How Craigslist Makes Money
No Listing Fees, No Ads, How Do They Do It?
According to the Craigslist fact sheet, the only money Craigslist makes is the $25 fee collected from job postings in Washington, D.C., South Florida, Seattle, San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Orange County, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Austin and Atlanta.
Craigslist also charges a $10 fee for brokered apartment rental listings in New York and therapeutic services throughout the United States. All other listings are totally free.
In 1995, Craigslist started as a hobby. Craig Newmark created the list to keep his friends in the San Francisco Bay area informed of social events. The popularity of the list grew quickly.
Craigslist is now ranked #7 worldwide for English-language page views. Craigslist receives more than 20 billion page views per month. More than 50 million people use Craigslist in the United States alone.
With all of those page views, the income potential of Craigslist is astronomical - especially since Craigslist has only 24-30 employees.
According to a Forbes.com interview with Craigslist President and Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist has been approached numerous times about adding text ads to their website. Buckmaster admits that the amount of revenue from running ads would be staggering. But he says making money is not the goal of Craigslist.
Instead, Buckmaster prefers the community service, non-commercial, non-corporate culture of Craigslist.
Unfortunately, the downside to Craigslist's non-commercial attitude is that they are making it difficult for local papers to stay in business. How can newspapers possibly compete with free ads?
Overall, I applaud Craigslist for sticking with their non-corporate culture. It's refreshing to not be bombarded with ads.
I can't help but wonder... who among us could resist the temptation of making a staggering amount of money simply by adding a few ads?
Sources:
Craigslist Fact Sheet
"Newspaper Killer" by Louis Hau, December 11, 2006, www.forbes.com
Published by Julie Lind
Julie Lind is a piano teacher, mother, composer and a writer. View profile
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4 Comments
Post a CommentInteresting!
It's all in the ads! Nice report!
i only wish i could search craigslist regionally by zip code
Very interesting! I've used Craigslist, but I'd never even thought about them not having ads. You're right; it is refreshing :)