There are a lot of people who want to start their own online business and make some online cash, but don’t know where to begin.
I’ve been in your shoes before too! In this Wealthy Affiliate Review, I will walk you through all of what Wealthy Affiliate offers to those looking to get into the make-money-online niche.
There are many benefits associated with this program but it may not be the right fit for everyone. Keep reading to see if this is the right program for you.
Wealthy Affiliate Program Review Table of Contents
My Journey as an Affiliate Marketer
I joined Wealthy Affiliate (WA) five years ago while searching the internet for a way to make an income online, and found that Wealthy Affiliate was one of the better courses on the internet.
At first, I was a little hesitant because I didn’t know what I was getting into. My reluctance came from my previous attempts at trying to make money online, which failed miserably.
My failures were due to my not really knowing or understanding what I was doing. But after doing a little research and reading a bunch of Wealthy Affiliate reviews from people who had already been members for a while, I took the plunge and joined.
I’m so glad I did! It was only after I became a member of Wealthy Affiliate, that I realized how easier it was to have a blueprint that guided me through the process of becoming an affiliate marketer and making money online.
Wealthy Affiliate has helped thousands of people just like me, start their own successful businesses from home by building affiliate sites using their training platform.
Initially, I signed up for a free starter account but then upgraded to become a premium member because I wanted to take advantage of all the WA training and start building my business as soon as possible.
I studied the provided WA training courses and began following all of the WA training steps to create my own successful internet business.
One thing that has stuck with me is when Kyle and Carson said, “If you are not willing to work hard and dedicate hours every day to your business, then please do not join our WA community.”
It’s true because if you’re just looking for an easy way out or some quick money idea without having to put in any extra effort, WA probably isn’t the right place for you.
My multi-million dollar success story has yet to be realized, but with the foundation that I have built with WA, I have made some decent earnings, so I know that it is possible.
I know it is possible because there are countless Wealthy Affiliate success stories that motivate me to continue my pursuit.
I have learned so much about the strategies and tactics of building a business on the internet from WA.
And in the time of working remotely from home, we’re all looking for ways to earn as many dollars as possible, WA has been my number one recommendation for newbie affiliate marketers.
Can You Really Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?
Compared to multi-level marketing, affiliate marketing is a lucrative business if you have the drive and intelligence to master it. That’s because it allows you to build an internet business without having to spend money on employees or rent.
You don’t have to invest in inventory and you won’t be spending your time working at the physical business.
As an affiliate, you just sell someone else’s product and make a profit. This can be done online or offline, which is why it has continued to grow as an industry over the years.
With so many people wanting to start their own business but not having much money or time, this opportunity is perfect for them because it doesn’t really require any initial investment other than your effort.
Depending on the program you choose, the payout for affiliate marketers can range from a commission of between 4% and 50%.
This means that if someone visits your blog or website and clicks on one of your affiliate links, and makes a purchase, you’ll receive a percentage of the sale value as profit!
You will have limitations if you want to make a full-time income from affiliate marketing, however, there are still ways in which you can earn $100-$200 per day with little more than 30 minutes of work daily.
There are also plenty of different methods that allow affiliates to scale up quickly once they’ve found something that works well for them. One method that I find particularly useful is video marketing.
Video marketing is s an excellent way to generate an online income, and it’s also the easiest method for beginners.
You just make a video with your cell phone, upload it to YouTube and place your affiliate link in the video description and at the end of your video.
Once you publish it, all there is to do is get viewers to watch your videos and hopefully follow the link and make a purchase of the product or service you are promoting.
You can find training on this and other internet marketing methods on Wealthy Affiliate.
What is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is an affiliate marketing training program and membership site that you can join for free.
It is a community of people who want to learn how to earn an income online in any niche that they’re interested in.
Wealthy Affiliate provides training for all levels and types of learners, from beginners just starting on their entrepreneurial journey or those with some experience but still looking to refine what they are doing.
Wealthy Affiliate offers training courses on building affiliate sites, digital marketing, blogging, social media marketing, and a lot more.
Wealthy Affiliate also has a supportive community forum where WA members share ideas and information about making money online based on real-world examples so you have more resources that are available to you.
Membership includes free access not only to an extensive self-paced course library but also to live weekly training sessions with some of the top WA members who share their own personal internet marketing strategies.
The best part about Wealthy Affiliate is the end goal: teaching you how to make money online.
That’s what it was created for, and that’s why it provides each individual with a free website complete with a domain name so you can start your own business right away.
Of course, there are no limits to how much success you wish to achieve with the WA training. Regardless of what your experience level is, you can learn something from their affiliate marketing courses.
Learn How To Make Money Selling Other People's Products!
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post contains product affiliate links. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of these links.
Who Owns Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is owned by Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim.
In 2005, Kyle and Carson came together and created a community in which they shared their knowledge of what worked and did not work when building an online business through affiliate marketing.
The result of their collaboration was a membership site they named Wealthy Affiliate.
For the past 17+ years, the site has grown tremendously from its humble beginnings to one of the best places on the internet for newbie affiliate marketers and veterans alike to learn about affiliate marketing.
Currently, they have a team of experts, who all work from within the company to provide support and guidance to Wealthy Affiliate members in several ways.
The Wealthy Affiliate blog, managed by Kyle Loudon himself, is one such way that they provide help for affiliates as well as an outlet for their own personal thoughts about running a successful business online.
Starting Your Online Business With Wealthy Affiliate
There are a few things you should know before starting your own business with Wealthy Affiliate.
Your mindset and goals have to be clear before you start your business. More importantly, you are going to need discipline if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer.
Start by thinking about what niche you want to do and how it will benefit people in the world.
A niche is a specific area of a market that you are interested in.
It could be anything from fashion to food and travel, or it can go into business niches as well like healthcare providers and real estate agents.
Once your niche has been chosen, the next step is finding affiliate products related to your niche that will provide people with solutions for their needs.
One way to get an idea of what type of niche is right for you is to think about what kind of marketing channels you’re good at using: email, Facebook ads, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
The more specific the better because Wealthy Affiliate has so many different options! (You don’t have to know everything about everything!).
Consider whether your potential competitors are already providing this service – if they are not then there’s less competition which means more opportunity for profit!
Plus, if you’re not sure what type of business to start Wealthy Affiliate has plenty of affiliate programs that can be started for free.
You can find affiliate opportunities by scrolling through their list of programs available.
You’ll see lots of different options for generating income such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc., but there are many more ways than just those mentioned above.
How Does Wealthy Affiliate Work?
The whole premise of Wealthy Affiliate is that it offers its Wealthy Affiliates (members) a step-by-step training platform that teaches them how to build a business online in four simple steps:
1. Choose a niche – this could be something you are passionate about or you have a particular interest in like road cycling, dog training, etc.
2. Build your affiliate website – design and use the templates that are supplied by Wealthy Affiliate’s hosting and web-building platform.
3. Drive traffic to your website – without visitors to your website, your business will not be very successful.
4. Generate commissions – Once you have traffic on your site, you can promote products offered by a company for a commission.
Wealthy Affiliate offers three membership options to accomplish these four steps:
- Starter member
- Premium
- Power-User Membership
I dub this their crawl, walk, run strategy. Below is my outline detailing each of these phases:
Phase 1 – Crawl (Starter Member):
The first phase of training begins with Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC).
This is an introductory course and it is free when you sign up for a starter member account at Wealthy Affiliate.
The course is made up of 5 certification courses to familiarize beginners who are just getting started with an online business.
A vast majority of people who sign up for an online business are not tech-savvy, so this is the perfect way to get them started with the basics.
The certification courses are as follows:
- Level 1: Online Entrepreneur Certification – The Wealthy Affiliate Online Entrepreneur Certification comes with a 10-lesson course. Wealthy Affiliate is a great resource to help you set up an online business. This free course tells you all you need to know about setting up and maintaining a business that generates revenue.
- Level 2: Building Your Own Traffic Producing Website – In this ten-lesson training session you learn no-cost traffic generation techniques and strategies for capturing highly relevant traffic in any niche.
- Level 3: Making Money – This Wealthy Affiliate training is a 10-lesson detailed walk-through of ways to make money through your website.
- Level 4: Mastery Social Engagement – This course covers all aspects of social media, social marketing, and social networks. Ultimately any success within the social world is the result of social engagement.
- Level 5: Achieving Maximum Success Through Content Creation – This course is dedicated to all aspects of society. From social media, social marketing, and social networks. Ultimately any success within the social world is the result of social engagement.
With the free Affiliate membership, you will get access to the first 10 training videos in the Level 1.
After you complete their free training you will have learned about what type of niches you should get into doing as an affiliate, building a traffic-generating website, how to use their keyword research tool Jaxxy, etc.
The core training includes a lot of information, so you must take your time to understand and absorb the material.
For some people who have zero affiliate training, this might be overwhelming due to all the new terminology and ways in which affiliate marketers can make affiliate income with their website through affiliate marketing.
As you complete each lesson, you earn a certificate and get a set of tasks that you must complete before going on to the next lesson.
This is purposely done for two reasons.
First, to carve out each step you must take and form the required habits needed to succeed with your online business.
Second, to allow you to interact with their vast community and receive assistance from Wealthy Affiliate members who are very willing to help out.
This is what makes the 10 Wealthy Affiliate free lessons a good introduction for beginners because the training is structured.
You’re not just thrown into some random tutorial without any idea of what you are supposed to be doing.
And since the wealthy affiliate community is always active, it’s easy for beginners to get help which can sometimes seem impossible in other internet marketing courses.
With the free version, you can explore what Wealthy Affiliate has to offer without any risk or obligations for a week.
Phase 2 Walk ( Premium Membership ):
In this phase, you will learn how to build an online business from the ground up, applying what you learned in the Wealthy Affiliate Online Entrepreneur Certification course.
With the starter account, you only had limited access to one lesson of the OEC course and one lesson from the Wealthy Affiliate Bootcamp.
As a premium member, you now have access to all 5 courses (50 lessons total) presented in the OEC, and all 7 courses (70 lessons total) presented in their Bootcamp.
The difference between the OEC and the Bootcamp is that in the OEC you learned the process of creating and building a business in whatever niche you want.
In the Bootcamp, you learn the process of creating and establishing a business in a niche related to promoting Wealthy Affiliate.
In addition, you also have access to many of the tools and resources found on Wealthy Affiliate such as website and hosting packages, keyword research tool upgrades, 24/7 support, a website building tool to build your affiliate websites, and much more.
Here’s how the Affiliate Bootcamp is broken down:
- Phase 1: Getting Your Business Rolling – A 10-lesson course that is part of the Wealthy Affiliate Online Entrepreneur Certification. It will walk you through the steps of creating a successful affiliate marketing business that generates revenue.
- Phase 2: Content, Keywords, and Conversions – A 10-lesson training that walks you through no-cost traffic generation techniques that will allow you to capture highly relevant traffic in any niche.
- Phase 3: Giving Your Site Social Value – 10 Training lessons that walk you through several ways to earn money through your site.
- Phase 4: Get Visual. Get Aesthetic. Get a Brand – This course is dedicated to all aspects of society. From social media, social marketing, and social networks. Ultimately any success within the social world is the result of social engagement.
- Phase 5: Knowing Your Audiences & Catapulting Your Referrals – This course is dedicated to all aspects of society. From social media, social marketing, and social networks. Ultimately any success within the social world is the result of social engagement.
- Phase 6: Bing, Yahoo, & the Power of PPC – This course is dedicated to all aspects of society.
- Phase 7: How to Scale Successful PPC Campaigns – This course is dedicated to all aspects of society.
Phase 3 - Run (Premium Plus Membership):
Premium Plus is the top-tier training that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer. With this level of membership, you now have 100% access to all levels of training.
At this level, you not only learn affiliate marketing, you also learn how to master it and turn it into consistent monthly revenue across several platforms.
With Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plus, you can actually learn how to use affiliate marketing to create your own brand across different social media platforms such as youtube, and Instagram.
You can use these platforms to build a massive following, that turns into significant revenue.
As a Premium Plus member, you go from the foundational aspects, all the way to more expert aspects of knowing your audience, catapulting referrals by using pay-per-click (PPC), scaling successful campaigns, and getting to the next level.
You’re absolutely gonna go from a newbie to an affiliate marketing expert. And Wealthy Affiliate members will be right by your side throughout the entire journey.
Let’s dive in and see really what you’re getting with premium plus because with Wealthy Affiliate’s premium plan, you get all the tools and training to build a website and get massive conversions and massive traffic.
You now have access to not only everything premium brings you like all the core training, the boot camp, and core training 1000 plus training modules, but you now have the premium plus everything in bold.
Here Are the extras that you get with Premium Plus:
- 200 plus expert classes per year -These are not only live, but you also have access to the on-demand classes as well websites.
- Advanced website hosting package – one of the biggest costs that people have, when they’re creating websites, is the hosting costs. This means being able to have that website up and running 24/7 never down that usually costs when you have security and support.
- 50 premium websites – you can build up to 50 consider that almost like having 50 different businesses, and 50 different niche websites, you can build turning revenue out of every single one of them advanced hosting security suite. These websites are not cookie-cutter websites. These are fast google page speed optimized, capable of a million monthly visits. You have full Wealthy Affiliate support, priority expertise, and private help with your premium plus account.
- Jaxxy Enterprise – normally costs $99 a month, integrated free into premium plus at no extra charge.
- Access to expert classes – these premium plus expert classes give you the chance to not only perfect your skills through creating awesome websites that are turning incredible massive traffic and commissions. These premium plus expert classes really do give you that well-rounded training that you’re looking for.
As you can see here the foundation of creating high-ranking content, creating your site, and landing page content creation for search engine optimization.
This is all about understanding the Google algorithm and creating content that ranks with Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plus training.
If you wanted to downgrade to regular premium, which includes just the training, you have full freedom to do anything you want.
You are not locked into anything you don’t want to be a part of.
But as you can see, premium plus gives you so much bang for the buck that you truly can’t go wrong.
Wealthy Affiliate: Features & Benefits
Live Training
To keep your training current, there are weekly training webinars on a variety of topics offered to WA Premium members.
If you are a WA Premium Plus member you have access to even more weekly live affiliate training courses exclusive to the higher tier of this membership.
The weekly training is given by Jay Neil, Chief Training Instructor at WA. He’s a phenomenal teacher and does a great job at presenting courses in an easy-to-understand manner.
During his presentations, he demonstrates all topics and techniques live for you. Finally, he closes the session with a question-and-answer period to further explain or clarify points made during the training.
If you happen to miss any of the training sessions, they are made available to you on-demand after the scheduled day of presentation, so you can learn at your own pace.
For the WA Premium Plus members, Jay goes more in-depth into topics such as on-page/off-page SEO, WordPress, content generation, email marketing, and offers helpful advice on how to improve your rankings. And I am only scratching the surface of what he teaches.
Kyle even gets into the action as well.
Kyle brings his 18 years as a successful affiliate and teaches courses on copywriting, pay-per-click marketing (PPC), search engine optimization, business mindset, traffic & conversion strategies, the list goes on.
Kyle is a staunch advocate and a strong proponent of daily education on one’s craft.
The goal of his online classes is to help shorten the success timeline across many skills that can enhance your success within the online business world.
WA Community-Based Training
Besides the formal training courses found in WA, there is a very active and vibrant community that offers additional training.
You can access the community-based training in several ways. You can go to the training section on the site and select Training HQ.
Once there, you can enter into any number of classrooms where other members have created tutorials.
You can also search for a topic from your dashboard and find members who have created tutorials on their blogs.
If you have knowledge of a particular subject, as a Wealthy Affiliate member, you can create and upload training to the site.
However, you have to be a Premium member for at least three months before you can begin uploading your own training.
Resources
Just as with any brick-and-mortar business, you need to have the right tools to run your online business. These tools need to be for you to use and must help you get results.
Fortunately, WA has all the tools you need in one place. Detailed below are the primary tools you’ll need to get started.
Keyword Research Tools
WA makes keyword research a breeze for its members. They provide access to an online keyword tool called Jaaxy.
I know the name sounds flaky, but it’s very user-friendly and accurate compared to other tools found on the internet.
Jaaxy is WA’s own proprietary tool that provides key data that is necessary for developing effective, targeted online marketing campaigns.
Jaaxy can be used to generate keywords and phrases based on a topic or specific keyword phrase.
You can use it to identify the number of searches per month associated with any given term or group of terms (called search volume).
Jaaxy also identifies which words and phrases are most relevant to rank well in web searches, provides an instant estimate of how competitive a particular keyword would be if you were trying to rank it in search results pages from Google.
I like using this tool when I have trouble coming up with new article topics because it offers me ideas related to my favorite niches.
It’s also helpful for finding new keywords to research and use in my content.
There are three different price points for Jaaxy:
- Starter
- Pro
- Enterprise
Starter
The free trial gives you 30 searches. It is not much, but if you are just starting out, you might have a very limited budget for keyword research.
In my opinion, this is perfect for a new affiliate marketer.
This plan is perfect for someone who wants to get their feet wet in keyword research without it costing them a ton of money.
When I first started out, I used a tool called Market Samurai, but ultimately Jaaxy became my go-to for keyword research.
Pro
The premium plan costs $49/month, but it is worth it if you are serious about building a successful online business.
This plan gives you unlimited searches and a ton of other features that make keyword research easier than ever before.
You may not want to stay at this level forever, but when I have been successful with my affiliate marketing efforts, the premium plan is where I will remain for some time!
Enterprise
The enterprise package costs $99/month and it is ideal for the affiliate marketer that has been in the industry for a few years and has a firm grasp of internet marketing concepts.
This plan will give you unlimited automated searches,10k SiteRank Analysis Scans, and much more.
Website Builder
A website is useless as a marketing tool if the design is cheesy and the content is boring.
WA makes building a website super quick and easy with their SiteRubix website builder.
When I built my first website, I did it the conventional way (buy domain / buy hosting/ transfer domain, etc.).
It took me hours and a ton of frustration because I didn’t know how to do all the technical steps efficiently.
With WA’s SiteRubix, you bypass all the technical processes of building a website with just a few mouse clicks.
You simply:
- Select the free site option
- Choose a name for your site
- Pick the theme for the type of site you want to build
- Build your website
You can do all of this in less than two mins. Don’t believe me, WATCH!:
Web Hosting
Over the years, I have found that many aspiring affiliate marketers get confused when having to choose a web host.
That’s because many hosting companies offer a variety of hosting plans that can be overwhelming with technical information.
You’ll either choose a package that has too many limitations or one that has way too many bells and whistles that you don’t need.
Either way, you run the risk of spending money unnecessarily.
At a minimum, all you need from a web host is:
- Excellent Site Speed
- Free SSL Certificates
- 24/7 Monitoring and Support
- Full Redundancy
- Enterprise Security
- Daily Website Backups
- 24/7 Access to Server Admins
- Email Accounts
Luckily, WA can do this for you. Plus more.
Site Domains
The Site Domains feature of the WA platform provides the user an easy way of searching, registering, and buying a domain for your website.
In addition, if you already have an existing domain you can transfer it over to WA for hosting on their servers.
As with building your website, you don’t need advanced computer skills, they do all the heavy lifting.
If you opt to become a premium member, you can register up to 50 domains and host 25 of them for free.
Best of all, there are no upsells.
Check out how the Wealthy Affiliate domain registry compares to some of the others:
How Much Does It Cost To Join Wealthy Affiliate?
How much does Wealthy Affiliate cost depends on which membership you choose:
Free membership = $0.00/month
Premium membership = $49.00/month
Premium Plus membershi = $99.00/month
The difference between these memberships is what tools you will receive access to as well as how much support each tier offers in the community area.
So realistically speaking, this ranges anywhere from “I don’t want anything” to “everything.”
If you just want an email list-building tool then go ahead and purchase a basic membership.
If you want more than that, then go ahead and purchase a premium membership or higher.
Another way of looking at it would be – do you need all the bells and whistles? Or are there other programs out there that will give you what you need without costing so much?
The answer to that is up to you. I would recommend assessing your needs and then deciding which platform best fits those needs.
For example, if you are just starting out in business for yourself, promoting Wealthy Affiliate might be able to help get you beyond the start-up phase.
But for the more experienced entrepreneurs who have been at their own online marketing game a while now, becoming a Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plus member might be the way to go.
Who is Wealthy Affiliate for?
Wealthy Affiliate is for people who want to learn about affiliate marketing and make an icome online.
To give you an example, below are just a few of the people you can find on the Wealthy Affiliate platform:
- College Students
- Retirees
- Veterans / Disabled Veterans
- Disabled Individuals (who can work from their computer)
- Laid Off/Unemployed Workers
- High Earning Individuals (Doctors, Nurses, Real Estate Brokers)
- Stay-at-home Parents
- Minimum Wage Earners
- Passive/Residual Income Seekers
- Individuals Soon to Retire
- Side Hustlers
I can go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. Wealthy Affiliate is for everybody, not just the seasoned affiliate marketer.
There are over one million members on Wealthy Affiliate now in time and come from all walks of life.
In fact, newer bloggers can often learn a lot of tricks and hacks from those in the WA community who have been in the affiliate marketing trenches for years.
There is an entire help center and community built into WA that will answer any questions you have.
The whole premise of Wealthy Affiliate is that it offers its members a step-by-step training platform that teaches them how to create a successful, long-term web-based business.an income
Can You Really Make Money With Wealthy Affiliate?
The short and simple answer to this question is yes!
Wealthy Affiliate is a fantastic opportunity to make money, but it is not so much an opportunity for “making some money” as it is an opportunity to invest in yourself.
Reality Check! – Wealthy Affiliate does not offer any information on how to make easy money; however, it provides all of the necessary tools and resources you need to start your own internet business from home.
The resources offered inside this community include everything from coaching, WordPress web design, and ways to promote Wealthy Affiliate as a beginner.
You just have to dedicate the time and be disciplined enough to follow through with training and be an active WA member.
If you do these things, the rewards can be great!
Is Wealthy Affiliate legitimate?
There are plenty of Wealthy Affiliate reviews in which some people will fill you with doubts, some might even try and scare you away.
WA has been online since 2005 and has millions of members from all over the world. If they were a scam, I don’t believe they could last that long on the world wide web.
This is not to say that they do not have an unblemished record.
If you go to the Better Business Bureau website you will see that they have an A+ rating as a business, but have a 3 out of 5-star customer review rating.
I know that this may cause the warning flags in your mind to go off.
However, when you drill down a little, you see that within the last 3 years they have had only 15 complaints that were resolved or answered in a timely fashion.
Within the last year, they have had only 2 complaints and they were resolved pretty quickly.
I think for being in business online for as long as they have, the number of dissatisfied members is pretty low.
I believe that WA’s goals are simple: to provide affiliate marketing training at Wealthy Affiliate where participants can learn how to develop their own strategy of ways they can make money online.
They provide the resources so that anyone can work on building a sustainable online business through any of the available producing streams they offer.
Is Wealthy Affiliate A Pyramid Scheme?
From my own personal experience, no, Wealthy Affiliate is not a pyramid scheme. It is not a CPA program, multi-level marketing, or “a get rich quick scheme.”
Wealthy Affiliate offers a compensation plan that is not based on recruiting new members, which is key to these types of pyramid schemes.
Pyramid schemes are fundamentally unfair and illegitimate because their focus is on making money by recruiting new members.
This isn’t the case with Wealthy Affiliate.
The focus is on providing tools that allow people to build successful online businesses quickly and easily.
As you use the tools more and more, your skills will increase along with your earnings.
Despite what you may have, there is NO requirement to promote Wealthy Affiliate!
How Does Wealthy Affiliate Compare to Other Courses?
This Wealthy Affiliate review would not be complete if I didn’t compare it to other affiliate training programs.
Below are several programs that are in the affiliate marketing training space:
- Affiliorama
- The Super Affiliate Network (SAN)
- Kajabi
- SkillShare
- Udemy
- DigitalMarketer
- Six-Figure Mentors
- Market Motive
Affilorama
Affilorama teaches you how to make money from the comfort of your own home by promoting other people’s products.
It is designed for anyone who already has a blog, network marketing site, or social media account and wants to start generating an income without having to spend a lot of time offline doing things like sourcing leads, writing emails/press releases, or running ads.
It’s completely free, however, there are upsells that do not make the course any better.
Which when compared to the three Wealthy Affiliate memberships, falls short of providing value without all the extra costs.
The Super Affiliate Network
SAN is a company that has been training people on affiliate marketing using mainly Solo Ads.
This network was hard to figure out due to lack of clear information and video content not providing any practical value, but they have an expensive pricing structure where the most expensive program costs almost $12,500!
The main issue with SAN is its focus on self-promotion as it doesn’t seem too far from being considered a pyramid scheme at times.
Kajabi
Kajabi is like WordPress on steroids. It offers a framework for entrepreneurs that are geared towards membership websites.
With Kajabi you can create lead pages, membership levels, member-only content, but you seem limited to just that type of niche.
The monthly pricing for Kajabi is off the charts. It starts at $119 for the Basic Plan.
The Growth Plan has a monthly fee of either $159 or $399 depending on how long you purchase it, and then there is a Pro Plan that is priced at $319 per month!
While Kajabi may be suitable for more experienced internet marketers, I would not dare recommend this platform to a newbie who is just starting out.
Get the basics down first before jumping into something that has way too many bells and whistles.
SkillShare
Skillshare has a variety of courses that range from art-related topics such as illustration or photography to freelancing skills like writing resumes in order to apply for jobs.
Courses are available at varying levels depending on the skill level desired by learners; there’s even some more advanced coursework geared towards professionals already working in the industry who want new techniques or strategies they can use at work.
It also offers beginner tutorials so people looking to explore their creativity without having any prior experience don’t have to worry about being behind everyone else when it comes time to perform different tasks like designing logos using Adobe Illustrator CC.
Unfortunately, there is only one affiliate marketing training course and it is a private page with less than 20 followers.
I was curious to see what the course looked like, but I didn’t think that paying the $32 monthly fee was worth the investment.
Udemy
Udemy is essentially the same as Skillshare. The site has over 250,000 courses from different subject areas to choose from with a range of prices and instructors available for you to study under.
It’s affordable – especially during promotional periods such as holiday sales when they offer their more popular classes at discounted rates!
I personally have used Udemy to learn about graphic design software such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
I use them frequently to make graphics for my websites and the courses were either free or less than $20 (if you catch a sale).
There are courses on affiliate marketing, but unlike WA, you have to purchase individual courses in order to develop a robust learning platform.
Over time, that can get quite expensive.
DigitalMarketer
DigitalMarketer is similar to Wealthy Affiliate in that it offers courses on digital marketing. It has 12 certification courses that you can signup for to learn various aspects of digital marketing.
These courses start at prices ranging from $295 to $995. They have 30 different workshops you can take as well. They cost $295 for individual subjects.
Six-Figure Mentors
Six-Figure Mentors (SFM) is a training program that gives you the resources to start or grow your business on an online platform.
With actionable guidance and support. Once again, SFM is very similar to WA, but they differ greatly in price.
The SFM pricing plan has three different memberships Free, Essential, and Elite. The Free plan speaks for itself however, the Essential Plan requires a $99 enrollment fee along with a $97/m membership fee.
If you want to scale up to the Elite Plan, expect to shell out $2500 annually.
Market Motive
Market Motive is a digital marketing training program that is used by organizations to train their teams.
These courses are very informative, helping marketers expand their skills and learn about new technologies.
Market Motive offers very advanced courses in digital marketing. They only have a handful of classes with pricing points starting at $599 to $1499.
Essentially these are supplementary course that is used by colleges such as Duke University, Penn State, and Polk State College.
Is Wealthy Affiliate Worth the Money?
The answer to this question all depends on how serious you are about building a successful web-based business. If your main goal is to make money without any real commitment, Wealthy Affiliate may not be the best option for you.
On the other hand, if you want to build an online empire that will bring in more revenue than what most people work with yearly and offers passive monthly residual income from all of your hard work – then this could very well be worth it!
If I had to guess, based on my experience at WA so far – I would say “yes”.
As a new affiliate marketer, Wealthy Affiliate will guide you through every phase, supply every tool you require, and provide you access to a remarkable online community of other affiliate online marketers attempting to develop a business enterprise much like you.
Wealthy Affiliate Pros
I think if you have gotten this far in this article, you have a pretty good idea of what I think the pros are for WA.
But I would be remiss if I just touted all things positive in this Wealthy Affiliate review and fail to mention the negatives of WA.
Wealthy Affiliate Cons
Of course, with the good comes some bad. While WA has some great features and benefits, there are a few things that I definitely believe can be improved on.
A few that quickly come to mind are:
- Need for updated training in the Online Certification Course
- Lack of training on building an email list
- Lack of training on driving traffic
- Lack of training on link building
- No refund
Need for updated training in the Online Certification Course
The Online Certification Course that WA offers is in dire need of updating. The material is so outdated that it’s laughable.
I get that WA is trying to attract new members in order to make money, but they miss the mark by continuing to leave old videos in the OEC.
For example, in Mastering Social Engagement (Level 4) they still reference Google Plus in the training. Google Plus was shut down over two years ago!
Why even have it in the course?
There is a disclaimer at the beginning of the lesson, but I find it completely irrelevant, to begin with.
Other Wealthy Affiliate reviews tout this as being purposefully deceitful on their part.
I just think it is just plain lazy!
Lack of training on building an email list
In my opinion, the lack of training on building an email list is a major drawback.
Once again, the WA training misses the mark by not covering this topic in either the OEC or the Affiliate Bootcamp.
Sure, other Wealthy Affiliate members have posted on their blogs about list building, but I think from a foundational perspective this should be added in the Affiliate Bootcamp.
Hopefully, WA upgrades its training courses and adds this topic.
Lack of training on driving traffic
What is covered in the OEC about driving traffic just scratches the surface of what I believe is a vital skill to learn.
What’s the sense of having a beautifully designed website if you can’t bring visitors to it in the first place?
Much of the training on traffic in the OEC surrounds content generation.
The lesson on analyzing your traffic with Google Analytics is worthless if you don’t even know how to properly promote your website and get targeted traffic.
Driving traffic to your online affiliate business is crucial to success.
WA provides a great platform for affiliate marketers to build their own website, but if you are not taught how to drive traffic and make sales from the beginning then it will be hard to succeed online no matter what system or company that you choose.
Lack of training on building backlinks
This one is a huge problem for me and it ties into the observation made above. WA has no core backing lesson that it teaches its members.
Getting your website indexed (they seem to place a lot of emphasis on this) by Google is one thing, but what happens after that?
Knowing how to build quality backlinks to your website is important because it shows Google that your website is authoritative and worth ranking higher on the SERPs.
If you’re not taught how to do this, then it’s hard to succeed online no matter how well designed your website is.
No refund (Premium/Premium Plus)
This one is not necessarily a dealbreaker but it does affect the review.
You have the choice of either paying annual or regular monthly when you sign up for the Premium/Premium Plus subscription.
Just how much you pay depends upon which Wealthy Affiliate discount rate you make the most of. There is no refund if you choose to leave Wealthy Affiliate.
Essentially, when you pay, you are a member for as long as you paid for.
I get that the majority of organizations will provide you a refund, however many organizations likewise do not provide you a complimentary choice to see and sign up with what is within.
My recommendations to you:
Start with the free membership first. Once the trial periods end, sign up for the Premium membership, now you have access to a greater amount of training and tools inside of Wealthy Affiliate.
As soon as you have had an opportunity to examine whatever, then choose if you desire to pay an annual fee. That way, you don’t risk any significant capital initially.
By using this technique, you can practically remove the danger that this issue will impact you.
Why You Should Join Wealthy Affiliate?
If you are still reading this, the chances are good that there is something about Wealthy Affiliate that has interested you.
Maybe it’s because they have an excellent reputation in online marketing education and maybe it was one of their testimonials or reviews from a happy customer but whatever your reason for being here, I want to make sure we take some time today to talk about why joining Wealthy Affiliate might be the best decision you ever made.
So without further ado let me start presenting my Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Join Wealthy Affiliate:
- Affiliate marketing courses – Wealthy Affiliate provides in-depth affiliate marketing courses that are easy to understand and follow.
- Great Website Builder – The website builder makes it possible to build a website that looks professional in less than one minute, even if you haven’t designed websites before!
- Super Fast Web Hosting – Web hosting is free with all of their membership options, and they use the latest technology to make sure your blog runs smoothly.
- Amazing Support – Wealthy Affiliate has a very active community inside the program, and if you have any questions, Kyle, the owner, is available to talk with you.
- SiteContent – Wealthy Affiliate recently released a new blog tool called SiteContent where you can write your content offline and publish it on the Wealthy Affiliate platform once ready.
- Always Improving – Wealthy Affiliate is unlike any other training platform I have seen. It continues to improve itself with updates and new features to help you save time and make more money.
- Weekly Live Training Webinars – A weekly webinar is offered and each one lasts 60 minutes. Each session is devoted to a specific topic with an emphasis on current trends in the affiliate marketing business.
- Business Tools – Wealthy Affiliate’s website provides a wealth of free features for beginner affiliate marketers, such as the keyword research tool that is emphasized in most lessons.
- High Recurring Commission Affiliate Program – It shouldn’t be a surprise that WA has its own affiliate program, considering the company teaches you everything about building an internet business.
- Always Learning – You get to learn something new each time you are on their platform. I’ve completed all of their training courses, but that doesn’t stop me from coming across old blog posts or catching parts of other training sessions as they are hosted on the site.
How Long Will It Take To Make Money With Wealthy Affiliate?
Despite some of the things Wealthy Affiliate claims, It is going to take some time before you are able to generate enough income so that your earnings can support your lifestyle, but it will happen if you put the work into making these online business-building strategies successful.
If I were to set the expectation management for new affiliate marketers, I would say 6 months is a realistic expectation to see earnings.
Trust me, you are not quitting your current job anytime soon.
Bottom Line: Is Wealthy Affiliate a Scam or Legit?
Yes, Wealthy Affiliate is a legitimate business!
It doesn’t matter whether you are an affiliate marketer with years of experience, a beginner that has been looking for the right way to start your online business, or someone in between these two extremes, WA can help.
The program is designed as an evergreen solution and will grow with you no matter where you are on your journey.
However, there are many things to consider when determining if it’s right for you, so this is an area where we recommend doing your research.
