Need help with planning a budget for my forum

If anyone could be of assistance, I am searching for as many people to help give my guidance towards finishing my budgeting plan. I am wanting to start a forum, and have an understanding of almost all the costs that are going to need to be covered. however, I still feel that I am missing something.

So, if anyone has done budgeting for a forum, I'd love you help!
If you want to, simply leave a reply back with a list as to what those items were that you needed in order to start/manage a forum, AND the estimated cost.

Any/all help is deeply appreciated!
jeff

 

Why not list what you have so far? I will see if I can fill in the blanks.

 

Thanks RectangleMan. Here's a breif list of what I have:
1.) DN
2.) Hosting cPanel

... I'm about to get vBulletin, and have some volunteers. Hope this helps a little bit, got the bare essentials so far.

 

Some optional expenses:

Advertising
Link Purhasing
Promotional Prizes (contests for members)
Scripts
Coders
Designers

 

Thanks so much! If you happen to know of others, please let me know

 

I think that pretty much covered all the essentials, the hard part will be figuring out how to wisely spend your budget across all those sectors.

 

Thanks for your advice... and that's actually where I was looking to head this thread towards. I know am asking for a lot, but I just wasn't sure if anyone happen to have documentation that I can follow with/for my forum?

Just to have a hard copy to use as guidance would be tremendous to my forum's success.

 

If you plan on paying for posts then include that for one of your expenses.

 

I have contemplated about hiring posters/commenters, and I won't go that route... I am certain that the initial batch of members will contribute 110%

 

I suggest that you wait until your forum is at least 6 months old before you invest into VB. Take that $180 and put into something else, like some advertising on a high traffic site.

Most forums will close before they are 1 year old. At the 6 month mark traffic should start to pick up and you will have a better idea if this project is for you.

To be perfectly honest, most people are not prepared for the work and stress that a forum takes to run and promote. If this is something your doing "just because", take that you had set aside for VB and put it towards something else. Use something like MYBB for the first 6 months, see how things go from there. If you are happy with the results, then buy VB. If your disapponited, you can walk away without any regret.

 

what will the forums content be?

depending on that, you can sell access to exclusive forums, and use the payroll from the donators to keep that section up to date with new content.

 

@kev: Thanks for your suggestion, I actually haven't purchased vB yet... my bud stopped me and said he'd help create a forum. Only problem is that PHPbb is still down. Therefore, I'll take your advice and use MYBB

@Curtis: The forums' content will be based on writing/freelance writing and all the aspects that incorporate with it. Sothis means everything from promoting eBooks to blog discussions to good writing resources. I have also received suggestions on selling access & exclusive memberships, which I think would be a very possible and realistic idea in a couple months (at least 6 months, I think). Thanks for your input!

 

fluxbb rocks, pm me your forum URL we can do some mixed advertising stuff together...

 

it being ebooks and things. you can sell eclusive access to premium eBooks, maybe premium accounts for sites that allow eBooks and tutorials..

 

@ david: Thanks! Sounds interesting. I'll be PMing you shortly

@Curtis: As always, great ideas! I definitely had this in mind, but didn't think of it as exclusive access to premium ebooks... very cool

 

yes, it being private. you can give your users more like blackhat methods of earning money.
of course you dont have to. just an idea

 

What type of mods does fluxbb offer? Does it offer ad revenue sharing or ad management?

 

When I started my forum site, the only cost that I incurred was webhosting. I've been using SMF, not VBulletin, which is not free. And I am quite satisfied with SMF especially that the software's support community has always been there for me whenever I asked for help. I didn't spend anything for promotion since I use SEO strategies, treating my forum as a blog. I promote it the same way as I would promote a blog site. Today 80 percent of the traffic comes from Google search results.

You can trim down your cost if you may embrace the path that I have chosen to follow.

 

Thanks for your input I know that my forum will be good on the promotional side, for I have a couple thousand already interested... the hardest part will be KEEPING them on the forum itself
Thanks again (and congrats on your 2,000th post )