ANyone run a forum not to make money?

**tester23** · Jan 9th, 2009, 3:08 pm

Hi all,

I noticed on some other webmaster forums people are heavily into the money making aspect of things.

Does anyone here run a forum/website just for the fun of it/enjoyment?

I have started a travel forum, and personally its just because i love travel, not because i want to make money. If i can cover my costs then i'll be happy

**KentuckySlone** · Jan 9th, 2009, 3:22 pm

I run two different forums and neither one of them is about making money. One of them has hundreds of members and is very active, the other is very small and not so active but it is very specialized niche and new.

**Purple Rain** · Jan 9th, 2009, 4:04 pm

I think most people who run forums aren't in it for the money, believe me there is not a lot of money in forums, unless your hugely popular. The average forum probably makes enough to pay the server and a bit extra for license renewals etc..

**Colleen** · Jan 9th, 2009, 4:23 pm

This forum was originally started for fun, it's the fact it grew and people wanted to advertise on it, that that part even happened, I just consider that a bonus.

**allout** · Jan 9th, 2009, 4:52 pm

Most forum at some point would like to make money. Honestly, it takes a whole lot of time and they deserve the money they earn. I swore off of owning forums. I just felt way to tied down and if I was not there all the time, it went to hell.

I did just start a blog that I started to try to help people not make money. I don;t think I could do the same thing with a forum.

**tsdesigns** · Jan 9th, 2009, 5:05 pm

I have two forums, neither of which have any way for me to make money. Although they are both pretty small and i'm sure if they did become bigger forums then I would consider putting advertisements on the forum.

**nrerup** · Jan 14th, 2009, 8:34 am

I'm putting mine together because I want a forum for customers (and others) to discuss aspects related to my business. So, in an indirect way, it's about money but it's primarily about being able to communicate with my customers. Some of the best ways of knowing what your customers are thinking is to be involved in forums related to your line of business - just don't be selling in them otherwise the customers don't get any use out of them and they won't use them.

**thebofh** · Mar 7th, 2009, 8:30 am

I know this is gravedigging, but I'm a [MENTAL]newbie[/MENTAL]. I have an established forum for 9 months and a forum I am just starting up. I am using the mistakes learned from the first one to hopefully get the new one started on the right track straight away.

I am not interested in making money from them, I've made about $16 from adsense & got some discounts from local businesses that have banner ads on the site but other than that it seems like people who start forums want to contribute something to the niche that they are in.

**Zash** · Mar 7th, 2009, 11:40 am

Forums are the hardest to monetize. If you start a forum with the main intention and motivation of making money, you will give up and fail within a month.

**Jani** · Mar 7th, 2009, 12:58 pm

I run a forum mainly to grow my online contacts and knowledge of different things.

But I cannot say that I am not after making money, yes if I am giving my time to something I want something in return too. So yes I do try to earn money from my forum with different techniques.

**puertoblack2003** · Mar 7th, 2009, 4:49 pm

at the beginning it was just a hobby thing.But the cost of running a site and maintaining the license was getting expensive.So i got tuned to Google Adsense and adbrite.And that pays for my hosting fee's

**loco** · Mar 7th, 2009, 7:04 pm

Both my forums were started as a hobby, one is making some money, the other isn't at all.

**The Webmaster** · Mar 8th, 2009, 12:28 am

Almost all the sites I ran made near to no money, seriously. That probably because, I'm a lazy ass and running and maintaining and promoting sites require good amount of your time. Never tried to run a forum, although thought about it a couple of times.