Tilt, The Startup Formerly Known As Crowdtilt, Drops Fees For Groups Pooling Money

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Tilt, the group funding startup that recently chopped its name down from its former moniker "Crowdtilt", announced today that it's chopping its fees, too. The San Francisco company has dropped the fees on its "Collect" feature, which lets groups of people pool money together for shared causes or events, such as parties, group vacations, and gifts for friends (we've used it a couple times here within our TechCrunch staff.) Previously, Tilt Collect charged organizers a 2.5 percent fee on the total money pooled. Now, this doesn't mean that Tilt has eliminated all of its fees: Tilts that are made for selling items through its "Sell Something" feature, and raising money for nonprofits and causes through its "Fundraising" feature, will still charge a 2.5 percent fee, as will Tilt's white label "Open" offering. People who contribute money to a tile using credit cards are subjected to a 3 percent card processing fee. Still, the price cuts will certainly be felt by a large portion of the product's users: The company tells me that the majority of all campaigns on Tilt fall under the "Collect" feature. While Tilt says it sees more crowdfunding campaigns started per day than any other site including Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the average size of a Tilt campaign is relatively low, around $1650 -- which shows the impact of these smaller groups pooling together money on Tilt's overall business. The changes come as Tilt is aiming to position itself more broadly to the mainstream, beyond the "crowdfunding" niche that's been so buzzed about in recent years. In an interview last month, Tilt CEO James Beshara told me that he believes crowdfunding will soon be a default way of paying for things. "We think crowdfunding is where blogging was 12 years ago," he said. "The early adopters that we all referred to as ‘bloggers’ were the indies and and the amateurs. But over time, blogging platforms just became the standard way that you publish things on the web."
Colleen Taylor

Colleen Taylor is a Writer at Gigabuzz, focused on covering early-stage startups, especially those with a technology focus and great perks.

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