How I Started With Wealthy Affiliate?
Before I answer you this question, let me share with you my experience in designing marketing strategy for local small businesses.
I've was involved in marketing consultancy industry for many years helping companies grow their business. During that time, I focused on offline marketing such as print ads, direct mailing, events and public relation.
I leverage very little on online channels as there's lack of skills and knowledge in my team.
To provide all-inclusive marketing solutions to local small businesses, I started to explore online marketing when there's increased demand for this service.
As there's only little training available during that time, it was very tough to learn online marketing.
However, I didn't give up and finally found Wealthy Affiliate. Like others, I grab the free trial opportunity before joining as paid member.
Wealthy Affiliate is an affiliate marketing program that provide tools, training and resources for people to learn and start a small business online.
Be it building a website, implement search engine optimization, email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing or even paid advertisements, you can literally find all strategies taught inside Wealthy Affiliate.
Other than people who want to make money online, there are also existing small business owners joined this program to learn how to build their business site.
You must be thinking what is the cost of Wealthy Affiliate? Is Wealthy Affiliate worth it?
To answer you these questions, I decided to write this Wealthy Affiliate Review. In this review I will share with you my experience so you are aware of the opportunity as well as limitation of this program.
Wealthy Affiliate Review Summary
Product Name: Wealthy Affiliate
Founder: Founded by Kyle & Carson
Product Type: Online Marketing Program to Start or Grow Small Business
Price: Free Starter Membership ($0) & Premium Membership ($49/month or $359/year)
Best For: Beginners who want to start small business online, or small business owners who want to leverage online marketing to grow their business
Summary: Wealthy Affiliate is a comprehensive program for beginners or small business owners to learn online marketing.
Rating: 95/100
Recommended: Definitely YES!
Success Stories of Wealthy Affiliate Members
If you are someone who…
- has already started small business online but yet to see any results,
- is a small business owner struggling to grow your business,
- is a complete newbie that has no experience to start online, but wanted to do so;
… then here is one good news for you.
I've found Wealthy Affiliate, an awesome community that teaches you how to start a small business online, grow existing business with online marketing strategies and provides a platform for you to network with marketers from around the world.
The truth is there are many people who successfully grow their income after joining Wealthy Affiliate.
While many leverage on building a blog to generate income from affiliate marketing, there are also people who apply the knowledge learned to accelerate growth of their existing small business.
Here are some success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members that I found.
I believe, if so many members can start small online business and improve their income after learning various marketing strategies taught inside Wealthy Affiliate, I bet you can too.
Wealthy Affiliate Is Not A Scam
I am showing you success stories at the beginning of this post because early last year, there was a group of people who tried to discredit Wealthy Affiliate by claiming that its members are not gaining any benefit from this program.
They concluded this based on analyzing blog traffic results of Wealthy Affiliate members.
We all know that traffic statistics of each blog can't be used solely as a benchmark to determine success. It is only meant as guideline for marketers to develop strategies for business growth.
To protect the reputation of Wealthy Affiliate, members started to share their success stories inside the community.
Here are more success stories of members that I found.
The fact is not all income are generated by members promoting affiliate products as shown above.
Like what I mentioned earlier, many members who own existing small business join Wealthy Affiliate to learn how to promote their products online.
That's what Clemen,and Tracy did.
Both of them leverage on this community to build their business website, learn about current online marketing strategies and ways to accelerate growth of their existing brick & mortar business.
As for me, other than promoting affiliate products to earn a commission, I also provide internet marketing services to local businesses. Here are my 3 unique ways to make money with Wealthy Affiliate.
In fact, Wealthy Affiliate offers way more than what members invested.
Training and website builder offered by the platform alone are worth much more than what members are paying.
One thing I am sure is Wealthy Affiliate is definitely NOT a SCAM.
Instead is a booster to accelerate growth of your business revenue.
What is Wealthy Affiliate?
Unlike most of the online marketing programs, Wealthy Affiliate is much more than simply a training program helping people to earn money online.
I would say it is more like an interactive community of small businesses helping each other to achieve success through online marketing.
If you ask 10 successful business owners, other than telling you hard work is the no.1 criteria to achieve success, they might also acknowledge getting help from others can push you further; and faster.
The point is, if you want to optimize chances to grow your business, then getting as much help as possible is really what you should do.
In Wealthy Affiliate, there is a community helping each other. You will learn about,
- Find a profitable niche market
- Get a good domain for your business
- Build your own blog (does not require technical skills)
- Create high quality content that sells
- Get your business ranked on Google
- Find profitable affiliate products to promote (if you do not have existing business)
- Finally earn passive income as you continue to build new niche businesses, etc.
It is free to join as starter member where youโll be able to get your first website up and running within the first 7 days.
As starter member you too can experience โฆ
- Two Free Websites along with Free Hosting
- Online Entrepreneur Certification (Getting Started Level 1) โ 10 free lessons
- The WA Writing Platform that helps you construct and organize your content
- Access to 2 of the 12 classrooms within Wealthy Affiliate
- Live support from the owners and other mentors for the first 7 days
After 7 days, you can either continue to bring your business forward and upgrade to premium membership or remain with free starter membership forever.
The main purpose of Free Starter Membership is to let you have a feel of how to start a small online business, primarily through creating a your own business site.
So you can assess and think through whether this is really for you.
It doesnโt mean by joining Free Starter Membership, youโll have full setup of your online business.
The common question I get from starter members is, โCould I grow my business remaining as free member?โ
My answer is you certainly can if you already have prior experiences on how online marketing works.
If you are a complete newbie, then completing the first level of training will not get you much other than just let you setup your website.
Premium membership is still needed if you want to build a solid foundation to develop online marketing strategies for your business.
Why Join Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership?
If you are really serious about starting a small business online or develop online marketing strategies to grow your existing business, then my recommendation for you is to go premium.
With premium membership, you can access to complete features of the whole platform. Some key Premium features include:
- Full access to main training, thousands of tutorials and live weekly webinars
- Tools & resources to implement online marketing strategies
- Community support
- Owner support
- Live chat
- 1-on-1 marketing consultation (I'll get in touch with you once join)
- 24/7 website technical support
- High security & high speed web hosting
- SSL certificates
- Domain Registration
If you need more information of all features, you can find the comparison between Premium vs Starter here.
Tutorials & Classroom (with 2018 Upgrades)
Wealthy Affiliate has 3 main types of training:
- Official Step-by-Step Training Tutorials created by Kyle & Carson
- Weekly Live Webinar taught by Jay
- Member-Generated Training Tutorials
Let me explain what is their official training.
Itโs a step-by-step online marketing, module-based training system with more than 50 lessons organized in an easy-to-follow video tutorials that include how to build and promote a small business website.
You are required to complete tasks inside each video so that you are ready to proceed to the next level.
Weekly Live Webinar taught by Jay comes in a variety of online marketing methods not covered in the main course.
For example, Jay covered topics such as: (click on the video to access the Jay's webinar)
- YouTube Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Ads Retargeting
Other than the main two training, experienced marketers are encouraged to create their own training and share inside Wealthy Affiliate too.
Credits will be offered by Wealthy Affiliate in exchange for your training content depending on the member engagements.
Community & Personal Consultation
I can't find any complaint about support provided inside Wealthy Affiliate. Whether it is technical or non-technical support, Wealthy Affiliate is simply superb.
I remember there was once when I accidentally deleted my entire business site. I thought that's the end my small online business where I will have to start all over again.
So I asked for help through their site support with the hope that they are able to restore my site, which I thought very unlikely.
And the good news was “they did” and my site was restored in less than 15 minutes!
That's awesome right?
Hereโs the list of support you can get as a member of Wealthy Affiliate
- 24/7 SiteSupport โ technical issues of your website
- 24/7 Live Chat โ any questions about marketing your business
- Ask The Community – support ticket to the community for help
- Private Message – request help from other members
- Private Message the Owners โ Request help directly from owners, Kyle & Carson
This includes my personal one-on-one marketing consultation if you sign up with the link here.
Tools to Help Grow Your Small Business
All the essential tools that you need to grow your small business can be found inside Wealthy Affiliate. These includes:
- Web Hosting
- Website Builder (SiteRubix – build your free website here)
- Domain Registration
- Keyword Research Tool (Jaaxy)
- Feedback Platform
- Ultimate Writing Platform
Premium members have free access to all tools including all upgrades.
The only additional cost you need to pay is when you purchase own domain that will only cost you around $13 per year.
Wait! The FREE Starter Membership is NOT available to everyone…
I am not sure for whatever reason, people from the following countries are not able to join Wealthy Affiliate as free Starter Member:
- Bangladesh
- Egypt
- India
- Kenya
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Vietnam
- Nigeria (Not available even for Premium Membership, sorry)
However, if you stay in the above countries (except Nigeria), you are still able to join Wealthy Affiliate directly as a premium member through this link and gain access to everything other premium members are getting.
Positive Review About Wealthy Affiliate
Supportive & Dynamic Community
I am sure some of you have joined other online social groups or forums with the hope that you can learn something from them.
But which community can really give you workable and proven marketing strategies to grow your business?
I bet not many.
Most people are just trying to sell you their products. It is really hard for you to find a community that is genuine and willing to share with you their marketing strategies and tactics.
Wealthy Affiliate is different.
Members are exceptionally supportive and dynamic in providing real advice with only one intention โ that is to help you become successful.
Thatโs why I always say Wealthy Affiliate is a LEGITIMATE program with community that is uniquely different from other forums or groups.
Continuous Technology Improvement
Wealthy Affiliate continuously introduces new technology updates and features to its platform with examples as shown below.
- SSL security (Jan, 2017)
- free 1 million site content images (Oct, 2017);
- unlimited keyword research with site ranking tool (Dec, 2017);
- UX dashboard reinvented (April, 2018);
- brand new homepage (June, 2018);
- accelerated speed on all membersโ hosted websites (Aug, 2018);
- and the latest introduction of a more powerful Wealthy Affiliate mobile responsive design (Sept, 2018).
I canโt list down everything here as there are just so many new updates.
The good news is, all these upgrades come at no cost to existing premium members.
And this platform has not been increasing their membership fee for more than 10 years!
Amazing Support System
As what I shared earlier, Wealthy Affiliate provides top notch 24/7 support to solve your website technical issues.
Iโve tried so many times and they never fail me, not even once.
SiteSupport is remarkable.
I always get response to my request in least than 12 hours, actually mostly within 15 minutes.
Amazing right?
Not sure how they are able to provide such speedy response.
Choose Any Niche to Start Your Small Online Business
If you do not own any existing business but want to start one, you will be guided through step-by-step lesson to choose a profitable niche business.
Unlike some members who chose “make money niche” to start their business, you can choose other niches like health & beauty (learn how to start a beauty blog), wellness, sports, parenting and many more by starting with Online Entrepreneur Certification.
Wealthy Affiliate Complaints
More for Beginners
All training in Wealthy Affiliate are geared toward teaching small business owners and people who are new to online marketing grow their income.
Unlike Power Lead System, Elite Marketing Pro and My Lead Pro System, that focus on funnel training, (you can easily use Profit Builder to create funnel for your business), Wealthy Affiliate provides lesser of such training.
Therefore advanced advanced marketers who prefer to apply funnel strategy will mostly join Wealthy Affiliate to host their web pages that are equipped with free SSL certificates. For your information, if you are hosting on other hosting companies, SSL is chargeable.
On top of that, advanced marketers also benefit from Wealthy Affiliate through expanding their network and leverage on its affiliate program to make affiliate commission from this program.
Take Long Time to See Results
If you are a beginner who does not have any existing business, it will take longer time to see result as Wealthy Affiliate focuses mainly on free traffic to generate income.
To be realistic, it will take an average member who works on Wealthy Affiliate part-time at least 2 to 3 years to make sufficient income and quit 9 to 5 job.
However, once you are able to achieve this, the income that you can make is unlimited.
For full timer, you can expect to see results in 1 to 2 years.
How Much Does Wealthy Affiliate Cost?
It is free to join as Starter member, but if you decide to join Premium within 7 days, you will be given a special rate of $19 for the first month, thereafter $49 per month if you pay monthly and $359 per year if you subscribe yearly.
Be it your intention to join Wealthy Affiliate is to learn latest marketing strategy for implementation in your small business or simply want to start a new small business online so you could quit your day job, Wealthy Affiliate has everything ready for you at low cost.
Is Wealthy Affiliate Worth It?
In my opinion, Wealthy Affiliate is one of the most affordable yet effective program for newbie or small businesses to learn about online marketing strategies, implementation methods and to promote business growth.
Joining as premium member is far more valuable than the small amount you pay.
The fact that you can host up to 25 websites on this platform alone is already worth all your investment.
To tell you the truth, I never pay a single cent out of my pocket since joining Wealthy Affiliate.
And I got my return within the very first few months started and still earning until today.
Of course, this does not only include affiliate income generated from promoting the program, but also income from providing marketing consultation services to my offline customers.
Wealthy Affiliate is only for people who are patience, persistent and willing to take consistent action to build an online business.
If you are convinced that Wealthy Affiliate is for you, here's what you should do next.
YOUR NEXT STEP
Head over to Wealthy Affiliate now and register for a FREE Starter Membership where you will receive 2 free websites, 10 free training lessons and 7 days free access to learn from SUPER AFFILIATES.
I hope whatever that I have covered here can add value to you.
If there's any question you want to ask about this Wealthy Affiliate Review or if you have experience starting a small business online that you would like to share here, please do leave me a comment below.
33 thoughts on “Wealthy Affiliate Review: Scam or Cash Generator?”
Hi and thanks for sharing your experiences of trying to create a revenue online. I agree it is a real head spinner with all the fake sites and scams out there. Iโm so glad you found a legitimate site like Wealthy Affiliate . The value that is offered is just not beatable by anything I have seen elsewhere. Thanks so much. Kenny
True. Wealthy Affiliate is indeed a great place for beginners to start affiliate marketing. Via this program, I’ve learn so many other ways to earn money online and here’s the list of 50 proven ways to earn money work at home which I’ve put together.ย
Wow your site provides lots of valuable content. Just curious how does long did it take to create this website? I am also a blogger and my site has similar number of content like yours. So I was wondering whether I am also doing at a speed that is at par. Btw, thanks for sharing useful facts and stats about joining Wealthy Affiliate. It is really useful.
Hi AJ, in fact weย have been actively working on this site for almost 6 months. We produce 2 pieces of content every week to share with our readers. Here’s the latest content about “Become Instagramย Influencer and Earn Money Online”ย if you are interested.ย
Thank you for this great review of Wealthy Affiliate.
I can confirm what you say in your article. Wealthy Affiliate platform offers what no other affiliate marketing platform does, and at the very affordable price too. If you just downsize your daily latte, you’ll have enough to pay for the premium membership where all the fun happens.
Also, WA offer a week free test drive – other platforms very rarely do that. You can see for yourself if all this is true and talk to other members to check out every aspect of the training, community, or anything else you need to ask about.
And, did you know, you can actually talk directly to the owners of the Wealthy Affiliate too? Kyle and Carson are always available. When I just started I sent a message to Kyle asking him about my chosen niche, and he responded withing hours with a detailed answer and thoughtful suggestions. Amazing!
Yes, Iย private message both Kyle and Carson too!. They are really helpful. Now WA just upgraded with more powerful features.ย They have also extended the $19 Premium membershipย promoย (normal price $49)ย to members at anytime they ready to start. Previously members can only enjoy this promo if subscribed premium within 7 days as starter, if Iย can remember clearly. So much more value WA has provided to its members since I joined. Indeed an awesome program.ย
I see a lot of people recommending this “Wealthy Affiliate” system but have never seem much proof or testimonials to backup their clams. Well, you have outdone this review and I think I can make a more informed decision thanks to you. The fact that there are so many people talking about it, all the testimonials, the free trial and the many features makes it a no brainer in my eyes. Me and my brother are going to start our free trials asap!
PS: What is that Jaaxy keyword tool like? Is that owned by Wealthy Affiliate too? Cheers for the help.
I am not sure weather it is owned by WA but one thing for sure, it is indeed a great tool for anyone who wants to start drive traffic with SEO technique. It is simple to use and less complicated with those more expensive tools. I highly recommend anyone to choose Jaaxy.ย
Wealthy Affiliate is definitely an amazing platform from my experience! I really enjoyed your detailed explanation of the program. We have been premium members of WA for a little while now and I even learned some new stuff just from reading your detailed post. Thank you for your genuine review and look forward to reading more reviews from you.
you are most welcome!
There are so many programs out there that guarantee success with their training. The last one I tried required an additional thousands of dollars to move to the next phase of the training before I had even gotten a website! And the tools that I needed to use in this program were costing hundreds of dollars each month. So not only had my training and support come to a halt, I was paying subscription fees each month before I really even had a clue as to how to start a business and the steps needed to make it successful. I also have a full-time job, and your review has given me the inspiration to see what wealthy affiliate can do for me!
Me too. I’ve paid so much money but ended up with nothing until Iย found Wealthy Affiliate. This is the only program that requires least investment that can give me passive income. I would encourage anyone who want to earn money online blogging to joinย Wealthy Affiliate.ย Here’s my story on how Iย earn my first online commission.ย
I love coming across website that promote WA because its 100% true! WA does help newbie bloggers make money! I know cos i did! took me some time but i got there…lots of hard work and patience and unique content and i finally saw my reward!
good article! a lot more information than other WA posts and I think you made it easy for ppl to make an educated decision!
all the best!
Thanks Tarun. I started with Wealthy Affiliate based on gut feeling. Never regret since then. Seriously, if anyone want to start niche marketing, I would definitely recommend this awesome program to them.
Hey, thanks for the review! I’ve heard about Wealthy Affiliate for quite some time now but I’ve always quite skeptical to join any monthly membership as it will be a big investment on my side especially when I’m not earning USD. But really glad to see some success stories – and there are a lot of success stories and good reviews on Wealthy Affiliate.
What I’m looking at in online marketing courses is always the community and it seems that WA can be quite a good platform.
Would love to know how long you’ve been with WA and how do you measure your success so far?
Thank you! ๐
Hi Wina,
To answer your question, I’ve joined Wealthy Affiliate for 3 years. Other than promoting affiliate products on my website, I also offer my services to local businesses. Yes, I do make decent income after I establish my authority in online marketing. There are still huge opportunities to grow my business. Thanks to the awesome step-by-step training provided inside WA.
Florence, Hello! The main thing is that I dream to make a site like yours. This is a sample: informative, functional, clear and consistent.
Now about the blog topic: “Wealthy Affiliate Review: Scam or Cash Generator?” You explained everything meaningfully and thoroughly. I will add the following to the discussion. Of course, WA is not a scam. I did not see any signs of scam. They simply do not exist.
On the contrary, many free programs and durable tools and regular updates. Personally, I can confirm the possibility of active study, initiative, interest and earnings prospects. For this, WA has all the conditions. Everyone is in equal rights and conditions of study and earnings. Reading your article this should be trusted.
Thank you, I will tell about your article to others. Mark.
Thank you
Hi Florence, you answered so many questions and resolved many doubts with your very detailed review. It is good to find somewhere that doesn’t have a constant stream of upsells. It is also refreshing to see an honest estimate of how long it takes realistically to get an online business running and making money. That sets Wealthy Affiliate apart from the rest of the ‘get rich quick’ scheme merchants in my mind.
My only question would be whether members who are not blogging about making money online ever report that they are making a living? You do show some evidence from people who promote WA, but what about the bloggers in other niches, do they also share success stories?
Yes, I’ve met people who promote other niche websites make decent income online. And they area able to see results faster than those doing “make money online” niche.
That is very encouraging, thank you Florence.
Great that you find this useful. Cheers!
As a member of Wealthy Affiliate this is one of the best reviews I have ever seen. Its important that we all work together to educate all the billions of people out there that may be looking to make a living working off an opportunity that claims to show them how. The nice thing is that Wealthy Affiliate doesnt just make the claims but rather stands up to the claims.
I hope many people looking for an opportunity find your page.
Dale
Hi Dale,
Thanks for taking time to read my Wealthy Affiliate Review. Yes, Wealthy Affiliate has indeed live up to its name. I’ve learned so much from this platform and started my first online business with them too.
Recently, I just realized apparently this platform has really awesome training on dropshipping and ecommerce too. Despite both are not core training, but the video lessons provided is really useful for me to start my second business promoting Amazon products.
To all Wealthy Affiliate members out there, make sure you visit all the 13 classrooms inside our member’s dashboard. You can definitely find more training inside these classrooms.
And for those who are planning to start a small online business, I highly encourage you to sign up as free Starter member to have a look and feel of this program. I guarantee you will never regret signing up if you consistently take action.
I was taken for a ride with a scam initially when I was exploring online affiliate business coaching and I am so pleased to have come upon your post about Wealthy Affiliate. I had absolutely no knowledge of affiliate marketing and the whole endeavour just seemed super overwhelming. Going through your well delineated and insightful post, I see that the value of joining Wealthy Affiliate is supreme! Thank you for posting the successes of others too! It is very inspirational and hopeful as your post leads people to make informed and empowering decisions! You have certainly convinced me that this platform is a winner! Thanks so much and I wish you a very Happy New Year ahead!
Happy new year to you too. So happy to know that you find this post useful.
If you haven’t grab a free trial with Wealthy Affiliate, I suggest you to join as free Starter member today. At least you can have a look and feel about this program before deciding whether it is for you.
Everyone is different. A program that is great for me might not be a good fit for you. I strongly encourage you to try it out.
Do connect with me when you are inside.
I have been reading a couple reviews about wealthy affiliate and some of them have been saying that parts of the training modules are outdated.
I am wondering if that is somewhat true and if you think the training can be updated?
I hear from other reviews that the training is constantly updated. But I am not sure which one to believe.
In fact, official training inside Wealthy Affiliate is only updated like once or twice a year. This is because the strategy taught inside this program is evergreen strategy.
It is called niche marketing which means you create an authority blog with high quality content to build your brand while at the same time promote products to your niche market.
To know the exact steps in doing niche marketing, you can get a copy of my free guide here.
Inside Wealthy Affiliate, members will get access to weekly webinar conducted by Jay every Friday evening, with the most updated updated online marketing lessons.
The claims that Wealthy Affiliate training is outdated are baseless. WA is the most comprehensive, affordable and targeted training program I can find on the web.
What you said is very true, I have seen many people discredit WA because they wanted something that can provide them with fast cash. When they realise that WA is teaching the proper way to be affiliate marketer, which involve hard work, they back down and criticise the platform.
Thank your for sharing with us the success stories too, they are inspiring. And I believe anyone who follow the training religiously can be as successful like them too. The training works!
Yes, despite WA focuses on teaching member SEO-optimized content strategy through creating authority blog, there are still many other online marketing strategies taught inside each WA Classroom. For example, you can learn how to do ecommerce, dropshipping, create lead marketing, social media, Youtube and many more. Seriously, as I hangout more in this community, the more I am amazed with what Wealthy Affiliate can offer. I suggest anyone who wanted to learn online marketing should start by joining as free Starter member with WA.
Of the two, for me it looks more like a cash generator. Although, I would not completely agree with that term as it implies that you don’t really need to do anything to earn money. However, you do. Big time. You work your ass off. And then you get to those 5 digits a month or 500 a day that some have managed to achieve.
But still that makes for an amazing title!
I absolutely loved how comprehensive the review was. Glad you are spreading the message.
Cheers, Best Of Luck & Have a Great One!
Matiss
Thanks Matiss.
love the website. Yes I do believe with hard work it is a cash generator I think that with anything though you need to put in a lot of work into it. I think Kyle mentioned like 3 posts a week* Create website*