INSIGHTS
What Kickstarter backers actually complain about
We scanned every comment on Kickstarter projects we track for the ten complaint keywords that matter most to sourcing decisions: broken products, shipping delays, missing parts, refund requests. Here’s what shows up most often, and which product categories are hit hardest.
Why this matters: if you’re sourcing a product to copy or improve, the complaints on similar campaigns tell you exactly what to fix in your own version.
10
Pain keywords scanned
7
Total complaint hits
6
Project occurrences
30 min
Refresh cadence
Pain points ranked by total mentions
Higher project count = more widespread issue across campaigns. A keyword that hits 100 comments across 50 different projects is an industry-wide concern; 100 comments on 2 projects is a project-specific blow-up.
Where the worst pain points hit hardest
"late"
4 hits across 4 projectsFiction
1 / 1 proj
Gadgets
1 / 1 proj
Hardware
1 / 1 proj
Tabletop Games
1 / 1 proj
How to use this data
- Pick a category, scan its complaints. If you’re sourcing in Tabletop Games, click “See examples” on “delay” — every comment is a feature you should fix in your version.
- Watch the project-count column. A keyword hitting one project 50 times = a single blow-up. Hitting 50 projects 5 times each = an industry-wide failure mode worth solving.
- Cross-reference with our scoring. A high-score project with lots of “broken” comments has a quality issue that backer enthusiasm hasn’t exposed yet — risky to copy as-is.
Search any keyword across Kickstarter comments
Beyond the predefined pain points — type any word and see where it shows up.
Open keyword search →