Is there a free plan?
Answer
There is a free trial: 7 days free, with no credit card. After that a portal on a Forumcat subdomain is $9 one time, and it stays live.
Forum hosting
Forum hosting without a server to run
Free hosting is never really free. You pay for it in server bills, update days, and the Saturday you spend getting it back online. A working forum here is $9 one time.
Free for 7 days. No credit card. Live in about five minutes.
5 minfrom sign-up to a live portal
$9one time for a working portal
No Dockernothing to install or update
7 daysfree, no card needed
The honest version
What completely free forum hosting costs
Free forum software is real, and some of it is very good. The software is the part that is free.
Then you rent a server and install it. You point a domain at it, get a certificate, and set up mail so the sign-in emails arrive. Then you take a backup. A few months later a release lands. The plugin you rely on has not caught up, and the forum is down on a Saturday.
None of that is a disaster. It is just a job, and it never finishes.
The trade here is simple. You give up root access to a box you did not want, and you get the forum without the job. If that is a bad trade for you, the open-source options further down this page are good ones.
Forum hosting cost
What free forum hosting really costs
How much does a forum cost to run? Here is the shape of the bill, side by side. No dollar figures for servers, because they depend on your host, your traffic, and how much you enjoy tuning them.
| Free or self-hosted | Hosted on Forumcat | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | A small server bill every month, forever | Included |
| Forum server requirements | A machine, a database, a mail sender | None. There is nothing to install. |
| Updates and security patches | Yours, every release | Ours. You do nothing. |
| Backups | Yours to run, and yours to test | Part of the hosting, nothing for you to run |
| SSL certificate | Issue it, then remember to renew it | Automatic, on your own domain too |
| Spam and clean-up | Pick plugins, then keep tuning them | Moderation and bulk actions, built in |
| Your time | The real price, and it recurs | The five minutes it takes to name it |
| Price | The server bill, plus every hour above | $9 one time, or $99 a month on your own domain |
The left column describes the work any self-hosted forum needs, on any host. It is not a claim about one product.
Never again
The jobs that come off your list
No server
Nothing to rent, size, or watch. No Docker, no database to tune.
No update day
We ship updates. You never plan a maintenance window for a forum.
No certificate to renew
SSL is issued and renewed for you, on your own domain as well.
No backup script
Backups are part of the hosting. Your content stays readable through the REST API.
What you get
A real forum, not a stripped-down free tier
The hosted portal is the whole product. Questions, replies, votes, one accepted answer pinned under the question, search, categories, and tags.
Customers read and search with no account. To post, they sign in with a magic link, a 6-digit code, or Google. The Google screen shows your company name, not ours. There are no passwords anywhere.
- Search, votes, and one accepted solution per question
- Categories, tags, and up to 10 images on a post
- Private questions and private categories when a case should not be public
- REST API and MCP server on every plan, so your own agents can read it
Forum pricing
One payment, and the meter never starts
Basic is $9 one time. Not a monthly fee, one payment. That covers a portal on a Forumcat subdomain, with 2 team seats and 1 GB (≈2,000 images) of media.
When you want your own domain, Pro is $99 a month, or $990 a year. It adds automatic SSL, unlimited seats and questions under a fair-use backstop, and a much higher page-view allowance.
The bill does not grow with traffic. A busy week is good news, not a bigger invoice.
Pricing
One flat price. No surprises.
Not per user. Not per question. Grow all you want, your bill stays the same. More traffic is good news, not a bigger bill.
Basic
$9 one-time
Create your portal- Portal on yourcompany.myforumcat.com
- 2 team seats
- 1,000 registered members
- 10,000 questions
- 1 GB (≈2,000 images) of media
- Full SEO and GEO: structured data + sitemap
- Analytics built in
most popular
Pro
$99 per month
Start with ProEverything in Basic, plus
- Your own custom domain
- Unlimited team seats
- 10,000 registered members
- Unlimited questions
- 50 GB (≈100,000 images) of media
- 1,000,000 page views / month
Billing
One page, and no meter running
Your plan and its limits sit on one billing page. There is no per-seat line, no per-message line, and no transaction fee anywhere.
What you picked, and what it includes. That is the whole billing story.
FAQ
Fair questions
What does it cost in month twelve?
Answer
The same as month one. $9 one time for a portal on a Forumcat subdomain, or $99 a month for your own domain. The bill never grows with traffic or questions.
What are the server requirements?
Answer
None. There is no server, no Docker, and no database to run. You need a browser and a name for your forum.
How fast can we be live?
Answer
About five minutes. Sign in, name your portal, and it is online at yourcompany.myforumcat.com. Nothing to install.
Does it work on our own domain?
Answer
Yes, on Pro. Point a subdomain like help.yourcompany.com at Forumcat and SSL is set up for you. Your Forumcat subdomain redirects to it.
What happens to our answers if we leave?
Answer
They are yours. Every question and answer is readable through the REST API, so you can pull it all out any time.
What happens if a lot of traffic arrives at once?
Answer
Nothing changes on your bill. Page views are fair-use limits per plan, not a meter. We lift them for any real portal that reaches one.
Where next
Best forum softwareOur own list, with the open-source tools described fairly.Open-source forums comparedWhat self-hosting Flarum or NodeBB really asks of you.Community platformThe same product, framed for a community rather than a budget.Support forumIf the forum is for customer support, start on this page instead.
Skip the server. Keep the forum.
Name it, and it is online. Free for 7 days. No credit card.
Create your portalThen $9 one time, or $99 a month on your own domain.
