Update: PledgeMusic suspended operations early 2019

First and foremost, this particular platform caters only to musicians. You will not find any charitable causes or personal funding campaigns on PledgeMusic. We won’t beat around the bush, but the research we did yielded some unsavory results about PledgeMusic.

The latest blog post on their site was discussing the very situation no crowdfunding campaign manager or donor wants to hear: they are having trouble delivering funding to their backers. 

The best they could offer the person reading it was the promise that they were working on it around the clock, but these promises are not great for those who need their monies right away to finish a project they promised adoring and excited fans.

Needless to say, we were not very happy with our findings doing research on this particular platform and we do not mean to sound biased, but we would hate for someone to put money down when there is a chance, they may not see it pay off for a while. This is meant to serve as a warning, not to provide an opinion.

PledgeMusic Overview

The tools offered upon this platform allow the biggest fans of all time to have access to the journeys their favorite artists are on and help them achieve their goals. 

You can gain access to your favorite artist by pledging money and pre ordering albums or other exclusives right on the platform. Then your artist will invite you to go behind the scenes for the process. You can see them write songs, go to recording studio, and go to the album release party-and more! 

These fan updates are fun and let you say, “I had a front row seat,” plus you feel like you are part of an exclusive club. The founder of PledgeMusic is Benji Rogers, and he states that “crowdfunding campaigns end” whereas PledgeMusic is an ongoing journey between artists and their fans.

That’s right-you don’t simply fund the artist and then watch them disappear. You will be invested with this artist for the life of the project and even further into the future. You can stay onboard for as long or as little as you would like. 

Fees You Pay

The best thing to do is compare this to other crowdfunding sites so you know what to expect. 

Kickstarter keeps 5% of the funds raised. 

Indiegogo keeps 4% if you meet the goal and 9% if you don’t meet it, and you also have to pay 2.9% in processing fees. 

Pledgemusic is a heavy hitter at 15% (holy cow). 

CrowdfundingBum has no platform fee.

Campaign Durations/Structures/Competition

When you use Kickstarter to fund your campaign, it is an all or nothing structure. You are given anywhere from 30 to 40 days. A campaign can run longer, though. You have to get your funds in order quickly. Competition is steep and hard to get. There are thousands if not a million campaigns active on the Kickstarter site at any given time. 

It can be hard to stand out in such a saturated market. If you’re not sure how to write up a good campaign, leave it to the experts at Crowdfunding Bum. They write like pros and get your campaign noticed. Also, the Crowdfunding Bum staff is there to help you, unlike Kickstarter or other platforms who sometimes CHARGE for support. 

Pledgemusic Campaign Specifics

  1. Pledgemusic runs their campaigns right up to the release of the album. There are plenty of campaign options for funding and presales. 

1.   2. Funding Period Campaign: This give you a specified number of days to fund and then switches over to put a focus on pre-sales. 
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3.   3. Pre Order Campaigns : There is no monetary target here. There is just the ability to buy the album before it is released, or even before it is made.
4. The Number of Units Campaign: You will tell your fans that you have to meet a certain number of orders so that you can produce, deliver and enjoy the product thanks to their help. 

Customer Service

We discovered in our research that trying to get hold of customer service on some crowdfunding platforms was rather horrible. When things got urgent, some users reported that it was hard to find support and that emails turned out to be impersonal at best. They were also unhelpful. 

PledgeMusic guides you through the whole process from start to finish, and you can enjoy a campaign manager that helps you do everything from start to finish. So that high fee does go somewhere, we suppose. 

Working with The Managers

Having somebody to help you personally can really make you feel better about your journey. PledgeMusic will examine the milestones you’ve reached in your musical career, check the size of your active email list, and see your social media presence. They will also review any other circumstances you might have, verify if your funding goal is something that can be executed.

They do have a 90% success rate, and they have worked with some big names you might have heard of like Lindsey Stirling or Bring Me the Horizon. It is a great platform to work with for all intents and purposes, especially for musicians. 

Privacy on PledgeMusic

They keep the amount of money that you are asking for private on PledgeMusic. This is nice in some ways, but some people want to see that what they’ve done is really helping. Yet, it is important to not focus on money so much especially in the art world, because pumping things out in the name of money tends to lower the quality of what’s being produced. It distracts the artist and turns musical notes into dollar signs with finite meanings. 

Our Bottom Line

This is definitely a great platform for those of you in the musical world. However, you should know that the company is going through some hard times right about now, despite their vibrant and seemingly thriving website. This is one where you will be asked to use your best judgement or at least consider an alternative, like Crowdfunding Bum, for instance. 

Final thoughts.

Before you go running off to PledgeMusic, we hope you stick around a while to find out more about all that Crowdfunding Bum has to offer. You will find ample reasons to choose us as your funding source.

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or see our frequently asked questions page