Six income streams, six sliders, one number at the bottom. Set the listing count and the traffic you expect per listing, then tune every rate until the model matches a directory you would actually build. It runs entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere.
Illustrative model with conservative defaults. Real results depend on your niche, competition, and SEO execution — this is a planning tool, not an earnings promise.
These are the six lines the calculator sums. Each one shows the exact arithmetic being run — no hidden multiplier, no smoothing. L is your listing count, V is monthly visits per listing, so L × V is total monthly traffic.
Display advertising across the directory. Priced the way ad networks price it: an RPM, meaning what you earn per thousand page views. The one stream that scales purely with traffic and needs nothing from the listing owner.
Recurring subscriptions from the businesses listed with you. The steadiest line in the model — it depends on your listing count rather than your traffic, so it survives an algorithm update in a way ad revenue does not.
Commission on sales you refer — booking platforms, tools, insurance, whatever your niche buys. Converts on a small fraction of visits, so it only becomes material once traffic is real.
Selling something of your own alongside the directory — a guide, a course, physical product, merch. Modelled on profit per order rather than revenue, because the two are very different numbers.
Selling qualified enquiries to businesses rather than selling them a listing. Common in trades, legal and home services, where one lead can be worth more than a year of subscription.
Renting the top spot on a category or city page to one business at a monthly rate. Fewest customers of any stream, highest price per customer — a handful of rented spots can outweigh hundreds of ordinary subscriptions.
A calculator that opens on flattering numbers is a sales tool, not a planning tool. These defaults are set at the pessimistic end on purpose, so the first figure you see is one you have a fair chance of beating rather than one you have to explain away later.
The model adds up money coming in. It deliberately does not subtract anything, which means the figure at the bottom of the calculator is not what you would keep. Before it is profit, take off at least:
It also assumes every stream runs at once. Most directories that work run two or three of them well rather than six badly — set the streams you will not build to zero and the number gets smaller and considerably more useful.
The calculator models a directory business. TurnKey Directories is a plugin, and a plugin can only ship some of that. Here is the honest split, because a monetization feature you have to build yourself is worth knowing about before you buy, not after.
Worth saying plainly: the free version on WordPress.org monetizes nothing. No Stripe, no ad zones, no customer portal, no claimable listings. It is a complete, uncapped directory — schema, sitemaps, analytics, street view, faceted search — and it is where you prove the traffic side of this model before you pay anyone anything.
Every stream above multiplies by traffic you do not have yet. Install the free plugin, build the structure that earns it, and come back to this page when the numbers are yours rather than ours.