I thought it would be interesting for you to know what it takes to “fuel” a site like ours and how your contributions have helped. Forget about the hours of research and writing that we do for the site each week. The numbers I am about to share reflect what it takes to keep the site running – and protect it from hackers.
Cloudflare, a service that helps us secure our site, tells us that there were 158 attempts to hack River Cruise Advisor in the last 24 hours. Most attempts were from the Russian Federation. It’s a constant battle to keep hackers from taking over River Cruise Advisor. There are thousands of attempts each month. We’re not alone. This is the story for most all sites.
All in, the cost to run River Cruise Advisor is around $249 per month. That pays to have reliable servers, along with the email platform that sends you and 15,000 others our weekly newsletter, backups of our site and more. Our Patreon subscribers contribute enough to pay for just over one-third of our monthly expenses, and we’re grateful for that. Thank you to those who have contributed. If you’d like to support our efforts, you can do so at this link.
Cost of Running River Cruise Advisor
Curious about what it costs to run a site like ours? Here’s a breakdown of costs.| Service | Monthly Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Updraft Plus | $8 | Site backup software |
| Dropbox | $10 | Site backup repository |
| G Suite | $12 | Required for site email addresses |
| Digital Ocean | $60 | Site hosting |
| Mailerlite | $70 | Broadcast mail platform for newsletter |
| Adobe | $32 | Creative Suite |
| Pro Site Maps | $15 | Sites maps |
| Elementor | $6 | Site design platform |
| Smash Balloon | $8 | Instagram plugin |
| Gravity Forms | $8 | Form creation platform |
| TextXpander | $2 | To assist with quote requests |
| Vimeo | $7 | Video platform |
| GoDaddy | $5 | Site registrars for domains |
| Tablepress | $6 | For table creation |
| Total | $249 |
We’ve been running River Cruise Advisor since 2009. The site has evolved from project to passion, and it’s something we love doing. We wouldn’t love it without the “collective you.” We sometimes try to imagine a venue with all 15,000 of our subscribers in attendance. Visualizing that makes us aware of how many people we are engaging with – and also underscores our responsibility to report honestly and accurately.
There are many who come to us for advice on what just may be for them the one big trip of their lives. That’s not something we take lightly. To date, we’ve serviced more than 7,000 folks who have come to us for our advice on which river and which ship to cruise. We’re more than happy to help. Our goal is to help as many people as we can enjoy the beauty of river cruising.
Thank you for being a part of our community. – Ralph Grizzle and Britton Frost
