[Caliber]

I have read most of these thread and with no disrespect to anyone here, I think some folks do not have a good sense of what you have to provide in terms of additional features to get your members to pay in a meaningful way.

We run elitefitness.com, the largest site for bodybuilders and one of the largest vBulletin's. A few stats -- we have about 40,000 visitors a day and we serve about a half million pages a day. We have just over 1079 members paying on average $11 per month. That's nice revenue, but we have a monthly ISP bill of over $4,000, so we have to charge -- there's just no way around it. Here's what we offer our "Platinum" members (taken from our sales letter):

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Post as many pictures as you like anywhere! Uploaded from your PC, or using the [IMG] tags.
Access full size pics when you click any thumbnail on all the Picture Boards Including:

Pictures of Gear (Never get fake gear again)
Pictures of Our Members (Check out our members)
Pictures of Men (For the ladies)
Pictures of Women (Hot and sexy!)
Pictures of Competitors (Amazing Pro Physiques)

Access the private Platinum Hardcore discussion board!
Access the private My Training Journal board!
Access the private Best of Elite Fitness archive board!
Platinum Chat -- so you can chat live with all the other members, moderators, and me! Private and Uncensored! We use volano chat.
Become eligible for special Prizes and Contests!
Priority for becoming a Moderator!
Free Telephone and Free Email Support!
Special Stars and 150 free Karma points for supporting the site!
Get 200 PMs (private messages) mailbox size. Regular users only get 50 PMs.
Turbo Code -- this makes the boards run 50% faster -- just for Platinum Members.
Personal Photo Gallery -- Access your own photo gallery of every image you ever posted and see every member's photo gallery -- full size images!
Task Bar Ticker -- Just like the stock exchange -- see the latest posts as they are made scroll by!
Images in Signatures! -- back by popular demand, put a picture in your signature for the whole board to see!
Stealth Web Address -- Does your boss know you surf Elite? Using the stealth address, your boss or company's IT department will think you are checking a PC Technical Support web site, because that's what the web address (URL) will look like to them. In fact, you'll be surfing the elitefitness.com boards at work -- not getting caught!
Get your own Avatar (Profile Picture) right away -- no waiting!
Use the new advanced Spell Checker!
No Advertisements -- NO banner ads and NO pop-up ads!
You save the $40 initiation fee!
You get a permanent 10% discount on all products at MassQuantities.com (on top of any other discount) plus other exclusive discounts and specials. Make your membership pay for itself!
Plus, for signing up before midnight Saturday, December 14, 2002, you get seven free bonus reports -- a $273 value, all for Free! including:
The 7-day DNP Fat Loss Inferno Cycle -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Modafinil: Science Makes Sleep Obsolete -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Xyrem -- New Pharmaceutical GHB -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Why Billy has Breasts -- Understanding and preventing gynocomastia -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Botox for Bodybuilders -- Do it yourself guide! -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Engineered viral delivery of IGF-1 for huge muscles -- a $39 value, yours FREE!
Huge GHB busts! And how two athletes beat the system and got off! -- a $39 value, yours FREE!

Only $8.98 per month -- Less than a movie! When you join for three months and get an extra month FREE! And we'll waive the $40 initiation fee.
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Even with all this, we still have trouble keeping our members paying. Two things we are considering are closing the boards to new non-paying members, and making the search a paid feature.

We spent a small fortune developing this and it runs on 2.6

Click here for our site:
http://www.elitefitness.com

Here for our boards:
http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/index.php

And here for how we market our Platinum memberships:
http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/platinum/

I would be happy to provide the entirity of our code to someone who could port it over to the new version 3.0 and then we could give it away or sell it as a complete hack.

It would be great to hear from the other sites that have actually implemented a paid membership program and more specifically, hear from sites that have a significant number of paying members.