This article uses empirical research conducted on MegaTotal, a crowdfunding platform operating in Poland, in order to demonstrate the complexity of the relations between project initiators and contributors in equity/royalty-based crowdfunding. The presented research shows how differences among crowdfunding models have an impact on relations between project initiators and contributors as well as the collection process for funding by comparing MegaTotal and Kickstarter. The article proposes an analysis of these relations depending on crowdfunding type, the size and structure of the pre-existing fanbase, and the project initiator’s opinion on the role played by contributors. Our research shows that elements both suggesting that crowdfunding empowers fans and that it can be used as a means of exploiting them may be found in the analysed model of crowdfunding.