How do you cover the costs to run your forum?

[Baw$e]

Right now, I pay for my hosting out of my pocket. I pay $13 a month with knownhost, and I have 3 domains/sites hosted on the same account.

I'm going to be adding a 4th site in a few days. How do you pay for hosting for your sites?

 

[PGen98]

Part of it comes from memberships, the rest of it comes from out of pocket. I have a VPS through KnownHost, it serves me well 🙂

 

[Page]

End up paying it all when that day comes, I mean buying bulk is cheaper rather than each month. More months and years you get the cheaper

 

[JBCreates]

All out of pocket and really don't want to know how much have spent over the life of my many forums and projects since I've started lol

 

[Cam]

There's really not a lot of monetization going on with any of my forums, so costs are covered out of pocket for the most part. It's a hobby, so it's not a big deal. 🙂

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Out of pocket. It's a labor of love.

 

[KensonPlays]

Right now, it's just 36/yr for the shared hosting. Then I renew addons as needed. If they don't have any major updates when they expire, I usually wait to renew them.

It looks like XF 2.3 will be out before September, so I'll be able to get that and some hotfixes for sure. Hopefully 3.0 will be out, IIRC they said "not too far behind" so we'll see.

 

[Page]

36/yr for the shared hosting.

that's cheap or you mean $360 a year

 

[KensonPlays]

that's cheap or you mean $360 a year

36 for first year, they said I could likely renew with a black Friday deal for a similar price this November.

 

[cpvr]

Currently, I’m paying out of my own pocket to cover the cost of running my forum. I’m planning on monetizing it in 6-10 months or so after I build up the content and traffic.

 

[Yoda]

Out of pocket for the times I've owned them, if you grow the site large enough and you get donations/memberships that can offset some of the costs for that month but rarely will it cover them all.

 

[Deleted member 31696]

I don't pay anything. My forum is running phpBB and Forumotion hosts it.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I pay for all my sites out of pocket. I typically go with a yearly plan so I don't have to worry about making monthly payments. It's cheaper that way as well too! It would be cool to earn some money from my forums, but to be honest with you I do this all as a hobby and for fun. So that's why I don't focus too much on trying to earn from my websites.

 

[Soulwatcher]

I pay for everything out of pocket for my forum. It's only 1.5 months old so I will not be able to make money off of it for a long time, if ever. But I run my forum for fun and as a hobby, I don't do it to make money.

 

[Nomad]

My forums make some money and the money the forums generate cover the running cost. My running cost is pretty small as I am using open source platforms

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I went into it knowing that I'll pay out of pocket.

Nowadays, I have a lot of online hustles. It makes all my money for my website stuff PLUS gives me a second income.

I make money from my blogs. I'm a paid community manager of Copyblogger. I also do freelance writing here and there.

I do try to offer a premium membership with a few perks on my forums for members who do want to help. Anything donated to the forum goes back to the forum