It costs about $1,455 a year to run the site. Here’s what that money goes toward:
- Domains: $140 per year. We have 10 domain names that we renew each year to protect our brand.
- Web hosting: $850 per year. Our forums, wiki, and other peripheral areas of the site are hosted on a Virtual Private Server.
- Forum licensing: $50 per year. This allows us to run our forum software and get regular security updates as necessary.
- Backup: $240 per year. Daily, weekly, and monthly backups of our site.
- GravityForms: $99 per year. A website plugin that makes administering our dozens of forms easier, as well as cutting down on spam trafficking.
- Website caching: $20 per year. To help our main website load as quickly as possible, we use a plugin which requires a yearly subscription.
- Credit card fees: $56 per year. For each donation we receive, it costs us 2.9% + 30¢, which comes out to about 4% of our total donation goal, which we factor into our overall goal so we don’t dip into our community savings.
We also occasionally require expert assistance with website issues and hire freelance programmers or designers, which can cost $100 to $1,000 depending on our needs. Any money donated beyond our normal yearly costs goes toward the development and emergency fund.
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