Profitability of Forums

In my opinion, forums aren't very profitable ventures, but I see/hear about many people starting up forums for the sole interest of generating steady income and revenue.

Is it just me, or do they usually end up becoming unsuccessful in their profitable efforts?

If you have successfully generated a steady stream of revenue from you forum, please share your tips and thoughts on this matter.

 

I think making some money back off your forum is good for your admin spirit, if youre paying a lot for your hosting you do deserve some help from advertisers to pay towards it, same with any upgrades, scripts your sites and members use, now unless youre really rich then I can see most people gladly wanting to make a little back for all they have spent. The majority of the money made from ads on our forums goes right back into the hosting and a small portion of it goes towards investments for the forums offline advertising which were planning out

They can be profitable at times, but not always, not enough to live off I dont think.

 

People get the idea that if they have a forum, the users will generate all the content, and all they'll have to do is sit back and collect a check. It's a bit more complicated in reality. I'm sure there are some forums that are big earners, but you may have to consider unorthodox ways of making your site profitable.

 

None of the forums I admin is out tomake a profit.

 

I only have ads on my main site, not on my forum. My ad agencies always asked me to remove my ads from my forum because people generally ignore them there.

I have Google Adsense ads on my forum archive, but it's really not worth it.

 

We're there to pay the bills and whatever extra comes in is nice. Now we're looking at low-intrusive ways to generate revenue in order to do more for the community and prepare for eventual server upgrades and possible colocation.

 

Nah, my users are mostly highschool students, it's more targeted to kids than to adults, therefore I can't ask much from my users but to post.

 

I gained sponsors mainly to govern the sales on the forum in some way which protects the members. Before I had sponsors (and I never set it up to generate anything, I was well willing to cover the losses with my development company) we had lots of independent sellers just using th eplace to cash in with. And I found that members were being hassled via PM months after the member posted something. And that was because it took some time to rank well in google, a seller found it, registered on the site, and would PM the person asking for advice about something saying they can sell something or other to them which will help them with it.

That got a bit out of hand. We had eBay sellers doing dodgy stuff. And then one member got ripped off with some training from "a guy" so I said right, sod it, I'll accept the sponsorship next time (we had a couple of offers but I told them to just register and do whatever they wanted before the change). There was a period of time we were in limbo between allowing selling and totally being against it where I annoyed a few of the members (who turned out to be sellers) in some way.

But now I say this "Our forum is free for tilers (tile setters in US speak) who are using it for advice, but those selling to the tilers need to sign up to sponsorship."

Then as soon as we have one supplier or manufacturer or whatever we don't allow any of their competitors to sponsor the forum. So it's all exclusive. That alone now attracts sponsors to my newer forums even before they've got busy. And that fact often brings the members who support that brand / supplier / manufacturer / whoever.

I find it works quite well now and the few forums are worth quite a bit (though cost quite a bit now too to be fair).

 

To add to that; I think setting up a forum JUST for profit is the wrong way to go about it. You need to be thinking all the time about the members. People attract people, and a forum needs lots of people. Anything you do that has an effect on them needs to be a positive one.

 

Well said.

Anyhow, my biggest competitor is pulling in atleast 100k a year easily. Now me personally, my goal is to attract sponsors/advertisements that will cover the bills. That would be like a huge rush to me. I'm more than able to pay the bills no problem...I think I'm paid up for the next 8yrs on my main site and 3 yrs on my misc related domain names. I just would liek to get my money back to a point where I'm playing with the house's money. Anything extra would be cool and probably get put back into the site.

 

I am not out to make a profit - don't get me wrong it would be great to be able to give up work and concentrate on this full time.

However i am a realist and understand it may not happen however that is why i have the website, forums and all other things as a little bit of extra cash if it ever comes can not hurt... can it?

 

Keep at it Merk_aus. Aim at providing everything for the members and spot the guys who are making money out of the forum somehow. They're the ones that clearly understand how it works, and value the forum for personal gain. That 'person' in my eyes should be a paying sponsor. Afterall, they could be making more money out of your forum than you are, and you're the one with the forum costs!

 

I've angered some people by tossing them out unceremoniously for trying to advertise on my forum, but there are clearly opportunities for smart people to promote their projects on my forum as long as they do it in a fashion that doesn't upset the members.

 

I try to make a ceremony out of it myself. Then again they have usually earned a flying roundhouse kick by then as I am pretty lenient and my advertising rates are very reasonable.

 

There ya go.

That's what I'm doing right now with the site I'm setting up.

But yes, too many people think they can just sit back and watch their money roll in, and more often than not, it doesn't.

I do let my moderator on one forum run the place for the most part, but I don't have any advertising on that one. It's strictly hobby.

I do have another forum that I need to set up, and it will be a paid-membership ($1/mo or yr, haven't decided.), but I still have my users needs in mind, and hopefully I'll be able to provide for them.

 

Profitability? Really? Not so much! Remember, profit is what is there after the work you've done and money spent on the project.

Forums are certainly not profitable, unless of course, you value your time incredibly low (like around .05, .10 /hr). You can build 'em up and sell 'em off, but even that doesn't make them "profitable" by any means.

 

Every forum I've seen that was set up purely for the monetary gain has failed after a short period of time. Forums as far as I know are not the most profitable kind of sites in the world, and the work needed to manage one is extremely deceptive.

 

Figure, you can make roughly one cent per daily unique visitor, if you work hard at selling yourself. This comes before any expenses. A well-configured server can handle a top 10k site, however, so if you know what you are doing and build a good site, you could live off of it.

Knowing is the important part, however.

 

Vekseid...

Nick asked:

If you have successfully generated a steady stream of revenue from you forum, please share your tips and thoughts on this matter


Got any?

I would love to hear them before we go broke. :p

 

Yes, not a lot, but yes.

We are a tiny niche market and people pay $ for the ability to advertise, talk about their products and put up banners.

I would think a fan site should be able to get some revenue. Pay area to exclusive forums where the members can talk to the band members? Band members autographs on memorabilia? Banners?