Account Upgrades

[pandaa]

What upgrades do you allow users to purchase on your forums? What do you charge for them, and how long do the users get to keep the upgrades? This can include forum sponsorships as well.

 

[Cierra]

We have a couple options.
---
Sponsorship:
Can bypass calendar event moderation queue
Can be shown in the birthday list
Email flood time is set to two minutes
Priority support
Colored Username
Access to the premium forum
Two 'stickied' threads
Free ad package

VIT (stands for very important traveler-our version of premium):
Some benefits are:
A private premium user forum
1024 MB (1GB) of attachment space
Ability to own posts and threads
Ad free- you will see zero ads around the forum.

Ad Packages:
Here are the paid ad packages:
Novice:
This package allows you to have one link in either the footer, or in the sidebar.
Seasoned:
This package allows you to have an ad displayed in the header, or in the postbit (in posts).

Full list here.

 

[Ash]

When I had my general discussion forum I had to upgrades for users which they could buy using the forum currency. It gave them a nice userbar, access to the chatbox and exclusive forums. It adds a nice little extra incentive to post I guess

 

[Scorpio]

I have not ever had account upgrades but so host a Sponsorship and Important Contributors groups. Important Contributors consists of individuals who have made a large variety of good quality posts or have been previous team leaders or administrators. Sponsors have sponsored either money or resources into the forum and have supported the site financially or in another means like hosting funds, promotion on there site etc.

 

[Reddyash]

The only account upgrades I have on my forum is getting a premium membership. In this upgrade the user will have increased PM space, access to private forums and they will not be seeing any ads.
The charge for it is $25 per year. Till now no one has upgraded in my forum.

 

[Yoda]

We offer Premium Membership for $5 a year.

Access to a VIP Forum
Sticky Topic
Header Link
1 Free Service Per Month
Increased PM Space
Coloured and Bold Username

 

[Cosmic]

At FE, we allow members to buy a gold membership, which offers some ads, a gold username, and a private feedback request section. That's lifetime, but there's also a subscription which we call sponsorship, which is temporary and comes with a black username and a few ad options. Overall this has been fairly successful, I'd say. Our revenue from sponsorships has outweighted our ad revenue.

 

[Allenafaith]

We allow users to change their username and that's about it if they pay for it.

There is a special group for members that are really interested in the site, if they post alot and are active daily and are liked by other members I will usually put them in the group and once they are there, they unlock special boards that the members that aren't in the group can't see.

 

[Geoffrey]

I typically would stick to a username change or maybe a custom name color/icon. Other perks would be reserved for elite groups that members earn through other means than donating.

 

[Thomasss]

When I was staff on another general forum we had a little shop for PM upgrades (not storage, just the amount of people allowed in one PM), username changes and I think we had icons for threads that they could buy which would highlight the thread in gold and place a crown icon next to the title making it all "special" and stuff.