo · London and New York

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Trusted by the world's best partners

300+

Crowdfunding campaigns run

$120M+

Raised for clients

500+

Product launches to market

$250M+

In sales generated for clients

Why hardware is different

A hardware campaign is a manufacturing plan with a marketing plan attached.

Software can ship the day the campaign closes. Hardware has tooling, a first production run, certification and a freight schedule between the last pledge and the first delivery, and every one of those decides the funding goal, the reward tiers and the shipping date printed on the page. Most hardware campaigns that stall did not have a marketing problem. They set a goal the factory quote could not support, or launched on renders to an audience that did not exist yet.

Blazon runs the campaign in the order the product needs: the deposit-backed audience first, so the goal is set against real demand; the campaign page, video, PR and paid media as one synchronised launch; backer management through the live period; and then the Shopify store that carries pre-orders while units ship. Fulfilment is planned before launch with partners including Easyship and Floship, not after the money arrives.

What the campaign needs

Seven jobs, and who does them.

Most crowdfunding partners sell one of these. Ads-only partners such as Jellop and BackerCamp take the live campaign. Creative studios such as Agency 2.0 make the video and page. Courses such as LaunchBoom teach you to do it yourself. A hardware launch needs all seven, in sequence.

The jobBlazonAds-only partnerCreative studioCourse
Pre-launch audience and depositsIncludedNoNoYou, with a course
Campaign page and videoIncludedNoIncludedYou
Paid media during the campaignIncludedIncludedNoYou
PR and pressIncludedNoNoYou
Backer management and stretch goalsIncludedNoNoYou
Fulfilment and manufacturing timelinePlanned with youNoNoYou
Shopify store and DTC after the campaignIncludedNoNoYou

Blazon wrote this table. The eight agencies are compared in full on the crowdfunding agency page and in our ranking.

Campaigns

Physical products we have taken through crowdfunding.

Pricing

Full crowdfunding programmes from $40,000.

Agency fee plus a success commission on funds raised, scoped as a fixed programme before we start. Minimum engagement for any service is $15,000. Ad spend is planned alongside the fee and typically runs at 10 to 30 percent of the funding goal. We take roughly one in five campaigns that come to us, and we say so early if the product or the timeline is not ready.

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Insights

Hardware and crowdfunding insights from 300+ campaigns

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Budget

FAQ

Hardware crowdfunding, answered

One that has shipped physical products through Kickstarter or Indiegogo before, runs the pre-launch audience build as well as the live campaign, and stays for fulfilment and the Shopify store afterwards. Blazon has run 300+ crowdfunding campaigns, most of them physical products, including $5.1M for Filippo Loreti and $2.5M for Pillo Health.
Full crowdfunding programmes start at $40,000 in agency fees plus a success commission on funds raised; the minimum engagement for any service is $15,000. Ad spend is planned separately and usually runs at 10 to 30 percent of the funding goal across pre-launch and the live campaign.
At the working prototype stage, three to four months before the planned launch. The pre-launch audience takes six to twelve weeks to build, and the campaign video needs a product that can be filmed. Starting with only renders is the most common reason hardware campaigns underperform.
Kickstarter for most consumer hardware: larger backer base, stronger press attention and a hard funding goal that creates urgency. Indiegogo for products that need flexible funding, InDemand pre-orders after the campaign, or a manufacturing partner already selling there. We pick the platform after the audience build, not before.
A refundable deposit, usually $1 to $10, is the truth test of demand. If people will not put down a dollar before launch, they will not put down two hundred on launch day. Deposit holders convert to backers at 20 to 40 percent, against 1 to 3 percent for an ordinary email list, so the deposit count tells you the realistic funding goal before you commit to it.
We plan the campaign around the manufacturing timeline, not the other way round: reward tiers and shipping dates are set with the factory quote in hand, the funding goal covers tooling and the first production run, and fulfilment partners are chosen before launch. We work with fulfilment partners including Easyship and Floship on live campaigns.
The campaign audience moves to a Shopify store with pre-orders and InDemand, so revenue continues while the product ships. Most post-campaign failures happen in the nine to twelve months between the campaign closing and units shipping, when founders go quiet. We stay through that period.
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