Crowdfunding Platforms in Switzerland: The Freelancer Guide

If you are self-employed in Switzerland, financing can get awkward fast. You may have real business needs - a camera body, a studio deposit, a product launch, a van, a website rebuild, a first employee - but only 18 months of irregular freelance income. That is exactly the profile many banks do not enjoy underwriting.

Crowdfunding is not a magic replacement for a bank loan. It is a set of different tools. A product designer pre-selling a first batch needs a very different platform from an independent consultant looking for CHF 40'000 of working capital.

The short version: use wemakeit or Crowdify when you can sell a product, experience, or community story; use Cashare or LEND when you need repayable capital; use Swisspeers or CG24 only once your business has proper financials; and use CONDA or OOMNIUM only if you are building a company that can justify shareholders.

Which Platform Should a Freelancer Use?

The fee is rarely the deciding factor. A 3 percentage point fee difference matters less than choosing the wrong crowd. A Swiss cookbook, a Ticino community project, and an IT consultancy bridge loan do not belong on the same platform.

Reward Crowdfunding: Best for Launches

Reward crowdfunding is the natural fit when you can turn your financing need into something backers want to buy early: a first production batch, a workshop series, a cookbook, a theatre tour, a zine, a specialty food product, a local membership, or a design object.

wemakeit

wemakeit is the default Swiss option for most commercial freelance launches. It supports German, French, Italian, and English, works in Swiss francs and euros, and follows the all-or-nothing model: if you do not reach your goal, backers are refunded and you receive nothing.

Current fee structure: 6% service fee plus 4% payment fees, deducted only if the project succeeds. wemakeit also states a minimum funding goal of CHF 1'000 or EUR 500 and highlights a 67% campaign success rate.

Use wemakeit if your project has a strong story and a visible audience. It is especially good for makers, designers, musicians, journalists, publishers, food creators, artists, and freelancers moving from services into a product.

Crowdify

Crowdify is the other major Swiss reward platform. It is especially relevant for urban, cultural, lifestyle, food, and event projects. Its standard fee is 9% including payment-provider fees, or 11% for staged funding. Larger projects can receive lower percentage fees, and social projects are charged only external payment costs of about 3%.

Crowdify is useful when staged funding makes sense. For example, a studio buildout might have a minimum opening budget and a second-stage stretch target for equipment.

I Believe In You

I Believe In You is a niche platform for sports. That niche is the point. It reports an 85% success rate, more than CHF 30m collected for Swiss sport, and more than 4'000 successful projects.

Use it if your freelance work touches sport directly: coaching, athlete support, club projects, sports events, sports media, or equipment ideas. A generalist campaign will usually convert worse than a sports-native one.

Kickstarter and Indiegogo

Kickstarter and Indiegogo can work for Swiss creators with international audiences. Kickstarter charges a 5% platform fee plus roughly 3-5% payment processing if successful. Indiegogo also uses a 5% platform fee plus payment processing, with CHF campaigns showing a payment-processing fee around 3% plus a fixed CHF amount.

The trade-off is Swiss conversion. International platforms are powerful for hardware, games, design, and English-language launches, but they lack local trust signals such as TWINT and Swiss platform familiarity. If most backers live in Switzerland, start with a Swiss platform unless you already have a global list.

Donation and Community Platforms: Only for the Right Project

Donation platforms are not a workaround for commercial financing. They are for public-interest, nonprofit, association, or solidarity projects.

Lokalhelden

Lokalhelden is operated by Raiffeisen and is strong for local Swiss projects. Raiffeisen does not deduct platform commissions; payment transaction costs apply. It supports TWINT, cards, and bank transfer.

The important limit: purely commercial projects are excluded. That means a freelancer should not use Lokalhelden to finance a normal for-profit product launch. It can fit a neighborhood repair cafe, club fundraiser, cultural initiative, or community project where the public-interest angle is real.

Progettiamo

Progettiamo is the Ticino-focused platform promoted by the four regional development agencies. It states that 100% of collected funds benefit project promoters because no commission is retained. It is a strong fit for cultural, social, tourism, heritage, and regional development projects in Italian-speaking Switzerland.

Use it if the project belongs to Ticino and has a community or regional-development purpose. Do not treat it as a general startup finance platform.

GivenGain and HappyPot

GivenGain is for registered nonprofit entities, not typical freelancer fundraising. HappyPot is useful for solidarity pots and group collections, with a 4.5% transfer commission, but it is not a serious business-financing route.

Crowdlending: Best for Working Capital

Crowdlending is where Swiss crowdfunding becomes real business finance. You receive a loan and repay it with interest. For a freelancer, this can be practical for equipment, a fit-out, working capital, short-term liquidity, or refinancing expensive debt.

Before applying, check your debt capacity. A loan can make sense if it increases earning capacity or bridges a predictable gap. It is dangerous if it only hides weak demand.

Cashare

Cashare is Switzerland's first crowdlending platform and remains one of the more flexible options for private individuals, small businesses, and self-employed borrowers. Cashare currently shows loan rates from 4.4% to 9.9% on its public calculator and says SME borrower platform fees are 0.75% per year on the financed loan amount.

This is often the most realistic first lending option for sole proprietors because it does not assume you already look like a mature SME. You still need regular income, a Swiss or Liechtenstein residence profile, a Swiss bank account, and no problematic debt collection history.

LEND

LEND is useful for both personal loans and SME loans. Its business-loan page shows interest from 4.9% to 9.9% and fees of 0.8% to 1.5% per annum depending on risk score. For SME loans, LEND asks for Swiss or Liechtenstein companies, annual turnover above CHF 150'000, two completed annual financial statements, a positive operating result in the last financial year, and no outstanding debt collection proceedings.

That makes LEND stronger for established freelancers, incorporated freelancers, and small agencies than for someone in month eight of self-employment.

Swisspeers

Swisspeers is a serious SME lending platform for company loans from CHF 50'000. It is not usually the first stop for a brand-new solo freelancer. Current borrower fees are rating-based one-time processing fees: A/A+ at 1.25%, B range at 1.50%, C range at 2.00-4.00%, and D range at 4.00-6.00%, with minimum fees. Swisspeers also applies mandatory death-risk insurance at 0.5% of the outstanding loan amount.

Use Swisspeers when your business has clean financials, a credible repayment story, and a financing need large enough to justify the process.

CG24 and Acredius

CG24 offers business financing for Swiss SMEs, including short-term pre-financing of accounts receivable or orders. Its business-loan criteria include an operational Swiss company, at least two completed fiscal years, minimum turnover of CHF 100'000 in each of the last two years, and a financing requirement generally up to CHF 250'000.

Acredius focuses on Swiss SME lending and investor access to SME loans. It is more relevant once your freelance activity has become a documented business with accounts, not simply a side project.

Crowdinvesting: When Freelancing Becomes a Company

Equity crowdfunding is not for buying a camera or smoothing cash flow. It is for raising growth capital from investors who expect upside. If you are still a sole proprietor, you will normally need to incorporate first - often as an AG for equity crowdfunding, sometimes with participation certificates depending on the platform and structure.

That decision changes your administration, accounting, tax planning, and liability. Read the move from freelancer to GmbH before you assume investor money is simpler than customer revenue.

CONDA.ch

CONDA.ch focuses on equity investments in start-ups and SMEs. It states that investors can participate from CHF 100 and reports more than 21'000 registered users, more than CHF 40m invested crowd capital, and more than 50 successfully financed projects.

For a freelancer, CONDA becomes relevant when the business is no longer just your billable time: SaaS, consumer product, scalable education business, marketplace, or brand.

OOMNIUM

OOMNIUM is a Swiss equity crowdfunding platform with impact and values-driven positioning. Its risk information notes that public offers are addressed to persons in Switzerland and limited to CHF 8m per campaign, outside the prospectus obligation.

It is worth considering if your company has a community of customers who might also become ambassadors: circular economy, Swiss-made products, sustainable consumer brands, food, design, or impact-oriented services.

C-Crowd and Verve Ventures

C-Crowd belongs in the early-stage Swiss startup context. Verve Ventures is not classic retail crowdfunding; it is a private-market investor network for qualified investors and larger tickets. For most freelancers, these are useful reference points, not starting points.

Tax, VAT, and Bookkeeping

Crowdfunding money is not "free money" once it hits your account. The accounting treatment depends on what backers receive.

Reward campaigns are usually revenue. If backers receive a product, service, workshop, ticket, or other real consideration, treat the campaign as business turnover. If you are VAT-registered, VAT can apply because you are effectively pre-selling goods or services. See the Swiss VAT guide before setting your reward prices.

Donations are different, but not always simple. Pure donations without consideration are generally outside VAT, but business-linked gifts can become fact-specific. If a campaign mixes donations and rewards, separate them clearly in your bookkeeping.

Loan interest is normally a business expense. For crowdlending, separate principal repayment from interest and platform fees. Principal repayment is not an expense; interest and eligible fees usually are. This is where bookkeeping discipline matters.

Equity crowdfunding creates shareholder obligations. Expect legal documents, notarized resolutions, cap table administration, and investor communication. Your accounting needs to be clean before the campaign, not fixed afterward.

Platform fees affect your real target. A CHF 40'000 wemakeit campaign does not put CHF 40'000 into your business. After 10% platform and payment fees, you are around CHF 36'000 before production, shipping, VAT, returns, and your own time.

Magic Heidi is not a crowdfunding platform. It helps with the boring part afterward: tracking campaign revenue, recording fulfillment costs, keeping invoices and expenses clean, and making VAT work less painful through VAT management and invoicing.

A Practical Campaign Budget

Before you publish, calculate the minimum viable target like this:

Do this before choosing rewards. Many first-time creators fail because they price rewards emotionally and discover too late that every successful pledge loses money.

Source Notes

Key factual sources used for this guide include the HSLU IFZ Crowdfunding Monitor 2025 summary, platform help and pricing pages from wemakeit, Crowdify, Lokalhelden, I Believe In You, Progettiamo, Cashare, LEND, Swisspeers, CG24, CONDA.ch, OOMNIUM, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, plus SECO SME guidance and FINMA's crowdfunding fact sheet. Always confirm current fees on the platform before launching, because lending and payment fees change more often than editorial guides do.