More Than 1 Million Jobs Created: Kickstarter’s Growing Impact on the Global Economy
New research shows how Kickstarter continues to fuel job creation and long-term economic activity across the creative economy.
We first reported on Kickstarter’s economic impact nearly a decade ago. Since then, the platform, the creator community, and the broader creative economy have all evolved significantly. Today, new research offers a clearer picture of Kickstarter’s growing role in the global economy and the careers it helps sustain.
One finding stands out: Since opening in 2009, Kickstarter projects have helped create more than 1 million full-time and temporary jobs worldwide between 2009 and 2025. That impact reflects more than just successful campaigns. It reflects the broader ecosystem of collaborators, vendors, and small teams who help bring creative work to life.
Job creation across the creative supply chain
Kickstarter’s economic impact extends far beyond founders themselves. Many projects rely on editors, designers, engineers, illustrators, manufacturers, and other collaborators to bring ideas to life.
Updated research shows:
During campaigns (annually):
• 15,100 full-time jobs
• 21,200 temporary roles
Post-campaign (annually):
• 16,700 full-time jobs
• Additional temporary roles tied to production and fulfillment
Across the full 2009–2025 period, that adds up to 1,005,100 jobs total:
• 199,700 full-time jobs during campaigns
• 279,000 temporary roles during campaigns
• 220,100 full-time jobs post-campaign
• 306,300 temporary roles post-campaign
Together, these numbers underscore how Kickstarter supports employment not just at launch, but across the full lifecycle of creative work.
Broader economic ripple effects
Another way to understand Kickstarter’s economic footprint is to look at where creator earnings originate. Updated findings show:
• 58% are attributable to campaign pledges
• 40% of funds are attributable to post-campaign impact
Taken together, this reflects a broader economic ripple effect: campaigns help creators validate demand, finance production, and build audiences, while ongoing sales sustain businesses and careers over time.
Dan Garces
An updated view of the creative economy
What starts as a single project on Kickstarter often becomes something larger: a body of work, a business, or a long-term creative practice. Creators return to the platform to deepen their work, expand their teams, and build momentum over time. This updated research reflects what we’ve seen across Kickstarter for years: it serves as infrastructure for the creative economy, giving creators a way to test ideas, pay collaborators, build sustainable practices, and generate lasting economic activity around their work.
In a moment defined by economic uncertainty, rising costs, and increasingly non-linear career paths, Kickstarter continues to offer creators a way to build sustainable work on their own terms.
Etai Rahmil
Disclosures and Methodology: We partnered with Doug Noonan, an economics researcher at Indiana University Indianapolis, with a specific focus in the crowdfunding ecosystem. We surveyed 1,565 creators of successful Kickstarter projects within 2–3 years of their campaign deadline, asking about the outcomes they believed their campaigns drove. We statistically weighted survey responses to calibrate the results to be representative of all successful prior campaigns. Next, we calculated the weighted averages for the survey items (e.g., post-campaign revenues, jobs created during the campaign, etc.). To further refine the analysis, we cataloged numerous published academic research articles that described various outcomes associated with running a Kickstarter campaign. We applied the metrics reported in those studies to the entire history of successful campaigns to estimate the cumulative economic and qualitative impact that Kickstarter has precipitated since its founding in 2009.
