closed Developing adult site

[peteboy]

Hi all,I have alot of adult domain names and I'm looking to develop some of them.I'd like to know how much does it cost to develop a site and if some of you do it.Thanks

 

[pam]

Develop it as what? Paysite? AVS site? TGP? MGP? Link List?

 

[peteboy]

Hi,can you tell me the difference between all the posibilities you talk about with the price.I'm new in this industry.Thanks

 

[pam]

That would be impossible to do. The price can be from around $40 for an AVS site done very cheaply to several thousand dollars to a pay site done right.

You need to get over to Cozy Academy and read and learn for several weeks if not several months before venturing into this.

There are legalities you never thought about (you can be sued back 7 years of you use streaming video OR if you even LINK to a site that does it), the competition is fierce, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon thinking they can be rich. It's not quite that simple. Most of us with successful sites work 70-80 hours a week -- and more -- and it's a never-ending battle.

Just trying to get credit card acceptance can be a nightmare, since Visa is now controlling every move the adult industry makes as far as income.

Don't get me started on Visa

 

[[dfo]]

don't do it....with all the problems right now and many new issues just on the horizon, it's not even worth the hassel dealing with adult sites..

 

[adoninet]

yep, banks have strangled the industry, merchant accounts are tough to keep and you could get black listed by dealing in porn, if you only want to do porn and have an offshore bank that you give almost 20% to, then maybe, but if you expect to have a 2.3% merchant account in the USA, you won't for more than a few months, even paypal has terminated all adult accounts, that was many tens of thousands a couple of months ago, tough to keep the money supply going in porn, easy to sell compared to some stuff, but tough to keep processing, also tons of crackdowns and more, also so much free stuff that coversion rations have gone from 300/ to 3000/1 or worse over the last few years, porn made the net and now the gov and banks want to kill porn and I know many that used to do it on-line, most now do something else

 

[pam]

What?????

This is NOT true. If you tell them -- upfront -- that you are an adult website, they will not "blacklist" you for dealing in legal porn. If you process with Visa and are registered with them and go over 1% in chargebacks, they will then terminate your account and put you on the TMF (terminated merchant file). A legitimate website should have no problems. If you offer "free" trials that auto rebill or must be cancelled within 17.5 minutes of signing up, then you can expect problems. If you promise 100,000 photos and deliver 5,000, expect problems.

PayPal terminated processing for adult due to a lawsuit, nothing else.

Yes, Ashcroft is trying to shut down porn but right now he's going after the 'illegal' types of sites -- Lolita, pre-teen, bestiality, rape, etc.

There are many alternatives to your own merchant account. You can use a trusted third-party processor, you can use StormPay or ePassporte, and believe it or not, thousands of adult sites still process with PayPal. However, if they catch you, they will freeze your account for 6 months.

Originally posted by adoninet
yep, banks have strangled the industry, merchant accounts are tough to keep and you could get black listed by dealing in porn, if you only want to do porn and have an offshore bank that you give almost 20% to, then maybe, but if you expect to have a 2.3% merchant account in the USA, you won't for more than a few months, even paypal has terminated all adult accounts, that was many tens of thousands a couple of months ago, tough to keep the money supply going in porn, easy to sell compared to some stuff, but tough to keep processing, also tons of crackdowns and more, also so much free stuff that coversion rations have gone from 300/ to 3000/1 or worse over the last few years, porn made the net and now the gov and banks want to kill porn and I know many that used to do it on-line, most now do something else

 

[adoninet]

pam do you operate anything on the net that is "adult" in nature and it doesn't have more than 1% in chargebacks

the real world is the paperwork says 1% and they don't blacklist (tmf) you unless it hits 3%

most adult businesses operate at over 5% chargebacks

my background in adult sites

my upstream used to be one of the major backbones for adult businesses, they all for the most part went out of business, he's now almost 100% non porn

the same provider was almost 100% porn 5 years ago

I know some of the major pay porn people from many years ago, most gave up on the net

anyone trying to get a merchant HAS TO SAY IT IS FOR PORN, just look around at all the major merchant processing banks, they say NO ADULT BUSINESSES

Now I don't sell porn, I've developed some sites over the years for some major players, I don't sell it and never have

However, some sites I run have "Mature" material that is not sexual

PAYPAL even canceled one of our selling accounts just for having something we only wanted to sell to people over 18 that had nothing to do with sex

I use storm pay, a site that did 10K a month with paypal and no porn now does under 1K with storm pay

So you can't take paypal or process your own cards for "questionable" stuff and you are forced to storm pay or some 4th level processor, you lose most of your sales

anyway, that's what I've seen first hand

legit banks DO NOT WANT ADULT BUSINESSES

they all say it on their applications

anyone that has run a "membership" type account for anything on the net knows the 1% thing is not real, that was there for real stores with swipes

it's almost impossible to keep any net chargeback ratio below 3%, they way they do it is through growth in sales

so as long as your sales keep growing the true charge back ratio is lower than it really is since the site is adding more and more sales each month

I can show you public disclaimers over the years from many .com companies all stating how they lost their original merchants due to charge back issues and their new bank has a huge reserve just to let them process

the banks have that 1% in their paperwork to turn off anyone they want

when you have swiped sales it should not be over 1%

when you are on the net, the merchant banks know that MO and Net sales are usually in the 2.5% or so range so they cut you at 3% and TMF you

most membership sites run 5 to 7.5% in chargebacks

the reason is simple, almost 4% of all bank cards are in default so when a card holder stops paying they start to say I didn't order this this or that

anything with no sig on file gets hits first

what I'm saying is based on my own experience on the net and I go back to '96

it's very tought today to do anything with adult on the net

most of the providers are looking to cancel any adult site

all the major merchant banks say NO ADULT BUSINESS

paypal won't process you

stormpay = 90% loss of sales

the gov is looking at stopping all porn on the net

the gov is starting to prosecute over sex sites

if this was '96 I would be the first person telling you, lots of money to be made in porn

you threw up a site you have 1/100 conversions you had tons of banks giving you merchants since you said the magic words I'm on the net

7 years later

all the banks got burned by adult sites, so they now say NO ADULT

all the ISP's are tired of being harassed by the gov with warrants and stuff for who is operating their adult sites

easy accounts like paypal are no more

I don't want to sound the death nell for adult sites on the net, but the reality is conversions are now 1/3000 or worse

it's all being given away for free now, high quality photos, videos, mpeg's feeds, etc

the gov is turning up the heat

ISP's are turning down operators

that's the reality, sorry to say

now there are some great things to still do with adult names

they can be huge traffic hogs

if you find say a casino or something that wants you to send them traffic then maybe you can generate some revenue

if you think you can walk into any bank and say I do porn on the net and get a merchant forget about it

if you think a porn site can run under 1% charge backs, that isn't based on any real world numbers I've seen for the industry and I have tons of inside numbers

so adult names are nothng but potential traffic makers in my opinion now

as to money, I don't see any money worth the risk now for adult sites

you like dirty pics, you want to spend tons of time doing updates, you want to have to keep jumping from ISP to ISP, you want to worry will the feds come for me today then do it

down the road all the adult stuff will be run outside the us and the banks processing them will be "Partners" taking 1/3 or even 1/2 of the revenue

anyway, that's the way it is, and the reason paypal canceled all adult biz is they are now owned by ebay, they are based in utah (mormon) they want nothing to do with adult biz and they have enough of problems dealing with the rampant fraud that is all over the net

read ebay's own SEC filings, they disclose how severe fraud is on ebay without "ADULT" sales

any membership site has a high charge back ratio

I've run tons of none-porn membership sites over the years

I know my ratios with be double or triple if I did porn

heck, we're actually shifting our whole business from net sales to direct sales of stores for our core products

the reason is merchant banks

I would rather give 10,000 of product to a store and say pay me in 30 days then be 100% reliant on a bank that can pull my account anytime they want

you know how many people I know that had huge amounts frozen by banks?

Heck, you know how many banks intentionally target internet merchants to freeze accounts

I have many merchants for many net companies, one bank I went to markets OPENLY to net merchants, they came to me, so I set up an account, I process a 6K batch and it doesn't show up in my account

guess what, I get a letter from them saying they don't do net companies

I turned them right in to the AGO of that state

they had set up a company in another state to TARGET net merchants, that "AGENT" that was owned fully by the "FAMOUS BANK" then says you are on the net we have a special rate for you we want your business

then you give them some biz and they freeze the account and hit you with a letter saying our bank does not do net businesses

so he "bank" says we don't do the net

the "agent" a wholly owned company of the "bank" targets the larger net company to get accounts they can freeze

I'm still a witness for the AGO against that bank in that scam

this stuff is going on

 

[pam]

I've had adult websites since 1994 and have never gone over 1% in chargebacks. My largest site has been a membership site -- since 1994 -- and I had a single chargeback last year, and that was a fraudulent card a third-party processor did not catch, and it was my own fault as I missed it when it came through. Had I see it I'd have known.

I know many sites that were terminated for going over the 1% and know of millions of dollars in fines that have been assessed -- and paid -- over this. There are also lawsuits pending over it.

Any website operating at 5% chargebacks is obviously doing something wrong. LEGITIMATE adult websites will have very few if any chargebacks. Scrub properly, investigate, and don't lie to your customers.

"the gov is starting to prosecute over sex sites"

Not true. Ashcroft is going after sites with illegal content, not "sex" sites. There are 49 investigations going on right now of video producers/distributors and I'd bet that nearly all -- if not all -- have models made to look younger, degrade women in some way, or have things we all know you don't do.

"you like dirty pics, you want to spend tons of time doing updates, you want to have to keep jumping from ISP to ISP, you want to worry will the feds come for me today then do it"

I was with the same hosting company for 8+ years and only made a change this past year and it had nothing to do with the adult industry; the hosting company owner was very ill and I was sure he was going to close the company (he recently did).

PayPal stopped processing for adult -- eBay STILL has adult merchandise on their website. PayPal stopped (though thousands of sites still use it and in fact in the past month I've paid for a lot of adult content with PayPal) due to a lawsuit. The link to the story is dead but I'm trying to find it elsewhere

"I don't want to sound the death nell for adult sites on the net, but the reality is conversions are now 1/3000 or worse"

What niche? I'm doing 1/400 and have been consistently doing so. I know of many people in the industry doing 1/100 daily.

Originally posted by adoninet
pam do you operate anything on the net that is "adult" in nature and it doesn't have more than 1% in chargebacks

the real world is the paperwork says 1% and they don't blacklist (tmf) you unless it hits 3%

most adult businesses operate at over 5% chargebacks

 

[adoninet]

well pam write a book at how to be the exception in the on-line porn industry

what's your alexa for your site?

do you give anyone instant access?

do you process the cards yourself?

what genre is your target?

you say 1/400, is that the "Join" ratio where you give away say X days for free as long as they give a "card" to someone?

or is 1/400 actually "Paying" members that give you money for a prolonged period say 1 week or 1 month

is the 1/400 for more than 4.99

is the 1/400 for an AVS service and not for real content?

where do you get your content from?

do you produce any content?

what you are telling me about your numbers is far from the norm

I know too many people that had major sex sites and they all decided it was not worth it a while back

1/400 conversion rations is something from YEARS AGO if money is involved

or is your conversion ratio for something other than money?

for instance I have a site with a 200K alexa that's real, it's not an alexa with a high percentage of tool bar users and it doesn't have a 30 page per visit per user ratio like a forum

anyway that site is listed on many major search engines as one of the major sites for a major industry on the net

it's not porn

and guess what paypal has problems with some of the items on the site

anyway, my conversion ratio on that site was 1/4 for YEARS

now it's 1/10

everyday I get a flood of "New Members"

you ever hear of anyone having such a strong conversion ratio?

well guess what, the conversion ratio is for "Members" to join

they get "FREE" stuff

the items are "REAL"

I give away these things to show the product off and to then have the right to send them offers for "PAID" items of the same product

so it's a two step conversion ratio

one is for anyone coming to the site that "Joins" and then x amount of the "Joins" eventually become "Buyers" in the future

so what do you get in your 1/400 conversion ratio

you just get a "FREE MEMBER" or do you get money

if so what's the dollar you get for each 400 visitors

you pay commissions, you have an affiliate program

I get millions of people across a huge network of over 200 content sites every month, I can knock most servers off-line by pointing some of my traffic to them

what kind of network are you on?

I'm on an OC12

How many servers you use?

I use a bunch

anyway, I'm not saying you don't have these numbers, but if you do, then you are the exception

If anyone wants to speak to the owner of a major backbone ISP that was almost 100% porn in 1998 that doesn't even do it now, I'll be happy to give you their email address

So if the whole industry is moving one way, why are your numbers so different?

If you're such a big sex operator do you want 247sex.net?

or how about 247f*ck.com

we've owned them a long time and used to have sex sites pay us to point them to them

now they are basically dead

we don't operate sex sites, but we own many major names for the industry

a few of my adult names might point to an active site, but the actual domain name does not have any content on it

it's like a "front"

you go to the site (one of our names) we pull in info and photos from a client

they do what they want to the client

they pay us monthly for the use of the name

well I don't see adult sites lining up to get real traffic from such names anymore

you want 10K real exit pops a day?

you want 100K real exit pops a day?

what you paying if you have a 1/400 ratio

I had a membership for years with a 1/100 ratio

it had no porn, it did have tons of controversial stuff

I collected over 30,000 credit cards in few years

each one was verified, each one had a trail period, each one had email confirms

guess what it still ran at almost 3% chargebacks

it got to be such a hassel setting up new companies to process the membership money that the 50K it grossed a month wasn't worth it to me

anyway, membership sites are a tough thing anymore

the whole game now is traffic, pushing it around, etc

now if you have some magic forumula that has seperated you from the whole industry congrats

I know too much about the industry to buy it though

so what's the alexa you have

how many sites you have pointing to it

how many sites you buying traffic from

etc, etc, etc

heck if someone does something so good I'm always open to hearing how they do it

when I speak out on a topic it is almost always from experience

I know too many former players in net porn that had huge sites making tons of cash, that just gave it up, too much of a hassel and it's too easy to find non porn projects to make clean money on

if you think the gov plays clean and they respect what you are doing you're wrong

when you have to hire your first "freedom of speech" attorney to defend having anything thing "adult" in nature on your site

then you'll see it's not worth it

I know most of the top ACLU and other lawyers that deal in "Freedom of Speech" issues

unless you get the ACLU to back you (which they don't do 99.9% of the time) then get prepared to give all your money to a civil rights lawyer

it's one of the most specialized fields of practive in law and it starts at 500.00 per hour usually with a 50K retainer

 

[pam]

I'm not the exception. Far from it, in fact. People with legitimate websites, exceptional content and no bullshit are doing exceptionally well right now.

Originally posted by adoninet
well pam write a book at how to be the exception in the on-line porn industry

what's your alexa for your site?

do you give anyone instant access?

do you process the cards yourself?

what genre is your target?

you say 1/400, is that the "Join" ratio where you give away say X days for free as long as they give a "card" to someone?

or is 1/400 actually "Paying" members that give you money for a prolonged period say 1 week or 1 month

is the 1/400 for more than 4.99

is the 1/400 for an AVS service and not for real content?

where do you get your content from?

do you produce any content?

what you are telling me about your numbers is far from the norm

I know too many people that had major sex sites and they all decided it was not worth it a while back

1/400 conversion rations is something from YEARS AGO if money is involved

or is your conversion ratio for something other than money?

for instance I have a site with a 200K alexa that's real, it's not an alexa with a high percentage of tool bar users and it doesn't have a 30 page per visit per user ratio like a forum

anyway that site is listed on many major search engines as one of the major sites for a major industry on the net

it's not porn

and guess what paypal has problems with some of the items on the site

anyway, my conversion ratio on that site was 1/4 for YEARS

now it's 1/10

everyday I get a flood of "New Members"

you ever hear of anyone having such a strong conversion ratio?

well guess what, the conversion ratio is for "Members" to join

they get "FREE" stuff

the items are "REAL"

I give away these things to show the product off and to then have the right to send them offers for "PAID" items of the same product

so it's a two step conversion ratio

one is for anyone coming to the site that "Joins" and then x amount of the "Joins" eventually become "Buyers" in the future

so what do you get in your 1/400 conversion ratio

you just get a "FREE MEMBER" or do you get money

if so what's the dollar you get for each 400 visitors

you pay commissions, you have an affiliate program

I get millions of people across a huge network of over 200 content sites every month, I can knock most servers off-line by pointing some of my traffic to them

what kind of network are you on?

I'm on an OC12

How many servers you use?

I use a bunch

anyway, I'm not saying you don't have these numbers, but if you do, then you are the exception

If anyone wants to speak to the owner of a major backbone ISP that was almost 100% porn in 1998 that doesn't even do it now, I'll be happy to give you their email address

So if the whole industry is moving one way, why are your numbers so different?

If you're such a big sex operator do you want 247sex.net?

or how about 247f*ck.com

we've owned them a long time and used to have sex sites pay us to point them to them

now they are basically dead

we don't operate sex sites, but we own many major names for the industry

a few of my adult names might point to an active site, but the actual domain name does not have any content on it

it's like a "front"

you go to the site (one of our names) we pull in info and photos from a client

they do what they want to the client

they pay us monthly for the use of the name

well I don't see adult sites lining up to get real traffic from such names anymore

you want 10K real exit pops a day?

you want 100K real exit pops a day?

what you paying if you have a 1/400 ratio

I had a membership for years with a 1/100 ratio

it had no porn, it did have tons of controversial stuff

I collected over 30,000 credit cards in few years

each one was verified, each one had a trail period, each one had email confirms

guess what it still ran at almost 3% chargebacks

it got to be such a hassel setting up new companies to process the membership money that the 50K it grossed a month wasn't worth it to me

anyway, membership sites are a tough thing anymore

the whole game now is traffic, pushing it around, etc

now if you have some magic forumula that has seperated you from the whole industry congrats

I know too much about the industry to buy it though

so what's the alexa you have

how many sites you have pointing to it

how many sites you buying traffic from

etc, etc, etc

heck if someone does something so good I'm always open to hearing how they do it

when I speak out on a topic it is almost always from experience

I know too many former players in net porn that had huge sites making tons of cash, that just gave it up, too much of a hassel and it's too easy to find non porn projects to make clean money on

if you think the gov plays clean and they respect what you are doing you're wrong

when you have to hire your first "freedom of speech" attorney to defend having anything thing "adult" in nature on your site

then you'll see it's not worth it

I know most of the top ACLU and other lawyers that deal in "Freedom of Speech" issues

unless you get the ACLU to back you (which they don't do 99.9% of the time) then get prepared to give all your money to a civil rights lawyer

it's one of the most specialized fields of practive in law and it starts at 500.00 per hour usually with a 50K retainer