Reg CF Crowdfunding Platforms: Q3 2026 Leaderboard

Regulation Crowdfunding, or Reg CF, is the US exemption that lets a private company raise up to $5 MN in a 12-month period from the general public, including investors who are not accredited.

Advocates of crowdfunding describe it as democratization, since it opens up access to non-accredited investors.

Our view is that equity crowdfunding bakes in a significant degree of adverse selection and misaligned incentives, in an asset class that, as the data will show, appears to be declining.

TL;DR

• What are the top equity crowdfunding platforms? 4 of them: Wefunder, StartEngine, Republic and Netcapital. Wefunder filed 234 of the 834 new offerings in the last 12 months, and Netcapital filed 22 — AngelSchool.vc analysis of SEC Form C filings, Q3 2026.
• Is the category growing? No, it is shrinking fast. New offerings fell from 1,477 in 2023 to 797 annualized in 2026, a decline of 46% — AngelSchool.vc analysis of SEC Form C filings, Q3 2026.
• Do these raises close? Roughly half. Of 2,918 offerings commenced in 2023 and 2024, 51.5% show evidence of a successful close. For investors that is the worrying part, because a close only means the escrow minimum was reached, and 45.1% of offerings set that minimum at 5% or less of what they asked for. Your money can end up locked into a company that closed on 1/20th of what it said it needed, and is significantly undercapitalized.
• What does a platform take? A median of 7.9% of the money raised, in cash, and Republic and StartEngine take equity on top of that on almost every deal.
• Should you invest in equity crowdfunding deals? Caveat emptor - buyer beware. Equity crowdfunding is aimed at non-accredited investors who have no other route into private market deals, and as investors who see 1000's of deals a year, we haven't pulled the trigger on an equity crowdfunding deal yet. Our reasoning is below.
• What should you watch instead? Not the platform's minimum investment. Watch what share of its asked-for capital a successful raise actually delivers, which runs from 1.2% to 20.9% depending on the venue.

What Is a Reg CF Crowdfunding Platform?

A Reg CF platform is a funding portal registered with the SEC and a member of FINRA. It hosts offerings, takes your money into escrow, and releases it to the company when the offering closes.

The escrow mechanism is worth double-clicking on. What sounds like investor protection is much weaker in reality.

Every company states 2 figures on its Form C, the pre-offering disclosure the exemption requires ; we cover what a Reg CF offering is and what that filing contains separately. The first is the escrow minimum it must clear to keep any money, and the second is the target raise, the most it will accept. Clear the minimum and the company keeps the proceeds. Miss it and every investor is refunded.

It turns out that escrow doesn't afford much investor protection, because it's set by the company.

Across the 4,559 offerings we read, the median escrow minimum is 8.1% of the target raise. 54.2% of offerings set a minimum below 1/10 of their target raise, and 43.6% set one below 1/20 — AngelSchool.vc analysis of SEC Form C filings, Q3 2026.

A Practical Example. A company sets a $1 MN target raise and a $6,000 escrow minimum. Say you and 2 others invest $2,000 each.

The minimum is met, the company keeps your money, and the 3 of you now hold shares in a business that said it needed $1 MN and has $6,000. You cannot be refunded, because the escrow minimum was cleared.

A low escrow threshold against a target raise is the norm. In the example above, your capital is locked up in a company that has failed to raise what it needs to be successful.

How Much You're Allowed to Invest. Reg CF caps what a non-accredited investor can put into all crowdfunding offerings combined over any 12-month period. The cap is a function of your own income and net worth rather than of the deal in front of you, and it applies whether or not the offering you are looking at is any good.

If either your annual income or your net worth is below $124,000, your limit is the greater of $2,500 or 5% of the higher of those 2 figures. If both are $124,000 or more, the limit rises to 10% of the higher figure, capped at $124,000 a year. Accredited investors are not subject to these limits at all — Republic help center, read on 25 October 2026.

Because of this, the limit applies to all Reg CF deals, not a single platform. You can spread $10,000 across 4 Reg CF deals on 3 platforms, or put all $10,000 against one deal.

Reg CF Equity Crowdfunding Leaderboard

Of roughly 70 FINRA-registered funding portals, 7 matter.

The table ranks every platform that filed 20 or more new offerings in the last 12 months. Deals and the year-on-year move are measured over Q4 2025 to Q3 2026 ; the completion and capital columns are measured over the 4 most recent fully resolved quarters, Q2 2025 to Q1 2026.

Rank	Platform	Category	Deals (L12M)	Deals YoY	Deals That Cleared Escrow (%)	Capital Raised (% of Target Raise)	Score
—	Wefunder	Retail startup equity	234	−14%	16%	Undisclosed	unscored
1	Honeycomb	Small-business debt	196	−25%	31%	67.5%	82
2	DealMaker	White-label issuer infrastructure	88	+13%	73%	16.9%	76
3	StartEngine	Retail startup equity	74	−67%	75%	19.7%	64
4	Republic	Retail startup equity	37	−8%	60%	12.8%	46
5	PicMii	Retail startup equity	27	±0%	18%	6.3%	26
6	Netcapital	Retail startup equity	22	−56%	20%	5.8%	6
—	Climatize	Energy and project finance	26	+136%	56%	Undisclosed	unscored

Ranks 1 and 2 are not startup equity. Honeycomb lends to small businesses on revenue-share terms and DealMaker is white-label infrastructure powering raises companies run on their own sites, so neither is a marketplace you browse. Between them they account for 284 of the 834 offerings filed in the last 12 months.

Wefunder and Climatize are unscored. Capital Raised (% of Target Raise) comes from the progress update an issuer files once a raise closes.

Wefunder's issuers file one on 11% of its offerings, against 84% - 118% at comparable platforms, so no reliable figure exists for 78% of its successful raises. Climatize discloses on 12% of 16. The same 50% disclosure floor is applied to every platform.

Two things in that table are worth more than the ranking.

The Equity Crowdfunding Category Is Shrinking. StartEngine is down 67% year on year, Netcapital 56%, Wefunder 14%.

Omitted Platforms. SeedInvest and MicroVentures appear on various comparison pages, but neither filed enough offerings to be ranked or scored. Mainvest filed 173 offerings between 2023 and mid-2024 and then stopped filing altogether.

What the Venue Changes for You. The platform you pick changes what your money buys for the same $100 cheque. A successful raise on Honeycomb delivered 67.5% of the capital the company asked for, and on Netcapital 5.8%.

You are not choosing between brands. You are choosing between the odds that the company you back ends up with enough capital to do what it told you it would do.

Why I've Never Invested in an Equity Crowdfunding Deal. I look at 1000's of startups a year, and that is the lens I judge these campaigns on.

I went through Wefunder and Republic several times between 2022 and 2025. I didn't see anything that cleared my bar as venture-worthy. Not even close.

The deals tended to be consumer heavy. Putting aside my investment thesis, these are extremely hard sectors to reach a venture outcome in.

Capitalization risk is another concern. I wouldn't want to be the first $100,000 check into a startup raising $2 MN. Reg CF crowdfunding deals suffer from chronic undercapitalization.

I co-invest with other syndicates and funds. Put the right deal in front of me and I'll gladly pay the fees. The issue I have is with the deal quality I've seen.

Calling something a startup doesn't make it venture backable. There's a difference between a steadily growing SMB and a venture-scale startup. Learn the difference in our Masterclass: Venture for Angel Investors.

Our Reg CF Crowdfunding Scoring Methodology

Our scoring is built from 4 measures with weighted ranks.

Measure	Weight	What it tells you
Deals (L12M)	35%	Deals originated on the platform in the last year
Deals YoY	15%	Whether the number of deals is growing or shrinking
Deals That Cleared Escrow (%)	15%	Percentage of deals that raised the minimum to clear escrow
Capital Raised (% of Target Raise)	35%	The percentage raised against the company's target raise

Minimum Capital Explanation. An offering clears escrow when investors commit enough to meet the threshold and the filing recording that is made. Unless the platform or startup makes the filing, the data is missing.

An offering has failed when the filing says it closed unsuccessfully, or when 6 months have passed since the listing with no status filed at all. Inside 6 months an offering is still open and we exclude it, and the same test applies to every platform.

The cutoff for both Cleared Escrow and Capital Raised therefore runs 6 months lagging, which puts our current measurement period at Q2 2025 to Q1 2026.

Equity Crowdfunding Platform Fees

Every comparison page publishes the minimum investment. Not one publishes what the platform extracts from the money that moves through it.

We included both for comparison. The investor fee and the minimum come from each platform's own help center, read on 24 October 2026. The startup-side commission and the equity column come from the Form C filings themselves, where the platform states its own compensation on each deal.

Platform	Minimum Investment	Investor Fee	Cash Commission (investor + startup)	Equity Taken (% of deals)	Total Platform Take
Wefunder	$100 default	2% ACH, min $8 max $150 · 5.5% + $2 card	9.9% (2% + 7.9%)	None	9.9%
Honeycomb	$100	3%, capped $75	11.5% (3% + 8.5%)	None	11.5%
StartEngine	Set per offering	3.5%, capped $700	10.5% - 16.5% (3.5% + 7% - 13%)	3% (98% of deals)	13.5% - 19.5%
Republic	Set per offering	2.5%, min $5 max $250	8.5% (2.5% + 6.0%)	2% (100% of deals)	~10.5%
DealMaker	Set per offering	Not published	8.5% startup only	1% (7% of deals)	8.5% - 9.5%
Netcapital	Not published	Card 2.9% + $0.30, 3.9% international · wire free	4.9% (0% wire + 4.9%)	Equity (52% of deals)	4.9% +
PicMii	Not published	Not published	4.9% startup only	1.5% (3% of deals)	4.9% - 6.4%
Climatize	Not published	Not published	5.0% startup only	None	5.0% +

We've included the equity cost, which comes out of the startups, because it factors into the overall cost.

Republic Takes Stock on Every Single Deal It Hosts. Its filings read "The Intermediary will also receive compensation in the form of securities equal to two percent (2%) of the total number of the securities sold", and that language appears on 220 of 220 offerings. StartEngine takes 3% in securities on 98% of its 652 offerings, with the rest at 1%. Netcapital takes stock on 52%.

Wefunder Takes None. Across all 1,174 of its offerings, every filing declares no financial interest in the company. On total take it is therefore among the cheapest venues in the category, at 9.9%, while StartEngine, which ranks 3rd on the leaderboard, is the most expensive at 13.5% - 19.5%.

This matches what the regulator found across the whole market. Platforms also took stock in 47.1% of the 3,869 closed offerings the SEC studied, at a median of 2.0% of the offering where taken, and it puts all-in platform compensation at 8.1% of proceeds on that same base — SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, Q2 2025.

If you want the wider picture across Reg CF and accredited deals, we cover the full set of angel investing platforms separately.

Minimum Investment Is Set per Deal. Wefunder's help center states $100 for "most Community Rounds" and notes that offerings set their own ; Republic publishes no platform figure at all.

3 of the 8 Publish No Investor Fee at All. DealMaker, PicMii and Climatize disclose what they charge the startup in their Form C filings, because the SEC requires it of them. None of the three publishes anywhere what it charges you for putting the money in.

Investors and Startups Pay. On Wefunder you pay 2% and the company pays 7.9%, so 9.9% of the capital put in leaves before the business spends a dollar of it.

That's capital the company's balance sheet never sees, and that doesn't go towards building the business.

The Market Has Halved Between 2023 and 2026

Advocates of equity crowdfunding are keen to describe a growing opportunity. The data is clear that the market is in decline. Sharply!

Year	New Offerings	Quarters in Data	Annualized
2023	1,477	4	1,477
2024	1,441	4	1,441
2025	1,043	4	1,043
2026	598	3	797

New offerings fell 27.6% between 2024 and 2025, and 2026 is running 46.0% below 2023 on an annualized basis — AngelSchool.vc analysis of SEC Form C filings, Q3 2026.

Some Declining More Than Others. StartEngine filed 85 offerings in Q1 2023 and 15 in Q3 2026. Mainvest stopped filing after Q2 2024, and SeedInvest was absorbed into StartEngine and no longer appears.

Against that, Honeycomb's small-business lending book has grown into the largest single source of Reg CF offerings in the market, and Climatize's solar projects grew 136% year on year.

Reg CF startup equity crowdfunding, which is what you're here to read about, is the segment that is in steep decline.

50% of Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns Fail

Every fundraising campaign needs sufficient time to play out. We've applied a 6-month window after a campaign is launched to measure successful closes. On that basis, the most recent quarter for closings is Q1 2026.

Cohort	Offerings	Cleared Escrow	Rate
Q1 2023	385	233	60.5%
Q4 2023	387	188	48.6%
Q4 2024	377	172	45.6%
Q2 2025	277	110	39.7%
Q4 2025	236	78	33.1%
Q1 2026	189	56	29.6%
2023 + 2024 combined	2,918	1,504	51.5%

Across the 2 fully mature years, 51.5% of offerings commenced show evidence of a successful close. The regulator's own study of every Form C filed between 2016 and 2024 put 46% of offerings as having raised anything at all — SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, Q2 2025.

The methods differ and the windows differ, and the answer is the same to within a few percent.

Compounding Declines. 60.5% of Reg CF offerings reached the minimum capital required to clear escrow in Q1 2023, and only 29.6% in Q1 2026. Recall that deal volume fell 46% over the same period.

Combined, the arithmetic is brutal. 233 offerings cleared the minimum escrow threshold in Q1 2023 and only 56 in Q1 2026. That's a decline of 76%.

The category has halved in size. And successful closes also declined by half.

The Baseline for Clearing Escrow. Across the 2023 and 2024 cohorts, roughly half of offerings never cleared escrow. Those investors had their money returned to them, which is the escrow mechanism working as intended.

The other half cleared a minimum the company set for itself. That is the half where your money stops being refundable, and it is the outcome worth understanding before you commit anything.

Equity Crowdfunding Adverse Selection

This is what the median Reg CF offering looks like. Every figure is the median company that filed on that platform, taken from its own Form C, over the 4 quarters to Q3 2026.

Platform	Median Issuer Revenue	Zero Revenue	Median Employees	Median Minimum to Close
StartEngine	$630,671	26%	7	$20,000
PicMii	$94,145	44%	2	$10,000
Honeycomb	$69,035	32%	3	$25,000
DealMaker	$47,412	42%	2	$10,002
Wefunder	$4,619	43%	2	$50,000
Republic	$0	51%	2	$75,000
Netcapital	$0	59%	2	$10,000

On Republic and Netcapital the median listed company reported no revenue at all, and on Netcapital 59% of them reported none. Across the whole market the median company filing an offering reported $21,072 of revenue, held $106,390 in total assets, employed 2 people, and had 15.5% odds of having posted a profit — AngelSchool.vc analysis of SEC Form C filings, Q3 2026.

StartEngine is the one real exception, at $630,671 and 7 employees.

Our view of adverse selection in Reg CF equity crowdfunding as an overall category is based on the industry's upfront fee-based business models. Relatable, easy to understand businesses, often consumer products, appeal to a general crowd.

These are crowded and capital intensive, and harder to drive a venture outcome. Furthermore, they tend to struggle at raising private Reg D rounds. We explain this in greater detail in our Top Angel Investing Platforms article.

Stage Access. 41.2% of equity crowdfunding deals are pre-revenue. And investors pay a median platform commission of 7.9% in cash. Furthermore, Republic and StartEngine take 2% - 3% of equity in the company.

At this stage, putting aside accreditation requirements, investors could invest directly on the cap table as angel investors without paying any fees. Equity crowdfunding economics are comparable to conventional syndicate fee structures (5% - 7% all-in fees plus 20% carried interest), where you could get better stage access and due diligence to inform your decisions.

Small Checks = Little Diligence

The published minimum on Wefunder and Honeycomb is $100. That's a check size that doesn't justify putting in much diligence effort.

All the diligence provided is on a deal page, filled out by the founder themselves, who as a non-neutral party would be positively biased. The platforms themselves perform no diligence.

Investors are left underwriting the risk on the deal with biased information. None of this resembles the due diligence I run on my deals.

The practical consequence for you is that the deal page is the diligence, so whatever you cannot verify yourself on an offering, you should assume nobody else has verified it either.

The Equity Crowdfunding Business Model

Reg CF platforms are compensated on capital raised. Some do receive equity, which creates an incentive for the upside. However, their primary motivation is upfront fees.

Investors pay for this directly, since a commission is charged on the capital raised.

Some platforms even charge fixed fees to the startups, irrespective of the performance of the raise. Republic's fee is set at the greater of a percentage of the raise or $15,000, which on a median raise of $113k is 13.3% in fees. One DealMaker filing states 8.5% in commission plus a $47,500 advance setup fee and $15,000 a month, so a 6-month raise carries $137,500 in fixed fees before a single percentage point of commission.

Syndicates charge smaller upfront fees and higher carried interest. They receive a return after investors get original capital back. Syndicate leads frequently invest in all of their deals, meaning they have capital at risk, which aligns them with LPs.

Equity crowdfunding platforms have neither.

Our Syndicate Economics. Our structure is 5% - 7% all-in fees, covering SPV structuring and management. On top of that we take 20% carried interest.

Contrast that against Republic's 13.3% in fees on the median deal, plus 2% equity. I would argue that a syndicate better aligns LPs and GPs than it aligns crowdfunding investors with their platform.

Evidence the Market Is Shifting. I was approached by Wefunder in Q2 2026 about our work building syndicates. They are also hiring a Head of Sales for Wefunder Syndicates in Q4 2026.

The biggest Reg CF platform by deal count is shifting away from equity crowdfunding and toward a syndicate platform.

Upfront Platform Fees. A platform takes its fee when the raise closes, as long as it raises above the minimum amount required to clear escrow.

The platform is paid in full, irrespective of the outcome of the company. Once investors commit capital, the outcome of the company is disconnected from the crowdfunding platform. The structural difference of paying carried interest aligns syndicates and their LPs for the long term.

Accreditation May No Longer Restrict Angel Investors to Reg CF

Accreditation regimes around the world are fundamentally broken. The primary mechanism is income and net worth, meaning you are an accredited investor if you can afford to lose your investment.

This framework is clearly flawed. It tests whether investors can absorb loss rather than their competence in picking winners. That is our disagreement.

The Wealth Test. An individual qualifies on net worth above $1 MN excluding their home, or income of $200,000 individually or $300,000 jointly across the 2 most recent years. Neither asks a single question about whether you understand a cap table.

Upcoming Changes in Accreditation Standards. The INVEST Act, H.R. 3383, would write those thresholds into statute and index them to inflation every 5 years under §201, and under §203 it would add a route to accredited status for anyone who passes an examination the SEC develops and FINRA administers free of charge. It would test knowledge of security types, unregistered securities, financial statements and conflicts of interest.

Where It's At. The House passed it 302 - 123 on 11 December 2025. The Senate received it on 15 December 2025 and referred it to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and as of February 2026 no further action had been recorded — Carlton Fields, Q1 2026. Whether it moves at all is unknown, and anyone telling you a date is guessing.

Should Angel Investors Invest in Reg CF Campaigns?

One of the core arguments we make against Reg CF is adverse selection, and it is reflected in the performance data.

Of the 3,253 companies that reported raising money between 2016 and 2024, 110 went on to raise venture capital, 71 were acquired and 8 reached an IPO. 97.6% reached no exit at all, neither a failure nor a return — SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, Q2 2025.

Effectively 3.4% of equity crowdfunding deals were deemed by the industry to be venture scale. My lens on every startup I look at is that 100% of my deals are venture backable.

Furthermore, investor accreditation qualifications may change in the near future, opening up Reg D investments to angel investors who do not meet the current wealth or income thresholds.

How to Decide on Equity Crowdfunding Deals. If you're going to invest in an equity crowdfunding campaign, here's what you should consider.

Will the company be properly capitalized to be successful for the next stage of its growth? What is the platform's cash fee plus equity deal cost? And what is the minimum campaign raise relative to its target, or in other words, how low is the escrow bar?

The last question is important, because almost nobody examines this. Look at each campaign's escrow minimum.

If you're looking to level up your angel investing and VC skills, check out AngelSchool.vc's Masterclass: Venture for Angel Investors. It's a free resource we built for the venture community.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Reg CF crowdfunding platform for investors?

On the 4 measures in this article, Honeycomb scores highest, but it lends to small businesses rather than funding startup equity. Among retail startup-equity venues StartEngine scores highest, and it is also the most expensive at 13.5% - 19.5% all-in and has shrunk 67% in a year. There is no platform here we would recommend without the qualifications in this article.

How much does it cost to invest on a Reg CF platform?

Between 2% and 3.5% of your investment on the main platforms, capped on most of them, plus a median 7.9% in cash taken from the company's proceeds and, on Republic and StartEngine, a further 2% - 3% in equity. Your own fee is the smaller half of what the platform takes.

What percentage of Reg CF offerings actually raise money?

51.5% of the 2,918 offerings commenced in 2023 and 2024 show evidence of a successful close. The SEC's own figure across 2016 to 2024 is 46%. The rate has been falling, and the Q1 2026 cohort sits at 29.6%.

Can I invest in startups if I am not an accredited investor?

Yes, through Reg CF, subject to annual limits based on your income and net worth. Whether you should is the subject of this article. The INVEST Act would add a competence-based route to accredited status, but it passed only the House and is not law.

Is equity crowdfunding a good investment?

We don't think so for the retail startup-equity category, and the sections above set out why. We would separate that from the question of whether any individual offering is a good investment, which depends on the company and which no article can answer for you.

What happens if a Reg CF offering does not reach its escrow minimum?

Your money is returned from escrow. The more common and less discussed outcome is an offering that clears an escrow minimum the company set far below its target raise, keeps the proceeds, and leaves you holding shares in a business that raised a fraction of what it said it needed. The median escrow minimum across the filings we read is 8.1% of the target raise.

Do Reg CF platforms take equity in the companies they list?

Republic does on 100% of its offerings and StartEngine on 98%, both in addition to their cash commission. Netcapital does on 52%. Wefunder does not, on any of its 1,174 offerings.

How do I find out what happened to an offering I invested in?

Yes, the issuer is required to file progress updates. However, it is often reliant on the companies themselves to share updates on the platforms.

Will the accredited investor rules change?

Nobody knows. The INVEST Act would index the wealth thresholds and add an examination route, and it passed the House 302 - 123 in December 2025. It then went to Senate Banking and had not moved as of February 2026. Any article giving you a date for this is overreaching.