If you strip away ads (pointless), sponsorships (pipe-dream), and affiliate links (spam), you’re left with the direct ask: “pay to support the site.” That only works if you’re offering something people care about. So what’s your value? Is it a tight-knit community, custom content, access to devs, early posts, something else? Let’s be blunt: what are you offering that actually justifies payment?

 

Monetising a forum is a tough call. Direct support is probably the most effective way. But how do you justify taking the hard earned cash from your users?

Trying my best to avoid all of that. Right now I charge FREE for everything and I don't ask for donations and never an ad.

 

I cant justify it at all. I imagine that if bandwidth needs increase substantially, then I will have to (carefully) figure something out that wont be off putting to my members or guests.

Trying my best to avoid all of that. Right now I charge FREE for everything and I don't ask for donations and never an ad.

 

I cant justify it at all. I imagine that if bandwidth needs increase substantially, then I will have to (carefully) figure something out that wont be off putting to my members or guests.

Same here. I think it all depends on how much your server fees are. If you're paying hundreds of dollars of month in infrasture, then it's time to figure out things fast. As long as the server costs remain low, then simple things to make money are still important as it's okay to try and put some type of money back into your pocket. Especially if you'd like to reinvest and build up your community, in terms of launching advertising campaigns or driving in members through other means.

 

I think it's always a good idea to try out A/B testing to see what works and doesn't. If ads aren't performing well, then don't use them. If you can use a few affiliate links here on there, then it's perfectly fine to do so.

 

Having things that can help us sustain the long term growth of our online communities is important. As long as they're not off putting or worst, very annoying. Donations methods are key as they enable our members to support us in a way that we're not begging or anything, it's an option for them to do so if they'd like to do it.

I do offer a lot of ree SEO tools like fre SEO audits, but when you get to the nitty gritty, I offer SEO services. Running a forum is challenging but not as tough as we make it to be. The key is to keep users interested.

 

For example, the key to every forum are bloggers. If you can find them and pique their interest, you have won the battle.