How much does a "Paysite" cost?
 

How much does it cost to put up a paysite. Let's say a hardcore site of 500 movies.

Content.
Hosting.
CMS/programming.
Design
Processing
Admin/office.
Running tit.
Accountants./Lawyers etc.

The results will be interesting what different people think.

Running tit is my favorite part, so I don't even have to make a profit on that aspect :winkwink:

Just kidding. It will be interesting to see the answers. I just popped over here partly to ask a similar question.

Can't wait to see the varying answers. Great post Paul.

20 k at least

100k.........

I think there will be some very crazy answers and your usual bullshit flaming because it's me. :1orglaugh

Content...

Exclusive or non exclusive, HD or non HD.

Hosting colo or dedicated?

CMS/programming.. if it's a single site you don't really need a CMS you can update with ease.

design depends on the content and quality see question above...

processing, multi billing? ccbill? verotel? tickets club?

admin/office.. .not needed.

running it... depends on what the traffic sources are going to be, and how much BW you use.

for a single site an accountant lawyer is not needed. you can consult one for cheap.

:)

as little as $10-15,000 - 100 DVD licenses or cheap deals from other licensed content sellers gets you the 500 'movies' - all the way up to well over $1M if you're producing 500 custom exclusive hardcore videos - the other expenses are similar - you could run an affiliate program with CCBILL or Epoch's software for nothing or you could have your own software coded for $50,000. Office could be your bedroom or it could be 10,000 sq foot in a nice office building.

:1orglaugh I just mentally autoremove the flames while reading GFY threads like this.

You could also try explaining how you reached the figure.

Content.

Hmmm I'd say you need at least 50 videos for a paysite - exclusive prefferably otherwise it you can get non exclusive $1 / minute

Assuming non exclusive for ease of math - 50 videos @ 20 mins = $1k

Hosting.

I have a 250 gb dedicated so I'll put that price $170 / m

CMS/programming.

It might be custom or just AWIZ for $250

Design

Yeek $1k +

Processing

between the %age for processing and affiliate it really adds up to quite a portion

Admin/office.

Unless your shooting you own content or you run a large set of paysites i dont see a need for one


Accountants./Lawyers etc.

Used as needed I'll say maybe $500 / m (guesstimate)

....keep it going....

$0.00+

based on existing content, existing processing accounts, existing accountants/attorneys and doing the design yourself

most people dont realize starting a paysite or sponmsor program when you already have one that is active generates pure profit and costs nothing at all to setup and run on the grand scheme of things

The reason for my post is I believe the business will change, it has to with all the pressure and changes already happening.

Just want to get your ideas on whet a site will cost. A site that will convert.

FakeNick you have to buy the URL :1orglaugh

No I'm talking about buying/acquiring what I listed. If you already have it you had to buy it at some point and your labour is not free in real terms. But yes if you own all the above it will be cheaper and easier. :winkwink:

interesting thread... :)

If your a webmaster? and on the cheap?

design, programming, running of site. Do it yourself.
cms $350
content 10k
processing maybe verotel classic $350
hosting $250 month
advertising 5k

Content. - I am spending $20k per site on DVD titles for download
Hosting. - 3 servers which will eventually split into 3 clusters. 1 for the members area, on for the databases and one for the FHG.
CMS/programming. - $4k MAS from www.mansionproductions.com - Best CMS ever
Design - $500 per pay site - $400 for the affiliate area design $300 miscellaneous
Processing - Whatever processors you go with.
Admin/office. - Got 4 guys working for me who all work from home
Running tit. - My wives tits cost about $10k from a surgeon in France
Accountants./Lawyers etc. - $3k.

Not sure about the $10 site, unless you have everything but the domain. But would a $15,000 site produce anymore profit than a $1,000,000 site. And would the profit be relevant to the investment?

Given the operator had the same skills.

Anything from $5K to $50K - depends....

Sure as hell would not be giving access to 500 movies - unless member B/W was capped :winkwink: If these 500 movies were recycled on a daily basis - fine, but no access to all of em at one time.

As for 'sponsor programs' - keep em - it's much nicer not having the hassle for an extra dollar and just banking all revenue.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

You don't need to cap the BW burn. We have a site with 410 movies on and update 4/5 a day. The members BW burn simply does not reflect or support the myth of surfers downloading everything. The picture on our site is they want the big one and download it one or two at a time. Unless their connection speed is VERY high it looks like they DL it when they don't need it.

Some go for the smaller version of course. Few are going for the clips, except the last two. :winkwink:

Just the picture I get from my site.

But if you think about the big sites and the quality of the movies and the cost of hosting/BW it would be tough for them to maintain it if a lot of surfers downloaded everything. For instance I have 600 GB of movies. OK with clips and two versions, but the big ones are what they want. To DL everything on a good host will cost $30 in BW alone and more. Add servers and you can see the members are not taking it all.

The members I suspect on most sites are DLing one at a time, having 30 minutes of fun and moving on. That costs a few cents.

I do have spider/download bots prevention installed. 95% of the time it was password traders doing it.

Yep - see where you are coming from Paul and agree.

It's much the same with our stuff - recycles daily and in reality members don't download all the movies anyway. This also may lead to the question of how much content does a paysite need to have an appeal - it's probably not that much, but good to update daily.

How long is a piece of string? So many different factors here. Niche, style, quality, price, etc. The size of a site and make I think is important. Too many sites are so narrow. How many times do you want to see a girl suck on the same dick or get in the back of the same van?

But updating daily does really work. We started out by holding back some content and adding daily, the views on the new stuff were far better than the existing. Even with new members. When we reached the number we wanted we started to rotate and still "new" was more popular.

Problem with some sites is they have 40 videos in and can't run on this model. 1 a day and the guy signed up for 41 days soon sees he's being conned. Memberships today are rarely over 60 days on average, ok some sites will say they are, so 90 day rotation works FOR US.

you got it right there.. I can't cost it myself ... scratches head...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:thumbsup

25% of what it makes.

No, I think you can figure that out Paul.

Estmate $5,000 to $10,000 for a run of the mill nothing special start up site if you know what to buy and who to buy it from.

Depends of the content of course, exclusive or not, videos or not, and amount of content... not to mention any bells and whistles.

But you can also put together a kick ass site that makes more money while spending less by identifying the right niche and optimized traffic source.

since you asked, and since this is something I am doing now, here is what I am working with......

Content - you said 500 scenes, I can get that for $5000 (probably less)....personally I am starting with 75 scenes per site and 100 pic sets

Hosting - have it already, $249 a month

CMS/programming - have 2 cms system already, paid nothing for either because of favors owed to me

Design - doing it all myself aside from a few things I don't have time for, also have favors owed, so in total I am paying approx $200-300 for all designs including galleries, etc

Processing - already set up through another favor, no charge there either, will have both ccbill and epoch

Admin/office - fuck that, I am not leaving my couch

Running tit - how do I run tit?

Accountants./Lawyers etc - will hire if something serious comes up, there is no shortage of lawyers/accountants ready to work for people

You can spend alot... but you can always do it with low budget having something relatively decent. With "relatively decent" I mean, something that surfers would pay for.

Here is the prices breakdown:

1 ) Hosting - > $250/month
2 ) Carma + NATS (because it's nice to have affiliates) - > $2000 For instal + $300 per month.
3 ) Tour Design - > $1000 (webinc Reality package #1)
4 ) Promo galleries templates - > $200 for 4 or more decent templates.
5 ) Content - > about $5000 for 500 DVD scenes. Here is comes a bit complicated. If you find some wholesale/blowout package you can find it even cheaper. also if you buy all the content at once, you will have much better price. Basing on my own experience, you can buy 150 DVD scenes for near $2000 (sometimes even less) and put 100 of these scenes on a site... that's enough to start. then use the remaining 50 scenes for updates 3 months adding a new scene every 2 (two) days... so let's say you sxtart a modest paysite with $2000 worth of content. I will not tell you where to get these prices, but as you are content producer, you should already know who your competition is and what are they doing.

So, you have a startup bill of $5200 for content + NATS + CARMA + Tour design + Galleries templates the first month
Also you have a recurring bill of $550 for server + NATS + CARMA

If you want to do it without NATS and CARMA you can use the ccbill affiliates interface and http://gallery.menalto.com/ as CMS. Don't go with sitedepth, it's unable to handle load and data growth properly, so gallery is the only real alternative. From all this, you have just stripped $2000 one time fee + $300 monthly.

Going the cheap way you have these expenses:

A startup bill of $3200 for content + tour design + galleries tmplate design
A monthly bill of $250 for the server.
Assuming 3 months of runtime (this is the content you have bought) yo will have a total expnse of $3950. After that you will have to buy new content and probably some more galleries templates designs.

So, going the cheap way you can have your paysite for $3950 ($4k).
The not so cheap way (with NATS + CARMA) it's $6850 after 3 months.

what about after you have invested all that what kind of returns are you looking at

Starting out around $200 and build from there :2 cents:

*bump* awesome thread *bump*

stupid question
it depends ....

fo real?

yeah i think it really defends.:upsidedow

No stupid reaction and blinkered.

What it very clearly shows is the position of the industry, where we are thinking and what we actually do.

Think more about it.

To all
The clear picture coming through is, starting a site is not expensive or hard. In fact it can be done for very little. Two very experienced guys have just pitched in with $5,000 to $10,000 and $8,500 approx.

Looking at the opening of a business or business extension as a 12 month investment this breaks down to a figure of $420 to $820 a month. Yes to open a site and be a site owner you need to be able to sign up 16 to 32 $30 members a month.

I understand the argument that this will direct converting traffic away from an existing sponsor. However this can be countered by the upsells and cross sells on the paysite. Remember I asked "How much does a "Paysite" cost?" not how much does a sponsor program cost. Because the moment you do that you will lose 60% on all affiliate sign ups and as someone pointed out for many it's more trouble than it's worth.

Plus you might find it tough with $5,000 worth of content to impress potential affiliates.

The benefits of running the site with affiliates traffic are well stated and for big programs it's excellent. But you will need slightly more than $5,000 worth of content.Plus support, hosting, banners, FHGs, affiliate programs even CCBILL costs in their high processing costs and lack of flexibility in cascading. And lets not forget the cost of finding affiliates who will send traffic.

But for the smaller guy well I think it depends on who the smaller guy is and his skills. Not an area for newbies.

The business is evolving and from the threads I see under threat from Torrent and free sites giving away everything. Running your own site gives you the flexibility to run it as you see fit and not as affiliates want. The flexibility to drop the price if the market dictates, to break it up into small mini sites, to go PPV and many others that will become clear in the future.

Of course those without $5,000 to invest or could not get half a sign up a day to the site are stuffed. But that's the real business world. no doubt they will all jump in to flame me. Plus the sponsors who are scared their good affiliates might think of becoming a site owner.

Thanks for the guys who contributed. Anymore thoughts?

I think this site will help you out to that.....

Then you're doing something very very wrong. Maybe trying to be Topbucks on a budget that a TGP site would struggle? Being silly but sure you get the idea.

Running a profitable paysite is not that tough.

You're an idiot Paul, you have absolutly no idea what you are talking about.

You got your shitty pictures in shitty magazines back when they needed content that not many people provided so they had no choice but to use yours, congratulations, 20 years later, your photos are worthless which is why you sell them for $5 a set. You're washed up, and are like the an Al Bundy who keeps talking about his High School football hero career.

Your content sucks, your photos are shit, and you knowledge of how to run a website is near zero.

Go make some magic join links.

beat me to it

No sir you are the idiot. You talk about something you are totally clueless about.

Magazines are paying $1,000 to $5,000 a set non exclusive, we sell them again and again. A solo girl set can easily make $5,000, a boy girl set $10,000. The set could glamour to amateur. The magazines existed to fill both niches and those in between.

Now if you had a clue what you are talking about and some common sense you sense you would realise that this type of money from a shoot that could cost as little as $100 would make the market to sell content very competitive. Today there are less magazines, video them the Internet have closed many down. All print is suffering from the Internet. Yes still a magazine set can make $5,000.00

Why do we sell to the magazines and other content provider don't? That's the question. It's easy according to you.

Your knowledge on this matter is zero, if you think my photos are worthless then you know nothing about porn and insulting Eva. She shoots now.

But like so many useless warriors on GFY you spout on about anything you think you know. I know noting about running a paysite. Go look at the review sites and see where we are on them, not bad for guy who knows nothing and has crap content.

Why can you talk about something you are totally ignorant about yet tell me I know nothing about running a paysite?

oh man here we go again :1orglaugh

Some tell me I'm clueless then Aico spouts off the biggest BS ever about something he's totally ignorant about.

But I will not respond to him again. It's a weakness I have. LOL

Had some interesting posts so far. Care to give us some constructive thoughts.

So anyone else got any thoughts?

About a hundred dollars.

http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/XsFilm...manRainman.jpg

The price could vary in so many ways.