Treat platform fees as editable assumptions
A campaign budget needs an explicit fee assumption, but a tool should not hard-code it as a permanent platform fact. Separate the percentage applied to pledge revenue from fixed processing charges, taxes, refunds, chargebacks, and shipping collections when those apply to your campaign.
How to apply it
For a $55 average pledge, an 8% planning assumption produces $4.40 of percentage fees per backer. That is a model input, not a statement of a platform’s current policy. Change it when the campaign’s official terms, payment mix, or currency make another assumption appropriate.
Questions and decisions
Before launch, verify current official terms for the campaign’s platform, country, and payment setup. Then test the budget with a higher fee and lower average pledge so the break-even count is not dependent on one optimistic input.
Next step
Use the linked tools with your project’s documented inputs, retain the source or quote date beside the scenario, and update the decision when the specification changes.