I don’t want to run ads, I’m asking if Discourse places ads on forums? I saw a few ads on forums where Discourse was promoting its own products, but can’t tell how that looks once one has a forum up and running. i.e. is the Start plan forum ad-free?
AI-generated summary
The discussion clarifies whether the Discourse Starter plan includes ads. skate asks if forums on the Starter plan are ad-free, noting ads seen on other Discourse-hosted forums. ondrej confirms there are no ads on the Starter plan, aligning with the official plan features. Bas confirms the Starter plan is 100% ad-free and explains that ads seen on some free forums (including Meta) are limited, non-intrusive, and only shown to anonymous users as part of a controlled experiment. He also notes admins can optionally enable ads via the Discourse Advertising Plugin. NateDhaliwal observes the ads on Meta are seamlessly integrated and not disruptive.
I trialled the starter plan a while ago and there are no ads. 
What you see in the Plans and Features for the starter plan is what you get. Nothing more nothing less.
cheers, that makes sense.
Yes, 100%
We host a few forums for free for various reasons, on those (with the consent of the admins) you might see some ads. Currently they are for Discourse hosting. You also see these ads here on Meta.
This is an experiment that Discourse is running, the ads are very very limited in scope and fully under our control. They are only shown to anonymous (non-logged in) users.
Another reason you might see ads is that admins can choose to show ads for their own communities benefit, using the Discourse Advertising Plugin (Ads)
thanks Bas, that’s a great and pretty interesting approach 
Ooh, just noticed this 
. It’s not jarring, more like a seamless insertion between content. Looks great!