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We've been in 3 positions on costs of starting a paysite
1. Produced exclusive content for a number of companies to start-up
2. Produced exclusive content for a number of companies to partner with us for start-up
3. Produced exclusive content for US to start some sites.
Costs:
1. SilverCash and TopBucks spend $25-40K just in content to start an exclusive reality site. I'm sure they already have their programming and scripts in place for the affiliates and members areas. They do budget extra $$$, not sure how much, for advertising and promotion of the sites. Think of the ads and parties you see when the big boys launch a new site.
TushyCash started out with cheaper content costs, about $10k, but keep rolling that over for more and more content to keep their niche customers coming back, my guess based on what they've ordered from us and other producers we know, about $150k just in content.
2. We've partnered with numerous companies. I know my cost to produce 25 hardcore reality episodes of BikiniHookups.com is $34k. That's talent costs, camera crew, editing, encoding, and general expenses, not including a breakdown of our fixed expenses. Gamma spent an unknown amount of dollars to build the site, integrate it into their system and promote it. We share the profits after affiliate payouts 50/50.
3. My own sites are niche related, costs are $50-$100 per scene, and we've started with 40-75 scenes per site. Designs were $750, software for numerous things was traded for custom or exclusive content, our cost about $3k, we already had our own servers and just bumped the bandwidth. Traffic budget is $5k a month and we're rolling over sales income into more traffic deals. Plan is to test with various traffic for 6 months, add a new site a month, then push for affiliates.
Bottom line is: A paysite, no matter how much or how little you put into the intial investment, IS NOT a get rich quick deal. It's a long term business committment that takes constant fine-tuning and work. Only those that have the persistence to test constantly, analyze results daily, and re-invest to make the project better, will make ANY profit.
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