Hello

I was browsing the other two paid packages forumotion offers

I was wondering, when purchasing the first paid package upgrade for a month, being then able to add an external domain name to the forum... Once the month advanced upgrade is expired does that also automatically mean your custom external domain goes out of the window as your forum would go back to free package?

Or... Does it work like: after one month, when your forum upgrade of the advanced package expires and after adding a custom domain to your forum in thus advanced package time period...would the custom external domain stay on your forum even if you do not renew your advanced package for another month right away and so on forth? Because i think when purchasing an external custom domain it would last for a year, right? ....

And then if you want to keep your domain on your forum active and online, could you then re buy the advanced package near the end when your domain is about to expire soon so you can redo the whole thing to your forumotion forum?

Thank you

If you are going to purchase a domain name, you need to go ahead and purchase a full year subscription to the advanced or premium package.  If you do use  the monthly option, you do ruin the risk of the domain name not working if you do not renew each month.

SLGray wrote:If you are going to purchase a domain name, you need to go ahead and purchase a full year subscription to the advanced or premium package.  If you do use  the monthly option, you do ruin the risk of the domain name not working if you do not renew each month.

@slgray
thanks for the quick response

i was afraid of i was going to get this as answer
if i can be honest, i think the the amount of money forumotion is asking for a year is right out silly, to put it in a nice way
if i got it correctly, i have to pay 45 euros JUST TO ENABLE the option to add one..... for that kind of money you can buy several domains i believe for full year?

i mean, compared to other websites such as proboards and jcink
proboards asks 11 euros per year and i believe using jcink it is even free, if i understand this documentation correctly
https://jcink.com/main/wiki/jfb-acp-system-settings-domain-manager
https://www.proboards.com/forum-help-guide/custom-domain-names

why is forumotion waaaaay more expensive than others?
truth is, jcink and proboards are VERY popular and might even be more popular than forumotion
so in that sense it makes little sense?

i hope you guys don't mind me asking for why its so expensive
or did i misunderstand the whole thing and is it actually cheaper?

if it is 45 euros and that does not even incl a domain itself
i think i am forced to leave forumotion , due to not having a big wallet and im going back to school this year which is going to make me poor as hell so these kind of expenses are not possible -_-
which would make me freaking sad to be honest as i have never seen such good modern themes for free incl good looking mobile look (which the other two mentioned above do not have in my opinion)
but lol that ain't worth 45 euros
i can make the same stuff with mybb on a free hosting website and add a domain for less but i just preferred to do it this way with forumotion

@KPOP,

We cannot change anything here. We're only volunteers trying to help other users with their forum. Forumotion packages provide much more than just a domain. Other services, if you try to pay with these features will be way more.

Regardless though, these are the packages provided by Forumotion and we'd have to live with them. Plus, nobody is forcing you to buy a domain rn. I was running my forum for 5 years since I bought my first domain.

TC.

The non-free packages offer extras that you do not have to have to run a successful forum.

We understand it may be a little on the high side for some of our members but we are a free host that do a lot of work to keep our systems running free to everyone.

As you would know it cost a lot of money to keep our servers and data and this needs to be upgraded a lot to keep things running for day and night 24/7 

The only way we make any money is by our ad's system and this don't bring in the money to keep us going so to help with costs we have the package system.

Sadly this is a thing all free sites are doing now as it cost so much to keep sites up and running.

Ape wrote:We understand it may be a little on the high side for some of our members but we are a free host that do a lot of work to keep our systems running free to everyone.

As you would know it cost a lot of money to keep our servers and data and this needs to be upgraded a lot to keep things running for day and night 24/7 

The only way we make any money is by our ad's system and this don't bring in the money to keep us going so to help with costs we have the package system.

Sadly this is a thing all free sites are doing now as it cost so much to keep sites up and running.

@ape
well thanks for acknowledging it is a bit on the high side, because it is lol
and i understand the reasoning behind asking for money.... but then how do you explain forumotion asks more than triple the price proboards is asking for the same feature?
they also need money, they also are free based
they basically the same as forumotion
i am just confused how VERY similar companies are having such big differences on prices for a feature that should not be so expensive in the first place
surely i get more than just a custom domain option but common, also giving me the option to send newsletters for 45 euros ..... i was able to send newsletters without paying money on my old proboards forum, just saying

and don't get me wrong, i am not trying to Btch about you guys or forumotion in general, if it does come across like that i am sorry but
i am just very very sad about this because i was so freaking motivated to make a forum with forumotion because the theme quality is SO MUCH better than proboards or jcink standardly gives you
and a look of a forum is very important, the level of how user friendly it is etc

but i have my wallet issues and i have some principals left lol
forumotion is asking way too much money for what they give for 45 euros, i could of considered it maybe if the custom domain was incl for that money but it is not, touch my savings even though i do not want to touch it at all unless i really really have to..... and that saddens me
and i know for many people 45 euros is not a lot of money as its spread for a year but for many others it is actually a lot of money
and comparing forumotion prices with the prices of other free forum websites who seem more popular even.... this price just baffles me
there is no way there is much difference between how forumotion runs and proboards behind the scenes..... and yet they ask 11 euros only
ugh, 11 euros is a reasonable price.... but their default themes are just.........................



but yeah , i get it, i should just shut up and move on to another forum website if i can't accept the fact the advanced package is overpriced
i guess i will be looking into setting up a mybb after all, i read yesterday they also got downloadable file to make it dutch, ugh

EDIT ; are we allowed to ask members for donations? if yes, is there a max? if yes, how? through paypal? would my personal info be shown to others through such system?

SLGray wrote:The non-free packages offer extras that you do not have to have to run a successful forum.

@slgray
i am not sure if i follow you though, are you saying with this sentence the free package is better and the paid ones are of no use as you don't need the extras to run a succesful forum? or am i misunderstanding you?

TheCrow wrote:@KPOP,

We cannot change anything here. We're only volunteers trying to help other users with their forum. Forumotion packages provide much more than just a domain. Other services, if you try to pay with these features will be way more.

Regardless though, these are the packages provided by Forumotion and we'd have to live with them. Plus, nobody is forcing you to buy a domain rn. I was running my forum for 5 years since I bought my first domain.

TC.

@thecrow
oh i understand YOU guys cannot change anything about this and i was not asking for changes
i just wanted to express my honest opinion that i think this price for just enabling the option to add a custom domain is ridiculously high
especially compared to other and probably bigger (popularity wise) free forum hosting websites as the ones mentioned above

i know nobody is forcing me to buy a domain but don't we all know , a forum looks better and is more professional looking with its own domain?
if you want to create a forum for fun and just randomness a subdomain is fine but if you want to go all out and all serious, a domain is kind of needed but that is my opinion
yours may differ and thats fine

and i know YOU guys are volunteers which is admirable but i read there is some office somewhere? them people at the office surely get paid i assume?

I am sorry you would want to find some other site to host your forum it would be a sad loss to us.
I do understand how you feel thou but sadly this is here to stay and there is not a lot we can do about it.

As for asking for donations YES you can ask your members and lots of sites do ask.
once before we had a setting on the Admin page to add a link on the footer but this was removed as the settings was not good for all over the world.

So how you would have to do it is go in paypal and make a new account with your forum Email address then make a button using paypal and then place it on a widget on your forum.

There is also one other way you could make money and that is by putting your own ad's on your forum but this would mean you buying the package first and paying to remove the ad's of our's first

Sadly this looks like it will not happen thanks to the lack of money you have already pointed out to us.

Sadly a lot of people will be in the same boat as you with all the problems around the world right now. Thankfully my job is safe but my wife's was not  so now only one incomes in our family now and we do this job on  forumotion for free to help members like you and to help our much loved host.