The essentials
- The variable that decides is not the number of followers: it is the number of customers who have bought in the last twelve months.
- The realistic conversion of an active base is counted in low single-digit percentages, not in tens.
- The average ticket of a community round moves in the hundreds of euros, not the thousands.
- In the documented community rounds, a good share of the amount comes in during the first few days.
What counts as a community and what doesn't
The first mistake in almost every estimate is starting from the wrong number. Social media followers, subscribers on an old list or unique visitors are not a community for these purposes: they are reach.
What predicts a community round is the active customer base: people who have paid for your product in the last twelve months and who can name what they bought. Within that base, the subset that weighs most is the recurring customers, the ones who have bought three times or more.
| Metric | Useful for estimating |
|---|---|
| Customers with a purchase in 12 months | The main basis of the calculation |
| Recurring customers (3 purchases or more) | The core that converts better and with a bigger ticket |
| Email subscribers who opened in 90 days | An activation channel, not a base |
| Social media followers | Reach, not a base |
| Website visits | Nothing, for these purposes |
The three variables
The estimate is deliberately simple, because false precision does not help you decide.
Estimated amount = active customers × conversion rate × average investment ticket.
Active customers
The number that comes out of your own order system. With no optimistic rounding and without adding the mailing list bought three years ago.
Conversion rate
This is the variable that gets inflated most. We are talking about the percentage of your customers who not only open the email, but decide to invest money, complete an identity verification and sign. Working with low single-digit scenarios is the prudent approach; a very engaged and well briefed base can beat it, but it is not wise to plan on that assumption.
Average investment ticket
In rounds aimed at customers, the minimum ticket is usually set in the tens of euros so as not to exclude anyone, and the average ticket ends up in the hundreds. The distribution is not symmetrical: a small group of highly committed investors contributes a disproportionate share of the total, and that is why the higher tiers matter so much.
Three scenarios on a base of 10,000 customers
An example with round numbers, not as a promise but as a way of seeing how sensitive the estimate is to each variable.
| Scenario | Conversion | Investors | Average ticket | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prudent | 1 % | 100 | €400 | €40,000 |
| Base | 3 % | 300 | €600 | €180,000 |
| Favourable | 6 % | 600 | €900 | €540,000 |
The interesting part of the exercise is not the final number: it is that the favourable scenario is thirteen times the prudent one without either variable moving implausibly. That is why the minimum viability threshold of the issuance should be set close to the prudent scenario, not the favourable one. It is the number that decides whether the round closes or is cancelled with refunds.
What the rounds that have already happened tell us
There are enough closed transactions to check the hunch against. Three, with public sources, give the order of magnitude.
- BrewDog raised more than seventy million pounds from over two hundred thousand individual investors in its Equity for Punks programme, with benefits attached to being a shareholder. It is worth quoting in full: the same case is also used as a warning about the governance of such a large shareholder base.
- VICIO opened a campaign aimed at its customers in May 2023 with a minimum ticket of forty euros and four stepped investment tiers, with a target of up to four million euros. It covered the one million minimum on the first day.
- Playtomic raised, in November 2025, more than five million euros from over four thousand six hundred investors from its own community in two weeks.
The pattern they share is the one that most shapes the planning: the bulk of the amount comes in at the start. A community round is not a slow collection that keeps climbing, it is an initial spike followed by a tail. And that spike only exists if the community already knew it was coming.
Signals that raise or lower the estimate
Before setting the target, it is worth adjusting the scenario with what you know about your own base.
- It goes up if you have high repeat purchase, if the product is consumed in groups or given as a gift, if your brand has a strong identity component, or if you have already run launches with pre-orders and they worked.
- It goes up if you have a direct channel to your customers that you already use and that they open.
- It goes down if your base is mostly one-off purchases, if your product is an undifferentiated necessity, or if your main channel is a marketplace where the customer isn't yours.
- It goes down if you have never asked your community for anything other than to buy.
What to do before opening
With the estimate in hand, three decisions remain, and all three go into the issuance document: target amount, minimum viability threshold and investment tiers. All three are closed before opening, because changing any of them halfway through the campaign means redoing the document and having it validated again.
If you want to see how the tiers translate into what each investor receives, it is in tiers and benefits for the customer who is also a shareholder.
Frequently asked questions
How many customers do you need as a minimum?
There is no magic number, but below a few thousand active customers the arithmetic gets difficult: you would need very high average tickets to reach an amount that justifies the fixed costs of structuring the issuance. With a small and very committed base it can work; with a small and lukewarm base, it doesn't.
Does my mailing list count as a community?
It counts as an activation channel, not as the basis of the estimate. What predicts conversion is having paid for the product, not having subscribed to a newsletter. It is useful for deciding how you tell people, not for calculating how much you can raise.
What happens if I don't reach the minimum viability threshold?
The issuance is cancelled and the money is returned to investors. It is provided for and it is an orderly exit, but it carries a reputational cost with the very community the transaction was meant to strengthen. Hence the insistence on setting the minimum close to the prudent scenario.
Can I run a round with my community more than once?
Yes, and it is one of the reasons to set the vehicle up properly the first time: the second round increases capital inside the same structure. What changes is the expectation, because in the second one your investors already have a previous experience to compare it with.
Legislation and sources cited
- BrewDog, Equity for Punks programme. Figures published by the company itself and reported by the financial press.
- VICIO, crowdfunding campaign of May 2023 on Crowdcube. Figures reported by El Economista and by the restaurant trade press.
- Playtomic, November 2025 campaign on Crowdcube. Figures reported by the sport and fitness trade press.
Updated 16 Sep 2026. The scenarios in this article are illustrative and do not constitute a forecast or a promise of any outcome. The figures for third-party transactions come from public sources and are cited as category context.
