The best equity crowdfunding platforms, ranked for issuers
Our 2026 ranking of six major fundraising platforms, with the evidence and tradeoffs an issuer should test before signing.
By Bryce W Jones8 min read
For an issuer prepared to bring its own audience, our first call is DealMaker. For a company that wants a marketplace as well as a campaign home, it is StartEngine. Those are different jobs, and the best platform depends on which job you need done. This ranking puts control of the campaign and investor data ahead of a platform's promise of exposure.
The ranking is editorial judgment as of September 2026, not a prediction of how much any company will raise. It covers six major US options for Reg CF and, where relevant, Reg A+. Platform agreements, available products, and fees change. Get current written terms for your offering before choosing. This is general information, not legal or investment advice.
How we ranked them
We gave the most weight to who controls the investor journey: the offering page, the path into checkout, measurement, and access to the investor record after the raise. Next came fit for the exemption and audience: whether the platform serves a company bringing its own demand, a company that needs a marketplace, or both. Cost and support matter, but published fee cards rarely describe the full contract, and no platform publishes comparable checkout completion or sourced-investor data for every issuer. We did not invent scores for those missing figures.
Our earlier analysis of 3,525 Reg CF offerings found large differences in median amounts raised. Those figures describe the issuers on each platform, not the causal effect of the platform. A broker-dealer used by a company with a large audience will tend to rank highly even if the broker-dealer supplies little traffic. We use those data as context, not as a league table of platform skill.
| Rank | Platform | Median Reg CF amount raised, 2023–mid-2026 | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DealMaker | $224,196 (134 raises) | An issuer running its own audience and campaign |
| 2 | Dalmore | $215,874 (26 raises) | An issuer wanting broker-dealer infrastructure with a flexible campaign setup |
| 3 | StartEngine | $142,704 (592 raises) | A Reg CF issuer that wants a large marketplace alongside its own marketing |
| 4 | Wefunder | $103,085 (989 raises) | A community-led Reg CF raise with many smaller investors |
| 5 | Republic | $99,941 (219 raises) | A company that fits a curated marketplace and accepts its economics |
| 6 | Netcapital | $29,422 (187 raises) | A smaller Reg CF issuer prioritizing a published, comparatively low portal fee |
The order follows the historical medians, with campaign control deciding how we read them. These are not like-for-like issuer samples, and Dalmore's sample is especially small. A company with a different audience or offering structure could reasonably change the order. The right answer comes from a test of the proposed investor path and the full agreement, not from this table alone.
1. DealMaker: best when the issuer owns the campaign
DealMaker positions itself as infrastructure for direct-to-investor raises across Reg CF, Reg A, and Reg D. That is a strong fit for an issuer already building its own traffic, creative, email, and measurement. Its published model is about processing investors and managing the raise, not being a browse-and-discover marketplace.
That is why it ranks first here and also why it is not automatically the right first choice. The issuer has to bring demand. Before signing, run a real test of the ad-to-page-to-checkout path, ask what event-level data is available, and get the export fields in writing. Ask for an all-in quote, including transaction, payment, escrow, transfer-agent, and post-close costs. A platform can be excellent at processing a campaign that never had an audience.
2. Dalmore: strong infrastructure, but inspect the bundle
Dalmore describes itself as a broker-dealer serving Reg CF, Reg A, and Reg D raises, with a white-labeled portal and modular services. That flexibility can be useful when an issuer already has a marketing team and wants to assemble the rest of the stack deliberately. In our historical Reg CF sample, Dalmore-hosted issuers had one of the highest medians, but the sample was small and likely reflects the issuers who chose it.
The due diligence is contractual. Is the offering using Dalmore's portal, another page, or a separate technology partner? Who handles onboarding, escrow, investor support, and transfer-agent work? Which accounts and data can the issuer retain? The answers determine whether this is a clean setup or a collection of handoffs. Dalmore lists its offering types, but the actual economics belong in the issuer agreement.
3. StartEngine: the marketplace pick
StartEngine combines an active investor marketplace with Reg CF offering pages and related services. That makes it the most compelling marketplace option in this ranking for an issuer that can also send its own traffic. It had a substantially larger Reg CF sample and a higher median than the other broad marketplaces in our prior dataset, though issuer mix still explains some unknown part of that gap.
The question is what the platform adds beyond the investors you already bring. Ask for completed-investment counts by source, not visits or email opens. Request the exact fee schedule for your raise and any optional services. StartEngine's issuer dashboard documentation describes disbursement and fee breakdowns; its post-close guidance says issuers receive a final investor list. Ask when and in what format you get it, and test how your attribution survives checkout.
4. Wefunder: best for a community round
Wefunder is built around the idea of a public community round. For a company with customers, users, and supporters who want to become investors, that positioning and its large offering volume make it a natural shortlist candidate. It hosted the most Reg CF raises in our historical sample, with a wide range of issuer types and outcomes.
Its current Reg CF fee page states a 7.9 percent success fee and an annual administration fee that is the lesser of one thousand dollars or 0.5 percent of the amount raised. Those numbers are useful, but the real comparison includes investor payment fees, the legal entity or vehicle used, data access, and what happens after close. A community round can be worth the fee if it meets a real community goal. It should not be purchased as a substitute for building the community.
5. Republic: a selective option with a visible equity cost
Republic is worth considering when a company fits its investor audience and can make use of its marketplace presentation. The cost deserves direct attention. Republic's issuer page says it collects seven percent of the amount raised and two percent of securities offered in a successful financing, plus other legal and offering costs. The securities component is not a cash expense today, but it is part of the issuer's economics.
Ask what the company receives for that price: sourced completed investors, review and support during the live raise, access to data, and the ability to use its own marketing and reporting. Republic's median in our earlier Reg CF sample was close to Wefunder's, so a small difference in historical results does not decide this choice. Fit and terms do.
6. Netcapital: lower published portal fee, smaller historical raises
Netcapital's issuer agreement states a 4.9 percent offering fee, and its fee explanation describes that as its typical portal fee. That can be attractive to an issuer watching cash costs. Its historical median was much lower than the platforms above, however, and a lower fee is not a bargain if the raise cannot reach the audience it needs.
Ask for the complete fee schedule, including any flat, escrow, payment, or optional service charges, and ask how many completed investments the platform itself typically sources for comparable issuers. Netcapital supports Reg CF and other offerings through its affiliated entities, but the exact entity and service scope should be confirmed for the proposed raise.
The diligence call that matters more than the ranking
Ask every finalist the same questions, then make them show you the answers:
- Walk us through a completed investment on a phone, including every account-creation and payment step.
- Show us what an issuer can measure from first visit to completed investment, and which events can be sent to its own analytics.
- Show the investor export, including consent fields, source data, status changes, and what remains available after the offering closes.
- Break out every cost: setup, success fee, securities commission, payment, escrow, transfer agent, administration, amendments, and optional marketing.
- Tell us which offering structures and investor geographies are supported in this specific contract.
- Name who answers an investor when checkout fails and who handles a material change, a closing, and the final reporting.
The mobile path and tracking questions are covered in offering-landing-page-mobile-speed and cross-domain-tracking-for-a-raise. The staffing questions are in team-behind-a-raise. A platform that cannot answer these clearly should move down your list, whatever its historical median.
About the ranking
The historical results cited here come from our analysis of offering data published by KingsCrowd, covering Reg CF offerings closed from January 2023 through the first half of 2026. We explain the sample and limits in highest-performing-funding-platforms-2026. Current service and fee descriptions come from each platform's own pages linked above, checked in September 2026. We did not have comparable issuer-level checkout completion, sourced-investor, or all-in contract data across the six platforms. The ranking is therefore an informed shortlist for a particular issuer profile, not a measured platform performance score or a recommendation to invest in any offering.
FAQ
What is the best equity crowdfunding platform for an issuer?
For an issuer bringing its own audience and wanting control of the campaign, DealMaker is our first call. For a company that also wants a marketplace, StartEngine is our first call. The best final choice depends on the issuer's exemption, audience, costs, checkout, and data rights.
Does a platform bring its own investors to a raise?
Some marketplaces have investor audiences, but no issuer should assume those investors will fund its offering. Ask for completed investments sourced by the platform for issuers comparable to yours, and keep your own audience plan.
Which equity crowdfunding platform has the lowest fees?
There is no reliable winner from a single advertised percentage. Netcapital publishes a typical 4.9 percent portal fee, Wefunder publishes 7.9 percent plus an annual administration fee, and Republic publishes seven percent cash plus two percent in securities. Other costs and deal-specific terms can change the comparison.
Is a broker-dealer platform better than a funding portal?
Neither structure makes a raise succeed. A broker-dealer-backed setup may suit an issuer-led campaign or a larger, more complex offering; a marketplace funding portal may suit a community round. Compare the actual investor journey, contract, and data access.
Can one platform handle Reg CF and Reg A+?
Some groups support both through different registered entities and service arrangements. Confirm the exact entity, offering structure, and agreement for each raise with securities counsel before assuming that one platform relationship covers both.