Does owning a pet site mean I don't have to work?

[cpvr]

Hmm, I get this question a lot, but it depends on what you mean by "work", if you mean working a full-time or part-time job outside the web, then yes you do. You need money to make money and without money to invest into your pet site - it will fail and not go anywhere.

Remember, you have to spend the following on your pet site:
At least $10 for the domain
At least $30 for hosting (let's assume that's how much hosting is..)
At least $100+ for images; new pets, new items, or unless you have your own artists that will work for free, then you're in luck
At least $200+ for a quality design
At least $2,000+ on an advertising campaign

So, see how much it takes to get your pet site going? Marapets didn't grow in one day, neither did Neopets. It took them a lot of money to strike gold, but you can too.

[Fly]

I think if you own a pet site there's a tremendous amount of work to do on it. I don't think it will grow unless effort is put in there.

[FuRom]

At least $10 for the domain
I spent like $6 per domain and then I use dyndns.com for some simple subdomains for small dead end projects. So $0.50 monthly?

At least $30 for hosting (let's assume that's how much hosting is..)
Host your damn self with wamp or something.

At least $100+ for images; new pets, new items, or unless you have your own artists that will work for free, then you're in luck
You can normally find people willing to volunteer, but yeah, I'd agree with it generally. Lets say more like $500 monthly.

At least $200+ for a quality design
Learn HTML and make your own damn design xD! Or use a free one from some site that distributes free designs until you can figure out how to make your own. I personally do my own crap. It's not hard to learn to make your own stuff. I'd say if you buy a design though, it'd reasonably be $40 USD. Anything more and you're being ripped off, unless they do the HTML for the design too. If they do the HTML then about $120~200 depending. About $15 monthly?

At least $2,000+ on an advertising campaign
Nah, you always got word of mouth. Good websites spread quick with word of mouth... or... social bookmarking. $0 monthly.

Overall: $515.50 USD monthly. That's nothing once you're making cha ching. This is a give or take estimate.... It can overall be nothing...

[Chevy]

Verpets has a budget of $0.

xD It is going goood!

And it CAN be done, living proof, in January :)

[Taowie]

For any project you're going to need a nice budget before it can grow. When I first started my project, I thought "This should be easy. Open a cash shop, have people donate, and slowly begining buliding my empire." xD That wasn't the case though. Back then I spent barely any of my own money on my website; about $10 - $12 a month max all on server charges, but now, I am spending quite a bit more (mainlly because I have a job)

~$50 a month for my artist
Even though she's doing the work free of charge (partnership), she does have money issues at home =3 So whenever I can, I give her a bit of cash. What i am trying to do now is get my site up so that it can begin earning income which will make her work more on the site =3

$10 a month for server
This is a bit too much for a server. I had one for $4 a month that was pretty good, but for some reason, their server would freeze on me every 5 minutes. This happened to no one else but me D= and I got sick of it. I then switched to go-daddy which was like, $6 - $10 month? (forgot >w<) Best host ever except I hated their CP and they refused to turn sockets on for me (even though they said they were on). Went through about 3 more server changes and currently at Hostgator Their not bad, but I still need a server that allows the use of sockets for gaming projects. Without one, my idea is as good as dead within the next two years =3 I had a spare PC I was going to use as a server, but I gave it away >w<

~$640 for maps
My artist can't do terrain nor buildings >w< So I need to pay another artist to do so. Although now, I am still currently looking for map artists, but I think I found someone whom I may like.

$20 a year for domains
Currently, my site has two domains, and I hopefully I will be getting a 3rd one this Spring. If I can manage to get this third one, I will scrap the other two and be satisfied with that one =3

$50 a month for internet
I often test my scripts out both offline and online. As well, I like to stay actively engaged on the events happening with my site, such as artist updates, ideas, stuff like that. This may be the biggest waste out of my whole spending, but it is necessary. $50 a month is till too much D= And my internet company sucks. They screwed up my account so much. When I first signed up, my bill was about $70 a month because they put me on the wrong speed, then gave me a bunch of extra packages I didn't want (even told them I didn't), then lied to me about theie DSL modem (told me I will pay it off in three months, but it seems like I am leasing it from them for $12 a month, so I ened to get my own)

So yeah. Running any project is going to cost a pretty penny to get up and running. Hell, I even have more things I need to pay for, such as software ($2000 total), a home server (about $300 - $400 if I'm lucky), faster internet speed for server ($120-ish a month?).

[Autumn]

I disagree. O:

At least $10 for the domain
Yeah okay that one is true. xD
At least $30 for hosting (let's assume that's how much hosting is..)
I've personally found good hosting for a lot cheaper.
At least $100+ for images; new pets, new items, or unless you have your own artists that will work for free, then you're in luck
I draw my own images so $0 for me. :D It's not that unlikely to find artists to work for free, either. =/ Numerous sites have artists that work for free.
At least $200+ for a quality design
I do web design also. xD;
At least $2,000+ on an advertising campaign
There's always this forum and lots of other forums. :D

Althoughhh, you forgot hiring someone to actually code the site. Unfortunately...I can't code. xD Unless you want to use a free pet site service...which I dont recommend. :X Or you learn how to code yourself.

[stuffradio]

I disagree. O:

At least $10 for the domain
Yeah okay that one is true. xD
At least $30 for hosting (let's assume that's how much hosting is..)
I've personally found good hosting for a lot cheaper.
At least $100+ for images; new pets, new items, or unless you have your own artists that will work for free, then you're in luck
I draw my own images so $0 for me. It's not that unlikely to find artists to work for free, either. =/ Numerous sites have artists that work for free.
At least $200+ for a quality design
I do web design also. xD;
At least $2,000+ on an advertising campaign
There's always this forum and lots of other forums.

Althoughhh, you forgot hiring someone to actually code the site. Unfortunately...I can't code. xD Unless you want to use a free pet site service...which I dont recommend. :X Or you learn how to code yourself.

I disagree. O:

At least $7.99 for a domain
You can get .coms for 7.99

At least $30 for hosting (let's assume that's how much hosting is..)
I personally pay about $99 a year for my hosting

At least $200+ for images;]
Probably better to have a higher budget for this.

At least $50+ for a quality design
I know some designers

At least $1,000+ on an advertising campaign
Obviously the more you have set on advertising the better... so this one is kind of true for everyone.

I can code.. so I don't have that accounted in price.

[Patrick]

I think the whole point of the thread is to give rough estimates of what the things you need for your pet site are worth, regardless of if you do it yourself or not. I think arguing about a couple dollars is kinda pointless since this is an estimate.

Domains: $50/year (all major TLD's)
Hosting: $150/month (if you plan on having 30-40 members online at a time you will need a dedicated server. Expect to pay $250+ when your more popular)
Art: $150-$200/month (rough estimate, again, I'm assuming you have no free artists)
Design: $200 for design and coding
Programming: $2000-$5000 depending on how serious you are.
Advertising: $1000 to start with, more later

[Laska]

Hosting: $150/month (if you plan on having 30-40 members online at a time you will need a dedicated server. Expect to pay $250+ when your more popular)

Why don't you think a shared server could handle 40+ users? (Genuine question, I don't want to start drama). I run a private pet site on a shared server and i always get around 40-50 members during the peak time, and it runs fine. As we speak there's around 42 users online.

[Patrick]

Why don't you think a shared server could handle 40+ users? (Genuine question, I don't want to start drama). I run a private pet site on a shared server and i always get around 40-50 members during the peak time, and it runs fine. As we speak there's around 42 users online.

What pet site?
What server specs?
How many people are shared on it?
Are all 40 actually on right now or is that within the last hour, etc?
Are the users generating a significant amount of pageviews?

[Laska]

It's a private site.
It's a standard hostgator shared plan.
40 right now.. (well 32 right now).
And they all seem to be doing stuff like browsing the forums, sending mail, working on pet lookups, etc.

[cpvr]

It's a private site.
It's a standard hostgator shared plan.
40 right now.. (well 32 right now).
And they all seem to be doing stuff like browsing the forums, sending mail, working on pet lookups, etc.What's your users online timer set it? Does it include guests or regular members?

[Laska]

15 minutes.. and it doesnt include guests.. since well, guests cant really do anything on there since it's private. So it's all actively playing users.

[cpvr]

That's not so bad. How long has it been opened? Do you have any plans to open up to the public?

[Laska]

Nah, it will never be open to the public.. and its been running for just over a year. It's not going to expand or anything. I'm content with where it is. New petsites for me now.

[marblekittykat]

Hmm, I get this question a lot, but it depends on what you mean by "work", if you mean working a full-time or part-time job outside the web, then yes you do. You need money to make money and without money to invest into your pet site - it will fail and not go anywhere.

Remember, you have to spend the following on your pet site:
At least $10 for the domain
At least $30 for hosting (let's assume that's how much hosting is..)
At least $100+ for images; new pets, new items, or unless you have your own artists that will work for free, then you're in luck
At least $200+ for a quality design
At least $2,000+ on an advertising campaign

So, see how much it takes to get your pet site going? Marapets didn't grow in one day, neither did Neopets. It took them a lot of money to strike gold, but you can too.

I think this is quite a narrow analysis. Whilst I accept that I don't exactly run a successful site yet, my pet site so far has cost next to nothing. Domains are incredibly cheap these days and I got free server hosting. I have done all the coding and some of the artwork and have managed to find free staff. The only cost is going to be advertising. I think I just managed to avoid paying money by putting a lot of extra backwork (finding the people who work for free, believe me, is hard work).

[Cameo]

We paid for the initial code base to be coded specifically for us but then desiree (sister) coded the rest of it and continues to work on it. The three of us do all of our own items, pets, flash games, php, css, java, whatever else is on the site including most of the writing. So while we don't pay a lot, we do invest a lot of our time. Many hours. Our biggest expense is definitely our dedicated server.

[KeptSoul]

I don't think there is ever a time when you don't work on your own site, be it pet or otherwise, if you stop working it stops getting updated and if it stops getting updated, eventually it becomes stagnant or dies. (Unless of course you are filthy rich and can afford to pay someone to do all the WORK, for you)

I have owned my site for a little over a year now, and I assure you that I Work on it every day, not all day, cause I have a day job (To Pay Bills) but every spare moment I have goes into trying to make it better. Do I consider this work? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I love my site and the members it has, they are all really great and supportive. My staff is unpaid, money wise, but all of them love the site too, that helps immensely.

Expenses -

Hosting 5.00 a month to Almost 200.00 a month depending on if you have a shared hosting plan or a one dedicated just to you.

Domain names can run from the very low end on sale 1.99 to the high end of over 20.00 unless you are buying one that has a reputation attached to it and those can be very very espensive. the new .me is 19.99 at godaddy.

Art (OMGEE, don't get me started there.) If you don't have anyone you know that draws, and you don't have the option of doing it yourself, then you must pay for a good artist to draw specialty items for you, that can range anywhere from 1.00 per item to 50.00 per character depending on the artist, their quality of art, and the current market rate of what anyone is willing to pay.

Programming (UGH!) I don't know how, so I pay for help when I need it or rely on the kindness of those who offer free help now and again. I wish I had the time, and money to pay someone to design the ultimate site just the way I want it, with all the bells whistles and features that are out there to have plus a few that haven't been thought of yet, but I don't and I don't, so there goes that.

Do I get discouraged? Sometimes, when I can't figure something out or the reason for something not to work frustrates me, but I dont' stay down for long.

Would I reccomend this to anyone? If they wanted to do it and had a plan and some ambition and the resources to make their dreams real, then yes. If it's just to make a small space for themselves in the footnotes of virtual pet history, well that's up to them.

Do I talk to much? Sometimes, yes, but only when I am passionate about something.

(Done now, :) )

[chickapets.com]

Chickapets started on a $30 a month shared server. It only took 3 months before it was shut down for using too much of the servers resources and now is on its own dedicated server.

Sure small sites could stay on a shared server but the bigger you get the more your going to need to pay.