# Cost of the SDMB

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-the-sdmb/364406>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [July 14, 2006, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-the-sdmb/364406 "2006-07-14T00:39:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-the-sdmb/364406/41 "2006-07-18T19:42:42Z")

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Does the “Members” count on the SDMB page include guests, or is it just paying members? Because if it’s paying members, there’s 59,990 of us bringing in roughly $900k, plus internet ad revenue.

(I wondered this myself since the servers seem particularly non-functional today.)

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**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-the-sdmb/364406/42 "2006-07-18T20:20:19Z")

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[QUOTE=Leviosaurus]  
Does the “Members” count on the SDMB page include guests, or is it just paying members? Because if it’s paying members, there’s 59,990 of us bringing in roughly $900k, plus internet ad revenue.

(I wondered this myself since the servers seem particularly non-functional today.)  
[/QUOTE]

The Members count on the main page is all Members who have signed up, ever, since the board started. The number of active, paying Members is much less.

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**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-the-sdmb/364406/43 "2006-07-18T20:21:54Z")

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…and yes, that number includes all Guests. All who register on the SDMB have a unique user id in the database, which is not re-used.

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