Exactly,

I am no expert on the adult industry. Im a long time ( and still ) suit & tie who decided to dabble back in 2005. I do a lot of work with financial pro forma's and banking... and that I am good at.

I had .. and in many respects still have no idea what people consider solid revenue for sites / companies. I'm just looking at the facts & trends. The facts and trends I'm seeing are daunting.

When you look at the real numbers from 2003-2008 you'll find that these companies had some solo models and or sites that had "x" factor. Those companies, from 2003-2008 were making between 38k - 98k per month gross.

These same companies also had sites that did very little.

Company 1 : 87% of their revenue came from two of the 9 sites.

But as businesses, they are in tight spots today.

Gross Revenue: $28,000ha
- Processing & Fees ha 4, 200
- Affiliate Payout ha ha ha 6,ha300
- Server Costsha ha ha ha ha ha ha 1, 800
- Model / Content Costs ha 6, 400
- Software Licences ha ha ha 500
- Domain Registrations ha ha ha 280
- Business Class Internet ha ha ha 495
- Utilities ha ha ha 425
- Rent ha 1,ha 750
- Marketing ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 1,ha 500
- Line of Creditha ha ha ha 400
- Business Taxes 964

- Leftover for Payroll $2, 986

This is not taking into account any equipment costs (computers, cameras ), travel, trade show registrations etc.

Your right about that.. conversions are not that bad. In many cases for those who sat down and "opened the books" so to say the conversion ratios were actually better in 2012.

That said I'll take 2005 revenue and poor conversion ratios LOL!

Completely respect what you are saying here. I have no doubt that many programs were successful in spite of themselves. At least for those who met, these are companies whose sites and or models are in fact active. they are updating, in some cases daily. They have tried redesigns, upgraded software, faster servers etc. These people care & are trying everything.

In the past this group of people might have considered the others "competitors". Here they were literally logging each other into their accounting / stats software


the one item that has been cut for all of those that met was their marketing budgets. They ( and I ) really don't know where to market any longer. These companies used to buy spots on numerous TGP's, banner ads etc. None of that works any longer and they don't have the capital to advertise on the sites with the most traffic.. tubes.

Not to blow smoke but Freeones was in the top 5 affiliates of every company present :thumbsup

LOL!

Well some of them did blow the money on "toys" but in most cases they reinvested in what was working at the time. That proved to be a mistake.

So the typical scenario is that these owners

a. have mortgages that were previously easy to afford
b. have car loans that were previously easy to afford
c. have lifestyles that were previously easy to afford

Only one of those who attended has consistently lived below her means and has saved. The rest lived at their means.

This was not an extravagant bunch. But those who lived at their means are struggling.

sorry about those ha ha ha's I'm not sure why that happens?

Now I understand, you obviously don't run a company. You run a hobby.

98k a month aint shit for 2003-2008.
ds

Why were they buying 30 domain names a month?

They had, at one time 600+ domains they utilized for blogs, other SEO etc. many were never developed and they dumped them.

See that's good to know.

and regardless of whether or not that was good for that time period, these people / companies were comfortable then .. not so much now.

This thread is like passengers on a boat trying to work out why it's sinking.

http://static.flickr.com/29/46634061_f1e080158b.jpg

The truth is you all were punching holes into the hull.

Why No one is Buying?

No one has to buy.

The Internet is bringing the porn industry down to a very tiny industry. You had 10 years to make coin 1998 to 2008, if you missed out. Tough shit.

Yes some made good money and if they were frugal they're fine.

If they blew it on cars, houses, toys, bling, etc. They need to keep working and downsize.

Many I expect, have few options and can't get out because no ones hiring. Well no one want's to hiring them.

Some will be still here because the returns are still nice, like Roald. I suspect he's now stashing his cash away for the future.

Microsoft, Apple

End of days .....................

This will be my last post or I run the risk of sounding like "PM" :helpme

All of the above was to simply point out that the small & mid sized paysite business that gathered are indeed struggling. We all seem to be in the same boat with our paysites. What is being done to mitigate these significant declines in the paysite business:

1. Shooting "LA" Porn: For whatever reason, fans seem to differentiate between "pornstars" and "web girls". Fair or not, having that "pornstar" moniker, in most cases raises their rate for other aspects of business. Also, those that have started shooting in "LA" are getting a day rate between $800 - $1200 ( a lot more than they are making on their paysites )

This does zero for those companies who buy their content and / or don't manage their models directly. But for the owner / operator ..it's a big bump.


2. Live Cam: The model's seem to prefer two networks in particular & they are making great money on them. The average hourly amongst this group was $187.00 / hour & they are averaging $1,496 per week

Again, this does zero for those companies who buy their content and / or don't manage their models directly. But for the owner / operator ..it's a big bump. Some of these companies are starting to set up studio accounts so they get a little piece of the pie. Studio accounts, if done right, can be lucrative. The most interesting tactic & one that has worked well .. the company is recruiting housewives from the suburbs rather than typical models. They contend these women are motivated, find it fun and treat the situation professionally. ( i.e. they show up on time, put in their work & have little drama )


3. Clips4Sale : Niche certainly works better. But for the solo model or "mainstream" porn these companies are making money on C4S. The range is all over the board however. $600 - $2200 per month. This revenue stream does actually benefit the companies regardless of whether or not they manage their models.


4. Feature Dancing: Again, this really only benefits the model & this game has changed significantly in the past two years. There are essentially two main booking agents for this. I know there are more than two but there are two who handle a significant percentage of the bookings. Recently, Clubs are either booking "A" lister's only or booking non "A" lister's at significantly reduced rates. Feature dancing continues to be lucrative for the feature. The non 'A" listers, in markets over 400k people are averaging $250 per show from the club & getting booked for an average of 5 shows. Tips vary widely but averaged $2400 combined for those 5 shows. This has a lot to do with whether or not the feature is doing private dances, selling dvd's , polaroids etc. Interestingly, polaroids outsell dvd's according to the features.

5. "Private Sessions": Call it what you will but this is a reality of the business and potentially the most lucrative aspect of it. Again, this benefits the individual model rather than the companies.

Trend I seen in past years it is that live cam sites who previous owned or subsidized cam studios, stopped to own or subsidize any studio or cam models as that's not worth being more a cost of time & money, and also a risk it collapses wasting investment... why a cam site doing $$ with site itself with no any need to manage or pay any cam studio, should risk own money and time in studios, given studios will signup on site with own expensies and risks, and there's so many studios and cam girls today (due to crisis) that sites can not even register all them and should do a selection?

It coudl be some "new" cam site owner may think "I setup my studio too" but this is an easier and quicker way to fail really, unless incredible luck as manage cam girls studios it is as stable as radioactive uranium.

good thread

do you think prob is on your end or everyone on the interment stopped buying. time for you to find new traffic bro

So how suddenly something iw wrong with my traffic? it is mostly Se traffic with conversion stable for years. As Ive mention, Ive talked to several other webmasters and they feel the same.

Great post - Trend, I disagree with you that cam girls are averaging 187/hr. On Stripperweb that is all they talk about and 50/hr is more average, even on the top sites. Some CGs do make much more. The housewife thing would be brilliant - they'd make a killing.

Morning ilnjscb,

With respect to the 187 / hr number. Keep in mind that that number was for the group that gathered & the women have fairly well known to well known names. Good to know that the non "pornstar" rate is more around the $50 /hr rate.

btw.. at $50 / hr that's still a 96k / year job at 48 weeks of work ... not too bad!

I wish I could find women who would pay me 96k per year to jack off. Seems I'm constantly doing it for free :(

There is not something such as a stable earning for a cam model. The same cam girl can do $50/h a month and $5/hour next month and $100/h next month. This could depend on very few whale customers she get or she loses, and by how many new camgirls and/or customers are added to her main site(s), and so on.
Very often I see a cam girl getting a whale-boyfriend, some of them make a deal with the camgirl such as: I take you in private every day most hours you are online, but then you don't take in private anyone else - the girl accepts if she gets like $2k or $4k or whatever she deals with the guy. At times it is not a deal, is just the girl is too lazy to be online for more than this one guy who is sure cash.
Then this cam girl rents bigger apartment, buy car with mortgage loan and so on, and shortly after her whale-boyfriend stops, and she is broke immediately - she returns online at cheapest price for 12 hours per day shifts, with little results and cries for advance payments or loan even from the cam site :)
In fact I can see statistics of girl earnings are very unstable, even when they are online the same hours per week and month.
Extreme cases but not so rare can be a 10 times difference between different months.

September is slow for me too... 20% off.

Exactly - when we say 50/hr that is with the understanding that if they work 8 hours a day they would never get that. Most sites have notification emails, so if a cam girl gets on like 600 guys go to her cam over the next two hours. If she was on every day she gets exhausted (try to be "on" for 8 hours).

Small update: sales started coming today for me. Suddenly. But guess what, I am not the only one. People that had same problem feel the same. Coincidence?

nah still flat over here....2% form submissions for this week...

statistical anomaly 98% of leads to join form simply not interested enough to join but interested enough to click thru tour and visit join page after seeing price displayed...

wanna buy this cool crumbling bridge?

Same here. Can't make more than 30 sales per day this week. Something is wrong with wankers...