Fortunately for most, the investment for running a forum website is usually fairly minimal: a few dollars per month for web hosting, coupled with open-source software, and user-driven oversight. That being said, businesses and inexperienced forum owners may need to spend quite a bit more by upgrading to a more powerful hosting plan and purchasing a hosted forum program, along with hiring developers and moderators to implement and manage the community. How much you should pay for web hosting largely depends on the amount of traffic you expect to see each month. While the cheap web hosting plans are typically the most attractive, you may need to budget up to $20 per month for top VPS hosting services and roughly $100 for a dedicated server hosting package. Beyond the web hosting and domain name registration, the latter of which typically costs between $10 and $15 per year, your forum software represents the next potential expense. We’ve covered the free and open-source options at length, but your audience may necessitate a more expensive solution. Depending on the specific product and package you choose, most forum software can cost between roughly $15 and $500 per month.