Wealthy Affiliate is one of the most ethical and economical all-in-one programs. Very friendly to those who wish to run an affiliate business sustainably. I've seen many high-quality online marketing training programs that charge a one-time fee of $800-$1,000, which I think is cheating. Many of them come with an optional monthly membership fee to follow on top of the entry fee and, if you don't take that option, you often feel "abandoned" or treated as a "second-class member". Their methods may be "immediately actionable" but the other side of the coin is "make money fast". It's now or never. I don't think it's right, you know. Not alll of them, of course, but I often feel that way when I spend money on an expensive training course.
My Wealthy Affiliate review will mainly focus on two vital elements for beginners to build a work-from-home business and make it successful all the way. (1) Is it the right one? And (2) does it provide the right environment?
It takes a very specific technique to build a compelling website and monetize it without relying on paid advertising services. It also takes a winning website the right hosting environment - the speed, usability, and security.
This membership site extensively covers both areas, but because it has "everything" and the volume of training is insane, it can be hard for newbies to make the most of it without feeling overwhelmed. Having said that, the platform is resourceful that the members can focus on without worrying about certain technical aspects.
Wealthy Affiliate Review Summary | ||
|---|---|---|
Product Name: | Wealthy Affiliate | |
Website URL: | ||
Type: | Affiliate marketing / Content marketing | |
Owner: | Niche Marketing Inc. (Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim) | |
Launched: | 2005 | |
Price: | $49 per month or $495 per year with extra bonuses | |
Rating: | ||
What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate (WA) is about "making money online" by using one of the most economical ways. If you are new to all this, have already signed up with WA for free but don't even know what you're supposed to do, then I'll very briefly explain what it's all about.
- It's about blogging. You start your own blog on a specific theme.
- The theme ("niche") can be anything you like about. Your hobby, something you love, something you know a lot about. You share your knowledge and passion with your readers.
- On your blog, you recommend related products to your readers.
- Each time your reader buys your recommended product, you'll receive a commission.
This is the rough idea of it. You'll gradually work it out as you go along, but there are a lot more. Wealthy Affiliate provides online business opportunities, WordPress-exclusive web hosting, advanced keyword tool (Jaaxy), training, webinars, live chat, and a big user community.
So this is about enjoying writing while making affiliate commissions, and it's NOT about;
Why Should You Choose Wealthy Affiliate?
The latest statistics explain why affiliate marketing is the best way for ordinary people like you and me to make money online.
- 81% of brands leverage affiliate marketing.
- Every year in the US, the affiliate marketing spending constantly increases, and is expected to increase in the coming years.
- 55% of affiliates are working from home.
The statistics also show that;
- The top 4 success methods are SEO, social media, blogging and email.
- WordPress runs 33.9% of the entire internet, and 60.7% of website builder (CMS) market.
Wealthy Affiliate provides WordPress, and teaches how to make money from blogging, SEO, the latest social media marketing and email strategy. Means it's equipped with all the essentials.
Sources:
The platform is made WordPress ready for everybody. So when you sign up, you can start building your website literally within minutes. It provides hundreds of training videos, thousands of text tutorials, questions & answers, and thousands of active members help each other on its community forums.
It also allows you to write blogs within your profile, which will then be indexed by search engines. It means any blogs written within WA site are visible to anyone, and good quality content will be ranked high in Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines.
Whether you are entirely new to website creation, or you already have your business online but wish to expand your knowledge, it does give you an opportunity to reach your ultimate goal - to make money online successfully. Does that make sense so far?
Site Owners & the Background
Kyle (Left) - Carson (Right)
Wealthy Affiliate was co-founded by two Canadian guys, Kyle and Carson back in 2005.
What we love about them is that they are REAL. They actively interact with us and help us.
Kyle has personally given me some marketing advice numerous times. I went on live chat to ask other members a quick question the other day, and it was Kyle himself who pointed me in the right direction. Kyle is an SEO/marketing expert who gives us pieces of training, tips & advice.
While Carson is a techie guy who manages all the platform developing and the site security aspects. He's helped me with my site building issues, and as far as I'm concerned he never sleeps. Wow, thank you so much but isn't it like 4am over there?
We are actually privileged by the fact that the owners are always hands-on, and that's probably the reason why WA keeps at the top of online business training platforms in the world.
Free Web Hosting and WordPress
For free members, WA allows you to create one website and have them hosted for absolutely free. Premium members ($49 per month) can create up to 10 websites, and the price includes web hosting for all your sites.
WordPress is pre-installed in the WA server, SiteRubix. There are thousands of website themes (designs) to choose from. With plenty of step-by-step instructions as well as tips & tricks to use WordPress, even a complete WordPress beginner won't need to worry.
And actually, this is makes WA stand out from some other all-in-one "make money online" platforms. Most of the others use their own in-house website builder, means you'll have to learn how to use it first. And when you leave the membership, your site will be gone, not transferrable.
Whereas WA, you'll get to learn how to build a WordPress site, which will mean a lot. For some reason if you didn't like the membership and left, you could take your website with you and have it hosted elsewhere, and not only that. Your website building skill "using WordPress" could be added to your resumé. In fact, some WA members have learned to build websites here, and sell them for a living.
Website Monitoring
What I like about the WA (SiteRubix) web hosting service is the strong site security monitoring system. How do I know it's so secure and 'which system' is being used specifically? I don't know, I've no idea. But we're continuously being assured that the database is monitored and the file system is protected from viruses & malware, also from hacking & intrusion (See "The Most Secure Web Hosting Provider")
If you go elsewhere (i.e. have your sites hosted by another company), you'll be expected to have a lot more responsibility to protect your own site. You should back up your contents daily, and you need to have anti-spam comments plugin installed and monitor yourself. You don't need any of that with SiteRubix.
Spam/ virus / hacking incident is really, the last thing you want when running a website. Free from all that if you're with Wealthy Affiliate, that's an immense advantage.
Free SSL Certificate
SSL certificate (meaning https://) is set as a default on all of your websites for free. It means https:// instead of http//, your visitors' personal data is kept secure and encrypted, protected from hacking or malware being installed.
It's 2020 and still many other web hosting services offer SSL certificate as an additional extra and charge a lot for it. Whilst it's entirely free with WA, you don't have to think about it.
Domain Registration Service
WA aims to have its platform "all in one essentials", and the domain service is an optional one of them.
As a free member you are supplied with a subdomain prefix ending ".siterubix.com", and you cannot use your own domain. I'll explain it later.
When you become a premium member, you can either buy your domain elsewhere (Namecheap.com and Godaddy.com are two of the most popular domain name providers, cost around $10 per year). Come back to your WA web hosting and link your domain, which is dead easy.
But if you use Wealthy Affiliate's domain name service, you don't have to worry about linking. It will cost you $13.99 per year including whois (privacy) protection >>Click Here. A few dollars more than Namecheap but the good news is this price is locked in - once you pay this year, there'll never be future price increase.
Keyword Tool (Jaaxy)
Previously Jaaxy was a premium service only, now free access is granted to all the premium WA members. This is one of THE most beneficial features that the members can enjoy.
The keyword tool is integrated with WA platform, so you can open your websites, receive training, communicate with others etc, and also do an extensive keyword search from one dashboard.
Affiliate Program Search
As the name suggests - this feature allows you to find affiliate programs, which is extremely useful for you if you just joined and have no idea what kind of companies are looking for affiliates. The search can be;
- Filtered by available countries, payment preference (PayPal, Wire transfer, Check, etc), commission rate (amount or percentage), or by user rating.
- Sorted by program name, affiliate network, user rating, commission rate (amount or %), network fee required or not, or auto approval.
Once you find a good affiliate program, you can save your own link there, so that you don't have to go back to the company's site every time you use it.
The companies include from big brands to individual product sellers from ClickBank. If you're not sure (how to use it, or whether you should join a particular program or not), you can always ask us a question via community question, via direct message or on live chat.
Free Membership vs. Premium Membership
The chart below compares what you can receive between as a free member and as a premium member. You can continue to be a "Starter" member after 7 days and receive training (but not live help or 1-on-1 coaching), whilst the premium membership gives you a lot more advantages.
Starter Free | Premium $49/month | |
|---|---|---|
Live help | First 7 days | Unlimited |
Private messaging | ||
Websites | 1 Website | 10 Websites |
Website security package | ||
Website backup | ||
Beginner training course | ||
Personal affiliate blog | ||
Affiliate bootcamp training | Phase 1 | All 7 phases |
Live video classes | ||
Video walk-throughs | ||
Keyword research tool | 30 searches | Unlimited searches |
Training classrooms | 2 | 12 |
Affiliate program | 2 x higher payout | |
Earn while you learn | ||
1-on-1 coaching | First 7 days | Unlimited |
Private access to owners | ||
24/7, 365 website support | ||
Website feedback platform | ||
Website comment platform | ||
Website analysis | ||
Best for | Getting started | Those ready to earn |
Premium Membership $49 per month - is it worth it?
In my opinion it definitely is, especially if you're looking to make a living with your online business.
If you were to run your own website(s), decent web-hosting service would cost you $50-$300 per year, that'd be per site. Plus your domain name $12-14 per year per site. This would not include any training or tips & tricks on SEO, web trafficking and any other trends that any entrepreneurs should be constantly updated with.
With its "University" level of training and all your website running costs, I think $49 per month is a bargain. There are tens of thousands of premium active members. Many of us make a living online or at least make enough commission income to cover the premium subscription fee. Meaning the members all agree it is worth the money.
Yearly Discount Plus Bonuses
You can pay a reduced rate for your membership fee by paying 12 months in advance ($495) and get 2 months off ($41.25 per month, save $93 off. Plus you can get the following bonuses;
- Free .com Domain ($14 value)
- 100 Community Credits
- Bonus Live Class (AMA With Kyle, Succeeding in 2020)
Worth considering. You can start paying monthly, and whenever you feel confident that this is the way forward, pay the next 12 months all at once. In fact that's exactly what I did. I paid for my first month's premium fee, then within that month I knew WA was right for me, meaning it would be a good deal, and decided to "go annual".
Special Bonus
Wealthy Affiliate offers further discounts. If you become a premium member within the first 7 days you'll receive a 61% discount on first month's membership (=$19).
This excludes the first 7 days of free trial. It means if you decide to go premium after the first day, you'll still enjoy the remaining 6 days for free but have full access. And the $19 will be calculated pro-rata. 19 x 30 x 1/36 = $15.83...something like that. Good, isn't it.
Also as mentioned earlier, if you pay yearly (pay $495 for 12 months in one go), that works out $41 per month, 2 months off.
Free (Starter) Membership - Is THAT Worth It?
Is it worth staying as a free member indefinitely? Obviously there are quite a few premium benefits that you cannot receive, as shown in the comparison chart earlier. But if you want to take things slowly, you can do that. The choice is yours.
The "first month $19" bonus is equivalent to about 18 days free, so after the first 7 days free trial, carry on staying free for further 3 weeks before you start to pay the full membership of $49, and that will be the same thing.
As a free member, you have to use a Siterubix subdomain. But that's ok while you're staying free, keep building your site, continue to publish blog posts. And then, whenever you decided to go premium, purchase a desired domain name and transfer all the contents from Siterubix to your domain. The transfer won't take a few minutes, it's very easy...do you see what I mean?
Create Up To 10 Websites
This is very good. You don't necessarily have to have 10 websites, but if you want to test something - new format, new WordPress theme, installing a plugin that you're not sure about - you can create a test website whenever you want. And if you don't like it, delete the entire site whenever you want too.
Jay's Webinar
Jay Neill is the Training chief, who provides absolutely invaluable webinar every week. It's a live webinar that you can join and ask questions to Jay real time.
Sadly to this date, I've never been able to join live because of the time difference, but I make sure to watch the recording (available from the following day). Jay's webinars are packed full of tips, tricks, and advice as an expert include;
- The Ultimate SEO Survival Guide
- Ways To Get Your Content Noticed
- Split Testing for Maximum Conversions
- How To Bring A Site Back To Life
- Power of Google Web Tools & Analytics
- Niche Case Study Series
- Website Ranking Blueprint
- Generating Traffic With YouTube
...and many more. Remember, the essential webinar is on broadcast each and every week.
Just to be clear, already there are Online Entrepreneur Certification Course and Affiliate Bootcamp, both created by Kyle, containing text and video tutorials. The Bootcamp has absolutely everything you need to learn about affiliate marketing. Jay's weekly webinar is provided on top of that, as the latest and hottest tips, with no extra cost.
Site Comment & Site Feedback
One thing that I'm excited to tell you about in this Wealthy Affiliate review is the Site Comment feature that the members are truly privileged to use. Getting visitors to your newly built website is hard, imagine getting anyone to leave a comment - the odds are astronomical. WA members can visit other members' sites and leave a comment. You can't just randomly do this; you'll have to read the post carefully and leave an original, quality comment. The website owner has the right to approve or disapprove the comment they received.
Having a number of quality comments in your web post will increase the chance of higher ranking in search engines, so this is one of the most useful features that WA membership offers.
Site Feedback is another feature where the members can visit other member's sites and give their feedback. The feedback can be in general, about layout, about content, etc.
Definitely useful for those who have built a website for the first time. But in all honesty, the feedback you receive can be a hit and miss. You're lucky if you receive constructive criticism from an expert member. Most of the time you receive a low-quality "feedback" saying "Wow, your site is awesome, I love everything about it..." Unlike the Site Comment feature, you cannot approve or reject. So you could end up judging the contributor's opinion rather than making a decision to improve your site based on their feedbacks.
Become a Certified Commenter!
If you leave 50+ quality comments per month, you'll be given a "certified commenter" badge and be eligible to get paid by leaving comments. There are certain criteria to clear - check the detail from here.
This will give you a chance to get paid within a month of commencing your internet business. Your WA premium membership fee can be covered. It's a fantastic opportunity for those who are short of cash to receive all the training and benefits effectively at no costs!
What You Can Do To Be Successful Using Wealthy Affiliate
A lot of membership sites give you only limited access during the free trial period. But it's not the case with WA. There are some limited access areas such as the Course Level 2 onwards, but there are so many other contents to read. What you can do before you decide to go Premium can be;
- Create your profile on WA - you can edit it any time at a later date.
- "Getting Started" - follow the Level 1 course, lessons 1-10, consisting text and video tutorials.
- As you follow the course steps, your niche idea (what kind of products you'd like to promote) should begin to shape up. If you don't come up with an idea, we can personally give you some advice too.
- Once your niche is decided, start building your first website. It's all built-in, and you can publish your posts straight, publish them privately (not visible to anyone else) or just save as draft.
- Read other members' blogs and advice, or take a look at their websites.
- Post your questions and interact with other members.
How far you want to try is up to you, but hopefully by then, you'll see the benefits from the WA membership.
Where To Go First
When signed up with Wealthy Affiliate and you are in your dashboard for the first time, it's up to you if you want to take your time to explore all the features. But if you feel overwhelmed by it - many new members often will - I suggest that you just start taking the training lessons. (1) Click "Training" in the left-hand menu, then (2) Getting Started.
I also recommend you to follow as many other members and follow back whoever followed you. In this way, you can access to useful tips and advice, also get to know what others are up to; hear their success stories, struggles, scam alerts, all of which you can add your comment to (only if you want to!)
Membership Ranking And Ambassadorship
WA has a member ranking system, and your profile is ranked as soon as you join in. As you make engagements by writing blogs for the community, asking questions, replying to other questions and on live chat, your ranking goes up. The ranking system is a highly motivational factor, especially for new members. If you're in the top 25 of the ranking, you'll be given a Wealthy Affiliate Ambassador title.
...which means very little, as far as your online success is concerned. Because the ranking position does not get you any money, you see? Ambassadors don't necessarily give you technical advice but some of them only create a "buzz" by writing lots of blogs. The more blogs are written, the bigger the WA site itself will become, i.e. Wealthy Affiliate is forever-growing and continuously boosting its profile.
Don't "Drift Away" - Focus On Making Money Online
As a part of this Wealthy Affiliate review, my "advice" is to focus on learning and to make use of the platform to build your own business... Sounds like stating the obvious, right?
It does have an amazing community. Trust me, you'll be so welcomed and will receive an extraordinary level of support. It's a spam-free, bitching free forum space where you're constantly motivated. But it's also a fact that some members use the space to socialize.
There are all sorts of people from all over the world. Some are rich, they don't have to work. Some are there purely to enjoy the camaraderie, and maybe to learn a little bit about the internet world. It's fine with them. But some are hugely distracted - I see regular members moan that they haven't earned money, and haven't even finished Wealthy Affiliate University course. They don't know how Google Analytics work (which is clearly explained in the training course).
You see how your goal - "make money online" - can be swayed and drifted by belonging to this fabulous, genuinely helpful community. So I'd like to say, always stay focused if you want to survive in the internet marketing world. Learn as much as you can and get your online income sorted first. Then return the favor by helping new members whenever you can. I believe that's what Kyle and Carson want you to do, too!
Wealthy Affiliate Referral Program
You receive a commission upon referring WA to others - receive $0.50 when your referral creates their profile, and when they become a premium member you'll receive $23.50 monthly recurring commission as long as they maintain their membership.
How Is It 'Cheaper'?
Talking about the premium membership pricing again.
If you're looking to start content marketing (blogging to make money), you need (1) to have your website hosted, and (2) a premium keyword tool.
(1) There are some cheap and fairly reliable web hosting companies, claiming to charge you as low as $2.95 per month. Try signing up with them and go straight to the payment screen - $2.95 is based on the 3-year contract, only for 1 website, and it doesn't include site security cover and backup cover. Anyway you'd have to pay for 3 years in advance, you don't want to do that.
You want flexibility and ability to create more than one site, transfer contents from one site to another in case you change your mind or mess up in the future (believe me, you will.) Then the cheapest option will be around $8-10 per month. Or more. But let's say $8 per month. You'd have to pay 12 months in advance.
- Web hosting 12 months x $8 = $96
- Site security 12 months x $2 = $24
- Full site backup 12 months x $3 = $36
(2) Plus, a keyword tool. The cheapest and reliable tool is LongTail Pro (which I recommend) is $25 per month, if you pay 12 month in advance.
- LongTail Pro for 12 months = $297
- Total: $453.
Now Wealthy Affiliate will cost you $359 per 12 months including web hosting with full security cover, full site backup, premium keyword tool, and allows you to freely create up to 50 websites. You see what I mean by 'cheaper' because it literally is. And this is only a part of its services. Training, webinars and community support are all-inclusive.
The Negatives: Wealthy Affiliate Complaints
There are a couple of complaints that are typically made by some of the existing members and/or non-members.
(1) Everyone Else Is A "Scammer"
Many online "scambusters" are WA members or its graduates. We are trained to write fair & unbiased product reviews online. If a product or a scheme is in MMO (make money online) niche, we are taught to compare it to WA itself, because it's the place we know the best. Naturally that's the best way to promote something as an affiliate.
Many (especially new) WA members are so happy with the help & support they receive, they tend to rate other MMO products lower than WA - whatever they review, nothing seems as thorough as Wealthy Affiliate by all means.
Another thing is, newbie members tend to see the Wealthy Affiliate method (=content writing) the only legitimate way to make money online. As a result they tend to call every other MLM or any aggressive network marketing a "scam".
...which can lead others to believe that the members may be specifically instructed to label every other product a scam and only promote WA. That's not the case, that's never the case.
(2) Site Support Incompetence
I wanted to be honest with you in this Wealthy Affiliate review and, this, sadly I cannot disagree. I'm only hoping it to improve.
Site support is very quick to respond. If the issue is simple & straightforward, they'll fix it for you very quickly. But when a problem is a little more technical, or the same problem occurs multiple times over a period of time, they only give you a quick solution and never explain in detail or try to get to the bottom of the problem.
For example one of my sites has a loading speed problem - not the actual website speed but it's the WP-Admin (WordPress editor) that slows down intermittently. I have explained everything to the Site Support - what I think is causing the problem. Unfortunately every time, all I receive is a one-sentenced robotic answer, "Ray, can to try logging in again?" So I log in, and the speed is normal. I have complained about it but have received no solution.
So if there's a simple technical problem, the support desk will be fabulous. Even if anything catastrophic happens to your site, they can restore it for you. But if there's something a little more complicated, you won't receive a sustainable solution. That I think is a problem right now.
Two Types of Affiliate Marketing Methods
There are two types of affiliate marketing methods (roughly) - content marketing method and sales funnel method.
Wealthy Affiliate teaches the former method, content marketing. Affiliates are not sellers. We are here to genuinely help others by writing unbiased product reviews, so that users can get the most beneficial, value-for-money products. As an affiliate, you don't sell. You make recommendations. WA also teaches extensive SEO technique, so your websites drive organic traffic and stay close to the top of search engines. The advantages will be;
- The organic traffic allows you to earn passive income in years to come.
- The organic traffic won't cost you a penny.
- By constantly making recommendations, you'll gain trust from users over time.
The disadvantages may be;
- It will take time to build a trust relationship with users.
- Be too honest by pointing out too many negatives, and you're missing opportunities to earn commissions.
Whereas many other affiliate marketing training courses teach the sales funnel method. So you learn 'buyers' psychology' from the marketer's point of view. How you can get people to click to buy, how to keep them in and the upselling technique. The advantages are;
- Sales-focused, means you tend to make a lot more commissions in a short period.
- You primarily use paid advertisements and traffic services, so you don't have to learn SEO technique.
The disadvantages may be;
- You don't earn passive income - you only make commissions while your ads are running (unless you're selling a subscription-based service).
- You need to monitor your spending to make sure you're making profits.
There's no right or wrong in between these two methods, as far as affiliate marketing is concerned. But because WA's ethos is to be a 'helpful, honest and unbiased' reviewer, many WA members tend to deny the sales funnel method just because a product has upsells (upselling is the way to make money!) or because you have to spend money on ads (spend money to make more money!)
Having said all that, I keep my websites for 4+ years to show my honesty and keep my sanity, that's why I prefer to stick with the Wealthy Affiliate method.
Wealthy Affiliate Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
My Wealthy Affiliate Review: Conclusion
I love the fact that Kyle and Carson are constantly on board improving the site and, anything negative that the members feel about is raised, considered and answered. If the site technical support is a little more hands-on help, it's near perfect in my opinion.
It's up to you to decide - if you'd like to make your affiliate marketing business a success, join free, create your own stunning website, go through the training and see if this one is for you - free to join, there's nothing to lose.
Are you already a member of Wealthy Affiliate? Or you have been in the past but no longer? What's been your experience, please leave a comment below and share your thoughts. Thanks!
Thank you for the amazing review. I am so impressed by you for making constant income for years. I am looking to follow your paths.
WA is no longer popular as it used to be. I think a lot of new people are invited and pay the first month’s fee at a discount fee but they quickly realize blogging is an outdated idea and leave. The technical support is totally useless. The community is also useless as there are only a few knowledgeable people. Others don’t know what they are talking about.
The only thing what i actually like on wealthy affiliate is that you can start with earnings, even as a free member. Trainings are outdated and that's fact.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Angelica. There are other things you should appreciate though, if you plan to build multiple sites, you won’t get the web hosting fee plus the premium keyword tool for that price anywhere else. I wouldn’t say the training is outdated because the fundamental is all about gaining trust from the audience and it hasn’t changed while many new training programs don’t teach that. Also the method is predominantly based on blogging (=writing) while more people choose to view videos over reading blogs, that doesn’t make the method outdated, it’s just different. It may not be as effective as YouTube marketing but more suitable for people who prefer SEO. Thanks for your comment.
In Wealthy Affiliate, there is some free Bootcamp with information that you already know, but if you will need valuable information, you will need to pay $49 AGAIN to have access to their forums.
In fact, the Wealthy Affiliate is just a forum for a closed circle affiliate marketers who pay $49 each and just ask questions, do not expect miracles, you will receive some information from people in the forums, but you will need to pay for hosts, domains, autoresponders and do the whole marketing work alone AGAIN and pay for everything to make your business work and you will pay this additional $49 for Wealthy Affiliate per month just to have access to this forum. But Wealthy Affiliate is an easy way for someone to catch long-term recurring commissions, because all suggest it and because it is an easy solution not having anything else to suggest in general. In fact, they do not care about you, they do not care to teach you how to earn money, they just care to earn the commissions from this Wealthy Affiliate website making Wealthy Affiliate a trend or better your last hope. Do not really care, if they will offend with what I wrote here, because they will lose the commissions if you will not register. (I do not know if this will ever get published and may will not be allowed to be published, because the author of this site will lose his commissions when his visitor reading this comment).
Hi, some of the information you’ve put is incorrect; you don’t “pay $49 AGAIN” to access the forums, as I explained in the post, you don’t pay web hosting fees separately. The price doesn’t include autoresponders, and nothing’s wrong with that. If you’re on a budget, all you have to do is a free autoresponder service.
I don’t know what you mean by “they don’t care about you”, it sounds like you’ve had a bad experience but some people are never happy with anything, wherever they go, you know? If you really want your voice heard, I suggest that you build your own platform (e.g. website, YouTube channel) and do a review yourself. Good luck! Any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me.
Thanks for this post.
I still think the best way to make it big financially is to build your own brand and diversify your investment. Too many people start small as affiliate marketing then never grow before they go back to a 9-5 job but since the Covid-19 pandemic, many feel the option window is narrow. The world is changing and you need to make your brand that’s what’s so important. How about creating your own company online like becoming a trader?
Hi Desmond, you can still “build your own brand” as an affiliate though. I appreciate your suggestions but the majority of my readers are those who wish to start a work-from-home job. Investment is a different topic, so is working as a trader, so is incorporating a business. I couldn’t quite get what you meant…if you could clarify I’d appreciate it. Thanks for your comment!
Hello there my name is Jennie and I’m already a member of wealthy affiliate but a free member. I haven’t started because I’m not sure what to do it’s just $49 a month is quite a lot of money. However i am willing to learn anything to make money online am prepared to do what ever it takes I was working as a receptionist for many years and then Ihad to voluntarily take redundancy because of Covid crisis the comapny was not doing well. I often consider doing a computing course but there so many so much information. I am divorced and both my children are grown up I am prepared to start everything from scratch from learning more about internet and affiliate marketing. Howver changing my career is as you can imagine very stressful and am possibly going take a part time job to make ends meet. I haven’t even started creating my website yet can I ask you to shed me some lights thank you.
Hi Jennie, thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear that you’ve been made redundant. It definitely sounds like you need to look for another way to earn income. Unfortunately there’s no “quick” way around, and you’re not going very far if you don’t invest some money…and I’m afraid to say $49 including web hosting and keyword tool is quite a bargain, to be honest.
I hope you’ll find a part-time job soon but meanwhile, set your goals, work towards the goals little by little, and never stop learning. You will see your success if you never quit. Any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me. I wish you all the best!
I’m surprised to see this scheme is praised by so many people. Definitely unique but what’s so attractive I don’t get it.
Hi Claude, thanks for your comment. As you can see this is an extremely popular program but every marketing method is suitable for anybody. It’s important to go for whatever you feel comfortable with. I wish you all the best!
The problem is people who are always after free stuff. There are too many free offers around and, once they join and what their given is uninteresting immediately they leave & never return.
Hi Donnie, yes freebie chasers are everywhere, but they’re not gaining anything if they’re not willing to dedicate themselves to learning materials. Not just for online marketing or any business startups, but life in general! Thanks for your comment.
It’s a scame. I sinned up 3 times there all send the same masssage try to get me to pay money.
Hi, thanks for your comment. They never try to force anyone to pay (i.e. become a premium member). And you don’t have to sign up more than once. It’s certainly not a scam, as I explained in my post. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me.
All those scam reviews written by Wealthy affiliate members made so much damage in the past few years. It’s not as popular as it used to be Plus blogging is becoming obsolete being replaced by Youtube. Now 5G is being introduced, this marketing style might last for another couple of years but all the people are shifting to visual marketing style.
Hi Rene, thanks for your comment. Product reviews are subjective, I have seen and read many ‘biased’ scam reviews written by non-WA members. Product reviews are not always trustworthy. Another point is, WA does not exclusively teach how to write reviews. As explained in the post, this is a content marketing course, web hosting and keyword tool in one. It doesn’t offer a video maker just yet, but it may do in the future because we all know how important video marketing is. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Wow, your review is eye opening. It clearly stands out from the crowed when all others give excellent ratings. You know that nothing is perfect. It is one of the best reviews.
Affiliate marketing is one of the best internet business models. Wealthy Affiliate has many features the users make use of however it lacks some areas. The examples are sales funnels and PPC. But other areas we did not know are taught in this review. Everybody should learn from it.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Not every training program is perfect, but WA does cover sales funnels and paid advertisements too. Anything that’s new is covered by Jay’s weekly webinars and you can access the replay at any time, just so you know!
This article should show how many of Wealthy Affiliate members falsify statements in their fake reviews to harm other businesses https://www.james-scholes.com/evergreen-wealth-formula-review
You guys tell others to write unbiased reviews but don’t know you are most biased. Check out James Scholes’s system. He explains it. Be clear that you stop other peoples businesses that others start calling you guys scammers.
Hi Jax, that sounds like what I explained about in my post. Thanks for your comment.
I appreciate some good points. I see the ability to create good sales funnels is the most important part in affiliate marketing but people in your group don’t believe it that way. You also don’t like upsells but I suppose it’s neither right nor wrong.
You might learn a good technique to earn passive income that works if you get decent organic traffic but you don’t know how much longer it lasts. You cannot keep going free if you want to grow your business.
Hi Syed, thanks for your comment. Like I said in the post, a lot of product reviewers from WA flatly refuse to acknowledge upsells, and I don’t think that’s right. If a seller upsells products one after another right from the start then that’s inconsiderate and ineffective for sure. But that’s not really an item to be listed in the “cons” section. I also agree with you about passive income – nothing lasts forever!
I was almost forced to join Wealthy Affiliate by one member repeatedly send me emails. It was so much hype. I decided to give it a try myself about a year ago. I am still with them as a free member but find there too busy messaging and training altogether. Having said that your review is spot on, I have nothing against it personally. They have everything, ,it just that I think I will need to take time to really get into it.
Hi Christine, thanks for sharing your experience with WA. I guess just like any other referral programs, some people tend to spam their link randomly hoping to get some hits somewhere, which of course is not the right thing to do. Any time you feel you are ready to start online marketing, I’m always here to help. Thanks for your comment.
Does Wealth Affiliate allow traffic exchange ? If so, how can I make a website ? I am looking for a website to call visitors without payment for advertising. Does it control T1 countries or every country ? I look forward to your advice. Thanking you.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Yes it is possible to create your own traffic exchange site, but no spamming is allowed. If you don’t know how to make a website, you can only join and learn from here. This is about content marketing and organic traffic. Good luck!
Is the live webinar really live, or mock live? they might rinse an repeat old contents.
Hi Daniel, Jay’s weekly webinars are all genuinely live, starts every Friday night 8pm EST. The replay is available a few hours after each session. ALL the webinar videos from the past few years are available and there is NO old content. Any other questions don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thanks for your comment.
Damn.. dude. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. If you are going to spend all of this time talking s***. Know your s***. Hell…
Good review… Affiliate marketing is easy for every one to start.
If you need to do researching. this website will help you.
You can contact me.
Hi, I think the keyword tool included in the price sounds attractive to me. I recently got my website hacked and shut down partly due to my own fault putting my foot in some risky promotions. I feel I need to learn from the beginning. I will keep in mind. Thanks.
Hi Sam, sorry to hear about your recent experience. Yes the keyword tool is part of it, and it teaches all the “white hat” methods as well as the latest updates. You won’t be disappointed. Any questions don’t hesitate to ask! Thanks for your comment.
hi I found you on lgbtq sanctuary. good to know that you can make up to 50 websites. can i make a website about discrimination if so can i separate my websites by country i’m from the uk then start with uk and usa. if not what is your advice . thanks
Hi! Thanks for visiting my site. My advice is definitely to create just one site per niche, and make it globally. Because you’ll have a global homophobic issue to write about and you cannot copy content from one site to another if you build more than one site. Also UK-specific issues that you may write about will surely be other nations’ interest too. Let me know of the URL if you’ve built one, or any questions, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for your comment. All the best!
Hi Ray, I wonder if I can use Wealthy Affiliate just to market within the UK? I also wonder what it’s like to communicate with people from America and other countries, more specifically, how do you find the spellings and expressions? Do you or did you find it hard to adopt? Is there anything that I should be worried about, sorry for asking too many questions but I guess not too much to worry but just in case because I’ve only used UK based websites before. Thanks!
Hi Sophie, yes of course! My first site with WA was co.uk, targeting the UK audience. The members are from all across the world, many Brits, you don’t have to worry about it. WA is not an American company (owned by two Canadians!) I stick to my UK spelling when I communicate with others of course!
Just join and see how you feel, seeing is believing – thanks for your comment!
How can it be cheaper now? It’s still 49 dollars per month or are you talking about a yearly cost? Still too expensive for me sorry..
Hello, if you want your site hosted properly and securely, and have a decent keyword tool, then this is one of the cheapest options, as I said in the post. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Ray, I was a Wealthy Affiliate member between 2015-2016. I found the training and some community help useful. But I also found it distracting. I spent all my lunch break checking other members blogs for months & months until I finally realized I wasn’t contributing enough time on my site.
But it was ok. The reason I left was because I wanted to see if I could develop my site cheaper. If it didn’t work out I could come back to Wealthy Affiliate hosting again. I switched to Bluehost then I managed my site until I sold it for just over $4 grand. The only tool that I was paying for was Jaaxy which was $19 per month. I know it’s now gone up.
I appreciate this is a good community. Great site security and all that. But you can maintain your site much cheaper. Especially if you want to run e-commerce site. Thanks & all the best.
Hi Dex, thanks for sharing your experience, I find it so valuable. Yes WA provides a great opportunity to engage with other entrepreneurs and new hopefuls, but your time can get eaten up by it if you don’t consciously manage it. And Jaaxy used to offer great rates but now it’s free exclusively for WA members, which actually makes the WA membership fee worthier than before in my opinion. Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it.
Hi,
Thank you for the information. It is very useful and I’ll be following the information.
Cheers Nicholas!
Wealthy Affiliate members please can u stop writing fake reviews of call every product a scam without even using it. What u guys actually create is not reviews. Stop pestering people who genuinely want to check reviews.
Hi Sal, thanks for your comment. Yes, that’s what I often witness particularly with bizopp product reviews. Some affiliates rate perfect 5’s for a commission which is biased, while WA members write reviews purely based on the product’s sales page and provide lower rates, which is also biased. But that’s now how we are trained to do. Those aren’t reviews, and the members are not helping end users. I wish they could stop that too!
I thought 19 dollars if you go premium in the first 7 days meant 19 dollars every month. But from 2nd month 49 dollars was taken out my account. I quit because I could not afford it. I have doubts in affiliate marketing because I joined to learn about it. But Wealthy Affiliate itself was in the affilate system in itself.
Thanks for your comment. You can always go back when you can afford it to pick up where you left off. Many people pay 12 months in advance to save money.
Hi, I signed up with Wealthy Affiliate about 2 years ago then I tried to sign in again now it doesn’t let me in.
I did not carry on I gave up after about 10 lessons is that the reason. I now feel I’m in better place. I lost my job I want to start to work online again.
I tried a few training but nothing was good. I regret I did not continue Wealthy Affiliate.
Please advice. Thank you.
Hi Jahangir, you can perhaps start all over again and sign up by using a different email address? Sorry to hear about your lost job but as you may know by now, that this is not going to let you start earning so soon. And you’d rather need some money to support your training cost. I wish you the best of luck! Thanks for your comment!
Hello, is it possible to make multiple numbers of websites but each one with just a squeeze page? Does it allow Instabuilder and other funnel plugins like that?
Hi Mike, yes you can do that, no problem. And it’s WordPress, so any plugins including Instabuilder can be installed (I have used Instabuilder on WA hosted sites before). Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thanks for your comment.
Hello again Ray! I tried to sign up but it doesn’t seem to let me, I don’t know why…..Maybe because I’m not using my own computer right now. Help !
Hi, great post. I have 2 brothers who are both interested in affiliate marketing. I will pass on your page to them later on today. They both work for the same company and will be made redundant, so they can work from home and start making a living by affiliate marketing. Sounds like a sensible thing to do. Cheers.
Hi Zeno, thanks for your comment. As I mentioned in the post, it will take time to build a business, so this cannot be a substitute for their other job so easily. If you need any help, do let me know at any time. I wish your brothers the best of luck!
Hey, I just saw your WP Engine review. Looks like this one is definitely more value for money. What’s the catch? It’s not a web hosting company but it offers better hosting service?
Hi Kevin, thanks for your comment. If you’re just looking for a web hosting service, there are two reasons why you might choose WP Engine over WA. (1) Cheaper and the price includes premium WordPress theme. (2) You don’t have to use WordPress on WPE, whereas WA doesn’t allow other platforms. But yes, as you say, WA is not a web hosting company but offers better hosting service than many other hosting companies. That’s one of the reasons I recommend it!
Hi, I love this review. It’s been 5y of dreams and dedication since I decided 2 change my career path, things are finally happening to me. I still have a shortage of money, but what affiliate marketing creates a great perspective.
Great to hear that Yuri, be persistent whatever happens, and your hard work will pay off. Good luck!
Don’t join this one it’s overhyped. There are many other communities available, which may be smaller but the success rates are better than wealthy affiliate. More members actually make money using built in web builder other than WordPress.
Hi Joey, if you ever propose “many other” availablities, can you please list them up (I’d say at least three) so that our readers can make their judgments. Thank you!
Hi I love WA is very easy an instructions of course the affiliates goes with niches plus other things have to pay that mean Wealth Affiliate is not a scam also I’m very proud of Kyle and Carson their designers very great an sample for people to learning how make to successfully!
U can find me at WA “worldshops1”
Hi Mary, thanks for your comment. I absolutely agree with you. Thanks also for your ID, I’ll catch you up there!
Hey Ray! It’s Buddy from the park!
Good to see your site! Good to see Canadian guys doing awesome jobs!
See you soon!
Hi Buddy, good to hear from you! Thanks for leaving a comment!
Hello Ray, thank you for your advice. I was with Wealthy Affiliate about 10 years ago. I don’t know how to get back, because it was such a long time ago. I was working in my home country for many years. Now I am back in California, try to settle back again. How can I restart this?
Hi Shojun, you can get back to your account at any time. Are you having a problem signing in/signing up?
Thanks for the suggestion, sounds like a good option. I’ll keep it in mind. I’m from Israel, can I make a website in Hebrew and can I join? Also do I have to pay in dollars?
Hi Yolanda, WordPress can take multiple numbers of languages and Hebrew is certainly one of them (Installing WordPress in Your Language). So you’ll have no problem with that. WA itself is an English-only environment and communications have to be in English, and yes the fees are in USD. Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thanks for your comment!
wealthy affiliate is a scam. It is not value for money. I don’t recommend it. The members are brainwashed to promote it they get nothing for it lol
I was very annoyed I got disconnected before I could do something. I understand this is the best training platform however it’s very hard in the beginning because of the amount of information. Also you receive a lot of emails from the owners and other members. You say follow as many other members but the more you follow the more emails you will receive which can distract your day hugely. Once you are a member for maybe 1 or 2 years max you don’t have to continue because you learn a lot and also it’s a university, you can leave as if you graduate.
Hi, sorry to hear that WA hasn’t worked out for you. You can turn off the email notifications in your settings though. I personally find myself learning continuously from this community and that’s one of the reasons I stick to WA. Another reason is the web hosting fee that I find reasonable. Many members stay for many years, believe me. Thanks for your comment, I wish you the best of luck!
Hello, thank you for the email but I cannot log on…
Hi Gbenga, sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, some countries are excluded from membership availability and I suspect it may be the case. If you have any questions I will answer as much as I can.
Hey, what’s it all about being scam and all that. I thought it was affiliate marketing if it’s a scam then how can you trust that the scam company pay a commission from a scam product you sell for.
Hello, thanks for your comment. It’s all about product reviews. Affiliates should be providing users their honest opinions about a product, whether it’s useful or “scam”, i.e. whether the creator of the product has malicious intent or not, it will waste the users’ money. If an affiliate calls a product a scam, they’re most unlikely to be affiliated to that particular product/seller, so they’re not expecting a commission. I hope it makes sense? Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me any time 🙂
Hello. I have 2 questions. Which product is the best one to promote if I want to make sure I receive good substantial commission every month. Second is how secure is Wealthy Affiliate website hosting, because you say it’s secure but my website was hacked 2 years ago and I had no choice but to take my whole site down. I don’t want this to happen again. I am prepared to pay decent monthly fee. If I know these two answers to my questions. Thank you.
Hi Abhijit, sorry to hear about your bad experience with your website. WA servers are very secure, I’ve had no problem for the past 3.5 years (since I joined) but as you may know, no one can guarantee. The same applies to your first question also. It would be easy if I could tell anyone the ‘best product that pays’. It’s best for you to join for free and witness yourself. But if you need more clarifications don’t hesitate to get back to me any time. Thanks for your comment!
Hi I am in need of clearing a debt I lost a lot failed my previous business also due to my personal circumstances I had to move away from Kansas. Is blogging totally necessary I read your email and I was impressed because I was doing similar email marketing business but mainly promoting crypto not solo ads but bought a lot of traffic from solo ad vendors. How long is the training for and is it possible to become break even by the end of this year. Thanks for your email and also this news.
Hi William, thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear about your unfortunate circumstances, but I guess the only way is up! It’s all up to you to decide if you want to join WA and start learning about building your site, SEO and all the necessary work to start earning commissions. Yes it is possible to start making a profit “by the end of this year”! Good luck, any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me any time!
Hi Ray! I think this is it. This is something I want to do. I’m glad I’ve read your review because I think I have heard about Wealthy Affiliate for many years but actual joining never crossed my mind until now. I need to sort out my work situation and things like that first. I’ve bookmarked this page so I can start asap. Thanks Ray!
Hi Premia, great to know that you’re willing to learn niche affiliate marketing. Sooner the better, because you don’t have to cram in all the information so quickly. You can take one thing at a time. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for your comment!
Hi Ray, thanks for your reply! Quick question, can I use free blogging sites like WordPress online or Blogger, I guess not? Otherwise everyone would have been using them but why not?
Hi Premia, no WordPress.com or Blogger doesn’t allow affiliate marketing primarily on your blogs and they don’t give you control such as allowing you to use an effective plugin or to generate leads. It’s best to build a website from scratch for that reason. Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thanks for your comment again!
Hi, you said in your email you would not recommend it to cell phone users but it’s a mobile responsive. Can I still join because I only have access to my desktop from work. Thanks.
Hi Mark, it is possible to build a website and start blogging by only using a cellphone. But it will involve hours of work. You’ll need a quiet time to sit and focus on training, while you have your website admin dashboard open in another tab. So there will be a lot of stuff that you might feel awkward in accessing from cellphone only. You can join free and give it a try, and see how you feel. Thanks for your comment!
Hi, when can you teach me about affiliate marketing… I am very impressed about many things I can do with as many websites as possible I can make, I have about 4-5 niches I want to learn and then make commissions. Can you please tell me how to start… can you teach me in the evening any time EST. Thank you. Rosianna
Hi Rosianna, join the WA and we can guide you through. I suggest that you narrow down your niche ideas. Decide one niche that you want to go for. Hopefully I’ll see you inside. Thanks for your comment.
Hi, great review. I appreciate that millions of members are registered with Wealthy aFfiliate but how many of them are actually active? Somebody’s telling me that most people leave after 1 month, others leave after 1-2 years. Is there a benefit after they learn all the training. Thanks
Hi Chipp, I don’t know how many active members it has because you can follow as many other members or as few as you like, and I don’t follow everyone! But you follow others including the most active top 100-200 members in ranking and receive plenty of tips and advice 24/7. Members are free to leave any time they want, and there are members who stay for many years like me because it’s not all about training, we see the secure web hosting service good value for money. Thanks for your comment.
Hey, have you tried Clickbank university? I sincerely believe it’s one of the best platform where you can learn about online marketing. Whilst Wealthy Affiliate is only about affiliate marketing it lacks versatility. What do you think let me know.
Hi Roger, thanks for your comment. Funny you should say that, my associate TJ is trying out Clickbank University right now, and he’s composing a review. We’ll be able to publish it within a week or so.
I understand more than half of the training CU offers is for product owners and not for affiliates but not many people look to sell their own products AND sell as affiliates. So I don’t think WA “lacks versatility” like you say, I think it’s the other way round – part of the monthly fee that you pay CU can be wasteful because half of the training may not be applicable to you. Having said that, WA is also useful for those who sell their own products.
Thanks for such a complete review, Ray. Wealthy Affiliate is the most helpful community I’ve ever encountered. I’ve learned a lot of online marketing technique and I’m still learning lots. Plus so many online tools that I’ve never heard of before that I get to know and try out. Without this community I would have no idea how I could have an access to any of these. And most of all, I get to build as many websites as I like. I think this is a bargain and I would recommend it to anybody 100%.
Hi Ben, thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear that you enjoy the membership. Yes certainly being able to build up to 50 websites with no extra fee is a huge advantage!
I’m rather looking for a good email marketing course. Does this group teach extensive email training, if so at what level. Or do you teach it in your Planet solo ad group. I couldn’t find it) I would like to know more about getting real leads not bots, good swipe technique etc. I understand I will need a website which I have please take a look. Thanks. Vikas
Hi Vikas, Wealthy Affiliate is an allrounder internet marketing platform so it does offer email marketing training too, though not exclusively for email marketers. No I don’t teach it. I can recommend some courses by Michel Sirois. This one for example: Easy Profits Makers Review: Best Email Marketing Course. It includes swipe technique with templates. Have a look and let me know. Thanks for your comment.
Hi, I read your review last year and joined it. It was too confusing, I was receiving too many emails mostly from Kyle guy as I remember.
I couldn’t really get on with it because page after page of training. I remember you told me to be patient but the amount of it was……too much.
I had to finish within the first 7 days otherwise I’d have to pay. I think it’s for people who are computer literate. For people like me, we need something more simple step by step. But thanks for your recomm. Appreciate it.
Hi William, thanks for your comment, and sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy the WA membership last time. You didn’t have to “finish within the first 7 days” though…you can stay as a free member as long as you like. If you have your login detail, perhaps you can have a look at it again in your spare time> There is a step-by-step that’s beginner-friendly. Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me, I wish you the best of luck with success. Thanks for your visit!
Hi, I read you email in October 2018.
You recommended walthy Affiliate do you still recommend, and do you teach solo ad?
I spend so much money on solo ad. Now I want so get my money back learning about it.seriously.
Can you please teach me solo ad and also affiliate to sell. Thank you.
Hi Achyut, no I’m gradually moving away from solo ad business – did you used to be my subscriber? (I can’t find any record of you) You’ve spent a lot on solo ads, does that mean you’re building leads, or do you promote your site via solo ads? You can certainly join WA and start learning affiliate marketing. But not a traffic selling business, that’s different. If you need more information, don’t hesitate to leave another comment or send a message from the bottom of this page. Thanks for your comment!
Hello. I need some questions please. Can I make a campaign about Wealthy Affiliate without becoming a member, also can I make a campaign by email because i have 100k+ subs. Thanks
Hi, thanks for your comment. In order to join the WA referral program you’ll have to become a member first. You don’t have to be a premium member but the commission rate will be lower. You can promote WA by running email campaigns, it’ll only effective if your target audience is looking to learn content marketing skills. Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me.
Wealthy affiliate is not the only training course, there are many options to start affiliate marketing without using this one…….. To me it’s all hyped up. After all we are a bunch of typical affiliates screaming “scam or not scam” but who’s a real scammer? No one knows.
Hi AJ, thanks for sharing the interesting thoughts. ‘Hyped up’, yes a little. The principle of content marketing is to help people, not to sell. Bear that in mind, often we play a hero with a megaphone shouting “scam!” on every product. And real scammers copy the method too. It can be hard to detect them. Always good to see several reviews before you purchase anything. Thanks for your comment!
Hi Ray, thank you for a good review. I read with interest.
I know a few people who have tried Wealthy Affiliate in the past, but i think what most of them feel is that the price. If it was half of that price, say USD25 per month it would be easier to carry on.
Giving almost 50% commissions to the referrer sounds like very generous but because the total price is a lot, it’s hard for many users to stay. What do you think?
For many years I have considered learning affiliate marketing because i know the barrier to entry is low but I’ve been hesitant because I have a business to sell first, then to start a new business. My option is still open though. Thank you.
Hi Angel, thanks for your comment. I think the membership fee of $49 per month is fair, considering the amount of training and all the useful resources. I cannot comment on how other people run their system (i.e. referral commission rate). I see you’ve never joined WA? Then perhaps you might want to give it a try for free and see what’s there first. Good luck with the selling of your business, I hope everything will go well!
Hi Wealthy Affiliate is the best training platform for any internet marketers from complete novice to experts. The amount of training is superb and various success reports from other members keep you motivated at all times.
There are always at least several members on live chat often including Kyle who can give the best advice if you happen to be there and ask the most difficult question. It is useful and you will always be updated with the latest technique. If you haven’t joined yet, what are you waiting for?
Hi, thanks for your comment. Kyle on chat! Yes it was only a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly found a slow connection both to my site and also to Wealthy Affiliate itself. I went on to live chat and asked others something was wrong – Kyle popped up and checked the server for me, I was so grateful! Nothing was wrong with WA’s server (don’t know what it was to be honest, but it was fixed after a while). Others on the chat helped me too. Great experience.
What kind of website and how can I work ? Please explain. thank you.
Hi Amulya, it’s best to join and start taking the free training, you’ll know it better rather than me explaining to you here. If you have any specific questions about niches, or how to manage your time while receiving the training, I may be able to help you. Please don’t hesitate to ask again. Thanks for your visit.
Hi, thank you for the great review. The problem I have is it does not allow me to join in this country unless I pay a premium fee right away. I am not convinced if I can continue and if there is no refund guarantee I do not want to take a gamble. It seems like a good place and everybody recommends it, I feel it’s a shame.
Hi Thambir, thanks for your comment, and sorry to hear that you cannot join free due to the restriction. Yes some countries are excluded but if you really want to try, you could contact them and see what they say. If there’s anything that I can help, don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thank you.
I joined twice but didn’t like it…..
It was too much information.
I also receive too many emails.
I unsubscribed soon.
Hi Poppy, sorry to hear that it didn’t work out for you. As I said in my post, the whole thing can seem overwhelming at first but we all get used to it as time goes by. If you need to learn a legitimate way to make a success as affiliate, this is the place. I can help you with it so contact me any time. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Ray, thank you for your Wealthy Affiliate review. The reason I was looking to start an affiliate marketing is because I was tired of not being able to sell my own products (hand made jewellery). I was trying like 2 years and my website never appeared in Google search. I eventually shut down my site.
Instead of selling my products, perhaps I should receive proper training first and learn about affiliate marketing, so that I can see how shops sell. When I start making commissions perhaps I can turn things around and ask other affiliates for help selling my own products. My goal is 12 months-2 years. If it’s possible…
Thank you for all your advice, especially the webinar might help me understand most up to date marketing method. I’ll give this a try. Cheers!
Hi Laura, thanks for sharing your experience, and sorry to hear that your previous website didn’t work out in the way you wanted. Wealthy Affiliate will definitely help you gain knowledge in internet marketing, hence increase your sales, not just as an affiliate but by building your own e-commerce store. Join and see if this something you want to pursue. Any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me any time. Thanks for your comment!
I left because my writing access was revoked for life. Yes, for life! I had to send a message using another account to apologize but I wasn’t forgiven. It was ok, I didn’t need to participate in the community to carry on my websites. The problem was I wasn’t even allowed to send support tickets. Web hosting is nothing to do with the community and it’s not like I damaged WA’s reputation.
Hi, thanks for your comment, and sorry to hear whatever happened to you. All I can say is that WA monitors the environment where the members are in, so that they can utilize without the risk of spam or fraud (I’m not saying you are!) So the circumstances you were in must have been unfortunate.
I cannot help you in getting back your membership or contact them on your behalf, but anything else regarding online business, if you need a hand please don’t hesitate to give me a shout.
It’s awesome to realize this kind of web market training is available for affordable price. I am thinking about Wix to make my animal rescue website, but it’s not supported, right? How easy is Word Press?
Hi Ray, I love your review. It’s very honest and straightforward. I have been a member for a few months and I am still learning a lot about how to go about with marketing basics as well as how to analyze site data. I couldn’t have done any of it without Wealthy Affiliate community’s help, for that reason I’m forever grateful. But what you say may be true, I try not to spend too much joining the conversation with other members. It is so time consuming and I cannot get time to move forward with my new niche website otherwise. I have a feeling that I will be around for a long time, hoping to make a big success. Thank you for your review and I wish you all the best.
Hi Stevie, great to hear that you’re enjoying the membership. There’s a vast amount of training as you know, if you stick to it, try logging in every day to learn something new, never give up (I know you won’t!) and you’ll definitely make a success. Thanks for your comment and wishes, I wish you the best too!
Hi I just signed up with Wealthy Affiliate but could not find you. How can I receive advice. Is it possible to ask a few questions here I need some assistance. Thank you.
Hi Campbell, thanks for your comment. It’s great to hear your first step. In your profile page, there should be a message from your referrer. Or Kyle. You can ask them any questions as many times as you like. If you have any problems, you can contact me and I can give you a hand too. Good luck!
Hi, I’m looking to learn customer relations through website building. Does this teach something like that or similar? Thanks
Hi Robert, I understand you own a business and build good customer relationships by creating a better website… The answer is big YES. I have replied to your direct message, I hope it explains, and you’ll be happy to take bold steps. Any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me any time. Thanks for reaching out to me!
I wouldn’t call it a scam either but they’re making a fool of themselves suspecting every product on earth a scam. I see any product review and 1st thing I look for is a wealthy affiliate ad. If its there I simply don’t trust it because I can’t trust reviews written by wealthy affiliate members. They r trained to write scam reviews from day 1. So amateurish so useless.
Hi, thanks for your comment. You can say that, I cannot totally disagree. But the truth is so many members have seen great success (including myself!) using this platform and I wouldn’t say it’s useless. WA helps and I’d still recommend it!
Great post Ray. it’s nice to read about how ordinary people like us can experience in creating an online business and become successful with something they enjoy.
I think it’s important to have several businesses so that you don’t rely on a single income source, I’m hoping to build a brand new business towards the end of this year. There are so many ways to make income online and it all depends what your goal is and how much time you want to spend…the first step can be the toughest oftentimes. The opportunities can be overwhelming by all means.
But one thing that stands out for me is blogging. The method is evergreen and once you learn the basics, all you have to do is to keep going while you keep yourself updated from a community like this one.
Great work Ray, thank you for your excellent blog.
Thanks TJ for sharing your thoughts, I wish you the best of luck with continuing success!
hi, Ray, what is it you promoting? I see its about affiliate marketing then its training. How does a member make money I’m confused.
What a great review! I am so impressed by your points. Check ClickFunnels if you want to make money money. This is where you can start making a living online. Seriously!
Hi, thanks for your comment. You can check my ClickFunnels review too, I’ve compared these two.
I wouldn’t say this is a scam but you not gonna make money just by following advice. There’s luck, niche and the key is how you get on top of things. You don’t have to join but use another web hosting service and achieve it. Don’t waste money on this.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear that you may have had a bad experience with Wealthy Affiliate? Web hosting is a necessity, and you can’t achieve a success simply by building a website. You need all elements of resources that I mentioned in my post, so money is not wasted. Plus there’s another way to make money – by posting comments. Check the detail here if you are not aware.
Hi, I read different types of online business related article on a daily basis, and just found your site. I am very pleased to read your wonderful post. I am very much interested to read about affiliate marketing and find your review mind boggling.
Wealthy Affiliate sounds like a new concept to me where anybody can learn and have an opportunity to make money on internet. I believe it will help me a lot. I have yet to decide if I am brave enough to join but the time will tell. I can tell there is a lot of help within the community but it’s also important for me to be able to give some help back to others.
You are so honest about affiliate marketing and also very knowledgeable, I guess you help a lot of newbies. I appreciate your precious effort.
Hi Melissa, you can just join and see what it’s like. No fee, no card detail needed, you’ve got nothing to lose. Thanks for your comment!
Thank you Ray for such a thorough review. What I like most about Wealthy Affiliate is the comment feature. If I hadn’t known about this community and started my blog with a different web hosting service, I still would have had no comments in my blog. I can receive as many comments as I want per day, although I’d have to provide 2 comments to receive 1. I spend a good few hours every day to earn comments.
I think I agree with you about how important to focus on your work rather than wasting your time in chat etc. I go on live chat when I need a quick answer, and find the same people giving “advice” at every question. I can only understand these people are addicted to chat for no reason.
Thank you for such good tips to motivate other internet marketers through this review.
Hi Flavia, thanks for your comment. Yes you’re absolutely right, you very rarely get a chance to receive comments on your brand new website, whereas WA members can request them from the day one, it’s one of the best benefits it offers.
I’ve seen some people who are addicted to the live chat too, but as long as they’re giving the right advice to new members and happy spending so many hours, everyone’s happy too.
Hello Ray, Thanks for the review, a very helpful and reassuring read. I’m on the brink of upgrading to WA Premium. My 7 days of free chat have long since expired, so I was wondering if you could help me. When I upgrade to premium is Jaaxy free to use after the first 30 free searches? I ask because I have already used up my first 30. Thanks, Steve.
Hi Steve, thanks for your comment. Good news that I can confirm is that Jaaxy is now offering a free membership exclusively to Wealthy Affiliate members, so you can search unlimited number of key phrases! Pro (paid) membership options are good if you want to save many of your search history, but for general users, free option is good enough in my opinion.
As for WA, December is a great time to upgrade to Premium membership, because you’ll get to hear many tips & advice on how you can promote your affiliate sites towards Christmas (i.e. people generally browse on internet to look for presents). Good luck! Any more questions don’t hesitate to get back to me any time 🙂 Thanks for your visit!
Thanks for that very fast reply. That has helped me a lot. I’m going to upgrade now. This may help some of your other readers: my discounted first month subscription of $19 is still on offer to me after 13 months of free membership.
Sounds great, Steve. I know Kyle is not just helpful but also generous to those who are seriously willing to learn affiliate marketing. Good luck with every success, I’ll see you inside!
Hi, I just missed the Black Friday sale….. I was going to join before Christmas and start building a new site….. I guess I’m a little too late. Is there another sale in the new year, if so how soon should I try….. Thank you for your advice. God Bless You x
Hi Zee, it’s free to join, so if you are wondering what to do, the first thing you should do is simply to sign up and look around. I’m afraid there will be no seasonal discount offered until the next Black Friday. Just sign up free and take the first set of training. If there’s anything that’s unclear, contact me any time, I’ll take you through. Thanks for your comment!
I don’t believe there are as many members as it claims.
1.6 million members I think the number includes the past members and free members.
I was a member last year , never made a comment but I asked a few questions.
I took most of the trainings and made my website.
I got quickly in the ranking around 800. My guessing is there are only a few thousand members.
Because when I asked a question I had to wait for half a day to receive the first answer.
The members were not very helpful.
Hi Nanpakorn, yes I actually agree on the number of members that includes dormant/past members as well as those who have signed up but done nothing else. But unless a member decides to delete their account completely, it remains in the WA’s back office (so that they can come back any time, I guess). So perhaps they’re not totally lying. About the questions not being answered sooner… The more people you follow/being followed, the more members your voice will be heard by. There are plenty of helpful members though. Thanks for sharing your experience & thoughts, I appreciate it.
I understand about the training and community and all, but do you really think that 49 dollars per month is worth investing, considering other web hosting providers charge only 2-3 dollars per month. That’s 20 times more expensive. A lot of others allow unlimited no of websites so it’s nothing special Wealthy Affiliate is offering.
Hi Hitesh, yes you’re right about other hosting providers only charge a few Dollars per month on 36 month contracts. But the speed, security and SSL availability may not be up to the standard. I’ve often discuss other web hosting companies with WA members, and we’re not as happy with those cheap ones such as Hostgator, Bluehost, HostPapa, etc. And as you say, $49 per month includes a huge amount of training, live chat, etc. It’s especially ideal for newbies. If you haven’t tried it yet, just sign up for free and take a look around. Let me know what you think. Thanks for your comment.
Thanks Ray, for your honest review. There are hundreds if not thousands of Wealthy Affiliate reviews. and all I see is so extreme. Either they ‘worship’ the community or they hate it because they’ve fallen out with the management and been kicked out. I think it’s the best place to learn all the basics. But if you seriously want to make money online, you have to get out of it and join a better scheme. Reality check: only a handful of people actually make 5, 6 figures staying there. Find a better place after 1-2 years. But it offers good training no doubt. Isaac
Hi Isaac, thanks for your comment. It is true, most of the WA reviews are either written by lovers or haters. But there are many members who have been there for 5+ years or more, and as I mentioned in the post, the web hosting can be the sole reason that many stay (including myself). You don’t have to join a “scheme” to make money, in my opinion. After all it is all about affiliate marketing – many earn enough money as Amazon affiliates. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it.
I left WA believing the slogan “turn your passion into a business” “learn & earn” were hugely misleading for ordinary folks. Your niche has to be something that sell, otherwise however passionate you are, you will only make a couple of dollars a month. Example is there was an Australian man who was promoting dental hygiene products for a long time, he wasn’t making money because it was a wrong niche.
I was willing to start a travel site but was advised by my mentor the niche was too competitive, so I changed it to a travel-across-america but still my mentor was not happy. In the end I lost interest because if I was told my “passion” was wrong, what else could I do?
Hi, thanks for sharing your experience with WA, and I’m sorry to hear it didn’t work quite well. As I explained in my post, the secure web hosting on its own is worth it in my opinion. You could ‘ignore’ others in the community say totally and still have a great chance to make a success in internet business. I think I know the man who has a website for dental health, and I think he’s still hanging on in there. It’s great if you can make a living by blogging, but many people keep writing because they love the niche and they purely want to help others, whether they make a decent income out of it or not.
As I said in the post, it’s important to focus on your work and follow the training step by step. If you do, it won’t go wrong. You WILL make a decent money regardless to the type of niche. Thanks for your visit!
I appreciate your honest review, Ray. Everyone seems to say only good things about wealthy affiliate and I have been skeptical for a long long time. With all that said there are good things offered. I particularly like the web hosting security aspects.
I have a bluehost which is good but not excellent. Bluehost is much cheaper as you probably know, and I have a contract with them until next year. I’ll consider wealthy affiliate beyond that. Thanks Ray, for your great job!
Hi Tien, I have used Bluehost in the past (for many years actually), and I was always happy with it. But it does not offer the strong security and SSL (unless you pay extra) as much as WAHosting (Siterubix) does, so I recommend you to seriously consider it. Any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me any time. Thanks for your comment.
It’s a good review. I used to belong to WA between 2014-15 then kind of “graduated”. It teaches you all the basics, and when you are ready to step up, you need to move on from it. Once you have other products rather than WA referral to promote, it’s best to move away from it. Especially when you discover blogging is not your type of thing, no time to waste. While you are at it, you need to look elsewhere. That’s what I did and I’ve chosen the right path. I’m glad I learned all the basic technique from WA in the beginning I don’t regret it.
Hi Benjamin, thanks for sharing your experience with WA. With content marketing you need to be continuously writing, so like you say, if writing is not your thing you’ll unlikely to see a success from it, I agree.
Wealthy Affiliate is about providing vital information to your readers via your website and making affiliate commissions. You receive (and exchange) the most up to date information such as SEO and trends, so not necessarily need to “move away” from it…because I’m not going to, I see it worthwhile.
Hi Ray, I guess how long I’ll have to wait until I make it breakeven. In 10 months time I’ll have spent $490 in Wealthy Affiliate membership fee, so I’ll have to make at least the same amount in affiliate marketing then. It makes me wonder if it’s feasible for me.
Hi Ryo, thanks for your comment. You’re absolutely right but I don’t see it that way. If you look at the very first 10 months, there’ll be so much to learn from the training, and especially if you’re new to the online marketing, WA will provide a learning opportunity that you cannot receive from anywhere else.
And don’t forget, the price also includes web hosting and security; you’d have to search for the best one elsewhere and set it up by yourself otherwise. There’s also a referral system too, if you can get 2 people to join in, your fee will be paid off.
I use Wealthy Affiliate just for my websites, not using the community, I used to but not anymore. I switched off the email notification settings so that I wouldn’t get distracted otherwise I would end up spending half a day every day answering questions couldn’t get anything done. I’m missing quite a lot of updates, which is a downside. But happy with the support, hosting etc.
Hi Ashley, thanks for your comment. I’m pretty much the same as you to be perfectly honest. I do learn a lot of techniques from the training, webinar and blogs created by our fellow WA members. They’re truly invaluable, but I try not to spend too much time reading the publications, try to restrict it to up to an hour a day. Good web hosting, I’m happy with that too.
Not all good, yeah. Wealthy affiliate is all hyped up community. People who desperately worship it usually make no money. Zero. coz they spend too much time worshiping writing blogs and stupid questions over & over again. Training good, ok, just take it and do all good stuff and get the hell out of it. If you don’t wanna throw your money down the drain.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Though I don’t entirely agree with what you say; yes it’s true, a lot of members don’t use the search bar effectively (or don’t even Google the question) and ask the community. But because there are thousands of post in history, you cannot always find what you’re looking for.
As I said in my post, some people purely enjoy the membership and interact with other online newbie marketers. They’re not there to learn how to make money online. It’s none of our business if they’re happy to pay their membership fees for camaraderies, as long as they’re not spamming. But most of us make the best out of Wealthy Affiliate – training (continuous, including the weekly live webinar), web hosting and security.
If you intend to focus on internet marketing success, you will not “throw your money down the drain” like you said.
Can you hire someone to write articles for you then you don’t have to learn all these techniques. There’s got to be a quicker way on affiliate marketing to be honest it’s too much to learn for to Lille money.
Hiring an expert to write one article won’t get you anywhere. You need to have many blog posts before you can gain a site trust by search engines, which could cost thousands of dollars if you were to pay guest bloggers. WA is here for you to become an expert in that area. If you’re not willing to learn the SEO technique, you could try a network marketing instead. But in either way you need a knowledge & experience to be successful in internet marketing, just like any other jobs.
I signed up with Wealthy Affiliate once and found there was too much information to take. I didn’t know where to start and although there was a mentor guy he never replied to my message. I was desperate for quick bucks and realized it was not the best place for it.
When I raised a question somebody answered to say it may take 6 – 8 months before you can see money so I left.
I’m sure if you become a premium member you might be provided with a secret ticket to success but I wasn’t ready at the time.
Hi Marcia, thanks for your comment. And sorry to hear that you didn’t have such a great experience with Wealthy Affiliate. It can be hard to make yourself heard in the beginning. If you follow as many members, then they’ll follow you back, whenever you raise a question, these members will start answering within minutes and give you invaluable tips and advice.
No online system will give you ‘quick bucks’ by the way, unfortunately. It’s true with content writing, you might find no affiliate commissions come in in the first few months, and it’s crucial that you learn the technique in order to receive more money, quicker. I hope you’ll give it a try in the near future. Any questions, don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thanks again for your comment.
Hey. Awesome post. I used to be a wealthy affiliate member and quit. I just had too much stuff going on in life. I’m ready to rejoin……..how do I do that. I guess I just need to find my log in ID. I’m determined to work online this time. Good advice. Cheers.
Thanks Sacha, unless you’ve deleted your account, it should still be there. Or you can create a new account using a brand new email address and start from the beginning. Good luck, any question don’t hesitate to ask 🙂
Great post Ray! One of the best wealthy affiliate review. I will join when I’m ready. I want to get out of my 10 hour a day job! Thanks for your help!
Hi Fumi, thanks for leaving a comment. Join any time, I hope you’ll find it useful, and make a great success in making money online. If you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact me and ask any time!
I was conned by *** who I believe is a wealthy affiliate member. He asked me for money and did not give me what I should learn and I did not make money like he told me. I don’t understand why the owner does not punish him. For the reason, I don’t believe it’s a good people in the membership.
Hi Maan, I just had to delete the name of the person you mentioned in your comment. I know that person and I believe he’s no longer with Wealthy Affiliate. Sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad experience with this person, but I’d like to clarify. Wealthy Affiliate is about promoting products towards world at large. It never persuades you to trade with another person on one-to-one basis. What this person may have done is outside the membership, and it doesn’t sound like something WA is responsible for.
In other words, what happened between you and this person is nothing to do with the training and website building platform that WA provides. Once again I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been scammed by this man. If there’s anything that you think I can help, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I read someone else’s Wealthy affiliate review and joined but cannot remember which site. Have a lot of questions. Who can I ask please. thank you.
Kalle
Hi Kalle, thanks for your comment. A few hours after you joined Wealthy Affiliate, you would have received a welcome message from someone – that person is your referrer, and you can leave a message in your profile to ask any questions. He/she (or Kyle or Carson) will get back to you as soon as they can. You can also ask me any questions. Find a profile RayAleksandr and message me, I’m more than happy to help you!
If you are being honest you should admit that there are so many wealthy affiliate worshipers as well as haters. Monthly charge is extortionate, I’ve seen so many people give up within a year. There’s gotta be a problem.
Hi, thanks for your comment. In any circumstances, the more you become famous the more number of followers, worshippers as well as critics you’ll receive. I trust that Wealthy Affiliate takes any constructive criticism seriously and continuously improves all-round. Monthly charge is not extortionate but it’s a bargain in my opinion, as I explained in the post. If you have any doubts in any areas particularly, please don’t hesitate to ask again – either by leaving another comment here or by email, I’m more than happy to explain. I appreciate your concern, I’m always here to help! Thanks!
HI RAY THANK YOU FOR YOUR WEALTHY AFFILIATE REVIEW I APPRECIATE YOUR HONESTY. I AM INTERESTED IN TEACHING SEVERAL LANGUAGES USING A WEBSITE BUT DOES IT ALLOW ME TO DO THAT, THANKS. JOAN
Hi Joan, thanks for your query. Yes, absolutely. You’ll be using WordPress and it’s a multi-language platform. Some members run tutorial sites including webinar and non-English websites. The community is an English-only area, so you’re advised to leave your messages in English so that everyone can understand you. You might want to avoid writing in all capital letters by the way, as it’s considered not good – Wealthy Affiliate teaches how to write your articles effectively too!
Thanks for your visit,
Ray
Wealthy Affiliate is full of nothing but lies!
You are getting ripped off, don’t you realize that…Damn I feel sorry for you.
Man… I truly hope you get wise to their BS! They also have you pay for a year’s membership after you are paying monthly, by sending you email after email, and than after 3 months, they revoke your privileges, so you pay for a year to get only 3 months, unless you are making BIG money for the company, they might let you stay on! That’s why they have the NO refund policy! They promote bullying by allowing it to happen, they don’t respond back, even when you ask them nicely to put a stop to the person cyber bullying! They use a little spam button the bully or anyone can use to click on 10 times on comments or posts if they don’t like you or a post or comment, even if it’s NOT spam! A button does the work for them! All you need is 10 spam clicks, according to Carson one of the owners, and your privileges are revoked! Than they don’t email you back so you can find out why! They are under investigation at the moment, so just a friendly warning! My friend overdosed once over this, and now she just did it again with more pills! All because of the cyberbullying of the two nicknames @Rich and @MozMary!
Hi, thanks for your comment. I’m sorry that you seem to be so upset, but this is exactly why Wealthy Affiliate is great and I can only imagine Kyle & Carson are being fair.
First of all your ‘revoked access’ refers to your writing access to the community. It does not affect your access to your MAIN tool, i.e. web-hosting up to 25 of your websites. Your comment about “paid for a year’s membership only to receive 3 months’ worth” is simply not true. You are banned from writing publicly to other community members, but you still have full access to everything else. Your existing websites, ability to create new sites, receive training, webinar and other tools.
And secondly, I can see why you’ve been banned from writing to the community…from the way you ‘rant’. Unfortunately 10 members quietly reported whatever you had written as spam/inappropriate. This is not a cyberbullying. If you ever feel you’ve been bullied either publicly or in a private message, all you have to do is to report the incident to the owner. If you shout back and escalate the row in the community space, it’s only a matter of time before other members report you as inappropriate.
Not just in WA but in any public web spaces, the moment you attempt to fight back a cyberbully you risk yourself also being seen as a bully. So you must be very careful of what to say or how to express.
Once again, you must remember the Wealthy Affiliate’s forum space is there purely for learning to make money online. Nice friendly chat is allowed, but nothing more. Every time you write something, you need to ask yourself whether the content is useful for other members. If you keep writing blog/questions/comments that are seen inappropriate and reported so by other members, at the 10th time your writing access is revoked.
And this is only a writing access. You still have full access to read other members’ posts, questions and comments. I’m sorry you are not happy by the way you’ve been treated but now is the perfect opportunity to step back and learn from others, keep developing your websites. Now using your time you were spending on the community, you can perhaps open a new website or two, find other niches to promote, try to build leads – possibility is endless!
Remember, Wealthy Affiliate helps you to make money online. Just focus on that and make use of your yearly membership fully. I rarely participate in the community – I don’t have time for that. And I stay with Wealthy Affiliate because I can’t find anywhere else who can provide the same service for the amount I pay.
Great article! But I have to say, I learned all the basics for free when I started by reading reports written by experts. I joined WA later on but didn’t like the hype. Especially over-motivational daily posts by the ambassadors. Also the lack of knowledge by some of the ambassadors. Maybe good for some, wasn’t for me. I appreciate your honest review, good luck!
Hi Rob, thanks for sharing your thoughts & experiences. The ‘lack of knowledge’ by some of the Wealthy Affiliate ambassadors can be problematic, I must say. They can pass wrong advice to the new learners. As I said in the post, there are all sorts of people from different cultural background. So maybe some active members who seem ‘big mouths who never shut up’ to me (lol) can be ‘hands-on helpers’ to others.
Once you’re there for a while, you don’t need much of a help from others. WA is worth it for me because of the secure web servers/hosting for a number of websites that I have for the membership fee that I pay. Many members stay for years for that reason too. Thanks again for your visit!
Hi Ray,
Nice review. One question- Is WA just about writing a Blog?? I do not like to write a blog, but want to create an affiliate Website. Is WA for me?
Hi Amol, thanks for your comment. WA is mainly focused on ‘content marketing’ and SEO – how your webpages can be found by ‘organic search’. So you’ll get to learn a lot about writing techniques. But you’ll also learn about how to buy traffic.
Because if you don’t like to write a blog, the ONLY way to make your affiliate website successful is by buying traffic (Google ads, Facebook ads, or solo ads).
By all means you’ll get to learn everything you need to know about online marketing from WA. The members discuss anything – the best WordPress plugins to use, which affiliate networks are reliable, web designing/conversion technique, website security, how to deal with bad visitors, motivation aspects etc, etc.
I have 10 websites right now hosted by WA (SiteRubix) and I’m only blogging on 2 of them. You can join and see if WA is for you – there’s nothing to lose.
Thanks Again Raymundo !!
It is just a catch-22, really…unless one spends a bunch of money to START making any, one risks running out of the needed resources – like the support of a WA membership for example.
If one does not have the money to start with, such losses become inevitable.
I already took a 30-day trial at another, similar site & it will be up for renewal in just a few days – and I will no longer have that to visit & ask questions at…
Not wanting to end up the same way with a WA memberships is all.
Hi Diane, thanks for sharing your concern. I think Wealthy Affiliate is – and many existing members say so – good value for money. If you see the service as a necessity, just like paying utility bills, perhaps? The enormous amount of support will get you going and, you meet many people from different backgrounds. Many of them are not making money online, but purely to enjoy (find value in) the community and to keep learning. Others are focused on their web business, the secure web hosting is great value for money if you own many sites. If you refer 2 people to WA, your membership fee is paid off by the referral commissions.
Maybe something you can think about when your current web hosting service ends…? If you like blogging, it’s a great opportunity to blog within Wealthy Affiliate as well as on your website(s). Also to find niche ideas…Google updates…the latest trends…technical stuff for dummies etc. Anything can be discussed!
Hi Raymundo.
I have seen a great many folks promoting WA and it -does- interest me.
The 7-day trial is attractive, and the $19 1st month is as well.
One problem for me:
Unless a miracle happened & got me earning the $49 before the end of that 1st month, there is just no spare $ in the budget for the inevitable next month’s $49 charge.
That, combined with my sincere ability to imagine making that much in just the 1st month has me hesitating over joining at all.
I know this is highly unlikely – but, for example, if WA offered a 3 month discount – that would easily squash my hesitation because I can easily imagine reaching that $49 goal after 3 months of steadily working at it !!
There is a big difference between the numbers 19 & 49 when one is on a very limited budget – enough to make the difference between having the rent money…or not.
Hi Diane,
Thanks for your comment. Yes the membership fee is not cheap, 12 months x $49 = $588. When you simply think about paying an online membership for almost $600… But that’s why many premium members pay 12 months in advance, to take advantage of the huge yearly discount. You need to pay $359 in advance, but that will come to less than $30 per month.
Also, I did mention as “7-day trial”, but it’s not exactly so. You can stay as a free member as long as you like. A free member has a limited access to some areas as explained in the post, but you can take your time – weeks, months – to familiarise yourself with the tools, and when you’re ready, pay $359 for the whole year. That’s the cheapest option you could take. Of course there’s a risk that you may not like the membership…but we hardly see members leave WA unless they decide to quit online marketing completely in order to pursue another career!
Lastly just one caution – once you become a premium member, you cannot go back to the free/starter member. If you’ve started to pay $49 every month, and find yourself no longer able to pay, the only option is to cancel the membership. You have 30 days to take a backup of your website(s)…pretty easy…And when you come back next time, you simply pay another $49 to log back in.
I hope the above explains. I hope you’ll give it a try, whenever you’re ready. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it.
Hi I agree with your wealthy affiliate review, but I saw some bad reviews that say the owner make you compare every other business program against wealthy affiliate in your website and call them a scam. I don’t believe it. is it true. Thanks Ajay
Hi Ajay, thanks for your comment. Yes I think I’ve seen that one. I think the writer misunderstands the concept of it. No, Kyle never tells you to call every other program a scam, that would be a scam (!). In the beginner’s training, Kyle firstly helps you to find a niche to promote. But he suggests that, if you really cannot find anything to promote at all, why not try promoting Wealthy Affiliate itself?
One of the most effective product review method is a product comparison – review 2 or more products and make a comparison chart. He provides newbies a great opportunity to learn ‘how to review’ using a Java-based comparison chart tool. As an affiliate marketing training program, WA provides more useful tools for affiliates than any other products. Again Kyle never ‘tells you’ to compare WA against other make-money-online products, it’s just a suggestion. But a product comparison is an effective way to promote, that’s a fact, and if the newbies don’t want to follow his suggestion, they don’t want to learn!
I don’t personally trust any reviews that call others ‘scams’ unless there’s a solid evidence of serious rip-off. So I didn’t feel very well when I read that particular review. To me Wealthy Affiliate is – I’ve said that may times – as a secure web-hosting for a number of websites that I own, a super-bargain. I’d have to pay more elsewhere if WA ended tomorrow.
Thank you for your visit Ajay.
Thank you for your Wealthy Affiliate review. It’s the most honest review and I appreciate your input.
If Wealthy Affiliate didn’t exist what would you have done, I would like your opinion and also an alternative way to learn to earn living online please. I am tempted to join but unlikely to be able to afford to pay $49 month after month.
Thanks and I wish you all the best.
Andy
Hi Andy, thanks for your comment. WA has given me (and still does) an opportunity to grow as an online marketer by all means. If it didn’t exist, I would have still have got my websites hosted by Bluehost. I’ve used this company for many years in the past, not once was I disappointed by the service including usability, stability and support, for a very reasonable fee. Bluehost lets you install WordPress by 1-click, and it’s my recommendation for those who are on a budget.
There are other places that you can learn internet marketing such as Thrive University, Wishpond Academy, etc. I find it’s useful to connect with other marketing experts via Social Media, find their websites and learn from their articles.
WA has all-in-one under the same roof and that’s what the membership fee is for. You can always find alternatives elsewhere but not as convenient and supportive. Any other questions, don’t hesitate to get back to me 🙂
You’ve shared some very valuable tips here in regards to making money online. I like the fact that you showed why someone would want to get into internet marketing in your Wealthy Affiliate review, and what strategies they can use to become successful by becoming a member there. Many Thanks!
Thanks Craig for leaving a comment. No, my only ‘strategy advice’ (if that!) is to focus on making money online, because that’s what Wealthy Affiliate membership is for. The training and advice from the actual successful members will show you what strategies to use in order to follow their steps. And the synergy between the members will help towards motivation. Thanks Craig for stopping by.
Hi Ray, thank you so much for your Wealthy Affiliate review. I would like to delay in becoming a premium member as I am short of cash currently. Is it possible to sign up using more than one email address and own multiple accounts? Thank you. You have a very nice website.
Emily
Hi Emily, thanks for your comment. I’ve seen quite a few premium members leave Wealthy Affiliate temporarily for financial reasons, then come back when they can afford to pay, and get their old website(s) back hosted by WA (SiteRubix).
I’ll summarise my answer to your question;
(1) You can join free and stay free as long as you like, but once you’ve become a premium member, you cannot go back to the free member. You have 30 days to to move your domain name and website out of WA (SiteRubix) to another hosting company.
(2) If you really want to go back to WA as a free member again, you can use another email address to create a brand new account. But you cannot move your old site back.
(3) I wouldn’t recommend creating multiple accounts and use them simultaneously – that would confuse other members as to who you are (e.g. when you raise questions). A free member is allowed to create 2 x websites with a subdomain (www.yoursite.siterubix.com), there’s no point in creating multiple accounts and build up more than 2 sites with a subdomain prefix. You really want to have your own domain name (www.yoursite.com) to carry on your website business seriously…
I hope this clarifies a little. Any more questions please don’t hesitate to get back to me 🙂 Thanks again for stopping by.
First to say thanks for sharing this great article. I think internet marketing is good way to make money online but this wealthy affiliate review helps me to think more about the university training and bonus. I don’t hear wealthy affiliate complains to much so it’s good and I am starting one today. Many Thanks!
Hi Jorge, thanks for taking time to comment. If you Google search by keywords such as “Wealthy Affiliate Complaint” or “Is Wealthy Affiliate a scam”, you will come across with some sites with negative reviews. But just as positive reviews can be one-dimensional, negative reviews tend to focus on one aspect or based on one bad experience and not related to the overall benefits that one can receive from it.
If you think about it, the basic membership is free – whether you want to go premium is not is entirely up to your choice. No one will trick you into making payments, no credit card is required upon joining. So there really is nothing to lose while you’re testing to see Wealthy Affiliate is for you or not. Good to hear that you’re giving it a try. Good luck to you, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me. Thanks Jorge!
Hey Ray, thanks for the awesome Wealthy Affiliate review. Actually for the first time I’m thinking about joining now. I’ve had a few websites in the past but don’t have any right now. I’ve never made any money with my previous sites. I now realize what was missing. I received no advice from others so had to make my own decision as to which hosting company to go for, domain, what kind of design etc etc purely by Googling. And when I got bored I quit.
With the help from others and hopefully with my experience I may be able to help new members as well. That can be a huge motivation factor. Thank you, I’ve seen quite a few Wealthy Affiliate reviews but I think yours is the best.
Hi Zak, thanks for your comment. I think my experience in the past was similar – back in 2006-2008 I struggled to keep my websites going without keyword knowledge and other techniques (that may be obsolete now for sure!) But any ‘experiences’ can speak. I’ve shared my knowledge in, for example Amazon Marketplace because I used to sell a lot of stuff there, which was hopefully useful for some other members. Good community, all-in-one. Join free and see how you feel. Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it 🙂
Hey Raymondo, I saw a bad review the wealthy affiliate owners tell the members call every other program a scam but wealthy affiliate is the only legit program. in the way to get people to join. Is it true and even if it’s not what do you think? Honest answer I like to hear.
Hi Ashley, the answer is no. What the co-owner, Kyle teaches in his training video (to new joiners) is this.
(1) What a content marketing is all about – help readers solve their problem.
(2) Product review is one, and it’s effective when you compare two or more products.
(3) Therefore try creating a product comparison blog post. Learn the rules (keywords, wordcount, images optimisation etc etc). Also how to join an affiliate program and how to place an affiliate link in your page editor.
(4) Quite separately, if you don’t have a hobby and can’t think of anything you want to promote in your site, why not promote Wealthy Affiliate itself?
Wealthy Affiliate offers services in many areas; web hosting, online marketing training, community, also provides domain service. Means covering everything you need to know about MMO (make money online). It’s the members themselves who would put (1)-(3) and (4) together, and compare every MMO product against WA.
As I mentioned in the post, the helpful community and hands-on advice by Kyle & Carson make the members feel extremely safe. Especially many of those who ended up with WA previously had bad experiences with other online network, typically MLM. Therefore many of them feel ‘ecstatic’ being part of WA, they worship WA, making themselves start “WA is good, everything else is bad” in their blog. Kyle & Carson never ask the members to do this. They are just knowledgeable and extremely helpful to us.
That’s my honest answer! Any more questions or doubts, don’t hesitate to get back to me.
Thanks for your comment Ashley!
Hi Ray, what does that mean by not mobile friendly just yet? You can’t access to update your blog posts and stuff? Any other?
Hi Martin, you can access to your WP-admin (via Wealthy Affiliate) using your mobile phone, and the visual editor is mobile friendly. But Wealthy Affiliate is all about content marketing and SEO – keywords, images, wordcount. So it’s not really advisable to build a website by mainly using your phone.
You can post blogs and communicate with other members using your phone but that’s not formatted for mobile use, therefore it’s pretty cumbersome. It may be good if it becomes mobile friendly for conveniences, but it may not be if everyone starts to use it like SMS (“U no wot I mean”) – it’s all about writing a good content as a blogger. I hope this makes sense. Any more questions please don’t hesitate. Thanks for your comment!
Hi Raymundo,
I am actually sold too on Wealthy Affiliate. It has all the tools you require to build a really successful website. I have been online for years and thrilled I found them. You give a really honest review here so thanks for that. If I hadnt already joined I would have after reading this!
Cheers Sharon
Hi Sharon, thanks for your kind words! It’s good to hear you’re enjoying your membership. In terms of building a website, me too I had used WordPress for years but it was only after I joined WA I’ve learned so many great tips, not just designing aspects but conversion aspects too. Packed full of resources for sure!
Hey Ray, great review thanks. $49 every month looks like so much to pay. But when I can think about asking other people to join, you will receive as much as half of the cost for one person back. Maybe if I ask 2 people it’s almost free. Maybe I will check if somebody else I know will join and I can become a premium member for free.
Ben
Hi Ben, thanks for your comment, yes you’re absolutely right. If you can refer Wealthy Affiliate to 2 people and pay your fee annually, the web hosting for all your websites plus security updates and training (also for your domain too, practically) will be paid off. If you know anyone who’s looking to start a website content marketing, that’s good to go. It’s free to join anyway, see how you feel. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hello Ray, I’ve been reviewing WA for a week now and I think it’s time to give it a go. Your article convinced me to go for what I need to do to become successful in the internet business world. I’ve created WordPress sites before, but just need to get a feel about the training and how to market my product. Hope the training helps me and yes I do want to see that passive income in time. Just have to be patient and it will take come. Other than that, great read on your WA review and hope it goes well for me.
Hi Marty, thanks for your comment. I’m glad you’ve decided to join WA. As you say, patience is the key. But log in every day at least in the beginning and take the training step-by-step, learn something new every day and you’ll definitely be successful with your website business.
It’s great you’ve used WordPress before. The premium members are allowed to create up to 25 websites, the good thing about it is that it’s so easy to experiment in multiple sites (i.e. designing, try different themes and plugins, layout…) while you have all your sites open in each tab or browser.
I wish you the best of luck Marty, any more thoughts or questions please don’t hesitate to get back to me.
Hello bro, i love your website but i have some questions to ask you..do you think i can follow online courses in WA even if my english is not good? French is my native language so i continue to improve english everydays…i don’t have good writing style like you and other people what advice can you give me?does this training work on other languages also, waiting for your fast reply, thanks Raymundo…keep up good job!!
Hi Frank, yes I think you can follow the WA online courses in my opinion – you’ve written a good English just now! As you may already know, you can create your website in French using WordPress (i.e. within WA) and any major languages in the world.
The training courses are either in text as well as video format, and if you don’t understand any part of it, you can stop & read/watch/listen again, or ask any other members and experts. There are so many members in WA whose first language is NOT English – including myself! So you don’t need to worry.
You can join free and see what it’s like, you know?
Try the link from HERE.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Frank, any more questions please don’t hesitate to get back to me!
Ray
I agree with you whole-heartedly. I think the ranking system can be a bit of a distraction and I take regular breaks from receiving emails because it just takes up too much time. Even still, I’m conflicted that I’ve been here so long and my ranking has blown out to nearly 500 again due to a “break”.
Wealthy Affiliate is great but it’s like other great things, Facebook, twitter, Pintrest, forums etc. you can use it wisely or you can use it poorly and not reach your goals.
Hi Deb, thanks for your comment. Yes you’re right, we need to spend time on social media wisely, don’t we. I could easily go back to check my Facebook & Twitter accounts every 10 minutes to follow new friends/followers and reply to new messages. There are so many nice people in WA and it can be tempting to interact with them and climb up the rank as you earn “likes” on your comments. Once again Wealthy Affiliate is a place to “make money online” with affiliate marketing!
I dunno man, I appreciate your well written review, but what about the fact that all of the WA affiliates are BASHING every other product out there – even GREAT ones – in order to promote WA.
I mean Kyle & Carson even created a comparison chart/template for members to use in their negative reviews of other products – and most of the time the WA affiliates DOING those reviews have never even seen/looked at the product they’re ‘reviewing’. They just want to say it’s bad, wealthy affiliate good. That’s what turned me off from it, as well as many others I know.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – you seem like an honest guy.
Thanks!
JL
Hi Jeff, thanks for your comment! I do agree. The comparison chart template lol… It’s Javascript based, allowing you to create a beautiful chart within minutes without a plugin. But it’s a WA exclusive template (i.e. third party product against WA), it’s just an “attractive” tool to try out for new members with no previous website building experience… Every year thousands of members start with “everything else is bad, WA good” as directed, but soon get bored and quit…or realise the “scambusting” method is not as easy and too competitive.
I think there are two types of survivors from WA; be persistent, become innovative and stay on the pure content marketing rails, or find quicker ways to make money online (such as MLM) but stay with WA for other reasons. I’m probably the latter case to be honest. I have 10+ websites hosted free (membership fees covered by the referral commissions), without worrying about spam-filtering or backup, I think WA membership suits me. I personally don’t want to call anyone a “scam” unless they are a real, thief-scammmer (you know what I mean) so every time I read a product review the first thing I check is whether the reviewer is a WA member or not, then wonder how biased/unbiased the review may be because of the membership! Phrases such as “My verdict – 3/10. Scam!” make my stomach cringe…but they’re only trying their best and I wish them all the best!
Whether we like it or not, in terms of marketing WA itself is undeniably successful, isn’t it. You shout out “Justin Bieber is ugly, the worst popstar ever” etc a million times, you’re in the minority side. WA membership may not be as huge as him but may be just like the Beliebers “tricked into buying his songs & gig tickets” (which they all deny)?
Thanks again Jeff for sharing your thoughts, and your site & the article is great, thank you. I appreciate it.
Hi there! I just finished reading your excellent review of Wealthy Affiliate and just wanted to drop you a comment to say thanks! This is one of the best reviews that I have ever read. I’m also member of the WA community and I agree totally with what you are saying here.
Newcomers to the membership need to be careful because Wealthy Affiliate has a habit of being quite distracting. The training is brilliant but its also like a social website where you can end up chatting or getting distracted with a video. You need to stay focused!
I like the fact that you mention the “rank” within Wealthy Affiliate. The ambassador rank system is a bit of a joke sometimes. Basically anyone can become a top ranking ambassador in Wealthy Affiliate just by writing a lot within the blogging system. Newcomers want to increase their rank naturally as they think its important. In reality it does nothing for you at all.
Aside from that, I would say that Wealthy Affiliate is brilliant and I highly recommend it. Just don’t get too sidetracked by things that don’t matter to your own business.
Hi Andrew, thanks for your comment! I’m glad you shared your opinion about the WA ranking and ambassadorship (as “a bit of a joke” lol). Perhaps whatever community with a ranking system whether it’s online or offline, people tend to get obsessed with their position. WA is no exception and as you say, new comers seem to get excited as they climb up the rank. So did I, but luckily I realised I was too busy with learning new techniques and focusing on making more money to care… I choose not to write blogs but try helping others only when I’m absolutely confident that what I know will help them.
WA ambassadors are all lovely people, but I’d say to everyone that if they want to learn online marketing, they should only listen to the certain experienced people.
Thanks again Andrew for sharing your thoughts, and I wish you the very best of luck with continuing success with your online business!
Hi Raymundo,
A very detailed review about Wealthy Affiliate. I can agree that Wealthy Affiliate is value for money, I joined just over a month ago and have already completed the level 5 Certificate course and have a fully functional Website and have learnt a lot from Kyle and the community. when I started I had no experience of building a website.
To Your Success!
Antilena
Hi Antilena, thanks for your comment. It’s good to know you’ve been utilising the online certificate course fully and more importantly, enjoy learning fully. I wish you the very best of luck with success too 🙂
Great review of Wealthy Affiliate. WA is truly an amazing place to learn and network with people who have been successful at it. I’m a member and I love it there. Still going thru the lessons, there’s so much to learn.
Anyone who aspires to own an online business should give this a serious look. Just join for free and you’ll see what Wealthy Affiliate is all about.
Hi Andrew, thanks for your comment. It’s always good to see someone genuinely love a product or service and also willing to make the full use of it in order to move forward. Wealthy Affiliate provides a possibility to many dimensions – as I mentioned in the article, stay focused on learning. The one and only purpose is to make money online, and I really think the key is never to lose sight of it. I wish you the very best of luck with success!
Great review of WA – I’ve recently joined as a premium member and can back up everything you say.
I must admit it’s nice to see some cons in there as well – I agree that a mobile friendly portal would be fantastic, especially given the community within the site.
The education aspect is why this is so good – I fully back up your review.
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment. And I’m glad you’re enjoying the membership. $49 per month seems quite hefty for some, but considering the freedom of creating number of websites anytime you want, delete them if you want, the price I believe is unbeatable.
The education aspect – I’ve seen many other online marketing “universities”, where all they provide is merely a set of knowledgebase articles. What WA provides is a good, lengthy quality enough to call themselves a university in my opinion. Thanks Mike!
I have looked through lots of program for affiliate and this one really stand out. Not only they train member how to be successful in affiliate marketing but also have a good deal of commission. I hope people will join you after reading this post! It is really worth the investment.
Hi Kien, thanks for your comment. Yes their referral commission’s almost 50%, it’s good isn’t it. In terms of affiliate market training membership, like you say I’ve never seen another “ongoing” community where how you develop is your choice. Normally either there are daily tasks to do, buy more products to keep your membership up to date, or one-way/one-off series of training. I think Wealthy Affiliate is worth spending money for too.
Thanks again for your contribution.
Ray,
Thanks for the incredibly thorough review of The Wealthy Affiliate website. I’ve been a Premium Member for about three months now and I love it. I think Wealthy Affiliate is the perfect place to learn Affiliate Marketing. They have video tutorials, hundreds of instructional lessons, and blogs all geared towards the beginner, which I was. I had zero knowledge of computers or the internet and after just a couple of months built a full website for affiliate marketing that is indexed on google. I really like Wealthy Affiliate’s community atmosphere where if you have a question you can go to one of their chat rooms or Q and A forums and ask other members for help. You can even contact the owners, Carson and Kyle if you want to ask them things.
I really believe that there is no quick way to riches. The only way you can earn a good, stable income is to put in the hard work it takes. Before you join any affiliate program, you need to do the proper research. That’s one of the best benefits of the internet – finding the information you need. As you mentioned, look up WA online and see how much negative information there is. I found only one website that spoke badly of WA. The owner was trying to promote his site instead. What does that tell you about his credibility?
I’ve looked at a lot of online marketing programs over the years and I can honestly tell you one thing for sure. If you want to learn Affiliate Marketing, Wealthy Affiliate is the place to do it. I recommend it to anyone who wants to be a success.
Scott
Wow, thanks Scott for such a powerful recommendation. As you say, WA has everything you need to get your online marketing started and get going. All the questions – any questions that you may have will be solved in the same space, that’s the best thing about it, isn’t it.
No, not many people criticise WA negatively. I’ve looked really hard to find valid negative points but there aren’t really. No upsells, the price is reasonable and stable, no spam…I can only repeat what I’ve already said in the article.
Thanks again Scott for your great contribution, I appreciate it.
Wealthy Affiliate changed my life. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true.
Before I had the good fortune to find Wealthy Affiliate, I struggled with making money online. Sometimes I wanted to bang my head against the wall.
When I found Wealthy Affiliate, I couldn’t believe it at first. Imagine an ethical place to learn what really works online and a supportive community eager to help.
Wealthy Affiliate has become the focal point of my work life and I get out of bed each morning eager to get busy on my websites and with the Wealthy Affiliate community.
Hi Gary, thanks for your comment. Yeah that does sound dramatic! But you’ve just given me an opportunity to ask myself why – it’s great to hear that you’re so enthusiastically enjoying the membership, but why? Like most of others say, the reason is the community isn’t it. Or “Community + web hosting in one” to say exact, if the service was only one or the other, people wouldn’t be so keen.
I do belong to other online entrepreneurs’ communities but they’re not as exciting as Wealthy Affiliate. Partly because they’re all much smaller in scale than WA, hence information they provide are not as useful and timely. Working for yourself online can be a pretty lonely job but WA certainly make you feel that you belong to their ‘family’.
Again there’s a downside to that though, (1) you can get easily distracted by so many social posts and (2) while you appreciate the help from others, a lot of the information you receive could be wrong, e.g. something technical such as the latest Google algorithm. The larger the number of responses you receive, the longer time it can take you to come to your own decision.
Thanks again Gary for sharing your thoughts. Best of luck to you with your awesome business.
Hi,
Wow thanks for the thorough review of Wealthy Affiliate. I’ve been reading a lot about this program lately and I’ve come across so many different reviews that it’s hard to know which ones are telling the truth. Yours seems very trustworthy.
Does Wealthy Affiliate teach other ways of making money online or is it mainly just affiliate marketing? Like do they cover things like email marketing and paid ads too?
Robert
Hi Robert, thanks for your comment and compliment! Amongst all sorts of online businesses, Wealthy Affiliate mainly teaches content marketing by building a website and how to improve it’s ranking on search engine results. Inevitably affiliate marketing is something that anyone could try – rather than starting their own retail business.
Using paid ads is one important element so they teach you. Email marketing – not so much. Solo ad marketing generally has not much to do with its content, but involves copywriting technique, not SEO. Slightly different… We do often talk about it within the community though.
Thanks again, any more questions please don’t hesitate to get back to me.
One of the best Pros of Wealthy Affiliate is that you do not have to follow their rules. You will have your own site through which you will have your own business. You can learn from them, still you have your own choice to try your strategies. There is few products to promote from wealthy affiliate (if you want), and that is good as they allow you to promote any other product worldwide
Hi Yousef, that’s a great point – thank you. Yes as you say, Wealthy Affiliate provides great training materials and advice you learn from in the beginning, but naturally sooner or later you will work around with your own strategies. Without exception I think that’s what I have done and I’m grateful for that.
Thanks for the great comment, I appreciate your input!
Wealthy Affiliate is probably the largest affiliate marketing community online. There are +500,000 members worldwide. It has affected many people lives dramatically. Some of the members have got their online income from $0 to $10,000/month in a few years. However, I guess that most of the members didn’t end up earning anything because of many reasons. But WA is a great community, training platform and hosting provider. Been there for +14 months now.
Yeah half a million members. I’m not sure if this forever growing number actually means anything, as I’ve seen many ghost members – they sign up free but decide not to proceed and leave there. Only those who are seriously willing to make money online will take the right steps and succeed. By all means the site is open to everyone who speaks English in the world (apart from the restriction by some countries) which is a good thing.
Thanks for your comment, and I wish you the best of luck to you with your membership and continuing success.
One HUGE pro you did n’t mention is the dedicated success stories thread, which I love and read …and re-read regularly to keep me focused – especially on days I am not motivated, down or “hit the wall”
Out of interest, what are your fav aspects of WA for you?
Ah, that’s great to know Derek. I must agree there are tons of good blogs written by the members within the WA. I’m always interested when someone posts about new software or tools that I’ve never heard of. For example someone was introducing IFTTT in his blog, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. That’s one thing, but success stories are another… Everyone starts from zero, so whether it is “Yepeeee! My first sale! 50 cents! I know it’s not much but I’m ecstatic!”, or “How I make $10,000 per month”, they’re so exciting to read.
My favourite part of WA…. I do believe it’s value for money! I receive recurring commission for referrals which easily cover my premium membership cost. And I don’t have many websites hosted by WA (yet), but knowing I could create as many as I like, without a worry of spam, viruses and hackers.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Derek, I appreciate it.
Hi there Raymundo,
Excellent article and thanks for sharing it with us, really appreciated. I love the way you mentioned some drawbacks including not being optimised at all that well for mobiles. I admit I keep waiting for a WA app to appear, and sure members, be they premium or free have really got to focus on why they are there (to make money and build a sustainable business) and not get drawn into the social aspect of WA.
Hi Derek, thanks for your comment! Kyle has recently mentioned that he and Carson are working on the mobile version. So it will be good if a mobile friendly version allow us to get some easy tasks done – although it’s a platform for us content marketers, I can’t quite imagine myself trying to write a quality, lengthy blog using my phone or even a tablet.
And again lots of short SMS-like social posts from mobile device could lower the quality of the entire Wealthy Affiliate site too, probably? “thx, its gr8 xxx”
Excellent Review Ray! I still have a few questions though:
1. Does the free trial last only 7 days or is it a lifetime free membership?
2. If I do go premium, can I ever return back to being a free member (assuming the free membership is a lifetime one)?
3. Is there a money back guarantee if I am not satisfied with the premium membership?
4. Would I have to promote Wealthy Affiliate?
5. Are there any more upsells?
Thanks Ray in advance.
Hi Medu, thanks for your comment/questions.
1. You can stay as a free member as long as you like. But if you decide to go premium within the first 7 days, you can have your (a) first 7 days free, plus (b) your first month fee starting the 8th day for $19 instead of $49.
2. Unfortunately once you go premium you cannot go back as a free member. This makes sense though, it wouldn’t be fair if you were allowed to take advantage of completing the Wealthy Affiliate University and all other training then stop making payments and were still able to have your WordPress sites hosted for free.
So once you’re a premium member, you can either continue as a premium of cancel. If you decide to cancel the membership, you have 30 days to transfer out your website contents and the domain name if you have your own.
3. No money-back guarantee once you’ve become a premium member. The reason is based on how you’re determined to succeed. While you are a free member you have an access to your websites, training and support, in order to decide whether it’s something you can continue or not. Some people join WA but don’t follow the training, so they don’t succeed. My interpretation is that, if you skip this process and pay the first month’s fee without trying, then change your mind and decide to discontinue, that’s the price you pay… I hope it makes sense.
4. No, you don’t have to promote WA at all. The starter training includes “how you can promote Wealthy Affiliate”, this is designed for folks who wish to start an online marketing but don’t know what to promote (niche), which is only useful.
5. No upsells, apart from Jaaxy, the keyword tool that’s also owned by Kyle and Carson. It’s only recommended and, Wealthy Affiliate has its own simple keyword tool. Jaaxy tool is far superior and I love it personally.
Thanks, any more questions please don’t hesitate to get back to me!
Awesome website! You have great information here. I can definitely agree with you on how wonderful this community is.
What ever you need help with all you have to do is simply ask. Everybody in the forum has the same goals and they will understand the journey you are on.
One of the best communities I’ve been a member of.
Hi Garrick, thanks for the comment. Good to hear you enjoy the membership.
I never said everybody in the forum has the same goals though. I suppose they do, but many members use the community as a social space and they never learn. So stay focused on your online business work, make use of Wealthy Affiliate to make money online, not to anything else!
I agree about the community. You need to know who you should follow and listen to. Some ambassadors add absolutely zero value to it by publishing rubbish posts every single day and asking very basic questions that they should have learned at the beginning of the membership. They pop up to reply to every other question to say “Sorry, I don’t know about it, I’d love to know”. If they don’t know, they should shut up. But they’re desperate to keep their ambassador / high ranking status, they keep making no-quality comments. They clearly just spend all their time socializing, the fact that’s misleading the new members and lowering the quality of the learning community itself. “simply more activities = higher ranking” is the area of improvement within WA.
Hi Sebbastien, thanks for your comment, well-said. My advice to the new members is always “only listen to people who are successful in online marketing, i.e. actually making money”. Older members (older than say, 1-2 years) who have a long established website give us invaluable tips and advice. I listen to these people and see them as my mentors. Stay focused on one and only purpose – make money online!
Hey, there’s something I’ve been wondering. You mentioned WA was yet to be mobile friendly. Do you think it will be in the future? I was PMing someone the other day using my phone, took me like 10 minutes to write a few lines. I had to reply to someone urgently, got really frustrated.
Thanks
Hi Sebastien, I think someone has mentioned about it within the community recently and Kyle replied. I too have experienced a difficulty when sending a private message to a fellow member using my iPhone. The message box width cannot be adjusted to the screen, and I couldn’t slide it from left to right either, therefore couldn’t see the entire sentence. It’s something they’re working on right now, so let’s hope a brilliant mobile version will be released soon. Thanks again for your message.
Hi there! This is such a great review of WA although I do notice the price has changed. I am a new member and going through all the courses. So far, I have a good experience and I am looking forward to writing more contents. Just did another one today:)
Hi, thanks for your comment. Sounds good that you’re enjoying the membership. Yes the premium price was $47 per month for many years and has recently gone up by $2 per month, though annual membership fee is unchanged.
Hi, I just want to emphasis the value of a Wealthy Affiliate membership. If you’re anyone who currently paying for web hosting from say Host Gator, depending on your package, you’re already spending hundreds (at least over $100) per year JUST for the hosting. With Weathly Affiliate you get up to 50 websites PLUS everything else you discussed in your review. To me it’s a no brainer.
Hi Jason, thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. Yes you’re absolutely right, the more number of websites you own, the better the value Wealthy Affiliate gets. The thing I like about it is free SiteRubix domain, you can open a site, test it, delete the site if you don’t like it, open another one, move your own domain name if you wish to continue to use it, and so on. It’s a great flexibility. It is a good value, isn’t it. Thanks again!
Wealthy affiliate has proven to be trust worthy, the community keeps it real with like minded people who are willing to help people to reach their goals and then celebrate with them. i have been a part of this community for almost a year and i am loving it. your website looks great, keep up the good work.
Hi Norman, thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear you enjoy the the membership. Yeah, they “celebrate” each other, don’t they. I’ve been in many sorts of online marketing communities and, naturally members encourage each other in the forum or in the form of open messages. But this “celebration” spirit throughout WA seems to be quite solid. That’s not a bad thing.
Hi,
I’ve really been pondering whether I should join WA or not. I’ve read endless reviews about it and it’s crazy how many people are out there saying great things about it.
Now I see in this article that WA has a referral program so it makes sense that so many people are spouting off about how amazing it is.
That sometimes makes it tough to get honest answers about a program. If there are people that can profit by telling you to join then who knows if it’s actually good or not?
The only reason I do believe the positive things you’re saying is because of the fact that it is free to try. It’s pretty telling that WA is so confident that it will work that they will let you sign up and join without a credit card.
Seems like I have nothing to lose. Thanks.
Robert
Hi Robert, thanks for sharing your thoughts. My theory is slightly different – I think the reason why so many WA members write a “review” and it’s always positive (including myself!) is the fact that all the diplomatic elements exist. It’s about a content marketing platform, written by content marketers. The bloggers’ world where everything has to make sense, if something doesn’t, it will be questioned and answered.
Whereas with other types of schemes, e.g. MLM scheme websites often have missing information, sentences incomplete, diplomatically don’t make sense. The scheme may provide a potential to make whoever joins successful, it doesn’t have an ability to convince them in words.
To rephrase it, it’s a lot easier for reviewers to recommend WA, stating the valid reasons in words.
I also think referral programs are essential for online businesses as a whole. It helps the company/founder’s business to grow, as well as the affiliates financially. We do recommend free services too, you know. Google has so many tools essential for marketers, and most of the tools are free.
Thanks again Robert for such a valuable opinion.
I had so much hype about Wealthy Affiliate. Then 6 months ago, I decided to give it a try myself. I am still with them as a premium member and have never looked back. Your review of WA is spot on. I personally think that they have everything a person could need to become a successful online marketer.
Thanks for your comment! I’m glad you agree with my opinion on WA. I think everything you need to learn about online marketing is there too, if there was anything missing, someone would suggest it and it would be added as a new tutorial. Members often provide us invaluable training video lessons that could potentially be worth hundreds of dollars, I do appreciate their time and effort sparing for us.
I’ve never read a more comprehensive review of Wealthy Affiliate. I joined since 2015. Affordable price and considering you can webhost up to 50 websites just by paying the subscription fee. It’s hard to get a better deal than that. What’s amazing is the platform of ever increasing community there. And there are no upsells, not a single one. Been learning alot ever since.
Hi Kenny, thanks for your comment. Imagine having 50 websites of your own – I wish I could handle that many, but then that would be a super REAL bargain. I’m not personally against upsells, but Wealthy Affiliate’s no-upsell environment is probably one of the biggest elements that the members feel safe and comfortable with.
I like Wealthy affiliate myself as well because I have been part of so many other programs but got nothing in return just loss of money. Now I am a premium member of Wealthy affiliate and find it is worth every penny that I pay. I have been learning so much from being a member and have created 2 websites that are getting better every day. Thanks for informing others of our great program!
Hi Nicole, thanks for your comment, you too are a premium “WA’er” then, It’s always good to hear someone starts to work on new websites and enjoys it. Good luck with your business!
Ray!!! You have done a fantastic job about WA. I have read so many WA reviews but i can say that your review is far better than them. Recently i joined WA and i already gone through few lessons its awesome. I do not know anything about how to build website but now i own a website. Thanks to WA. All the best.
Hi thanks for your comment and compliment! Good to know that you’re enjoying the membership. I wish you the very best of luck with your new website!
Very nice WA affiliatte review Ray. I hope people can realize that nothing in life is free, if there is a site that says something like “Join today and start earning $100 per hour without doing anything”, I want to know because such a thing doesn’t exist. WA may ask you for a monthly premium membership fee of almost $50, but it’s SO worth it, if you are patient and dedicated, you will recover it and open your life to many opportunities.
In short, internet revenue is possible..but you gotta prepare the bases first…! I really recommend it to anyone who wants to start working from their homes instead of tolerating awful bosses and other difficulties.
Thank you for the reading!
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment. I’m glad you say the Wealthy Affiliate premium fee is worth it. $49 per month does seem like a lot of money, and you won’t get a return quick and easy. It is hard to convince one that it’s worth joining because of the vast amount of resources to make their business successful. Thanks for recommending it too!
I have been in wealthy affiliate for almost two months now and it has been the best experience ever. I still wonder how lucky i was to stumble into wealthy affiliate. the services are wonderful and the support is immense. I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world where you can get such a major lift for your business
Good to hear that you’ve been enjoying the membership. I agree with you, I don’t think you can get the same level of services and professional all-round advices (marketing, technical) from anywhere else. There are some other affiliate marketing programs but the level of support in order for you to make money is never as great as WA.
Thanks for your comment,
Ray
I dunno Ray … Seems very expensive. Possible to make some money while going to this school u r introducing? Like me in my college days … Working in the evenings and going to classes in the day …
That is $360 on annual and close to $600 a year if we pay monthly … How do we know it’s gonna work? Thx. Apeng.
Hi Apeng, thanks for your comment. I think the price measurement depends what you compare it with. As I said above, the membership is FREE, so you can decide after you’ve joined whether you want to go for premium or not.
It is an option to keep your free membership, try to learn as much as you can from Wealthy Affiliate and pay elsewhere to build your own website. Some people actually do this. But they normally go back to WA to take full advantages (site hosted & monitored as well as professional marketing advices)
How do you know it’s gonna work? You just have to try & see yourself! That’s what any “free trials” are for. WA is no exception!
Ray
Don’t trust Wealthy Affiliate because I lost a lot of money for nothing. I paid 49 dollars every month
for about a year without knowing it. When I asked for a refund for over 10 times over 3 months but didn’t receive a single reply.
While I was waiting for the reply my money was automatically going out from my account.
It didn’t even let me make a website. I asked several questions but they just said I
had to contact site support. Nothing worked for me and I lost over 500 dollars. How can it call
wealthy when it takes payment and keep the member penniless?
Hi Cai, thanks for your comment but that doesn’t sound right… You could have stopped your payment as soon as you decided not to continue your membership. Canceling your account is easy, and if you didn’t understand it, you could have dropped a line or used the live chat to ask why.
As I explained it in the post, a premium member can create up to 10 websites (as of 2020) and if you had any technical issues, yes, all you would have had to do is to contact the site support. No Wealthy Affiliate member experiences problems such as the ones you had, and it sounds so unfortunate for you. All I can suggest is that in the future, keep an eye on any direct debit transactions on your bank account! I wish you all the best!