Have you wondered what the top producing Kickstarter rewards are for bands?

I hope so, because it could be the single most important focus area when building your project.

We’ve seen terrible videos and description areas that don’t seem to affect a project much, but bad Kickstarter reward ideas DO have the power to kill your potential!

I’m going to give you permission to use five Kickstarter reward ideas that every other band is also using.  There’s nothing original or artsy about them, but not following this convention will cost you dearly.

Rest assured, there’s plenty of room for remarkable, weird, fun, and unique Kickstarter rewards, but if you want to hit your goal, these five must-haves for bands will bring in the lions share of your funding.

5 Kickstarter Rewards No Band Should Launch Without

1) ALBUM DOWNLOAD

This is pretty standard for the $10 package.  Most people don’t buy this reward as long as you include the download in all other rewards, and you may want to sweeten the pot by adding “two weeks before the album is released”.

Even though most people will opt for a $25 or $45 reward, this reward is needed to establish the entry level.

2) PHYSICAL CD

Depending on how you want to stack your rewards, you can make this a signed CD.  The CD plus download usually starts around $15 but we’ve seen bands successfully do $25 or even $35 with a project framed around the idea of “donating to raise funds” rather than a project framed around the idea of pre-ordering, in which case you’d stay closer to the real world value.

3) THE SHIRT

This is always a popular Kickstarter reward idea but it can kill your profit quickly if you don’t pay attention. Depending on the quantity and quality, your cost should be $6 to $10 per shirt.  Shipping a shirt and a CD is around the $4 mark.  This can be a Kickstarter exclusive shirt, but that’s usually not a big deal to backers.

4) BACKER NAME IN ALBUM CREDITS

This reward should not be skipped!  Your close friends, family and fans will spring $100 or $200 for this reward.  There are a couple reasons.  Many of your backers just want to help you out and they aren’t necessarily doing it for the reward.  So at this dollar figure, it allows people a solid, feel-good way to support you with a big chunk of change.  The other reason is because certain people want to feel like they were a part of your project and this is a seriously legit momento that will last forever.

5) LIVE PERFORMANCE

Depending on your band, this Kickstarter reward can be priced between $500 and $5000.  I highly suggest making it a house concert or something that you don’t usually do with your regular gigs.  For one, if you usually charge $4000, then offering a $1000 show undermines your business and your regular customers.

But selling a $1000 acoustic house party to be booked on Sundays only, when you don’t usually book regular gigs, makes a very rare and unique offering.

A few package tips:

Try to engineer Kickstarter rewards that have lots of margin but still make sense in the pricing array, then stack those rewards to help make it a more obvious choice for the backer.  The $25 package in the image above is heavily stacked.

Remember, every backer either a) is totally swept away by your story, b) they want to support you as an individual, or c) they really want your product.

Make sure there’s something for all three types of backers.  You’ll be glad you did.

In Conclusion

You’re the only person who truly understands your fans, family, and friends.  There are no hard and fast rules, only tried and true best practices.  My hope is that you use these thoughts to save time and put in less guess work.

Is there a reward that you think should be added to this list?  Leave a comment below!