Money

What a directory earns, and what it costs you to earn it

A directory has three ways to make money, and they are not interchangeable. Two of them need traffic before they need anything else. The calculator below sizes them against yours.

The three models

Most directories that earn anything run two of these at once. Very few run all three well.

Affiliate commissions

You link out to what you list, and take a cut when someone buys. It works best where the thing listed is bought online at a decent price: software, courses, gear, bookings.

Needs: traffic with buying intent, and programmes that pay.

Works today. Put your affiliate link in a listing and it is live.

Paid listings

A business pays to sit at the top of its category, or to carry a badge. This is the model that scales with the quality of your audience rather than its size, and the one that turns a directory into a business.

Needs: enough traffic that a listing is visibly worth buying.

Coming. Featured placement exists; taking payment for it is not switched on yet.

Paid submissions

You charge to review and publish an entry, usually with a free queue alongside a paid fast lane. Small amounts, but they arrive before you have traffic, which is when money is worth the most.

Needs: a submission queue people actually want to be in.

Coming. Submissions are open; charging for them is not switched on yet.

Size it against your traffic

Move the sliders. Nothing here is a promise: it is arithmetic on numbers you supply, and the defaults are deliberately unremarkable.

AffiliateMonthly visitors10,000Share who click through and buy2 %Average order value€50Commission rate7 %

Paid listingsBusinesses paying for placement5Price per listing, per month€40

Paid submissionsPaid submissions per month10Price per submission€15

Estimated monthly revenue

€1,050per month

Where it comes from

Affiliate: €700
Paid listings: €200
Paid submissions: €150

Affiliate revenue works today. Paid listings and paid submissions are built but not yet switched on, so treat those two lines as a plan rather than as income.

How the arithmetic works

So you can check it rather than trust it.

Affiliate revenue is visitors multiplied by your conversion share, by average order value, by commission rate. Paid listings are simply count multiplied by price. Paid submissions are volume multiplied by price. There is no fudge factor and no industry benchmark buried in the numbers.

Which is also the limitation. The calculator cannot know whether your traffic converts, whether your niche has affiliate programmes worth joining, or whether anyone will pay for placement on a site with four hundred monthly visitors. It sizes a model you have chosen; it does not tell you the model is right.

One number is worth setting honestly: the conversion share. Two percent of visitors buying something you linked is a good directory, not a typical one. Try it at half a percent and see whether the plan still stands up.

The traffic comes first

Every line above multiplies by visitors. That is the argument for spending your first month on a catalogue worth finding rather than on a pricing page.

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