How much does your site cost you?

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  • leagleaze
    New Member
    • Mar 2003
    • 29

    #16
    Not counting the start up costs (buying vbulletin, paying the 20 bucks for vbportal premium and paying someone to install it cause I don't have the time nor the inclination to do it myself.)

    I pay 109 for hosting from VO (the second highest VPS) and another couple bucks for Alertra to tell me if the site goes down.

    Sooner or later we'll probably go dedicated but I'll need to get someone to manage it for me.

    We have about 1400 members, maybe 500 active, how many are REALLY active, I'm not quite sure. We've been up 7 months and have maybe 35k posts. I'd say about 1500 posts a week on average.

    As I noted on the other thread I pay for it all by donations and now a sponsor.

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    • MrNase
      Senior Member
      • Jun 2003
      • 3575
      • 3.8.x

      #17
      I pay 9,95€ a month because i don't need a dedicated server for my 162 members
      We are with a really cheap host, 15gb of bandwith/month and thats enough for us.
      We had a total of 4006587 kb bandwith (for 7 months)

      All the technical stuff is done by me (support, developing, design), the other admin does all the community stuff (sending eMails, getting sponsors etc.) and the other one visits the forums and posts his 2 cents
      That's the end of that!

      Comment

      • Erwin
        Senior Member
        • Jan 2002
        • 2088

        #18
        My private forums have over 14,000 members, over 1 million posts, and we go up to 1000 online at once on a busy day - it's costing me a lot of money to run on a dedicated server, and I am just about to pay more for a memory upgrade.
        Avatar Chat

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        • Ksilebo
          Senior Member
          • May 2001
          • 848
          • 3.0.1

          #19
          I too run a dedicated server, but I dont use it to its maximum yet. P4 2.2 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, RedHat 7.3, cPanel. Its around $180 (The host doesn't have enough cPanel licenses fir it to be lower) lease-to-own, so in about a year the server will be on a colocation plan.

          http://i.ksilebo.com/ksicom_button.png
          http://i.ksilebo.com/simpli_button.png

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          • nwingate
            Senior Member
            • Jul 2003
            • 561
            • 3.8.x

            #20
            Originally posted by Erwin
            My private forums have over 14,000 members, over 1 million posts, and we go up to 1000 online at once on a busy day - it's costing me a lot of money to run on a dedicated server, and I am just about to pay more for a memory upgrade.


            Define "a lot of money"

            also, (everyone) if you don't make money or break even on a site why do you run it? I understand having a hobby that costs $10 - $50/month but when you start talking hundreds or thousands a month I just don't understand it. Just advertise and cover your costs.

            I've know a few guys that make between $3500 - $10,000 a month off of there boards. It can be done with the right mix of content/community/and advertising.

            Of course I know some subjects don't lend themselves to advertising. Either its overdone or the audience isn't of interest to advertisers. But some of you have a captive audience and advertisers will pay. Heck... even pbs has sponsors!

            -Nathan

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            • nwingate
              Senior Member
              • Jul 2003
              • 561
              • 3.8.x

              #21
              So, how much do you think a site with 10,000 members and 500,000 post would be? Monthly Costs?

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              • Tungsten
                Senior Member
                • Jan 2002
                • 614
                • 3.0.0 Beta 7

                #22
                My site has only cost me what vBulletin, PhotoPost and other assorted programs have cost as well as the expense of building a server to host it. Bandwidth is "free" for me as it's part of what I do for a living.

                Comment

                • Kathy
                  Senior Member
                  • May 2000
                  • 1251
                  • 3.8.x

                  #23
                  Originally posted by nwingate
                  What site do you run Kathy?

                  If you don't want to say could you at least tell me how many members/post you have. Hits a month... etc..


                  I understand why a dedicated server may cost a few hundered to run. I was just shocked by the few thousand number!

                  -Nathan
                  We have 32,000+ members with 200+ online most of the day. We use about 150 gig of bandwidth per month currently.

                  We do have targeted advertising and upgraded memberships and google adsense. And yes, it pays for itself so that I can afford a sysadmin, webdeveloper, licensing, bandwidth and co-location fees. We are finishing up a "server fundraiser" as the members pitched in 5.00 to purchase the new dual xeon for our site. (They get a special member badge which is a feature our site has for subscribers and special funds...)

                  Its a women's health/medical site. ANd quite frankly, I'm in over my head but having a great time. Thankfully I have found wonderful, awesome geek guys to help me behind the scene with the tech issues while a staff of about 30+ women volunteers help me with mod issues, upgrading memberships, answering email (one gal is our "helpdesk" answering the standard questions we receive each day and forwarding them on to the correct person if she can't fix/help).

                  I, of course, do not tackle this alone. It is a huge staff that keeps it on track! I am the one that makes sure its all happening.

                  I can easily say that most months I pay over 1000.00 for the server's total costs. If we've had a rough month with the server and needed the sysadmin more or we added a feature to the site (photopost gallery, survey/questionaire to the database, etc) or we had to add RAM to the server or replace a hard drive...it can get expen$ive.

                  Never in my planning did I imagine the costs, upkeep ......or joy from building a community that represents what is *good*.
                  Fan Club member for VBulletin Dev and Support Team ;)

                  Hysterectomy - GirlsGetGoing.com - Fabulous Fifty

                  I'm frequently asked about the skin designer for my forums. ForumSkin.com

                  Comment

                  • TurboFC3S
                    Senior Member
                    • Jun 2001
                    • 267

                    #24
                    We're in the process of moving to our new $15,000 server cluster, on a host that's $1600/month. That gets us a dedicated 3.5 mb/sec line and a totally managed dedicated server solution. All backups, administration of the OS, and 1/2 rack.

                    Comment

                    • rooshine
                      Member
                      • Sep 2003
                      • 34
                      • 2.3.2

                      #25
                      Reading some of these posts I feel humbled. My forum is about 10 days old, and thus far my start-up costs have been in the hundreds. My monthly recurring costs will likely be less than $100 (mainly for hosting and advertising) until the forums grow (hopefully).
                      Whistle Stopper Political Forums
                      Make your opinions known -- politics, religion, culture -- join the discussion

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                      • futureal
                        Member
                        • Aug 2001
                        • 76

                        #26
                        My largest site is costing me $409 a month to run at the moment. That's for a dedicated server, nightly off-site tape backup, and close to 300GB of data transfer each month.

                        I have just under 10,000 members, over 500,000 posts, and on most nights it averages 150-225 users online in any 15-minute span. About 1500 posts a day typically.

                        I charge $20 a month for banner ads on the site, which I am beginning to think is really low, since the banners are getting 6,000-9,000 impressions a month. The click through ratio is around .25% which seems respectable. I am making enough to cover costs right now, but not much more. I'm beginning to wonder if I could reasonably raise rates and start to turn an actual profit.
                        Editor, Xtreme RC Cars Magazine
                        Owner, R/C Tech

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                        • Matthew Gordon
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2002
                          • 3243
                          • 1.1.x

                          #27
                          $0/month. I use localhost.

                          When I get a new computer, I'm going to sacrafice this one and make it into a full-time server.

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                          • Faruk
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2001
                            • 1320
                            • 3.0.0 'Gold'

                            #28
                            $0 / month;

                            only the renewal fee for members area access for my vB license. that's all it's costing me nowadays...

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                            • Mephisteus
                              Senior Member
                              • Aug 2002
                              • 494
                              • 3.7.x

                              #29
                              $50 a month, but I have $500 worth of software wich I bought cheap (whm autopilot, vBulletin and HiveMail). But my host is overcharging me and not answering my emails about it...
                              A bullet may have your name on it, but shrapnel is addressed "to whom it may concern"

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                              • Faruk
                                Senior Member
                                • Aug 2001
                                • 1320
                                • 3.0.0 'Gold'

                                #30
                                DarkSSJ, who's your host? You could consider switching to where I work (and have my site hosted) - contact me on irc if interested, I'll not spam this board with the URL etc.

                                I can tell you that we don't overcharge nor ignore you (and are generally pretty reliable compared to all others...).

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