So you’ve been looking for ways to learn how to earn money online and “wealthy affiliate” gets mentioned a LOT, but you are unsure if it is too good to be true, I’ve been there.
Wealthy affiliate is well-known for being one of the best places (if not THE best) to learn affiliate marketing online today and for very good reason. The tools, support and beginner level step by step training really does come across as being too good to be true but we’ll get into that in more detail further down the post.
My guess is you have landed on this page because you are ready to take the step into learning affiliate marketing to hopefully one day leave the 9-5 and have far more time to do the things you enjoy.
However with the endless scams online today you are looking for some more information before you decide if it was spending your hard-earned cash on, I get it.
In this post I am going to give you a complete honest no BS review of wealthy affiliate to help you make your own informed decision if YOU think wealthy affiliate is a scam or legitimate.
What exactly is wealthy affiliate?
Before we get into this full review it’s beneficial you know exactly what wealthy affiliate is and what the platform offers. Wealthy affiliate is a training platform for affiliate marketers that works on a membership basis where you can pay per month or per year where of course savings are made when you sign up for a year.
Wealthy affiliate even offer a free membership with reduced access to features where you can get a feel of the platform without any investment what so ever.
I’m assuming you already have some basic understanding of what affiliate marketing is but just in case you don’t I’ll give a brief explanation.
Affiliate marketing is basically directing potential customers to an established website or business that offer a product or service. When you sign up to an affiliate scheme you will gain your own personal link that when someone clicks on it and makes a purchase the sale is associated with you and in turn you earn a commission. You can read more in my guide on making money with affiliate marketing.
Wealthy affiliate teaches you the skills required to start a successful blog that gets ranked on google. The process seems simple and I truly believe anyone can give it a good go but it does not come easily.
Affiliate marketing takes consistent dedication and a superior attitude to learn to really see any success at all but with wealthy affiliate the tools and training you need are all in one place.
So is wealthy affiliate a scam?
The definite answer here for me would be no wealthy affiliate is not a scam. But is that really enough for someone on the internet to tell you that, probably not.
Anyone can write on the internet and fill you with false information so I’ll try to back up my claims with some evidence because I definitely don’t believe everything I read on the internet either.
When I think of the word scam I think of a fraud, something dishonest where all they want is your money without providing you with anything of value.
With wealthy affiliate this is far from the case. Millions of users use the platform today to learn the relevant skills to earn themselves some extra income and for many its even an opportunity to replace the job they hate and work off their own schedule.
To be completely honest I believe the value provided within the platform is worth far more than the money you will spend on the monthly fees if you are willing to put the effort in and build yourself a sustainable business.
You could pay up to thousands of pounds alone for an SEO course which will teach you how to rank content on the first page of google but guess what? Wealthy affiliate teaches you SEO step by step for as little as $19 a month for your first month.
Another thing that helps to show that wealthy affiliate is not a scam is the option of a free membership. What scam would let you sign up with a free membership if they provide you with no value at all?
What’s the point in giving everyone a free membership for them to sign up and find no value whats so ever and never actually pay for a membership? It just doesn’t make sense.
At no point does wealthy affiliate claim to be a get-rich-quick scheme and in fact no such thing exists (If you find one please let me know). It is often perceived that with a few inside secrets anyone can begin making millions online overnight but unfortunately for us all this is far from the truth.
Building an online business require consistent dedication to see any results just like building a business offline but with the guidance of wealthy affiliate it is definitely possible and I’ll provide some examples of people who are making a sizeable income by implementing the training wealthy affiliate provides further down this post.
I’d highly recommend you watch this short video which will hopefully help clarify that wealthy affiliate is not a scam.
What do you get access to with the premium membership?
As I said previously a scam in my eyes would be something that took your money and offered you no value so to help show to you that wealthy affiliate is far from a scam in my eyes I’m going to provide a look into the main tools you receive If you decide to give wealthy affiliate a go.
Training Videos
As wealthy affiliate is an affiliate marketing training platform of course you will receive hours of training videos.
There is two courses you can choose from to start which both focus on slightly different approaches to affiliate marketing.
The Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) has 5 courses each with many lessons within each (which you will see below). This course will teach you how to start an affiliate marketing business in a niche of your choosing in a simple step by step manner.
The course is presented with check boxes so once you have completed each task you can tick them off and move onto the next stage which makes all the information easier to take in and lends itself fully to beginners.
The second course provided is the affiliate boot camp. This course is focused on creating a website within a niche that allows you to promote wealthy affiliate and gain commissions from them in the process (I know this can sound a little like a scam but when you read the next part of this post you’ll understand why, don’t worry).
This course has 7 stages and 70 lessons. The value included is exceptional and the things you will learn can be implemented in many other ways to earn money online so even if you don’t want to give affiliate marketing a go the training within wealthy affiliate will provide you with the knowledge to start your own website and gain traffic.
I believe even without any of the many other extremely valuable tools provided in wealthy affiliate the training alone is well worth the monthly investment. Don’t just take my word for it though have a read at some reviews from fellow members of the course;
Jaaxy
At wealthy affiliate they don’t just teach you in depth how to set-up and rank websites on the first page of google and other search engines they also provide the tools required to do this.
If you don’t already know what Jaaxy is I’ll give you a quick explanation. Jaaxy is a keyword research tool to help you find keywords that you will have a chance to rank for.
By entering a key word you will be provided with an indication of how many searches the keyword receives, how many other websites rank for this keyword and various other factors.
Finding suitable keywords with enough search volume but little competition ensures you will begin to rank for the keywords you are writing posts on.
If you don’t have this tool you are really just taking a stab in the dark hoping you will rank for some keywords along the way.
The Jaaxy tool alone would cost you a minimum of $49 itself.
Think of the savings!
If you are looking for some more information on the features you receive with Jaaxy have a read at my in-depth review of the keyword research tool.
Weekly Webinars
If all this wasn’t enough there is also weekly webinars from an extremely experienced affiliate marketer, Jay. Every Friday Jay covers a new topic in areas from keyword research, content creation, researching competition and even website design and this is only to name a few.
Currently there are 352 webinars with new webinars being uploaded every week if you can’t watch the live video.
That is a massive 352 hours of training on top of the initial training. I’m sure you must be starting to see the value you can receive if you choose to sign up for wealthy affiliate but as I’ve said I understand it’s hard to believe what people write on the internet with the mass of scams around today.
I’m sure by the end of reading this post you will have more than enough knowledge to make your own informed decision so don’t give up just yet.
Massive Community
The active helpful community at wealthy affiliate is another major player in why wealthy affiliate is regarded as the best affiliate marketing course online today.
There are millions of users of wealthy affiliate (of course they are not all active users) that you can leverage to get help on any areas you feel stuck.
Wealthy affiliate has many features that allow you to keep in contact and connect with the community. You are encouraged to write blogs on the platform to help fellow users and keep everyone up to date with your progress.
Of course this is not necessary but networking with individuals can help you along the way to success by gaining experience from more experienced individuals.
There is also a live chat system where you can get fast answers to any questions that you may have. The live chat is constantly going 24 hours a day with many users receiving answers to their questions in minutes or sometimes even seconds and this is something you get access to even with the free membership.
Hosting
There is also extremely fast and reliable hosting included with your membership with wealthy affiliate. As a premium member you can host up to 25 websites but it doesn’t just stop here.
The site support offered with wealthy affiliate is absolutely exceptional. I ran into an issue a few weeks ago with one of my sites where my site seemed completely offline. I messaged the site support team and within ten minutes my site was back online. The speed and efficiency of the site support is far superior than any I have found in my time working online with various platforms.
For a basic hosting plan with blue host it would cost you at least $3 dollars and obviously if you had 25 sites hosted with blue host that would be $75 per month which is far greater than your monthly membership to wealthy affiliate.
I’m sure you won’t be hosting 25 sites at once anyway but the option is there and I’m sure you can see the value provided with the option to host up to 25 sites with no extra cost at wealthy affiliate.
Much more
It doesn’t stop here and i could genuinely write upwards of 4000 words on all the features that are offered within the wealthy affiliate platform. Don’t just take my word for it, sign up for a free membership and have a look around for yourself. Below you can get some more information on the features you will receive with the free or premium membership;
Why wealthy affiliate can seem like a scam
I can completely understand why people could believe that wealthy affiliate is a scam. Usually when something seems too good to be true it usually is.
Wealthy affiliate claim to offer the best affiliate marketing training at a fraction of the cost of others which immediately rings alarm bells for me and I’m sure you’ll be the same.
When I initially found wealthy affiliate I decided to do my own research on the platform which is probably why you have ended up on this page and at first glance the reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
In fact I struggled to find anyone saying anything negative about the program, something didn’t seem right.
A lot of the articles seems liked a massive sales pitch that only wanted to take my money so I was incredibly sceptical. I couldn’t understand why not one review seemed to say anything bad about the platform but I decided to sign up anyway and after using the platform for over a year I have finally put my finger on it.
So why exactly is this? Well wealthy affiliate in itself is one giant affiliate money making scheme.
The platform teaches you how to create a website from scratch, write insightful content, build social media accounts and set up useful tools such as google analytics and google search console and implement SEO techniques.
The platform will teach you how to rank pages on the first page of google where they encourage you to promote their platform where you will receive a commission for every new member that signs up through your link.
Yep that really does make it seem like a scam, I get it.
The thing is though wealthy affiliate does not only teach you skills for promoting their platform and earning them money the techniques and tools they provide and teach open up massive amounts of potential for making money in many areas online.
Although wealthy affiliate is mainly focused around creating a blog to promote their platform they also offer incredible in depth training for starting your own niche blog in a niche of your choosing which benefits them in no way what so ever. In fact this is where I started and where I recommend all beginners do.
I had no knowledge with affiliate marketing what so ever and within 6 months I had created my first website which was bringing in around 1500 unique visitors a month. Yes this number is rather low in the grand scheme of things but to me it proves that the training actually works and I feel I now have the necessary knowledge to completely surpass this number on this site within around 6 months.
At this point I am going to be completely honest, I don’t want my review of wealthy affiliate to seem like one massive sales pitch like many of the reviews do. If you decide to use my link to sign up for wealthy affiliate I will receive a small commission.
One thing that’s for certain when I started this blog was that I don’t want to deceive anyone for my own benefit (like many other affiliate marketing sites do). The purpose of this blog was to provide information on how you too can make money online in the most ethical and honest way possible.
I only promote platforms I believe in and use myself and although wealthy affiliate offers the opportunity to promote their platform and earn money with them their is far more to the platform than just this.
I personally believe that wealthy affiliate provides unparalleled value for anyone looking to start their own affiliate marketing website in any niche at all and is perfect for the beginner who has no previous knowledge at all.
As I’ve already said it’s hard to believe everything you read on the Internet and you may be doubting my intentions but that decision is up to you, but before you make that decision I’d recommend you take advantage of the free membership to help you make a more informed decision.
How many people find success?
This is a hard question to answer but one every beginner will ask. In all honestly I can’t provide you with a definite answer.
All I can tell you is that with the correct guidance and mind set I believe anyone can become successful. One thing that will stop many people from trying is the fear of their business failing. If this is you I’d advise to read my post on methods for overcoming the fear of failure so you can get started as soon as possible.
The sooner you start the sooner you can find success.
Success to some people may be different from others. For some creating their first website and gaining traffic may be seen as a success and for others success will only be achieved when they have made their first commission.
The truth is, wealthy affiliate is full of success. Every user is encouraged to engage in the community and this is one major benefit over EVERY other affiliate marketing training platform.
I have found absolutely nowhere that has such an engaged and helpful community where people are genuinely interested in helping each other to success.
This is all down to the creators of this platform, Kyle and Carson, who have not just provided a training platform but they have also been intent on building an engaged and welcoming community which really is exceptional.
Yep this is starting to sound a bit like a sales pitch again but its difficult to not speak of the platform like this when it is what I truly believe. The free membership gives you access to this community where you can read blogs, interact with fellow affiliate markers in live chat and view some training so you can get a feel of the community for yourself.
How much money can you actually make?
This is another question I find all beginners asking and it’s definitely a question I was asking myself in the beginning. Unfortunately the answer isn’t inherently simple.
One of the main positives with affiliate marketing is that your earnings can genuinely be endless. When you work a 9-5 job most often than not your salary could stay the same for years to come no matter how much effort you put in.
With affiliate marketing this is far from the case and is one of the reasons why I love affiliate marketing. The effort you put in over the years should reflect on the income you will start to generate.
Yes it will take a while to start generating any income at all, it could even take you two years of constant effort to see any life changing income, but once you get here the potential to grown into a 5 or even 6 figure business is definitely there.
There is genuinely millions of users of wealthy affiliate but I would presume 75% of these users have made no money whatsoever. Does that not show it’s a scam? Of course not.
I believe the main issue here is that the majority of people fail to dedicate enough effort and it all comes down to how much you actually want it. Many people will join looking for a method to earn money fast but this is not the case.
The bottom line here is that the money you can make is uncapped but it won’t come overnight.
To help give an idea of how much money my fellow users of wealthy are making I’ll provide some of results people are seeing which they have posted on their blogs on the platform.
This is only a very very small selection from the thousands of people that are earning money from the training at wealthy affiliate.
You’re probably wondering why I am not showing my success in this section. As I said I started this blog to give a completely honest look into affiliate marketing and making money online so I’ll tell you the truth. I have not had much success at all.
Why is this? Just like you I am still learning. As I said building a sustainable and profitably affiliate isn’t an overnight thing and will take months of consistent effort and that is exactly what I am going to do.
I genuinely believe with the training from wealthy affiliate I can come back to this page in the months to come and provide proof of my own success, you can follow along with my progress in my monthly updates.
Who should sign up for wealthy affiliate?
Affiliate marketing and wealthy affiliate is definitely not for everyone and I’m not going to try to tell you it is. As I said previously wealthy affiliate is far from a get-rich-quick scheme so if that is what you are looking for you’re looking in the wrong place.
Wealthy affiliate is focused at individuals who are seriously looking for a training platform that will teach them how to start and build a real sustainable business that can bring you income for years to come.
Of course this is no easy task so if you feel you work too much, don’t have the time or generally aren’t overly interested then once again this platform is not for you.
This platform is only for people who are willing to put in a minimum of around 15 hours a week for as long as 6 months before you see any sort of income at all. That’s not to say you can’t start to earn money earlier than this but I believe it really depends on how much time and effort you put in. As a general rule you won’t start to see any rankings in google at all until around the 3-month mark and no traffic generally means no earnings.
That being said it is definitely possible to build yourself an online business in your free time in fact I am currently doing it myself with the training wealthy affiliate provides.
How much does wealthy affiliate cost?
The answer to this question is simple, not a lot. There are various memberships you can choose from is I’ll give you a slight break down of what you will receive with each.
The free membership offer is definitely where I would advise anyone to start considering wealthy affiliate is not for everyone.
The free membership will give you a firsthand look into the platform and let you get started with the training and community with literally no risk what so ever. If you are still debating whether wealthy affiliate is a scam or legitimate then I’m almost certain a look into the platform with no investment will solidify your thoughts.
With the free member there is a few restrictions which you can see in the picture below;
If you take advantage of the no risk free membership and like what you see you can get your first month at a reduced rate of only $19. This will give you a full premium membership with no restrictions so you can continue your training into making a profitable online business.
Be careful though, once your first month at $19 is up you will be automatically charged the full price of $49. Don’t worry though you can cancel your membership in a few clicks if you still feel like wealthy affiliate is not for you.
Like I said once your first month at the reduced rate you will be charged the full price of $49 per month which will give you access to all the premium features. There is the option to pay per year when you feel ready which will cost a total of $495 which amounts to a saving of $93; so basically 2 months.
Final Verdict
So to answer the initial question of is wealthy affiliate a scam or legitimate I’m sure you can now see that my answer is no definitely not. Actually the complete opposite.
If you are completely serious about learning affiliate marketing to earn some extra money or even one day to replace your current job the wealthy affiliate really is the place to be. They offer unparalleled value for a fraction of the cost of other training programs and that’s not to mention the thousands of experience helpful active members that are there to help you on your way.
As I’ve said throughout the post it really is difficult to not make this post sound like one massive sales pitch when I am only giving my honest option of the platform and to be completely honest I’m not overly bothered if you still believe wealthy affiliate is a scam or not but I whole heatedly believe if you are looking to learn affiliate marketing then you should look no further.
If you are still not completely sold on the platform then why not have a look around and take advantage of the free membership before you make any final decisions.
I hope you have found this review helpful and informative and if you have any questions feel free to leave them below and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
