Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by loboman 5013 days ago
If you don't mind the question: what kind of activity do you need to have in a site to generate that kind of revenue from it? ($ 1500 - $ 2000). Is it something in the order of, say, 10k ad views per month, 100k, or something bigger like 1 million, or is any other interesting factor that needs to be considered?
1 comments

I'm not the OP, but I've been running ad-supported sites since before the dotcom crash of 2000, so hopefully I have some useful insight on this.

As an extremely rough benchmark, assuming $1 - $2 per 1000 page views on most sites is a reasonable baseline. Not all sites will be able to get to this, and some will get to far more, based on monetisation methods, ad placement (VERY important and frequently undervalued), number of ads, and niche served. Generally, the value of the ads increases in direct proportion to the spending power of the audience and the extent to which they arrive on the site intending to spend money. Sites offering investment advice do very well on ad payouts - free Flash game sites, not so much (although they can make it up on volume).

So for $1500 - $2000, you should probably assume you'll need a million page views a month. Some experimentation with ad placement or a higher-value niche will reduce that. I do know of people who are generating at least that much revenue in ads with 100k page views a month, but that's in very specific, high-paying niches.

Thanks! very insightful