Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam? An Honest Review
You might have seen many extremely positive (and fake) reviews of Wealthy Affiliate.
So, is Wealthy Affiliate a scam that forces its members to write fake reviews to promote Wealthy Affiliate?
Today, I want to clear things up about Wealthy Affiliate.
Before we get into the details, have a look at my quick summary:
Quick Facts About Wealthy Affiliate
Name: Wealthy Affiliate
Owners: Kyle and Carson
Who Is It Good For: Online Marketing Beginners
What Is It: Step-By-Step Online Marketing Training
Scam/Legit: Legit
Recommended: Yes
Price: $49/month or $359/year (free starter membership available with limited access)
Summary: Wealthy Affiliate is a membership site, that teaches its members how to build an affiliate website.
The training is easy to follow, even if you have no previous experience.Wealthy Affiliate also offers its own hosting (included in the premium membership) and tools that make websites faster and more secure.
Wealthy Affiliate also offers its own hosting (included in the premium membership) and tools that make websites faster and more secure.
All in all, it is a great place for BEGINNERS, who want to learn how to get started in online marketing in a genuine way.
The program itself is not a scam! Unfortunately, quite a few of its members are advertising it in ways that look very sketchy.
What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate Homepage
At Wealthy Affiliate, you learn all the basics (and some advanced strategies) you need to know to be successful online.
The step-by-step training is laid out in a way, that it is easy to follow.
People who really follow it and take action can see results within a few weeks.
There are no big or misleading promises made anywhere in the training.
It is all very down to earth and straightforward:
Word hard to see results!
If you don’t put in the work, you will fail!
The main focus at Wealthy Affiliate lies on affiliate marketing.
You learn how to find a niche, how to build a website, how to drive targeted traffic to it and how to monetize your site.
Do you want to start building a successful online business, but don’t know how?
Try the free starter membership. This gives you the best idea what Wealthy Affiliate is all about.
What Is Included In The Free Membership?
When you create your free starter account at Wealthy Affiliate, you can start learning instantly.
You only need a username and a valid email address to get started right away.
However, the free membership will not really teach you how to make money!
The whole point of the free membership is, that you find out if it is the right thing for you.
I think, that this is a very honest approach from Wealthy Affiliate.
Many other programs don’t offer anything like that. You often buy a product, without even knowing if it is the right one for you.
Here’s what is included in the free starter membership:
- 2 Starter Courses that teach the basics of affiliate marketing and how to build a website (10 video lessons each)
- 2 completely free websites
- 7-day access to the chat
- Access to two classrooms (to ask and answer questions) on Wealthy Affiliate
- Access to their affiliate program (lower payout than premium members)
- 30 free searches with their keyword tool
- SiteBuilder (build a website within 30 seconds)
As you can see, you get already quite a lot as a free member.
It is enough to get the ball rolling, but it won’t make you much money (if any).
I said it before:
The free membership is supposed to help new members to get a better idea about Wealthy Affiliate.
If you like it and want to get the most out of it, you need the premium membership.
What Is Included In The Premium Membership?
Now that we have covered the free membership, it is time to take a closer look at the premium membership.
The premium membership costs $49/month (you get the first month for $19 if you upgrade within the first 7 days).
There are no upsells and all features are included in this price.
You can reduce the costs if you go for the yearly membership.
The yearly membership is $359/year.
Let me tell you a little secret:
You can get it even cheaper than that. Every year the price goes down to $299/year on Black Friday!
That doesn’t mean you have to wait until then.
Even if you become a yearly member now, you can still change it to the Black Friday Deal later.
The months you have already paid in advance will be added to the new subscription.
So whenever you go yearly, you don’t need to worry that you have paid extra.
Here’s what is included in the premium membership:
- 2 Complete Training Courses (one for creating niche websites, the other to promote Wealthy Affiliate)
- Hosting for 25 owned domains
- Additional 25 free websites (SiteRubix websites)
- Free SSL security
- Free keyword tool (unlimited searches)
- Hosting that is laid out for speed (90+ scores on Google Pagespeed Insights)
- 24/7 live chat (get answers quickly or hang out with like-minded entrepreneurs)
- Can access other members privately
- Direct contact to Kyle and Carson (founders of Wealthy Affiliate)
- 12 Training classrooms to ask and answer questions
- Weekly Live Video Classes (which are really live)
- SiteBuilder (build a website within 30 seconds)
- SiteComment system (get high-quality comments on your websites)
- SiteFeedback system (get high-quality feedback about your websites)
- SiteDomains (purchase domains with privacy protection automatically activated)
- SiteSupport (24/7 technical support for your hosted websites)
There is really a lot included in the premium membership.
It is not only the training but so much more.
Kyle and Carson are improving their service continuously.
I have been with Wealthy Affiliate for 2 years and a lot has changed during that time.
By the way, even though I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate, I am able to give you an honest review.
Do you think I would still be a member there if it was a scam?
I have only started promoting Wealthy Affiliate recently.
The major part of those two years I was building niche sites like myarcherycorner.com, which generate a regular income.
I am living proof, that the training of Wealthy Affiliate works.
Why Does Wealthy Affiliate Look Scammy To Many People?
So, Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam by all means.
You get great training and all the tools you need to build an online business.
Then why is it, that there are still many people thinking, that Wealthy Affiliate is a scam?
It is because quite a few affiliates are using sketchy ways to promote it!
They are producing hundreds of reviews of other online marketing products and call them “scam”!
In many cases they are scams, but often enough, they are actually legit programs!
But those affiliates don’t care about the facts.
All they are doing is to look for programs and great keywords.
Then they create a fake review and recommend Wealthy Affiliate instead.
Take a look at my reviews!
There are only very few products, I called scams.
I have recommended other programs, like Arbitrage Underdog (without even using an affiliate link to it!).
So, if someone joins such a product, I won’t get anything from it!
I focus on showing you great products. I don’t want to waste my time with too much negativity.
I do know that Wealthy Affiliate is awesome, but there are thousands of products that are great, too!
So, don’t follow that bad example of those affiliate partners!
Don’t let it ruin your experience with Wealthy Affiliate.
Start with the free membership and make up your own mind.
If you want to promote it later down the line, do it in a genuine way!
But you don’t even need to promote it!
You can build a website about your passion and make money from that.
You don’t need to make Kyle and Carson any richer! Use their training to make yourself richer!
What I Like About Wealthy Affiliate
There are many things I like about Wealthy Affiliate:
1. Kyle And Carson Are Cool Dudes
You can always reach out to them and so far, they have always answered my messages.
They are very busy, so it can take a day, but they will answer.
Just don’t bother them with stuff that gets explained in the training. They don’t have time for that.
Contact them about stuff that is really important, and they are there for you.
You even have the chance to meet them in person.
If you can make 300 sales in one year, they will invite you to the Wealthy Affiliate Conference in Las Vegas. All expenses paid!
If that’s not awesome, then I don’t know what is.
2. Complete And Beginner Friendly Training
Both training courses take you from a complete beginner to an advanced online marketer.
Even if you have no idea about how to make money online, you can succeed here.
All you need to know is how to use a computer and the internet.
Everything else gets explained.
And should you ever get stuck…well, you have Kyle, Carson and the whole community to help you:
3. Most Of The Community Are Extremely Helpful
There are thousands of members on Wealthy Affiliate.
Of course, not all are really active there. But those who are would give their arm and leg to help you.
Most questions get answered within a few minutes, so you don’t have to wait if you are stuck or have a question.
You will find me almost every day in chat, too.
I also answer questions every day in the classrooms.
If you want to join a network of successful online marketers, Wealthy Affiliate is the place to be.
4. Wealthy Affiliate Has A Ton Of Features
I have listed them above, so I won’t do that here again.
But those features are impressive.
I have finished the training long ago, but I am not planning to leave Wealthy Affiliate anytime soon.
Their support is lightning fast and thanks to SiteSpeed, free SSL and all the knowledge I gained at Wealthy Affiliate, my sites are ranking very well on Google.
I have multiple posts on rank one.
5. Their Commissions Are High
For every premium member, you get $23.50 ($8 for the discounted first month) a month as long as they stay a member.
That is recurring income and can build up quickly.
Just get 2 premium referrals and your own membership is paid for (roughly).
If you go yearly, you need only one premium referral to almost make up your costs.
It is not like with many other programs, where you have to pay thousands of dollars before you can get high commissions.
Here, you get them as soon as you are a premium member.
Free starter members get 50% of those commissions.
What I Don’t Like About Wealthy Affiliate
Now, we come to the part many Wealthy Affiliate reviews don’t talk about!
Many will claim, that there are no bad things about Wealthy Affiliate, right?
Come on, that is complete nonsense.
No matter what it is, there are always things that are not perfect.
Things that could be improved.
Here’s what I don’t like about Wealthy Affiliate:
1. Sketchy Strategies Of Affiliate Partners Encouraged
When you go through the “Bootcamp Course”, which teaches how to promote Wealthy Affiliate, you will get encouraged to create “scam reviews”.
It is taught that you can review bad products, expose them as scams, and then recommend Wealthy Affiliate.
While this is generally a good and legit thing, many partners overuse this strategy.
They call everything a scam (even legit programs) and then recommend Wealthy Affiliate.
This creates a rather bad image of Wealthy Affiliate and its partners.
Of course, the training doesn’t tell you to call legit programs “scams”, but that’s how many people there seem to understand it.
I think the training should emphasize more that only real scams should be named as such.
It is absolutely ok to compare other great programs to Wealthy Affiliate.
The readers can make their own decision then.
If you have come across such fake reviews, don’t think that every partner of Wealthy Affiliate is like that.
Those who are really successful do honest work. If we find a legit program, we do recommend it, too.
We don’t recommend only Wealthy Affiliate.
2. Useless Ranking System Inside Wealthy Affiliate
When I started at Wealthy Affiliate I used to look up to the “Ambassadors” and other members with a high ranking.
I thought that those must be the ones who are successful and make loads of money.
After a while, I noticed that this is not the case.
The ranking system in Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t say anything about the success of a member.
It simply tells you how active they are in the community.
How many trainings are they creating, how many questions are they answering, etc.
While most of them are great and helpful people, there are a few spammers, too.
I have seen people become an Ambassador within a month!
Their sites were really bad and they didn’t make any money.
Once I realized that I didn’t care about the ranking anymore.
Even though I am ranked in the Top 100 myself now, I always ask people to take it with a grain of salt.
Yes, I do make money online and I do know a lot of stuff about online marketing.
But there are still people that know much more than me.
I still have a lot to learn.
And that will never stop.
So, don’t care too much about the rank of others there.
Take a look at their sites or what kind of advice they give.
You can separate the good from the bad quickly.
Is Wealthy Affiliate The Holy Grail Of Affiliate Marketing?
The Holy Grail Of Online Marketing?
Wealthy Affiliate is a fantastic place to get started!
There is no way I could say otherwise.
You will learn everything you need to start a successful online business.
Don’t forget that you have to take action and put in a lot of work.
You will have setbacks and might even fail completely.
But that is part of the whole progress.
You couldn’t ride a bicycle right away, right? You had to learn it first.
The same is true for online marketing.
You need to learn and maybe fall down a few times.
Once you know what you are doing, you can create lucrative websites over and over again.
But, does this mean that Wealthy Affiliate is the Holy Grail of online marketing?
Of course not!
There are other fantastic products out there.
Wealthy Affiliate focuses on complete beginners!
If you are already an experienced online marketers, you won’t learn much from Wealthy Affiliate.
You could still utilize it to make money through their affiliate program, but you wouldn’t need their training anymore.
I really want to make this clear!
Wealthy Affiliate helped me to my success online.
I had no idea how to make money online when I started here.
Every dollar I made was made thanks to the training at Wealthy Affiliate.
If you are a beginner, I highly recommend joining Wealthy Affiliate.
Don’t forget, that you can use the free starter membership to check it out!
There is not any risk involved. Take a good look around.
You can also hit me up on my profile inside and we’ll have a chat.
What Do You Think? Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam?
Now, I am stoked to find out what you are thinking about Wealthy Affiliate.
You can see that I am still very positive about it after 2 years.
Are you going to take a look for yourself?
I want to urge you to do that!
You have nothing to lose, but a lot to gain!
Knowledge is power and Wealthy Affiliate gives you that knowledge and much more.
Let me know in the comments when you are considering joining Wealthy Affiliate.
Or even better:
If you have already joined, leave me a comment here and hit me up inside the membership area of Wealthy Affiliate.
I will be happy to chat with you and help you wherever I can!
Join Here Now!
Have a great day,
Moritz