How much can you make investing in websites? In the past, there has been the misconception that you can’t make much money this way. But that’s wrong. Website investors span a huge range. Some make millions of dollars per month, while most make nearly nothing. This article looks at some real world examples of what it’s like to own and invest in websites.
Table of Contents
- Calculate your own income with my Income Planner
- Case studies of website investors
- How much can you make on your first website?
- How much can you make on websites per pageview?
- Download my income planner worksheet
- Key points
Calculate your own income with my Income Planner
Are you considering getting into website investing and want to know how much you could earn? My Income Planner worksheet will help you calculate your potential earnings, and it’s available for free. All you have to do is fill in the form below.
Case studies of website investors
How much can you make investing in a website?
The most common type of website investor is someone who owns a one to 3 sites, and possibly got started by building their first niche site themselves, and then they moved into the website investing space.
There have been many studies of how much these small bloggers make. The results are all over the map, but there are some basic statistics that seem to pop out of all of them: a lot of these people make less than $500/month. That’s generally because these are people who started a blog but may not have continued to put effort into it, and they generally haven’t bought other websites.
People who have bought websites often make more. I have seen figures of $1000 to $2000 per month, although that’s very rough. There are plenty of website investors with just one website who make $20,000 a month or more. There are also website investors and bloggers who make only a few hundred dollars a month with one website.
I did a sampling of websites for sale from one broker for this year and found that the average income is around $6000 per month per site. This obviously is a biased sample, but it gives you an idea of how much a reasonably sized website can make for an investor.
How much can you make owning a few websites?
If you own more than one website, you can quickly increase those earnings. There have been too few surveys to get an accurate representation of how much money investors can make with a few websites.
However, I can provide my own experience of when I owned a few websites when I was just starting. The first 3 websites I owned were entertainment sites. I bought one through a broker and the other two directly from their owners. In total they were earning $5000/month.
I know of other investors in more lucrative niches who have 3 or fewer websites and make $10,000 to $25,000 per month. And I know of a few people with this many websites who earn over $100,000 per month.
So again, the range varies significantly. When you buy a website, what you earn is going to be proportional to the amount you initially spend. If you spend $250,000 on a website at first, you will be able to buy a website making around $5000 per month. See my article on valuation for more.
How much can you make owning a several websites?
How much can you make investing in websites with a large portfolio? A lot. There are funds worth hundreds of millions of dollars or more that invest in websites.
But as a private website investor, you can still make a pretty good income, if you properly manage risk and are good with due diligence. With a good portfolio, a website investor can definitely earn $100,000 or more a month.
This requires a large portfolio of websites (generally, 10 or more) and sometimes a staff of either employees or contractors who can keep up the sites.
A good target to start with is $10,000 a month per site, so to make $100,000 a month, you will need to own 10 sites. Of course, this is only an example, and your own targets may vary based on the amount of money you have to invest and the amount of time you want to focus on the business.
How much can you make on your first website?
How much can you make investing in websites if you’re just getting started and this is your first website? This really depends on how you get started and how much money you want to put in.
As explained earlier, you can expect to earn about 1/40th of the purchase price of the website monthly. For most individual website investors, this is in the range of $1000 to $10,000. However, you can find websites where the price is low and the monthly income is $100 or less; generally you can find these on marketplaces, such as Flippa.
How much can you make on websites per pageview?
How much you can make per pageview on a website depends on a lot of factors. The common measurement for this is RPM, or revenue per mil, which is revenue per 1000 pageviews.
There are sites that make up to $100 RPM in very competitive industries, such as insurance and other high ticket affiliate items. On the other end of the spectrum, I have sites that make $2 to $5 RPM. These RPMs are in industries where there is no buying intent, such as K12 education or entertainment.
Generally, I expect $20-$40 RPM for an affiliate site, so per pageview, I would make between two and four cents per pageview. For ad supported sites, I generally get between one and three cents per pageview.
Download my income planner worksheet
Over my many years of website investing, I put together many decision making aids. One of these is an income planner worksheet, which I use to help me decide whether to purchase a site. And in order to help you get started, I’m making that worksheet available for FREE.
All you have to do is fill in the form below, and you’ll receive my website investing tips and insights, as well as the complete Website Investing Beginner’s Kit, including the Income Planner worksheet.
Key points
There is a huge variation in how much you can make investing in websites. If you have several websites, you can generally make a lot more than if you have one or two, although there are exceptions to this.
If you are looking to get into website investing, it’s a good idea to check out what other people are making to get an understanding of the potential profit you can make as a website owner or investor.