How to delete your Kickstarter account
Kickstarter is the New York-based crowdfunding platform for creative projects, operated by Kickstarter, PBC (a public benefit corporation that, in its own words, operates together with Drip U.S., LLC and The Creative Independent, LLC). Your account holds far more than a username: your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, country of residence and hashed password; a complete pledge and backed-projects history with amounts, reward tiers and add-ons; the last four digits, expiration date and country of the card or bank account used (the full payment data sits with Stripe); every comment and message you've posted; backer survey answers and shipping addresses you gave creators; IP, device and browsing logs; and, if you have ever launched a project, your verified legal name, date of birth, business name, tax ID and any government photo ID (passport or driver's licence) a payment processor asked you to upload during identity verification.
Delete your Kickstarter account, step by step
- 1Sign in at kickstarter.com and cancel any pledges to projects that are still live — open the project page, click "Manage your pledge" on the right-hand side, then click "Cancel Pledge" next to the "Change your pledge" link. A pledge can only be cancelled while a project is live; once the campaign has ended and pledge collection has started it cannot be cancelled, you cannot cancel in the final 24 hours if doing so would drop the project below its funding goal, and Late Pledges cannot be cancelled at all because funds are taken immediately.
- 2Download your data first — go to https://legal.kickstarter.com, click the "Make a Privacy Request" button in the top right, click "Download all my data", enter the email address on your Kickstarter account and click "Send Email", then click the link in the email to log into the privacy center and confirm. When Kickstarter has finished compiling it you get a second email with a download link; the file is a .ZIP of .CSV files including all your pledge details.
- 3If you are still waiting on rewards from any project, message those creators now and arrange contact off Kickstarter — Kickstarter itself recommends this, because deleting removes your name as a backer and strips the creator's access to the information they need to ship to you.
- 4Optionally delete any unsubmitted project drafts yourself first: go to your Created projects page (kickstarter.com/profile/projects), click "Continue editing" on the draft, then "Delete project" in the bottom left and confirm with your password. Drafts already submitted for review cannot be deleted.
- 5Go to Kickstarter's Privacy Policy at https://legal.kickstarter.com/policies/en/?name=privacy-policy
- 6Click the "Make a Privacy Request" button in the top right of the page.
- 7Select "Delete all my data".
- 8Enter the email address associated with your Kickstarter account and submit the request.
- 9Open the verification email Kickstarter sends, click the link to log into the privacy center, and confirm the deletion request.
- 10Wait for Kickstarter to process it. Account deletion is not reversible and deleted information is not retrievable — double-check before confirming.
What actually happens when you delete
Gets removed
- ✓The email address and cryptographically hashed password you use to sign in
- ✓Your profile page — display name, bio, photo, location, links and vanity URL
- ✓Your entire backed-projects history, and your name is removed as a backer from every successful project you supported
- ✓All email notifications to your address stop
- ✓Any project you started but never launched is cancelled (you can also delete unsubmitted drafts yourself beforehand from your Created projects page)
- ✓Your pledges to any projects still live at the moment of deletion are cancelled
- ✓Your name is removed from comments on other people's projects and project updates
Stays behind
- ✗Every project you launched — Kickstarter's stated policy is that projects are never removed from the site, they remain available 'for reference and transparency', and cannot be deleted even if they were cancelled or unsuccessful. Your creator bio will just show that the profile was deleted, while the project page, comments and updates stay publicly viewable
- ✗Your name, comments and project updates on projects you created yourself (only comments on other people's projects are stripped)
- ✗The verified identity name displayed publicly on your account profile and any project page you launched
- ✗Payment and pledge records Kickstarter says it retains 'as required by law or for necessary business purposes' — its privacy policy names tax law as requiring it to keep records of pledges and payments made through the service
- ✗Transaction data held independently by Stripe and other payment processors under their own privacy policies
- ✗Aggregated, anonymised or pseudonymised information, which Kickstarter says it may retain indefinitely
- ✗Anything creators already downloaded about you — backer reports, survey answers, your shipping address and email — which now lives in their spreadsheets, off-platform
Before you delete
Verification status: every step, UI label and quoted phrase in the instructions was checked against Kickstarter's live help centre articles, which match the wording used here. The privacy policy at legal.kickstarter.com returns HTTP 200 but is a JavaScript-rendered Transcend privacy center whose text cannot be extracted without a browser; the retention and data-collection quotations below were verified against the last machine-readable revision of the official policy (Nov 2022, via the Internet Archive) and are corroborated by the live help article wording. Re-check the retention wording if precision matters. The real gotchas: (1) Deletion is one-way and there is no deactivation, no grace period and no reactivation — Kickstarter says deleted information is no longer retrievable. (2) It does NOT remove projects you created. Kickstarter's policy is that projects are never removed from the site, 'for reference and transparency', including cancelled and unsuccessful ones, and your verified identity name stays published on those pages; hiding a project requires a discretionary Support request Kickstarter says it can't always grant. (3) Cancel live pledges BEFORE deleting — a pledge can only be cancelled while the project is live, cannot be cancelled or decreased in the last 24 hours of a campaign if that would drop the project below its funding goal, and Late Pledges cannot be cancelled at all because funds are taken immediately. (4) Deleting mid-fulfilment orphans your rewards: Kickstarter's own wording is that removing yourself as a backer 'will likely make it impossible for creators to send you rewards'. (5) Kickstarter reserves the right to retain information 'as required by law or for necessary business purposes', names tax law as requiring retention of pledge and payment records, and says aggregated, anonymised or pseudonymised information may be kept indefinitely. (6) Creator identity-verification documents (government ID, DOB, tax ID) are handled partly through payment processors such as Stripe, which retain their own copies under their own rules; Kickstarter itself stores only the last four digits, expiry and country of your card or bank account. (7) The privacy request runs on Kickstarter's Transcend-hosted privacy center at legal.kickstarter.com, so expect an email-verification round-trip before the request is actioned. (8) Data creators already exported is outside deletion's reach, but creator access to a backer report does expire two years after the project's latest estimated delivery date.
Download your data from Kickstarter first
Most platforms only honor a data-export request while the account is still active. Do this before you delete.
- 1Go to https://legal.kickstarter.com
- 2Click the "Make a Privacy Request" button in the top right
- 3Click "Download all my data"
- 4Enter the email address associated with your Kickstarter account, and click "Send Email"
- 5Open the email Kickstarter sends and click the link to log into the privacy center and confirm your request
- 6When Kickstarter has finished compiling your data, it emails you a link to log in and download your report — a .ZIP file whose contents are in .CSV format, including all your pledge details. Kickstarter notes it may take some time to prepare.
Want to take a break instead? Deactivate
Deactivation hides your profile without permanently destroying it. Logging back in restores everything.
- 1Kickstarter has no deactivate, suspend or "pause" option — the only account-level action it documents is permanent deletion. The closest reversible alternative is keeping your profile private: go to Settings, open the "Edit profile" tab, scroll to the bottom to the "Privacy" heading and make sure the checkbox is ticked. Kickstarter says profiles are private by default, and that profile pages are not searchable on Kickstarter or findable through search engines. Note that creators cannot set their full profile to private, and once you have launched a project your profile display name can no longer be edited.
If deletion fails — or you live in the EU, UK, or California
You have a legal right to request erasure of your personal data under GDPR (EU/UK) and CCPA (California). Use these official channels if the self-service flow doesn't work.
Kickstarter deletion FAQs
Why can't I find a 'delete account' button in Kickstarter settings?+
Because the only route Kickstarter documents is its hosted privacy center, not account settings. Its current help article says to visit the Privacy Policy at legal.kickstarter.com, click 'Make a Privacy Request' in the top right, and select 'Delete all my data'. Older guides around the web point at Settings; the official instructions no longer do, so use the privacy center.
Will deleting my account remove the project I created on Kickstarter?+
No. Kickstarter's support documentation is explicit: deleting your account will not automatically hide or delete any project you've created, and will not remove your name, comments or updates from your own projects. Its stated policy is that projects are never removed from the site — they remain 'for reference and transparency', and cannot be deleted even if cancelled or unsuccessful. Your creator bio will indicate the profile was deleted, but backers can still view the project page, comments and updates. You can submit a request to Support asking them to consider hiding a project from public view, but Kickstarter warns it won't be able to accommodate all requests.
I'm still waiting on rewards from a project — what happens if I delete my account?+
You break the creator's ability to ship to you. Kickstarter's own article says deletion removes your name as a backer from every successful project you supported and that this 'will likely make it impossible for creators to send you rewards', because they lose access to the information needed to fulfil. Kickstarter recommends contacting the creator first to coordinate off-site communication. If a project is still live, cancel the pledge instead — but once the campaign has ended and collection has started, the pledge is locked in and deleting won't refund it.
Can I get my Kickstarter account back after deleting it?+
No. Kickstarter states account deletion is not reversible and any information deleted will no longer be retrievable. There is no grace period, no reactivation window, and no 'deactivate' state at all. The one thing deletion gives back is the email address: Kickstarter's own guidance on consolidating multiple accounts suggests deleting accounts you no longer want in order to 'free up an email address' — while warning that this also deletes that account's entire backed projects history.
How do I download my Kickstarter data before deleting?+
Go to legal.kickstarter.com, click 'Make a Privacy Request' in the top right, click 'Download all my data', enter your account email and click 'Send Email'. Kickstarter emails you a link to log into the privacy center and confirm; once the export is compiled you get a second email with a download link. The result is a .ZIP file whose contents are in .CSV format, including all your pledge details. Do this before deleting — it is the only record you'll have of what you backed, and Kickstarter warns it may take some time to prepare.
Can I hide my profile instead of deleting the whole account?+
Yes. Kickstarter says profiles are private by default: go to the 'Edit profile' tab under Settings, scroll to the bottom to the 'Privacy' heading, and make sure the checkbox is ticked. Kickstarter also says profile pages aren't searchable on Kickstarter and can't be found through search engines like Google — but note that whenever your account name appears on the site, on a comment or a message, someone can click it to reach a public profile. Two catches: creators cannot set their full profile to private ('for transparency'), and once you have launched a project your profile display name can no longer be edited.
Does deleting my Kickstarter account wipe the data project creators already have on me?+
No. When you back a project the creator sees your profile name, pledge amount, reward tier, any add-ons and your shipping country; if the project funds they also get the email address on your account, plus whatever you enter in their Pledge Manager or Backer Survey — typically your mailing address and item preferences. Creators download all of this as a backer report. Deleting your Kickstarter account revokes their future access on the platform but does nothing to the copies already in their hands. There is one built-in limit: Kickstarter says a creator's access to the backer report expires two years from the project's latest estimated delivery date, after which they can no longer export it or view backer personal information without a reviewed Trust & Safety request. To have data already exported erased, contact the creator directly; Kickstarter's data protection officer can be reached at [email protected].
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