Forums.net

Proboards also offers a more advanced forum software solution mostly aimed at businesses called Forums.net. For a starting price of $9.99 per month, they give you the ability to use your own forum layout, use your own brand, import data from other platforms, and many, many more. Whether you own a small business or a large scale one, Forums.net can definitely meet your needs.

Pricing

While you can immediately sign up and create a forum at absolutely no cost whatsoever, Proboards also offers some optional premium features in order to accommodate the needs of a wide range of message board owners. For starters, you can opt to access your forum using your own custom domain name. This means that instead of using the format yourname.proboards.com as your board’s URL, you can use a more personal www.yourname.com URL format. For just $13.99 per year, Proboards gives you the ability to link any custom domain name directly to your forum. Take note, however, that your preferred domain registrar charges a separate annual fee in order to for you to own the domain name of your choice.

Proboards also gives owners the ability to change their forum URL. For a one time fee of $9.99, you can change the URL address of your forum while keeping all of your content and members intact. This is especially useful for those whose forums have changed topics or simply changed branding. Should you ever wish to change your URL again in the future, rest assured that you can do this more than once. Take note that you will have to pay the one time $9.99 fee every time you do so. Finally, you can choose to remove the ads from their discussion boards for only $6 per month with a recurring subscription. You can also choose to purchase the ad-free option on a month-to-month basis for only $8 per month. Both payment options gives you 50,000 ad-free pageviews. If you need more than that, there are larger packages available, with the cost per pageview decreasing as the ad-free plan increases in size.

Features

Even though Proboards is completely free, the features on offer make it feel like you have paid for a premium service. For starters, they give you the ability to create as many categories, boards, members, thread, topic, and posts as you wish. You can also easily customize the look and feel of your forum with the help of their theme library, where you can download numerous free themes. Enhancing the functionality of your forum is quite easy thanks to the fact that you can download and install various plugins that add new features, from adding spoiler buttons to customizable PM pop-ups. Next, your members can easily share YouTube clips thanks to native YouTube embedding support, as well as share other types of files thanks to the upload feature. Proboards also gives owners unlimited bandwidth, 24/7 support, scalability, effective moderation tools, and simple, easy to use admin tools for easier forum management.

Customer Support

In terms of customer support, owners can consult Proboards’ Getting Started Guide, a detailed Help Guide, as well as the best support community there is via their support forum.

What's the Verdict on Proboards?

A Must Try

Proboards Review – Conclusion

Proboards has over 12 years of experience behind it, which shows in the over quality and value of the product that they are offering. Their forum software is free to use and has a robust set of features that are more commonly found in premium services. Just because they offer a free service does not mean that users will miss the most essential of features. They also offer optional premium features in order to accommodate the needs of a wide range of discussion boards owners. If you are looking for a forum software that can enhance your website without breaking the bank, then look no further than Proboards.