What do you guys charge sponsors / vendors?

[PumpinIron]

My site is http://wranglertjforum.com

It's only been up for 4-5 months, but I'm already at 610 members and it grows by at least a few members every day. The forum is pretty active now and I'm surprising myself with how quickly it's growing (610 members in 4-5 months isn't that bad, right?).

Anyways, I've gotten two potential vendors / sponsors so far who were inquiring about how much it would cost to get their own vendor sub-forum as well as possibly a potential banner.

The thing is, I haven't even thought about this until recently since sponsors wasn't even on my radar until the forum was even bigger than it is now.

So, my question to you guys is what are you charging for sponsors / vendors to be a part of your forum and advertise?

My plan was to give a sponsor a dedicated sub-forum where they can advertise their products, but also allow them to add links in their signature (to their products or site), as well as let them promote products to members via responses to threads.

I just don't have any idea what would be a reasonable amount to charge per month.

 

[empire]

We charge $45/month per banner and don't charge for signature links. We let them post threads about new products for free in our news section, but they aren't allowed to promote themselves in regular discussion threads. We're not a commercial site and don't want people to feel bombarded with advertising.

We aren't really out to make a profit though, we just have to cover our costs.

 

[BoostN]

You name your price. With only 600 members, you can't really say you have a "huge" audience like I'm sure your competitors do.. but I would approach these potential sponsors and say:

"Since we're new, how about $50, (maybe $100) per year while we're starting out to help cover the operation fee's?"

Then, when next year comes along and you have perhaps a few thousand members and a lot more posts you could increase? I would personally keep the rates the same for the first 1-3 years, then increase to a larger sum. You don't really want to "go up" every year.

They're selling car parts, and just two or three sales would cover their costs of advertising and the reset is clear money.

 

[Joeychgo]

It's not just about members but traffic also.