Cost of hosting online forums Options

[Christian J]

How much does it really cost to run a relatively small* web forum (say 50-100 active users, and hosted in a "first world" country)? A few different examples have made me wonder. One forum collects US$ 3000/year in donations and advertizing, but still asks for more. In contrast, another forum's owner says about US$ 200/year will suffice. Other forums ask for nothing.


* Not sure how to define the "size" of a forum --is it the disc space required for old posts (and maybe lots of large images)? Or is it the data transfer, which may vary hugely depending not only the member activity but also on the amount of content/bloat and bots that keep requesting it?

[Christian J]

True. Still, it's not that common with heated discussions involving hundreds of posts and dozens of people, at least not on the forums I'm thinking of. Add to that the data transfer savings you get with Ajax-driven forums.

$3000/year sounds like a lot to me, even if you rented a dedicated server (which you shouldn't need for such small forums, or?).

[pandy]

If it's a small forum it sounds too much. Is the guy saying he's paying $3000 for hosting? Maybe he wants to make a profit from it. He works on it x hours a month and he wants the same hourly wage as at his day job, something like that.