Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam Or Legit? [Revealed]
Welcome To My Wealthy Affiliate Review!.
James, A curious beginner dropped one in my inbox asking "Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam Or Legit?"
For the sake of full disclosure I have been a member of Wealthy Affiliate since 2015.
That alone is a very long time to be a member. This qualifies me to give a very accurate answer to that question.
Professional ethics and keeping inline with the policy of BloggersHQ I am not going to be singing the praises of Wealthy Affiliate in this article.
I have no desire to spoil or ruin the integrity of this site and which has taken years to build.
Instead,
I will give you the low down and detail in neutral fact based fashion that you are accustomed to and associate with BloggersHQ.
Are you ready for a complete analysis and investigation into Wealthy Affiliate and find out if they really are a scam or legit?
Wealthy Affiliate Review
Product: Wealthy Affiliate
Founder(s): Carson Lim And Kyle Loudoun
Product Type: Affiliate Marketing Training Program And Platform.
Price: Starter Account: US$0; Monthly: US$49; Yearly: US$495
Best For: Absolute Beginners to Advanced Marketers
Summary: Kyle & Carson have put together a training platform that is aimed specifically at complete beginners and yet is still very useful for experienced marketers like myself.
There are some things that can be added to make the platform even better, still I feel Wealthy Affiliate has the edge on its competitors, but only just. I'll explain why in this review.
Rating: 98/100
Recommended: Yes!
Because You KNOW You Deserve A Better Life. The Question Is: Will You Step Up And MAKE IT Happen?!?
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What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate, is an online training platform for affiliate marketers that was launched in 2005 by Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim.
The platform serves of great use not only for those that are interested in affiliate marketing, there is a strong benefit to be had from members that are interested in other business models such as:
- drop shipping
- Multi-Level Marketing
- Advertising Revenue
- Product Creation (Digital Or Physical Product)
To think of Wealthy Affiliate as only for affiliate marketers is a false assumption.
Don't make that big mistake!.
Particularly if you are involved in or interested in the other business models mentioned!.
If Multi-Level Marketing is your thing - Perfect!. learn how to build your own original site and get your brand to stand out and get more MLM Sales!.
Drop shippers and product creators can reduce their reliance on paid traffic sources and increase profit margins by taking advantage of the very simple and powerful search engine optimisation techniques and getting targeted free traffic.
Advertising revenue?
That is actually my favorite model!. Earn money, regardless of or in addition to sales generated from affiliate marketing, drop shipping, network marketing or your own products.
Total passive income!.
Who Are Kyle Loudoun And Carson Lim?
Kyle Loudoun & Carson Lim are the co-founders of Wealthy Affiliate. They founded the platform while at studying at University way back in 2005.
Initially they started Wealthy Affiliate off as a keywords list service, selling lists of profitable keywords to business owners and affiliate marketers.
With a lot of
Kyle heads up the training and can
It is rare if a day goes past and he is not on chat at some point.
I have noticed he
Kyle is what you can accurately describe as the public face of Wealthy Affiliate.
Carson Lim, cuts a much quieter figure and
He his the design and technical expert working on that side of the business in the background making sure their platform and all members Wealthy Affiliate Hosted sites are live and up and running.
Carson
Wealthy Affiliate Lawsuits
Wealthy Affiliate successfully defended themselves when MOBE collapsed after an FTC Investigation.
What Is Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is very simple and easy to understand. It is at its core performance based marketing where you
To generate revenue as an affiliate marketer you must:
- Make sales (regular Affiliate Marketing) or
- Generate leads (Email/Telephone number, etc) for the Cost Per Acquisition Affiliate Marketing Model.
Watch the video below for
How Does Wealthy Affiliate Work?
Wealthy Affiliate functions by providing their members with the tools and the training that they need to succeed with their new online business in a "All-in-one" all-inclusive fashion.
Meaning,
When you join Wealthy Affiliate you don't need to spend any more money on hosting or anything else that you need to get your business started and off the ground.
Just in case you are curious, that is what swung the deal for me way back in
2015 when I joined.
This also comes with a convenience factor of what I call "Command Central" - I don't need various windows open or log in to other sites to access my own site or to use their keyword research tool or access the training.
It is all housed under one roof.
The training provided is focused on and centred around helping you to build a long term sustainably successful business online by means of generating highly targeted free organic traffic from search engines.
Who Is Wealthy Affiliate For?
There is no specific set person or age range or nationality or gender that appears to form their target demographic.
I have been a member for a number of years and seen members of all ages and from all walks of life, cultures and nationalities.
Naturally the majority of members come from North America, this is natural as this is the region where the English langauge is predominantly spoken the most.
The main detail for Wealthy Affiliates target audience is a genuine interest in making money online by means of content marketing and able to dominate and fully understand the English language.
If you really want to succeed with Wealthy Affiliate you must be ready to work hard and ready to build up your business.
Who Is Wealthy Affiliate Not For?
Wealthy Affiliate is not a magic video course training where all you need to do is watch the training and then magically and by some miracle you start to make money.
That is for dreamers!.
There is not a single legitimate course online that can do that.
If you are not ready to put in the work and work on your brand new business, then Wealthy Affiliate is not for you.
If you struggle with the English Language, to understand Spoken English* or to follow step by step instructions then Wealthy Affiliate is not for you.
It is totally fine if English is not your native language or if you struggle to Speak it, you just need to understand the training and the instruction given.
If there are any technical questions relating to the training, that is ok, in fact it's great.
Kyle (the owner), plus the tens of thousands of active members are there to answer any and all questions that you have.
There is no obligation for you to be able to write fantastically in English at all.
You can run your business in your own native language as the Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool (provided) functions in all languages.
*Kyle who's voice you will hear in the training has a very clear and easy-to-understand voice and is a slow paced talker.
Jay Neill, who hosts the Live Weekly Webinars has professional training in radio and is very clear and easy to understand also.
What Products Do Wealthy Affiliate Sell?
Wealthy Affiliate sell membership to their Training platform which comes with 4 main pricing points which are:
- Free Starter Membership: US$0
- Monthly Membership: US$49 Per month with Special Offer First Month US$19.
- Yearly Special: US$495
- Black Friday & Cyber Monday Special Lifetime Lock in: US$299 Per Year.
The longer the time period that you buy the greater the discount is on a monthly basis.
The yearly special brings the price down to under US$30 per month and the Black Friday 7 Cyber Monday Deal getting you locked in with no price increase ever works out at just less than US$25 per month.
The Black Friday deal is available on a pro rata basis. If you joined before that date and still have time left on your current deal, you will receive an appropriate discount from the US$299 deal.
Note: The yearly special deal comes with a free .com domain name of your choice and 100 community credits for getting site comments and your site reviewed by peers.
The Wealth Affiliate Membership Details
In all essence there are only two levels of membership available at Wealthy Affiliate, Free Starter Membership and Premium Membership.
What Do You Get With Your Membership?
Let's detail what you get with a Free Starter Membership at Wealthy Affiliate!
Wealthy Affiliate Free Starter Membership
The Free starter membership is a full on free trial of all membership features for your first 7 days.
There is a fully inclusive trial that has zero limitations in regards to features on offer with just two exceptions:
- Full access is limited to just your first 7 days
- Training access is limited to level 1 of the Niche Site Marketing training program - The Online Entrepreneur Certificate Training.
Even when your trial period ends you still have access to Wealthy Affiliate, but you are still limited to the training being at level 1 only.
Free members are not permitted use of the hosting service for their own premium domains, but still have full access to their free Site Rubix powered website.
Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership
It does not take a genius to figure out this level of membership comes with all the bells and whistles as far as what they have on offer.
One thing I will say, there is a lot on offer with Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership, so much I ended up writing a 4,000 word article detailing what is on offer with their Premium Membership.
Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam Or Legit? Get The Truth Here! #Marketing #DigitalMarketing
Let's keep it as brief as we can here and detail the Features.
- Full access to the platform with no imitations or road blocks!.
- 2 X Training Courses, One which specialises in Niche Site Marketing*; The Other Is The Wealthy Affiliate Bootcamp which focuses on promoting Wealthy Affiliate as a product**
*This Niche Site Marketing training is Their Online Entrepreneur Certificate Training, which is highly beneficial for Network Marketers and Drop Shippers as well as affiliate marketers.
**I strongly advise NOT to promote Wealthy Affiliate as product unless you are an experienced marketer with at least one Successful Niche Site behind you that you have taken to US$1,500 per month.
Reason: The Make Money Online Niche is highly competitive and VERY tough market to make edgeways in and is not ideal for newbies or inexperienced marketers.
Besides,
all the successful ones that are earning big money Promoting Wealthy Affiliate as a product all started as niche site marketers and then gravitated towards promoting Wealthy Affiliate as a product later.
- Access To Live Weekly Webinars Every Friday At 17:00 PST.
- Full Hosting For 10 Of Your Own Domains.
- Free SSL certificate for All your Wealthy Affiliate Hosted Sites
- Unlimited Access To Jaaxy - Their Keyword Research Tool.
- Access To Site Comments Area
- Access To Site Feedback Area - Get Experts And Experienced Marketers give you feedback on your site.
- Site Speed! Toggle a little button have your site load faster!.
- Access To High Quality User Generated Training*
- Your Own Internal WA Blog** (also available for Free Starter Members)
*After a qualifying period premium members can create their own training and earn money from their training based on the popularity and the number of likes.
**Creating your own content on their internal blog gets indexed and tracked. Should someone search for and find your article, if they go premium you can earn a referral commission.
Leverage the power of Wealthy Affiliate and their high authority with search engines!.
- Full Access To Site And Tech Support and the thriving community of marketers of all levels from those just getting started to 7 figure earners!.
Is Wealthy Affiliate Accredited By The BBB?
Something that you should always check for with any and every opportunity that catches your attention is to check out their standing and status at the Better Business Bureau.
Wealthy Affiliate
This I can confirm as being
Unfortunately Niche Marketing Inc
Is Wealthy Affiliate A Member Of The DSA?
The Direct Sellers Association is an organisation set up to help clean up the Multi-level Marketing Industry and their regulate the behaviour of their members
Wealthy Affiliate nor Niche Marketing Inc are members of the DSA.
However,
This is of no concern to you or I as Wealthy Affiliate are not a multilevel marketing business and have no reason to be seeking membership to the DSA.
What Do The Truth In Advertising Say About Them?
The Truth In Advertising is an independently run watchdog organisation that police deceptive, misleading and illegal advertising practices and warn both the public and the authorities.
There is no listing for Wealthy Affiliate on the Truth In Advertising website
Common Complaints
Nothing is every perfect I accept that, I know the site owners Kyle and Carson Accept that and they are very open about Wealthy Affiliate not being perfect which is why they seek to improve it year after year.
I created a whole article here about the most common Wealthy Affiliate Complaints
My
All of this really serves of no purpose and distracts members from the training and working on their own site (
Being active in their community does not mean you will make more money with the business that you are building!
My
I am very inactive inside of Wealthy Affiliate and only attend to my referrals in a capacity as their mentor and coach to help them out as much as I can and as much as they need it.
My other
Kyle & Carson own
They can do something similar for email marketing software!. This is the only thing that prevents them from being a complete solution
Here are some complaint post by Wealthy Affiliate Members
Is Wealthy Affiliate An MLM Opportunity?
No.
Wealthy Affiliate is an affiliate marketing training program, platform and community.
The opportunity to promote Wealthy Affiliate is there and functions as you would expect, on a direct retail sales only basis.
There are no multi-levels or recruitment involved at all.
Is Wealthy Affiliate A Pyramid Scheme?
No, Wealthy Affiliate is not a Pyramid Scheme.
I am very familiar with Multi-Level marketing, Pyramid Schemes and Ponzi Schemes and how they function
I can reassure you that Wealthy has absolutely no resemblance to a pyramid scheme nor a Ponzi scheme
Recommended: This Is Exactly How I Earn A Mid 4-Figure Income
What I Liked About Wealthy Affiliate
Naturally, after being a member for a number of years there are a lot of things that I like about Wealthy Affiliate:
- Perfectly rated at the Better Business Bureau At A+.
- Well organised and complete training
- Live Weekly Webinars.
- Kyle is an expert in SEO and keep members abreast of and updated in regards to major algorithm changes. This advice here served me well!
- An all-inclusive package - no need to spend more money on hosting or any other tools that you need to get started. Wealthy Affiliate Provides you with all that you need!.
- Highly active community of like-minded fellow marketers to encourage and help you when needed.
- Tech Support & Site support. Great for non tech minded folks like me.
What I Did Not Like About Wealthy Affiliate
There are some things
- The training can
be overwhelming at times . There is a lot to learn. Don't rush it. Take your time to absorb the training. - The ranking system can
be distracting from the reasonwhy you are there. - No Autoresponder to automate email marketing when time come to start this part of your business.
- Members can get a bit too excited with their new skill set and attempt to run several sites at once. There is a lack of warning about this. It is better to have 1 site that is making US$1,000 per month than 5 that are making US$200 per month each.
- Live chat can end up more often than not general chitter chatter about non marketing related stuff.
They keep improving the
Can You Make Money With Wealthy Affiliate?
Of course you can!.
I can absolutely testify to that. In fact, I even earned a commission while writing this article!
(seriously!).
What I can't tell you is how much you can earn. We are not THAT kind of community!.
In all honesty - nobody can tell you how much you can or will earn as there are far too many variables such as:
- Your Niche
- The availability of products in your niche
- The amount of commissions paid per sale
- You own ability to drive traffic to your site
- How dedicated you are to your business.
There are a few other variable and factors. What I can tell you is that you will make money if you apply the training, I just can' t say how much.
Nobody ever succeeded by giving up and not trying!.
Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam Or Legit?
I can assure you personally that Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam.
I have made money and continue to make money in a variety of niches using different business models and revenue generation methods and techniques because of Wealthy Affiliate.
Many others have success also:
- WA Success Story:
21 Year Old From Taiwan 26 Year Old Finish Man Shares His Story- Work At Home Mom Has Success At Wealthy Affiliate
That is only 3 success stories, there are hundreds of them inside Wealthy Affiliate from men and women from all walks of life, including pensioners, students,
Wealthy Affiliate Alternatives
There is no shortage of affiliate marketing training programs on the internet, none
I am
My Top Alternatives to Wealthy Affiliate Are:
Legendary Marketer is my top alternative to Wealthy Affiliate
Mastery with Paid Traffic.
Paid traffic reduces your dependence on google and social media algorithm changes that may affect your business.
Plus the training is outstanding and presented a digital marketing master who has earned over US$250M dollars online.
How To Sign Up For A Free Trail With Wealthy Affiliate
Signing up for a Free trail with Wealthy Affiliate is super easy. You just have to jump up and down and click your heels three times....
..
My Wealthy Affiliate Review - The Final Conclusion
Wealthy Affiliate is NOT a scam. I can vouch for it having been a member since 2015.
I am sure there are people who claim that Wealthy Affiliate is a scam, and there are people that don't make money from it.
That does not happen anywhere online or in the digital world.
And If you don't put in the effort, regardless of which
Kyle and Carson have put together and developed an excellent world class training platform that just keeps on getting better!.
Me,
Why am I still a member after all those years?
I am a tech dufus!
That
How I Make Money Online
Affiliate Marketing is my Number 1 recommended way for making money in the digital world both for those just starting out and those that are semi experienced.
The reasons are pretty simple:
- No huge startup costs!
- No Selling face to face!
- No Stock to keep or manage!
- No huge investment involved - (Get started with a FREE TRIAL!)
- No networking or recruiting required.
- You can operate in any market you wish! - even your hobbies & passions!
- Earn a full time income & more!. No limit to your earning potential!.
In fact...
I have created and built a regular mid 4 figure passive monthly income and fully enjoy a life of travel to where I want and when I want. With no boss to answer to and zero annoying co-workers I completely enjoy life and work when I choose to.
This is all thanks to Affiliate Marketing!