My friend has a forum (vbulletin) that he's thinking about selling.

It has a very established userbase and has been around for about 3-4 years.

Members: 3,718
Threads: 9,147
Posts: 483,905

the thing is, he never really monetized it. at all. he recently started dabbling in affiliate ads, but its nothing really serious. he has like 1 affiliate and makes maybe $5 / month total. the site is operating at a loss since he's paying for hosting but not really making any money from it. some members donate through paypal to help keep the site up.

i was wondering how much he could get for it. i dont think the typical "18 x monthly income" thing works here since he never really thought about making money with it.

i told him maybe $5k but i thought i'd get some more input.

What's the niche?

What is the site?

I agree, those 2 things are things I'd like to know before I can judge it's worth. The skin and whether a vB license is included will impact the cost.

yea it also depends on

traffic
design
domain
age
owned license?
niche

so we need more info if you really want an appraisal