$ Can I Use vBulleting to create a forum for making money?

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  • Nick2000
    New Member
    • Oct 2014
    • 1

    $ Can I Use vBulleting to create a forum for making money?

    Hello people,

    I want to setup a forum solely for the reason of making money. In specific my ideal forum should be able to do the following:
    • Allow users to register and post for free but...
    • Only paid users will be able to create a signature. The reason for limiting signatures is because paid users will be able to advertise their business by having a signature with or without a link or banner linking to their site.
    • Topics open only to paid users: Some topics should be accessible only to *some* paid users. For example: Topic A and Topic B are for paid users only BUT paid users of Topic A should not be able to access Topic B (and vice versa, with multiple topics).
    • Subscription should be able to be activated online when paid by PayPal and must be expiring automatically when subscription period is over.
    • User Rating: Logins, replies and thank-you actions should increate the user rating.

    I can’t think of another method for financial income (except Google Ads). Do you?
    So my question is, can this be done with vBulleting or I should be looking elsewhere?

    Any help, suggestion or recommendation is much appreciated!
    Thank you
  • Danieldude
    Member
    • Jul 2005
    • 74
    • 4.2.x

    #2
    Hello,

    I believe vBulletin can do all these things.

    You can specify which usergroups can make a signature. You can setup a Paypal subscription model and it will automatically put the user in that usergroup once he's paid.
    The subscription will also expire (or not expire) depending on the settings you input.

    You can setup permissions so that someone in group A can only see forum A, and someone in group B can only see forum B, etc.
    There is a lot of room to play with permission settings - vBulletin is flexible like that in every sense.

    User ratings based on logins, replies, and thank yous... I don't think that comes standard. But there is a reputation system. To quote Joe D.:
    vBulletin 4 has Reputation where users can leave positive (or, if allowed, negative) comments that add to (or deduct from) and overall reputation value. The overall value is displayed as a green (or red) bar of "pips" under the avatar.
    But maybe this mod might be what you're looking for.

    Overall vBulletin is so customizable you can do anything once you get familiar with it. There are so many free mods at vBulletin.org that help you do anything that you want. Even better, there is a section where you can pay vBulletin developers to make things that aren't available already. Best wishes with your search.

    Comment

    • jdj
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2009
      • 824
      • 5.1.x

      #3
      Originally posted by Danieldude

      But maybe this mod might be what you're looking for.

      There are so many free mods at vBulletin.org that help you do anything that you want.
      This is a vBulletin 4 mod and the bulk of the mods on vbulletin.org are not for vB5. vB5 is the current version of the software.

      I don't know how well Paypal subscriptions are working on vB5; perhaps somebody else can comment.

      Comment

      • BirdOPrey5
        Senior Member
        • Jul 2008
        • 9613
        • 5.6.3

        #4
        PayPal subscriptions work fine on VB3, VB4, and VB5.

        The only things VB (any version) cannot do by default is that Topic A and Topic B as you describe them can't be in the same forum- this is because permissions are per usergroup and per-forum. All topics in one forum have the same permissions for that group- but another forum on the same site can have completely different permissions for any usergroups.

        Also user rating is only based on reputation (VB4) or likes (VB5) and not about logging in or anything else.

        Comment

        • jdj
          Senior Member
          • Jan 2009
          • 824
          • 5.1.x

          #5
          Originally posted by Nick2000
          Hello people,

          I want to setup a forum solely for the reason of making money. In specific my ideal forum should be able to do the following:
          • Allow users to register and post for free but...
          • Only paid users will be able to create a signature. The reason for limiting signatures is because paid users will be able to advertise their business by having a signature with or without a link or banner linking to their site.
          • Topics open only to paid users: Some topics should be accessible only to *some* paid users. For example: Topic A and Topic B are for paid users only BUT paid users of Topic A should not be able to access Topic B (and vice versa, with multiple topics).
          • Subscription should be able to be activated online when paid by PayPal and must be expiring automatically when subscription period is over.
          • User Rating: Logins, replies and thank-you actions should increate the user rating.


          I can’t think of another method for financial income (except Google Ads). Do you?
          So my question is, can this be done with vBulleting or I should be looking elsewhere?

          Any help, suggestion or recommendation is much appreciated!
          Thank you
          You are talking about a subscription based business model rather than an advertising (click-throughs/page impressions) type business model. This also interests me. There are subscription system systems built into vBulletin.com which allow you to create groups that have differing permissions across the sites. vB5 is the current version of the software. I am also interested in a site that makes money, and particularly in the subscriptions feature.

          One of my difficulties is the absence of the calendar from vB5 (it's currently present in vB4 and vB3). Because one of the things you can do is to allow people to post or not post in the calendar depending upon which usergroup they are in. Provided that you can put the calendar on a visible and active part of the site there's some benefit to the user in being able to publicise, or even just to view events. But at present the calendar hasn't been added back to vB5.

          Comment

          • Graham Walters
            Senior Member
            • Feb 2013
            • 143
            • 5.1.x

            #6
            To be honest, I think the days are gone when people made real money from forums and not adverts, nowadays whatever niche forum you come up with, you'll find someone already doing it, and for free, but good luck with the concept.
            FWIW I wouldn't join or subscribe to a forum that required me to pay to read or post in certain parts of it.

            Comment


            • Replicant
              Replicant commented
              Editing a comment
              I paid $249 to be in this forum.
          • jdj
            Senior Member
            • Jan 2009
            • 824
            • 5.1.x

            #7
            Originally posted by Graham Walters
            To be honest, I think the days are gone when people made real money from forums and not adverts, nowadays whatever niche forum you come up with, you'll find someone already doing it, and for free, but good luck with the concept.
            FWIW I wouldn't join or subscribe to a forum that required me to pay to read or post in certain parts of it.
            There is one forum that I have joined (and pay to be part of) although most forums I would not. However, if it's free to join a forum but it's not free to post using all of its features, and people pay an amount to join a usergroup allowing them publicise certain things to you and the other registered members that is a form of advertising; you are just delivering the advertising using subscription features. It doesn't cost you anything to join, advertisers pay to advertise and what they pay to advertise may be attractive to them.

            Comment


            • Replicant
              Replicant commented
              Editing a comment
              This is similar to my forum, the more you pay for a subscription the more features you get. VB5 has ton's of features previous version don't.

            • jdj
              jdj commented
              Editing a comment
              That's why I'm interested in the calendar; I want it to be free to view for most users, but only people who are subscribing to a paid user group to be able to put their stuff up. http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum...t-it-all-wrong

              I can't think of a more basic need for most businesses, communities or professions than event management....
          • Replicant
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2014
            • 527

            #8
            VB5 can do most of what you want out of the box. The PayPal in the subscription system has worked flawlessly for me so far and I use a promotion system based on how much they pay for the features they get.


            Comment

            • webmastersun
              Senior Member
              • Oct 2013
              • 135
              • 4.2.X

              #9
              Originally posted by Nick2000
              Hello people,

              I want to setup a forum solely for the reason of making money. In specific my ideal forum should be able to do the following:
              • Allow users to register and post for free but...
              • Only paid users will be able to create a signature. The reason for limiting signatures is because paid users will be able to advertise their business by having a signature with or without a link or banner linking to their site.
              • Topics open only to paid users: Some topics should be accessible only to *some* paid users. For example: Topic A and Topic B are for paid users only BUT paid users of Topic A should not be able to access Topic B (and vice versa, with multiple topics).
              • Subscription should be able to be activated online when paid by PayPal and must be expiring automatically when subscription period is over.
              • User Rating: Logins, replies and thank-you actions should increate the user rating.
              I can’t think of another method for financial income (except Google Ads). Do you?
              So my question is, can this be done with vBulleting or I should be looking elsewhere?

              Any help, suggestion or recommendation is much appreciated!
              Thank you
              This looks like ways I am applying for my forum www.webmastersun.com to get revenue
              besides, I'm get benefit from vb forum by selling banner ads and related services.

              Honestly, vBulletin is very great for a perfect CMS to make money from it.

              I do recommend this platform to everyone!
              Best Internet Marketing Forum & Webmaster Forum for webmasters and Internet Marketers discussing and trading!

              Comment

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