A friend of mine runs a fairly popular ladies-only buy-sell Facebook group with around 40,000 members. While her group is free for members, businesses wanting to promote their items-for-sale can list their items on her Facebook group for a small fee.
Things were going fine for her until one of the business owners told her that she can’t ask for money from business owners to post on her group and what she is doing is illegal and possibly she needs a “commercial” Facebook license. He went on to quasi-threaten her that if some people report her group to Facebook, her group may get shut. She was understandably hurt and sought my help.
Getting a direct answer from Facebook is next to impossible. There are few threads in FB help section that were answered by members. Mostly they are filled with contradicting opinions.
These are the points I could gather from my research.
At 4.4 Facebook in their terms-of-service document, clearly mentions that
You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.
I couldn’t find a single official document regarding terms-of-use of Facebook groups. Given that FB is fine with using a Facebook page for commercial gain and there is no mention about groups, I am taking an assumption that they extend that policy to FB groups as well.
Additionally, here are some of my reasons –
- An FB group is an opt-in group. Members explicitly ask for admin’s permission to join the group. Members have clear knowledge of what they will be getting after joining the group. Even after joining the group they can opt-out of it with a single click. Clearly, anything relevant to the group topic, posted on the group by admin cannot be termed as spamming.
- FB admin is responsible for maintenance, moderation and in general tone of the group. All such activities take time. If an admin asks for money from other business owners who in-turn will be benefitting from it commercially. In my opinion, it clearly makes sense.
All said and done, I would strongly suggest all Facebook group owners to never base your business attached on the whims of the 3rd party. Make sure you have a backup plan.
Disclaimer: Please take this article as a friendly opinion and not as a legal advise. I am not a lawyer. All of the above is MY understanding of this topic.
Ankur Jain is a Software Engineer in Test Automation. After a 5 years stint with Accenture and Oracle, he started his eLearning company. A long-time blogger and proud owner of the "Learn" series of websites. 
I am in the process I asking this exact question to facebook as I write to you. They take so long to find answers I’m losing the will to live waiting.
I have explained that I am being asked by members of my facebook group if they can pay me to pin their post to my group for 7 days.
Facebook have told me there is no set up for this.
I explained that fb have areas now to set up subscription groups were members pay to be part of the group, I asked maybe it is connected to this area somewhere except I don’t want to charge the members to join the group only pay to pin posts.
The funny part…….fb support asked me to message them the link to this subscription page set up area…..the irony…hahaha
Message back off fb:
I do understand your concern Paul, but the only way to collect payment via Facebook it can be done via page. For existing group there is no way to connect existing group to page.
You may collect payment out of Facebook.
Can You provide me the link to the information about “Members pay to be part of the group” that you have read please?
I have provided the link.
“Thank you for the link, Paul. Please allow me 5-10 minute to check on this”.
Let’s wait for the verdict…..what a joke fb support are!
We have discussed about this Paul. There is no way to connect you group to your page to collect payment from your client.
You may make payment outside Facebook , Paul.
So there you have it. Its not a problem. I also have taken a screenshot for future proof incase things goes tits up!
Good advice. I go through some social media promotion groups in FB which ask payment for promotional pinned posts or cover images as advertisement method. Is it legal ?
Similarly how Facebook treats like exchange programs ? We know that there are several famous personalities who build their fans from such sites. I personally saw some official pages of our leading politicians, celebrities there.
Good post, Mr Ankur Jain.
Have a great week ahead.
Much love,
@Manoj: Is it legal ?
I think the same answer would apply.
I think that business owner that threatened to blow the whistle on your friend is full of it.”Commercial” Facebook license? No such thing. Google it. It doesn’t exist.
How much does she make listing things for businesses? Is it substantial? Does she really need to charge to get by?
Even if that loudmouth does report her group I really doubt Facebook would shut it down. They may tell her to stop charging … if they tell her anything at all.
@Phil: Exactly. That was my first response to her. In my experience, I have seen that unless you do something grossly illegal; drugs, child porn or the likes, Facebook is quite relaxed. It probably was an empty threat to earn a free listing for his business.
I didn’t really get into specifics like amount charged per listing but I guess it is nominal.