While planning my Kickstarter campaign, I have been creating “Tools”, mostly on spreadsheets, to do some necessary number-crunching. I will be posting all these tools as I make a prettier, more generalized version, of them. The first one I decided to clean up a bit was the one I used to calculate what my project’s goal should be, taking into account Kickstarter and Amazon payment fees, taxes, etc. Here’s what the tool looks like:

First of all, here’s the link to the tool: goo.gl/nAaVZ1

The tool is very easy to use. First, add all the game’s expenses in the PURPLE area. Expenses can either be something that has to be paid monthly, like a salary or a software subscription, or a flat fee, such as purchasing software/hardware, Steam’s Greenlight fee or the entrance cost of an event (PAX, GDC). After you input that information, select how many months of development you are planning for in the GREEN area. This will create a subtotal of how much the game will cost to develop in those months, shown in the ORANGE area.

The next section, YELLOW area, is dedicated to extra fees that scale depending on how much you manage to get from the KS. For that, this section should be modified using the Percentage parameter. Remember that the Kickstarter fee is 5% and Amazon payments is between 3-5%, so you shouldn’t modify those parameters. After you fill out all this information, you will get a grand total calculated in the RED area.

This tool is public and can be used by anyone. I hold no ownership of it, so feel free to use, edit and distribute it among your friends who are planning a KS campaign. If you have any suggestions, doubts or find any bugs, let me know. I hope it proves useful and good luck with your campaign!