I appreciate everyone being very honest in this thread.
When it comes to money the thing to keep in mind is I always want to improve this place, improve this community, and continue to keep the site going.
For the past ~6 years 90% of the costs of the site have come out of my pocket. Server upgrades, bandwidth, software licensing, etc have fallen under that financial cap. While we do have advertisers at the top right we don't charge them a ton of money to advertise. My thought is they are trusted companies that I would personally do business with, therefor I'd like to pass them along to the community.
During the start of this R3V was financially supported by MR325, Josh, and myself. Due to financial burden they had to step back from the financial responsibility of the site and leave it to me. Every server upgrade, license cost, etc has come from me.
Recently I added a banner to the bottom of the site provided by AdSense (Google), the point of this was to provide additional revenue streams to further improve the site and add more back to the community.
Google brings in ~$1000 gross per month. Base site costs are $200 a month to just keep the site going.
Each year the R3VLimited party costs me around $2500 - $3000 in total cost to put on. This goes toward kegs, food, plates, snacks, propane, everything needed to put on the party.
This year R3V paid Andrew over $700 to make shirts to give away to all R3VLimited Party attendees, plus whatever we had left over would be given away at the picnic.
Last year I spent around $3000 on server equipment, licenses, and other improvements to keep us going.
When you add all of this together it goes like this.
$2400 a year to run R3V as a base
$300 a year for software licenses to VBulletin, MozyPro, etc
$3700 a year for the party
$3000 a year for server upgrades, improvements, and whatever new hardware I want to buy to toss toward the site.
Google at the time was pulling in around $750 a month after taxes, other ads combined for the year pulled in around $100.
$850 a month in revenue = $10,200 and $9,400 in yearly expenses.
Some of you can imagine that this will hurt R3V, and hurt the image of the site, but let me tell you one thing.
A) I love this place, I love this community, and my goal is never to take anything away from it
B) I know my financial limits to support this site, and to allow pornography to remove over $10,000 in yearly revenue is something I cannot financially sustain anymore
C) Language, our typical harsh rough self is still something that can remain, nobody is stopping that.
D) R3V is not going anyway. If the advertisers come back and tell me the F-off then I will suck it up and deal with it. The party may become smaller, and other things may take a slight delay/slide.
For those of you who thing I am turning into E30Tech when it comes to advertising, think about this.
At our current trend before Google removed our advertising account (which I am trying to resolve with them) my yearly Profit in pocket was $800 dollars (all of these are rough estimates remember)
That is $800 dollars a year that i pay myself to run this place.
Also remember we don't charge for any additional features like e30tech, no premium member stuff, no banner ads cluttered all over the site, etc.
I don't post here a ton, but when I do, please try and see things from my eyes.
Thank you,
--James
When it comes to money the thing to keep in mind is I always want to improve this place, improve this community, and continue to keep the site going.
For the past ~6 years 90% of the costs of the site have come out of my pocket. Server upgrades, bandwidth, software licensing, etc have fallen under that financial cap. While we do have advertisers at the top right we don't charge them a ton of money to advertise. My thought is they are trusted companies that I would personally do business with, therefor I'd like to pass them along to the community.
During the start of this R3V was financially supported by MR325, Josh, and myself. Due to financial burden they had to step back from the financial responsibility of the site and leave it to me. Every server upgrade, license cost, etc has come from me.
Recently I added a banner to the bottom of the site provided by AdSense (Google), the point of this was to provide additional revenue streams to further improve the site and add more back to the community.
Google brings in ~$1000 gross per month. Base site costs are $200 a month to just keep the site going.
Each year the R3VLimited party costs me around $2500 - $3000 in total cost to put on. This goes toward kegs, food, plates, snacks, propane, everything needed to put on the party.
This year R3V paid Andrew over $700 to make shirts to give away to all R3VLimited Party attendees, plus whatever we had left over would be given away at the picnic.
Last year I spent around $3000 on server equipment, licenses, and other improvements to keep us going.
When you add all of this together it goes like this.
$2400 a year to run R3V as a base
$300 a year for software licenses to VBulletin, MozyPro, etc
$3700 a year for the party
$3000 a year for server upgrades, improvements, and whatever new hardware I want to buy to toss toward the site.
Google at the time was pulling in around $750 a month after taxes, other ads combined for the year pulled in around $100.
$850 a month in revenue = $10,200 and $9,400 in yearly expenses.
Some of you can imagine that this will hurt R3V, and hurt the image of the site, but let me tell you one thing.
A) I love this place, I love this community, and my goal is never to take anything away from it
B) I know my financial limits to support this site, and to allow pornography to remove over $10,000 in yearly revenue is something I cannot financially sustain anymore
C) Language, our typical harsh rough self is still something that can remain, nobody is stopping that.
D) R3V is not going anyway. If the advertisers come back and tell me the F-off then I will suck it up and deal with it. The party may become smaller, and other things may take a slight delay/slide.
For those of you who thing I am turning into E30Tech when it comes to advertising, think about this.
At our current trend before Google removed our advertising account (which I am trying to resolve with them) my yearly Profit in pocket was $800 dollars (all of these are rough estimates remember)
That is $800 dollars a year that i pay myself to run this place.
Also remember we don't charge for any additional features like e30tech, no premium member stuff, no banner ads cluttered all over the site, etc.
I don't post here a ton, but when I do, please try and see things from my eyes.
Thank you,
--James
Leave a comment: