How do Forums Make Money?

[SKG]

Not sure if this is the appropriate section to ask this question, but I have been wondering how forums generate income? Is it solely from ads?

 

[jstep]

Advertisements almost entirely

A busy forum makes a lot from ads

 

[000]

^ Exactly

 

[SKG]

The reason I ask is I think something like vBulletin runs over a 100 bucks and if you add in hosting excetra it can become expensive (all relative I suppose). Anyone out there who runs his or her own forum?

 

[XDuncan]

I run http://www.HabboDiscussion.com

We get nearly 140 returning members daily, and from 3 PM EASTERN to 9 PM EASTERN we normally have 40+ users online.

 

[dongan]

Advertisements mostly.

Sometimes, members will donate.

 

[deet]

some forums charge quite a lot of money to advertise also.
will just depend on the forum size.

 

[CrazyTech]

The reason I ask is I think something like vBulletin runs over a 100 bucks and if you add in hosting excetra it can become expensive (all relative I suppose). Anyone out there who runs his or her own forum?

Ads are perhaps the largest source of income. It can be anything from Google Adsense to your own in-house managed ads. I've made about $30-$40/month off of a forum with a couple hundred members and I certainly wasn't that good with ads at the time.

Another method to make money comes in the form of paid memberships. This is a subject of much debate but it works in the right scenario. I think a lot of times the "premium member" idea can alienate members if used in the wrong manner.

 

[AmD950]

Some sort of subscription will work as well.
Provide that your forum is already grew in some sizes.

 

[peter phillips]

Banner or text link from adsense, and/or paid membership where people would have to pay to access to exclusive features.

 

[janpaul]

Mainly Google Adsense.

A common problem though is the placement of the Adsense code.
I run several forums, some perform pretty well on Adsense,

Income varies from $1/day with 1,600 visitors/day to with $7/day with just 120 visitors.

It all depends on the placement of the banners and the worth of the clicks. See for yourself.

http://www.401k-talk.com/
http://www.footballmanagerseries.com/

 

[oliciv]

I like the way the Something Awful forums do things. You have to pay $10 to register (which means the posts are of higher quality than the average forum, nobody wants to pay $10 and have their account banned )

You also have to pay for account upgrades such as custom titles, username changes, access to the search function etc
http://www.awfulmart.com/merchandise/forums/index.htm

Obviously this can't work for all forums though, as you have to establish a community first before anyone is going to pay for it...

 

[Ray]

advertising, donations, investments, own currency like np, a store, appareal.