Creating a Monetized Trading Room
Have you had a ton of success in the stock market? When you chat with your friends about your current trades, do they follow along and make money as well? It may be time to seriously consider creating a monetized trading room. But, where do you start?
Creating a Business Entity
For anyone looking to create a trading room to monetize their content for their followers, it is imperative to form a business entity. For most traders, an LLC (limited liability company) is the way to go. As the name suggests, it limits your liability, is a simple yet flexible way to incorporate, and will lend your business more credibility. For any revenue-generating venture, it is important to define your business, limit your personal liability, and make sure that you are properly paying taxes. The last thing you want is the IRS coming after you for back taxes as defining your business structure from the start will help ensure you are paying taxes properly. Legal Zoom makes creating an LLC or other business structure quick and easy, and is relatively affordable. Now that you have created your LLC what’s next?
Choose the Platform you will use
You’re going to need a platform to host your community and broadcast your alerts. Trading rooms can be formed on many different platforms, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. To list a few:
Slack
✅ Advantages: - Professional UI
User permissions
Ability to create multiple channels
🚫 Disadvantages:
Manual admin. work (inviting users into your slack, removing if they cancel or payment fails)
Messages delete after 2 weeks (free version)
No built-in payment processor
Our overall rating for using Slack to create a trading room: 2/5
With a lack of built-in options for collecting payment, there is lots of manual administrative work required in order to invite people to your room and remove if necessary. A separate payment processor is required, meaning you will have to check each user’s subscription status frequently.
Discord
✅ Advantages: - Familiar experience for many
User permissions
Custom bots
Built-in payment processing
🚫 Disadvantages:
Crowded platform (most users are a part of numerous other Discord servers that steal their attention)
Bots can be confusing or difficult to use/set up
Limited flexibility in how you can price your subscriptions
Unreliable/slow push notifications
Our overall rating for using Discord to create a trading room: 3/5
A familiar interface and user experience gives Discord its biggest advantage, yet also its biggest disadvantage. As Discord grows in popularity, the number of servers the average user is a part of increases. This means more distractions from the content you work so hard to provide. Discord’s limited pricing structure also limits you to creating a monthly subscription between $2.99 and $199 per month. No annual, weekly, daily, or even one-time option.
Telegram
✅ Advantages: - Channels can be set to read-only
Easy user interface
🚫 Disadvantages:
Manual admin. work for adding and removing users
Anyone with access to an invite link can join for free
Limited external integrations
Generic chatroom experience with no trader-specific features
Lack of installable bots or integrations to expand feature set
Our overall rating for using Telegram to create a trading room: 1/5
With an underwhelming feature set and limited outside integration, Telegram leaves a lot to be desired. Given that it is a glorified group chat software, we do not recommend Telegram for professional application.
X (Twitter)
✅ Advantages: - Well-known and familiar interface for users
Already in use by the masses, allowing for advertising and outreach opportunities
Available monetization*
*We have seen few trading rooms pass X’s requirements for monetization.
🚫 Disadvantages:
Scams and spoofers are everywhere, something unavoidable with a top social media platform
Crowded platform which can easily distract users from your content
Likely need for manual admin. work and subscription processing
Subject to extreme instability as Musk toys around abrupt changes; not ideal when running a business
Our overall rating for using X (Twitter) to create a trading room: 2.5/5
With being one of the most popular social media platforms, X’s outreach and advertising opportunities are present, and should still be utilized. However, as a standalone software for providing trading alerts, X falls short. Ever-present scammers and DM bots are constantly pestering, and lack of stability in the direction of the platform leaves businesses in a dangerous spot.
MoonRoom
✅ Advantages: - Engineered for use by Traders - Built-in payment processing available for all Room owners
Flexible pricing structure for your plans (daily, weekly, monthly, annual, one-time, and more)
Customize your channels and the permissions within those channels
Trade performance tracking and sharing
Mobile and Desktop App
🚫 Disadvantages:
Of the platforms listed, MoonRoom is the youngster in the room!*
*MoonRoom was founded in 2021 and has since grown to provide traders with software specifically engineered for their needs
Our overall rating for using MoonRoom to create a trading room: 5/5
MoonRoom has been purpose-built to solve the biggest issues traders face when hosting their own community. This is why MoonRoom satisfies the needs for a payment processor, chat room, alert broadcast service, and soon so much more - all in one single platform. Without the need to set up any custom bots or complicated integrations, your Room can be set up and ready-to-use in just minutes.
Creating a Landing Page
Now that you have selected the platform that you will run your trading room on, you will need to create a landing page so that potential customers can find your room, read about your trading style, and purchase a subscription to your trading room. Outside of MoonRoom, this requires the creation of an entire website. It may be beneficial to hire a web designer to ensure that your website is both professional and functional.
Selecting a Payment Processor
Next, it is time to select a way to process your payments. There are a few different routes available.
Good
Hire a developer to connect a payment processing page to your website. They will need to use the API of the platform you chose (if available) to connect this payment processing page to your platform. Any changes to the platform or your landing page could cause this API connection to break - halting any signup or automation processes you have in place. This route is the most costly upfront, and requires the most upkeep (especially as platforms such as X, Discord, Telegram, etc. begin to allow subscriptions directly on their platforms, and deprecate the API needed for this connection to work).
Better
Use a third-party payment processing platform as an intermediary that offers a pre-built connection to some platforms. These ‘middlemen’, however, often take upwards of 5%+ of the money you make. This added cost may be worth their ability to handle the administration and payment processing for your trading room. However, they do not add any further value or trading-focused features to your room. Additionally, they are subject to platforms changing the availability of APIs necessary to sustain payment and administration function (meaning they could stop working, for example, if Elon Musk decides not to let these outside companies profit off X any longer).
Best
MoonRoom is all-in-one, meaning it takes care of all subscription and payment processing, reporting, tax filing, and administrative work! Without the need for external integrations. there is never a worry that a connection that allows your trading room to function and your ability to make money will fail. MoonRoom charges a flat percentage fee for subscriptions processed through the platform. MoonRoom does not charge any monthly or upfront costs, meaning