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
00111102010000000
Total complaint hits
00111101010000000
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"
01111 hits across 01111 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 →