Hi, not sure if this is the right place, or if it will need to be moved, but... I am Martha63 from The Isle of Catarina Sims and formerly Sapphire Sims 2. A few years ago, Labcat, Bundy, Magical Metamorphosis, and I opened The Isle after disappointments at Sapphire and had a great time together. As years passed, LabCat has passed away, Bundy lost her father and left the community, and Magical and I have tried to carry on but life intercedes. We still create from time to time and I play frequently. But we no longer have the funds, around 350.00 a year to maintain our site with our items and those of dead sites we carry. We are looking for a compatible site that is lowwer cost,free, or fundraising ideas that actually work, to move our items to before we just pull the plug on our site and all the content is gone from the community. If anyone can point me in the direction of such a service, we would be very grateful.
Thanks, and Happy Simming
Martha63

Have you a link to the website? I'd like to take a look at it.

Also, who's your current hosting provider?

Do know what it is that is causing you to be charged? Site features not offered for free? Bandwidth usage caused by people downloading? If so, could you simply not host the downloads anymore and put the files on sites like SimsFileShare instead so that they're downloaded from there? I confess I didn't go to the site, so I don't know what your site looks like or what it has on it, so doing that might not be a possibility. Other than that, I've never been involved with running a site, so I don't know about hosts or what might work for fundraising and the like.

If all else fails and you find you have to close the site, you could send the TS2 files to the Graveyard so that they, at least, would be preserved. I don't know if a similar site exists for TS3, much less TS4.

Have to agree with iCad; hosting your downloads on an alternate site may be the way to go and that way you can use other social media sites to update/alert people of new info or downloads whenever you do want to create. Simblrs are super popular and could be a good transition. Do you know how much space you need to store your files?

Okay, I only just noticed the link in the signature - I'm a little slow, etc etc. Anyways, did a bit of digging. Hosting provider seems to be Bluehost through Unified Layer (which I've never heard of). Is switching hosting providers possible?
I've used Dreamhost in the past and never had a problem with them, but I've also heard good things about Bluehost (on its own, not through a third-party provider). Both of them have plans cheaper than $350 a year.
I'd also suggest looking into SimFileShare to reduce the strain of bandwidth - plus the files won't up and disappear if your site itself does.

Sims File Share is probably the best bet if you don't want your creations to disappear from the community. Some of us creators will have codes and you can request one, I think but then you can start uploading to there and then on a free site or cheaper site, link back to those files on file share.

I don't think I saw a link for sims file share so here it is

If you need a new site, there are plenty of free forums and website options out there - They often also offer various paid options, but if you don't mind a few things like ads or no file hosting on-site, there's plenty of options for free.

I've used Freeforums for my site, and it's got plenty of options for free users (I use free accounts on tinypic/postimg for pictures, and on simfileshare+box+dropbox for file hosting). There's ads for all but the main admin and (I think) 3-4 other moderators, but if people have adblock installed, it's not such a big problem. If you want a few perks, there are add-ons with subscriptions, but you can make a fully functional site without those paid options. I've had my site up and running for about 8 years, and never had to pay anything. Just a tip...

If the site is going to be a small one, a paid subscription run by donations can be a bit of a problem. The only site that seems to run (relatively) smoothly is MTS. Insim, which used to be a big site, has struggled to keep up for the past few years, and SimOasis trickled away to nothing a while ago. BPS, too (even if SimPearls mostly took over). It's been an ever growing problem for simmers ever since TS3 came out.

Another option is to use a forum or blog that is already up and running (MTS is one option, SimPearls, Tumblr if you like that, and Insim could probably need a bit more life), and post your stuffeths there.

If you're looking for a solution where you can host the website and the files, we would need more information.

For starters, how much bandwidth are you using (on average, the last year or so)? How much space are you currently using? How many domains, subdomains, or email accounts do you use or need?

I'd definitely look into more community driven areas, like here or other spots people have mentioned though. Get more traction that way.

Thank you all so much. I will relay all this to Magical to look into this as well. Labcat was the one who did most of the set up, and while she taught us a lot about the site, I basically dont know that much about it, I know that sounds terrible, but it's true.

Just an Update on this ...We will be moving our items to the Saving The Sims Yahoo Group with thanks to Virginia Schoepf and her other helpful members.

glad you found a place, though I really wish you'd given simfileshare a try. Anyway, let us know when you have a new link. I'm always looking for stuff from Sapphire Sims

Agreed. I remember some cool things on that site, and still have a few of them, even after a few download cleanouts. It would be great to revisit many of the items on that site again.

Their stuff was just beautiful. everything from the silly to the sublime and always superbly executed.