When I do start my forum I would like to earn enough from it to cover annual costs.
Obviously, eventually, I would like to earn more than my annual costs but that is not a deal breaker.
Reading through the posts here, making money is secondary for most people and the pleasure comes from running a thriving community is an area of personal interest.
So is nobody here making more money than they put in?
If so can you share a little about your forum and journey, more for inspiration than anything else.
The sad fact is.... you are VERY unlikely to cover your costs (even with low cost hosting and a free script) within the first year. The simple fact is, the majority of forums fail, and are brought down within the first year because reality suddenly strikes. Unless you are in a niche that is underserved, but popular (oxymoron alert).... best of luck.
On my site, I make zero on income, and the outlay (per year) is in the 4 digit range. It's a hobby for me because I enjoy it, and it gives me a place to post my content.
I wish you luck as well; I am with Tracy on this one as I host a few sites of my own, which are hobby sites with zero revenue. I'm not saying you can't make money; however, get yourself into a niche that's not saturated already.
It's hard to earn money on a niche that is over saturated. I have forums just for a hobby myself, I don't earn any money from any of my hobbies. Unless you're offering something new to the forum world and or offering something to your members in return other than just having a place to hang out, don't expect to make money off your forum. If you're wanting to make money, you gotta think outside the box. Otherwise if you don't want to earn any money and just want to make a community for the heck of it, I suggest going down the free host/free script route to get familiar with owning a forum and perhaps you can come up with a idea to help earn you some money later on. Best of luck @Ray123 with whatever you choose to do! We'll be here if you have any questions or run into any issues if you decide to create a community.
I run forums on open source platforms, I already had a hosting package, so I did not have to buy a separate hosting for my forums. My only cost is domain renewal and buying posting packages. I am not profiting from my forums but I manage to recover my costs. One of the reasons why I am not using premium software is because I want to keep the cost low.
I know a number of forum owners who make a good income with forums. Its like any other business... It takes hard work and doesnt happen overnight... But it can be done.
