$25 is the generally accepted minimum for Comicsgate crowdfund projects and for a good reason; CG has not found a way of shipping product to individual backers in a way that makes selling $5-10 comics cost effective. Since periodicals are the most accepted format of comic books, this is somewhat of a problem. Let's take a look a this in practice by contrasting calculated tier results vs stated crowdfund total to see where the money is going on shipping.
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Paying 10 dollars to ship something you paid $40 or $50 for is a much easier pill to swallow than paying that same $10 to have a $10 comic shipped to you. A lot of trial and error has resulted in the general consensus that products worth at least $25 are what get the customer interested. Comicsgate's problem is a lack of creators able to reliably and regularly make, market and deliver something that is convincingly worth a $25 price tag.
Let's contrast this against another campaign,
Vestige #2.
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Although WC proclaims to have many dedicated funders at the highest level, 56% of backers backed Vestige at the minimum level (
$25) available, who also forming the plurality (23%) of Vestige's funding. In comparison, the top fifth of Vestige #2's backers contributed over half of Vestige's total funds for perks like original art pages, being featured in the comic and limited editions. Telling is the difference between equally priced tiers "Two Copies of Vestige 2" (8 backers) and "Vestige 1 & 2" (59 backers) combined with the majority of backers at the minimum level all allude to legitimate interest in
Vestige itself as opposed to speculators or collectors of the Warcampaign brand.
Now let's compare this to something that is indisputably based on a personality cult:
Another Case of the Littlest Umbrella
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In contrast to
Vestige, the
ACotLU crowdfund was primarily funded (66%) by the top third of his backers who put up a minimum of $100. Like other successful campaigns, TUG was sure to put $25 as the minimum contribution. One curiosity is that, at the $25 dollar tier, purchases were overwhelmingly for the LUG drawn cover, but sales for either cover were neck and neck on any other tier.
Finally, we have
Cyberfrog: Rekt Planet
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@Analog Devolved was right when he pointed out the massive $500,000 Executive Honeycomb tier component, of CF:RP's million - but it works out to this one tier forming nearly
two thirds of the campaign's revenue while also consisting of a plurality of the backers. The entry-level $25 tier is still available, but more people have bought the full honeycomb box set than anything else.
