How can you generate revenue on your forum other than using ads?

MasterA Level 1

June 12, 2016, 11:48 am

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A popular method to generate revenue on your forum is using ads. However, there are other methods that you can use to generate revenue:

Premium membership: allow members to purchase premium membership for a small fee. Offer them perks such as extra PM space, premium group and private forums.
Offer ad removal: a lot of member hates ads but that is probably your main source of income so offer them the option is pay a monthly fee to remove ads.
Selling: You can also sell items related to your niche on your forum to earn some income. This method is probably less popular but if you can think of a good product and you can get supply for cheap, then this can be a good source of income given your forum is big enough.

What are other methods for generate revenue on your forum?

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Beverly

Beverly

Premium or sponsored membership is probably the most often used way to generate forum revenue. You might reserve many of the nice forum perks such as signature line for premium members only. For a game forum, premium membership would likely pay for hosting, expenses as well as game servers, with servers only being available for premium members. Another really good perk that members would likely pay for.

Another option to monetize a site would be to use a Buy Me a Coffee plugin like the one from ko-fi. Works really great on any site even Tumblr or Blogger. And, this option could be used by even guests of forum who never register or login.

10 years ago

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ajlancer

ajlancer

Premium membership: Premium membership is very good way to earn money and I agree with Beverly only premium member can use forum signature and can often post.

Donation or turning into a sponsor: Setting up donation buttons or just asking extra funds from your readers is differently to monetize your forum. It’s simple to line up, however you have got to bear in mind that it’s not very easy to create cash with it.

Accept sponsored posts & articles:
Once your website is obtaining smart quantity of visitors monthly, you'll supply sponsored posts and articles. There are lots of advertisers who would have an interest in writing sponsored posts for your web site.

Thanks by Ajlancer

10 years ago

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hitmeasap

hitmeasap

You could also add a "Special Offers" section where people can list their products for a fee, the fee being your revenue. This obviously requires you to have a very active forum with a bunch of visitors each day. Without that and product creators wouldn't be interested.

Best Regards,
hitmeasap

10 years ago

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EliteWriter

EliteWriter

Premium membership is definitely a great idea. Apart from allowing you to earn money it is also a way to make sure that the best people are allowed to put in their signature, and this reduces scamming.

I do not think the second method would be that feasible.

The third suggestion could be great provided that there is something that could be in demand and at the same time related to the forum.

Having said that, ads are important and quite often, indispensable. It is all about trying to find a compromise where the ads are not way too much to make the user experience suffer.

10 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I have seen how my husband used the connection of their office to solicit funding for their website. It’s a good thing that his bosses cooperated that they had sent solicitation to affiliate companies that readily provided their support. Another method was getting permanent sponsors that can earn them a banner in the homepage. But this sponsorship is much harder than solicitation which is a one-time activity so the donors easily agreed. I don’t really know if affiliate method works well because I haven’t tried it yet although I have heard that it’s effective in earning revenue for the upkeep of the website.

9 years ago

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