We’re changing our fees

We’ve made a big announcement today: we’re changing the fees we charge our users!

We believe that everyone is better off under this new model:

• The total fee campaign creators are charged will be less (from 7.5% total to 6.5%)
• If you choose to pledge with your credit card, you as the pledger will be on charged the credit card fee. But, you can fully avoid fees if you choose to direct deposit.
• There’s tiered pricing for CrowdfundingU, so earlier stage companies and organisations can access it for less.
• We’ll be earning more for our services. We’ll move from a 5% success fee (which is lower than most crowdfunding providers in New Zealand) to 6.5%.
• The announcement today is giving a month’s notice to users, and anyone who launches before 1 April will be under our old pricing.

We’ve worked really really really hard to figure out a simple way to do this.

If you have any comments, thoughts, or questions do let us know.

Here’s the full announcement:

Kia ora,

We’ve got some fee changes coming in the PledgeMe office on 1 April 2017 that we need to let you know about.

Our fee structure currently

Currently, campaign creators are charged a 5% success fee and a 2.5% credit card fee on pledges made on credit cards. That’s around 7.5% in fees, as well as an education programme fee for equity and lending campaigns of up to $1,500 + GST.

How we’re changing our fees

We’re making a few changes to our fee structure to bring us in line with the rest of the industry, but also make it less expensive for our campaign creators.

We’ve decided to:

• Offer a free payment option so all types of campaigns (project, equity, and lending) will have the option to direct deposit at no cost to the creator or the pledger.
• Change it so that if pledgers choose to use their credit cards, the credit card cost will be charged to them as pledgers rather than to the campaign creator.
• Increase our success fee to 6.5%. This is less than our current total fee charged to campaign creators (as it includes the credit card fee), and less than most other platforms in the market.
• Change our CrowdfundingU six session education programme for equity and lending campaigns to be $750 for those seeking to raise less than $100,000, and $3,000 for those seeking to raise more. Companies will still be able to seek capability vouchers for up to half the cost, read our blog on how capability vouchers work here.

What does that mean for campaign creators?

If you create and launch your crowdfunding campaign before 1 April 2017, you will still be under our old fee structure.

For example, if you are launching a campaign you’ve created before 1 April 2017 you will pay:

If you launch after 1 April 2017 you will pay:

So, for example on a $300,000 equity campaign you would pay:

• $1,500 + GST for CrowdfundingU (if you got a capability voucher for half of the cost)
• $19,500 zero rated success fee

What does that mean for pledgers?

There could now be two fees you pay:

• When you pledge with a credit card – You can either choose to direct deposit your pledge after a campaign closes, or pay on your credit card. If you choose to use your credit card, the fees associated with using your card will be added on top of your pledge total. These fees are currently 2.5% of the total, and 25c per transaction attempt.
• The 1% repayment fee on lending campaigns – this hasn’t changed, you will still be charged 1% of the principal amount as repayments are made.

If you have any questions, comments, or gif offerings, let us know on contact@pledgeme.co.nz!

Cheers,

Anna

Fee structure as at 1 April 2017

PledgeMe.Project creator

6.5% success fee (GST inclusive) charged to campaign creator if goal met by deadline

PledgeMe.Equity creator

6.5% success fee (zero rated) charged to campaign creator if goal met by deadline

PledgeMe.Lend creator

5.5% success fee (zero rated) charged to campaign creator if goal met by deadline. Note: there will also be fees to the pledger of 1% of principal repayment.

CrowdfundingU

$3,000 + GST for 6 session programme. Required for all Equity and Lending campaigns. Reduced to $750 + GST for campaigns under $100,000

Pledgers

The cost of using your credit card will be passed onto you if your card is charged, currently this is 2.5% + 25c per transaction attempt.

1% of the principal repaid to pledgers on PledgeMe.Lend campaigns (note: no fee on the interest earned)