ShadowGhoul
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1 week ago
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26 replies
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446
I’m curious to hear from experienced webmasters: what’s the typical range of earnings you can get from ads and other revenue streams on your forum? Is it more like a few dollars, hundreds, or beyond? Also, what are some ways to boost your revenue?
It really comes down to traffic and engagement. Plenty of forum owners make zero dollars starting out, especially early on. Once a community gets traction, though, making $50 to $200 a month is pretty realistic, and larger forums can easily pull in thousands.
Ad networks like AdSense are an easy start, but they don't pay much unless your volume is huge. To build solid revenue, most people blend display ads with affiliate links, paid VIP subscriptions for ad-free browsing, or direct sponsorship spots for brands in their niche.
SP makes no money and everything is paid out of my own pocket but it would be nice to get some revenue. I hate putting random ads up just for the sake of it though.
On Oct 11, 2026, Gizmo Borden said:
SP makes no money and everything is paid out of my own pocket but it would be nice to get some revenue. I hate putting random ads up just for the sake of it though.
PromotionWars is a free game and has no ads but there’s a buy me a coffee link that you can send £3 if you want so he can buy a coffee when coding
PromotionWars is a free game and has no ads but there’s a buy me a coffee link that you can send £3 if you want so he can buy a coffee when coding
I don't think anyone would buy me a coffee 😛
On Oct 11, 2026, ShadowGhoul said:
I’m curious to hear from experienced webmasters: what’s the typical range of earnings you can get from ads and other revenue streams on your forum? Is it more like a few dollars, hundreds, or beyond? Also, what are some ways to boost your revenue?
It typically depends on the forum’s traffic. Adsense used to pay a lot for ads to be ran on forums, but now it really doesn’t. You could possibly monetize your forum by selling sticky ads, text links, or banner ads on your forum. I would honestly say it’s a few dollars per month, a forum rarely makes hundreds on a monthly basis, however, it is possible depending on you monetize it.
So at minute I scan members Steam & Xbox achievements every 8hours. Looking at possibly 99p a month for hourly scans. However I need to ensure normal scanners are 100% robust enough before moving onwards with premium scanners.
Can’t launch a half baked premium system 😂
In terms of ads, that many people run adblocker it pointless 🙈
I don't know—obviously, the size of the forum makes a huge difference—but I'm not sure if forums are profitable these days or not.
On Oct 11, 2026, Gizmo Borden said:
SP makes no money and everything is paid out of my own pocket but it would be nice to get some revenue. I hate putting random ads up just for the sake of it though.
I think that you could put some ads. For example, banner ads would be great. You could also prokote affiliate links as well. Apart from that, you could also sponsor other websites. There are a lots if ways a forum could generate a good amount of money. Initially it may take time to grow revenue. However, if you are patient enough, you could start making good money. 🙂
On Oct 11, 2026, Cool-writer said:
I think that you could put some ads. For example, banner ads would be great. You could also prokote affiliate links as well. Apart from that, you could also sponsor other websites. There are a lots if ways a forum could generate a good amount of money. Initially it may take time to grow revenue. However, if you are patient enough, you could start making good money. 🙂
Ad Blockers really kill money making side of ads. Some browsers come with it built in as standard nowadays.
Ad Blockers really kill money making side of ads. Some browsers come with it built in as standard nowadays.
That's true. So, how do you make money with a forum?
By offering premium and things that come with it that make it worth it.
For example - Say your a gamer. Currently my xbox scanners pull your data every 8 hours but for 99p a month (planned), they could pull at a faster rate of 1 hour. If I had 6 people paid that every month, I’d break even with my hosting costs. Anymore is profit.
As site continues to grow you make more. Take a look at True Achievements, the founder Dan left his job and went full time with True Achievements as it made more money than a regular 9-5.
I’ve added this https://sparkpromotion.net/pages/donate
It allows sponsors who sponsor more than $10 to get a ad on the sidebar and donators page to their communities. The sidebar ad shows on most pages on SP.
Ad Blockers really kill money making side of ads. Some browsers come with it built in as standard nowadays.
There are many advertisement networks that offer anti-adblockers to their publishers. Forum owners could use those anti-adblockers in order to increase revenue. These anti-adblockers politely ask the visitor to turn off ad blockers. Under certain circumstances, these anti-adblockers bypass adblockers in an aggressive manner.
Forums are typically low revenue earners unless you have a big board, or offer services outside of advertising.
Depends what you end up really wanted out of it.. right
A forum could earn a good amount of revenue if it has good content and if it generates a good amount of traffic. You just need to be patient and focus on creating high-quality content and have enough patience so that you could generate enough traffic. You could also add an article section to your forum and start publishing sponsored posts by various brands and companies. This would also help you generate a good sum of revenue.
My 40k member forum was making around $2k for a little bit a month. This was off of ads, marketplace sales (I took 20%), memberships and donations. I had around 500k visits a month and was listed first on google for about 10 keywords. So at least that much 
(Ad revenue was about $2k/year so it didn’t make nearly as much as you’d think)
Ads are minimal revenue for us, most is from user upgrade accounts. However in terms of making money yourself I think we do well with subs because we are non profit, ie any profit is donated to charity and members like that.
Forums are typically low revenue earners unless you have a big board, or offer services outside of advertising.
And for example, what services could be offered besides advertising? How would you monetize a forum yourself right now?
On Oct 14, 2026, maxwolfstein65 said:
And for example, what services could be offered besides advertising? How would you monetize a forum yourself right now?
Premium memberships are one monetization method I’ve seen work on forums. Another idea for SparkPromotion would be to hire content posters and offer paid posting services with different packages, paying them on a commission basis. Of course, what works best also depends on the niche.
On my poker forum, I’m an affiliate for a couple of sites. I also offer a sign-up bonus through one of them, where I send players funds directly from my own account.
On Oct 11, 2026, ShadowGhoul said:
I’m curious to hear from experienced webmasters: what’s the typical range of earnings you can get from ads and other revenue streams on your forum? Is it more like a few dollars, hundreds, or beyond? Also, what are some ways to boost your revenue?
In the old days, when forums were more popular, you could make more money.
Nowadays, not as much.
You can do Google AdSense (if approved) and make a few hundred a month if your forum is active and being visited by a lot of real humans.
You might also be able to sell advertising, although I never see marketers buying forum ads anymore. Maybe a forum owner would buy an ad on a forum.
If you offer a valuable enough premium feature, you could sell premium membership for a few dollars a month to members, but you’ll get more freebie members than paid members.
Forums are not a sustainable business for profit, but you might at least make enough for it to pay for itself.
In the old days, when forums were more popular, you could make more money.
Nowadays, not as much.
You can do Google AdSense (if approved) and make a few hundred a month if your forum is active and being visited by a lot of real humans.
You might also be able to sell advertising, although I never see marketers buying forum ads anymore. Maybe a forum owner would buy an ad on a forum.
If you offer a valuable enough premium feature, you could sell premium membership for a few dollars a month to members, but you’ll get more freebie members than paid members.
Forums are not a sustainable business for profit, but you might at least make enough for it to pay for itself.
That’s for sure; the internet of the past was very different from what it is today. Back then, forums were popular, whereas now they’re essentially niche; social media platforms account for the vast majority of web traffic and are where the popularity lies.
But isn’t there any way to generate money or make a profit from a forum? Everything you mentioned is focused on avoiding expenses, but you’d always end up at zero—meaning zero profit. I don’t see the point in that. I find it hard to believe that everyone who runs a forum makes absolutely no money; there must be a way. In my view, the most logical approach would be offering premium memberships.
@Sherlock Bones So how was your forum making $2K a month without counting ad revenue and marketplace sales? We're you selling products else where or were you generating affiliate sales through your forum? I think that a forum could generate a lot of advertisement revenue but they may need to bombard their users with a lots of ads and this might hurt a forum or website.
On Oct 11, 2026, maxwolfstein65 said:
I don't know—obviously, the size of the forum makes a huge difference—but I'm not sure if forums are profitable these days or not.
You must be right, the size of the forum matters so much, it’s also depend on how popular your forum is, and which method you chose to earn from.
I once had a forum that was earning me around $100 per month through Adsense. It was on crypto niche, and I was running the forum during crypto boom in 2021. Currently, I have two forums, they are monetized with Adsense but earns just a couple of dollars in a month.
I haven’t yet started my own forum, but I am nearing towards starting one very soon, and I have been looking into monetization and the best methods to use to earn revenue without making it a place no one wishes to visit.
From what I have researched, how much revenue a forum can make depends on activity as well as traffic, if you are looking to monetise using services such as AdSense, but it seems that forums do not make as much on AdSense as they did previously.
On-site monetization such as forum subscriptions tend to be a better option for forums, if you can find something to offer that your members would be interested in.
Spark Promotion