Does it cost too much money to start and manage a forum?

[moneymakingmom]

When i started my forum, i invest $10 into domain name and $3.99 into hosting and used Fantastico free scripts to install SMF forum, so really starting the forum didn't cost more than $20. But since then, i've also incurred other expenses. For instance, in order to maintain my forum properly, i have to take off from writing articles and doing other paid work to visit my forum, update threads and take care of various other forum duties.

So in that way, owning a forum has cost me money i could have earned otherwise.

Do you think a forum is too expensive to run? How much have you invested so far into your forum and have you seen a return on your investment?

[Jonah]

Count advertising costs too plus cost of paying forum posters (if you choose). If you use Adwords, that cost will need to be factored in.

[moneymakingmom]

Going into forum ownership, it seemed like a fun adventure, but nearly a year down the road, i can look back and only see hard work. Though there were many fun, exciting times along the way.

[Lily29]

If I started off using a free forum like SMF and then upgraded to Vbulletin or Xenforo would it affect my SEO?

[Smoke]

if done properly not at all you may even get a seo boost !

[Rancid]

Do you think a forum is too expensive to run? How much have you invested so far into your forum and have you seen a return on your investment?

In my opinion, hosting a forum is not too expensive if you know where to spend your money at. I've invested about $50 in my previous gaming forums, and it went well, and gave back triple of my investment. Of course, this was done with time and effort.
Honestly speaking, it all depends on the time and effort you spend on your forum. There are tons of forum hosting websites that offer hosting for cheap, or even for free! After that, everything is up to you and depends on how you manage it. Of course, you have to spend in order to gain.
In my humble opinion, it's a matter of how you see your gains. For me, the best gain on starting a forum is not on monetary aspects only, but rather, the growth of the community and the love of your people for it. (:

If I started off using a free forum like SMF and then upgraded to Vbulletin or Xenforo would it affect my SEO?

Read more: http://www.webmastertalkforums.com/f...#ixzz2BzrhchYO

As far as I am concerned, nope.

[devijones]

i don't think so.
You can start your own forum only in 10+20 = $30 USD.
10 for domain
20 for 1 year hosting.

[standingoten]

It is definitely an investment. It all depends on whether you can successfully market the forum. If you can get it off the ground and going, the revenue will more than pay for the start up costs and expenses.

[jeniferflxs]

I own a forum exclusively for women and spent just a total of $6.18/mo including the registration and hosting.I have a traffic of 100+ visitors per day.I use the services of XnYnZ.com and had the Vanilla forum as a free add-on.I earn a decent turn-over through this forum.I don't think it is so difficult provided we are able to bring in enough visitors to the forum.

[standingoten]

Once you get past the upfront costs, if you use Google Adsense properly, you end up making back all of the costs plus a little profit.