Charging members?

**Dan The Man** · Nov 30th, 2008, 10:30 am

Do you charge your members for anything? Do you charge them for being a member on your forum? Do you have a premium membership program?

**grim** · Nov 30th, 2008, 10:39 am

Nope

**Big Dan** · Nov 30th, 2008, 11:20 am

Hey I'm Dan the Man..You tryin' to cramp my style?

Just kidding welcome to WTF.

To answer your question, I've never charged my members anything for using forums that's what advertisers are for. Charging members creates a few issues which aren't easy to overcome.

1) There's information all over the internet and chances are what ever your offering can be found free elsewhere. What is going to make your site worth the money?

2) In order for the content to be paid, it has to be hidden from public view which means search engines cannot index it. How do you plan on ranking for the information so that you will get traffic, and eventually subscribers.

3) Member issues: If a member who has paid for access turns out to be a horses arse how do you ban a paying member? Do you refund him? Is that fair to your other paying members.

Those are three issues off the top of my head. I'm not opposed to and don't see many issues with offering upgrades for paying or supporting members - No ads, bigger PM box and avatar, and more signature space although I've never implemented it and you still run into my #3 above.

Having premium access forums sounds like a good half way point but it will be hard to set the line as to what consititues premium content. Can paid and free areas have the same topics going on concurrently? There's lot of questions for the admin.

**Autumn** · Nov 30th, 2008, 11:48 am

Originally Posted by Big Dan

3) Member issues: If a member who has paid for access turns out to be a horses arse how do you ban a paying member? Do you refund him? Is that fair to your other paying members.

If the same rules apply to all members, yes, ban if you would do that to a regular member. There would have to be a disclaimer that no refunds are given on account termination if the member abused the rules.

**briguy** · Nov 30th, 2008, 1:39 pm

The only forum that I heard of that cost anything was a "black hat" forum..well that not the total truth...I do pay to advertise (banners etc) on forums! Not sure buying a special avatar adds any value (for me) maybe if the money goes to a legit charity.

**Jani** · Nov 30th, 2008, 1:58 pm

Originally Posted by Dan The Man

Do you charge your members for anything? Do you charge them for being a member on your forum? Do you have a premium membership program?

No.

My forum is completely FREE

**dgridley** · Nov 30th, 2008, 2:28 pm

I think Big Dan makes some valid points.. points I would also make.

**allout** · Nov 30th, 2008, 3:57 pm

Big Dan makes great points. I refuse to pay for any premium forum and many others would agree. I also would never charge on any of the forums I have been associated with.

You are better off asking for donations because you will get money for something that people feel you are giving back to them. This can often times equal much more than you would raise by charging members.

**tsdesigns** · Nov 30th, 2008, 4:17 pm

I don't have a forum or anything that I could charge people for like that but I honestly don't see the harm in doing it.

As long as the forum has a free section and the charge isn't required to be a part of the community then I think that it is a good idea for forums (as long as members are getting something for their money if they pay, i.e. a section that is updated with information/whatever quite often). The point about paid members turning out to be complete tools is something that wouldn't come up that often (I don't think) and you would have to apply the same rules to them (with or without refund, either way it should be stated in some kind of disclaimer).
The other thing about the information that you offer being found somewhere else on the internet for free isn't always true, depending on what you are offering anyway. It could be that you are offering 100% unique tutorials and other resources that users can use in commercial work (e.g. photoshop related, flash, those kind of things) and in this case I think that a regularly updated section in your forum for paid users is a great idea.

**Autumn** · Nov 30th, 2008, 5:09 pm

Believe it or not, some members of some forums suggest it themselves. They want to give a little back to the community. They also want an area where they can "hangout" with other paying members. So long as they don't get special treatment, it can work fine.

Of course some of those who aren't prepared to pay ever, might get a bit of a "he thinks he is better" attitude and feel segregated, but they are a minority. Just don't give them any special visual benefits over other members apart from a special title or badge. For example. I remember one forum I visited had certain signature rules and I noticed someone was abusing that rule. I later found out that because he was a paying member he was allowed to have extras in his sig.

**Jani** · Nov 30th, 2008, 10:21 pm

Actually "paying forums" is not a good idea IMO. Take example of sitepoint forum. There marketplace is not free and we have to pay to make a new thread there.. why?

There are already 1000s of webmasters forums where we can offer/request for free.

Forums are for sharing knowledge and get help, not for getting help by paying money.

**Rhiannon** · Dec 1st, 2008, 6:46 am

I have a networking site for webmasters, its all free in the forums and in their profile pages they can putup all their links and banners for free, but if they want to be able to change the look of their profile page, block any users from their pages or get rid of ads on it, they have to pay.

Premium members need to do so many posts to have their own private area.

But after reading all of this, it may not be a good idea. But the main site is separate from the vbulletin even tho they can move from one place to the other easily.

**tsdesigns** · Dec 1st, 2008, 11:47 am

Originally Posted by Jani

Actually "paying forums" is not a good idea IMO. Take example of sitepoint forum. There marketplace is not free and we have to pay to make a new thread there.. why?

Sitepoint is a good marketplace IMO. A lot less spam/scams due to having to pay, much better deals, it's a great place for buying/selling bigger sites as it attracts people with money that will do that.