I'm a psychologist and I have been leading a group I call Finishing School, in my private office. This group helps people finish projects like writing books, business plans, etc.

I've decided that I would now like to start the same sort of group online, but I don't know what software would work the best for this sort of thing, and I'm also wondering about pricing.

The "front end" of my group is my website, so it would be great if the online group itself could be connected to that. I figure I would charge by the month to participate in the group (maybe $14.99 or something per month? I would like feedback about this as well -- what you would get is, a lot of responses by me and the other members of the group and a structure to follow.)

(a note about my website: because I am now switching from face-to-face to online, some parts of the text are In Progress and kind of a mess until I figure out what I'm doing)

I have someone who can help me with setting up the online group (he helped me set up the website), but he has said my options are either a google group or a standard type of message board forum. I've looked at google groups and I'm not crazy about the format for what I'm doing. I'm just not sure that an essentially e-mail structure would work well. I prefer the message board structure, because it looks as if you are going to a "place" and because each group member can have his/her own "thread" and get responses from other group members and I can also have my own thread as the leader (with announcements, links, etc.).

But I guess with the message board either I have to pay per month or I have to tolerate horrible ads.

Structurally, Chuck Palaniuk's forum is what I'm going for, which each person being a Topic (and other topics as well).

(Perhaps if Chuck Palaniuk doesn't consider himself above H&R Block ads I shouldn't either? But somehow a psychologist, maybe, should not have ads in a group like this?)

What I really love aesthetically is the look of many blogs. For example (and there are thousands) I just looked at the daily ping (because it was posted in Meta Projects today). Blogs seem to look so much more sophisticated than message boards!

I put an enormous amount of work into my website and would like the online group's interface to look just as beautiful and professional, with my Finishing School banner and drawing on the top, without a lot of awful ads. However, I don't think a blog format would work well for a group, for obvious reasons. (I need the structure to be static -- right in front of you -- "Amy's Novel" thread, "Brad's Business Plan" etc., with New Responses, etc.

So -- sorry to go on -- I would really appreciate any thoughts or suggestions about possible message boards that would look good, not necessarily have ads, or some blog software that maybe could be tweaked to resemble a message board, or --- anything else that could be made to look great and work well for an online group.
Thanks!

[Oh, one more thing -- it is not necessary for anybody here to bring up issues of professionalism that come up when one considers conducting a group online such as confidentiality, licensing issues, issues concerning possible serious psychological problems of people who might contact me, etc. I have done quite a bit of research into this and I know how to and intend to deal with all of these concerns in a strictly ethical, moral, and legally scrupulous manner. Thanks.]