Amway Corp. (Alticor Inc.)
The company whose 1979 FTC case wrote the legal test every other opportunity on this site is measured against - publishing an average annual gross of $750 per US participant, before expenses, and in September 2026 agreeing without admission to a $225 million settlement with the FTC and Washington State that awaits court entry.
Sixty-seven years, real manufacturing, the best exit terms in the category and a published disclosure showing the average participant grossing $750 a year before costs - and, since September 2026, a $225 million federal settlement agreed without admission and awaiting court entry.
Disclosure
The editor of this site, Rob Fore, was an Amway distributor twice: from about 1986 for roughly two years, and again in 1999, the year Amway launched Quixtar, when he left within a year. He never rose above Silver. He rejoined because Quixtar was presented as a business that could be run fully online. In his experience, whether a distributor could work that way depended on the sponsor, and his still ran the business through ordering and picking up product in person. He canceled both times. He has had no relationship with the company since. He does not set scores: this report’s grade is the weighted composite of its nine published dimension scores, and the build rejects any page where those two disagree. Our full conflict-of-interest statement, including every position held, is on the About page.
Can you actually make money with Amway?
No, and the arithmetic is published by the company that wrote the rules everybody else on this site is measured against. The 2025 US disclosure puts average annual gross income across all IBOs at $750, before expenses. Among IBOs with any sales at all it is $1,161. Thirty-eight percent of registered IBOs made no sales, sponsored nobody and were paid nothing during the year.
The mechanism behind that is the retail margin. The business reference guide’s examples put the retail margin at 10%, 15% or 20%, with $100 of retail on $90 of IBO cost as the lowest, and its worked example promises a minimum of 10% in retail markup and commissions: a markup of roughly 10% and about half the specialty-retail norm, which means selling alone will not carry a business and effort routes toward group volume instead. The one genuinely retail-facing incentive is capped at $75 a month and expires after the registration year plus two: a maximum of $900 a year for three years, then nothing, while the group-volume bonuses have no cap and no expiry.
Two more numbers belong beside those. Reaching the 25% bonus band takes roughly $25,725 of group volume in a month, Platinum takes six such months in a performance year, and Platinum is held by 0.18% of all IBOs. And the largest expense a serious builder carries is disclosed by nobody: the training systems run by large IBO organizations sell books, recordings and functions separately from the company, reportedly around $112 to $117 a month, and they appear in no disclosure anywhere.
What is good here is substantial, and it is contractual rather than promotional. Registration is free, renewal is about $71 a year, and there is no autoship and no monthly qualifying order to hold an account. Product may be returned for 180 days, the Buy-Back Rule obliges the company to repurchase resalable inventory from a departing IBO, termination is at will and the business is inheritable. Sponsoring anyone at all now requires $300 of Verified Customer Sales first. And the disclosure itself, with medians, a zero-earner rate and an explicit before-expenses statement, is above what most of this sector publishes.
free to register and free for the first contract year, then $55 a year to renew, or $71 with the optional IBOAI membership - the cost arrives in qualification volume and in the separate tools systems
- A retail incentive that is not the smallest and shortest-lived thing in the plan. While the Customer Sales Incentive caps at $75 a month and expires after three years and the group-volume bonuses do neither, the plan is stating where it wants the effort to go.
- The ten-customer rule back as a rule. It is now an either/or satisfiable with 50 PV of verified customer volume, potentially a single customer, and ten separate retail relationships were where the 1979 safeguard actually had teeth.
- The tools systems inside the income disclosure. The largest cost a serious builder carries is sold by organizations the company does not report on, and no figure for it appears in any company disclosure; the only current figures are allegations in the FTC’s September 2026 complaint.
- A retail margin a business can be built on. Roughly 10% of retail price is about half the specialty-retail norm, and it is the reason effort routes to group volume rather than to customers.
That call is computed, not chosen - the rule reads three of the nine published dimension scores and is printed on the methodology page. It describes this company's plan and the figures it publishes about the people already in it. It is not a prediction about you, and nothing on this site is advice.
Legal status
LEGAL - and legally foundational. The Federal Trade Commission held in 1979 that the plan was not an unlawful pyramid because of three safeguards it required the company to operate, and that ruling remains the test regulators apply to this entire industry. The file since then contains a $100,000 FTC civil penalty in 1986, a US class action settled in 2010 without admission of liability, three FTC Notices of Penalty Offenses (two in October 2021, one in April 2023), and a live money-laundering prosecution in India where a chargesheet was accepted by a Hyderabad court on 20 November 2023. The Indian matter is sub judice with no conviction. On 17 September 2026 the FTC and Washington State filed a federal complaint alleging that the company and two of its largest approved-provider training organizations used deceptive earnings claims and falsely reported sales; a stipulated order for $225 million and changes to the plan is agreed, pending court entry, with no admission of the allegations.
Confidence: Medium-High
Primary sources fetched directly where possible. Everything we could not verify is listed at the bottom of this page by name.
Follow the money
A privately held Michigan manufacturer selling nutrition, beauty, home care and water treatment through independent business owners on a stairstep-breakaway plan, in continuous family ownership since 1959 and operating under safeguards a federal regulator imposed in 1979.
The legal history here is not background color - it is the reason this file grades where it does. In 1979 the Federal Trade Commission held that this plan was not an unlawful pyramid, because the company operated three specific safeguards: it repurchased unsold inventory from departing participants, it required that participants sell a set proportion of what they bought before ordering more, and it required a minimum number of separate retail customers before bonuses were paid. Those three rules are why an income opportunity that pays on group volume can be lawful at all, and every company on this site is measured against them. Amway is the only one that had to invent them.
And the structural consequences are visible everywhere in the terms. Registration is free. Renewal is roughly $71 a year. Product can be returned for 180 days. The company is contractually obliged to buy back resalable inventory from an IBO who quits. You can terminate at will and your business is inheritable. There is no monthly autoship you must hold to be paid on other people’s activity. Behind it sits genuine manufacturing - roughly 6,000 acres of certified organic farmland, more than 800 scientists, over 750 patents - and a sixty-seven-year operating history in which no principal has ever been criminally convicted or barred. On counterparty risk, on exit rights and on product reality, this is the strongest file graded here.
Then read the disclosure. The company’s own 2025 US statement puts average annual gross income across all IBOs at $750, before expenses. Some 38% of registered IBOs made no sales, sponsored no one and were paid nothing. Among those who were paid something, the median for the top half was $551 for the year; for the top decile, $4,854. Platinum - 0.18% of the field - averages $24,830 and requires around $25,725 of monthly group volume in six months of the performance year. The retail margin that is supposed to make this work is roughly 10%: sell $478 of product and you keep about $48. The Customer Sales Incentive that tops it up is capped at $75 a month and expires after the registration year plus two. The structure is the safest in the industry and the arithmetic is the same as everywhere else.
What US IBOs earned in 2025
Derived from the company’s own published US income disclosure, which states that 59% received a payment; the split of that 59% into the top decile and the rest is our arithmetic. Percentages of all registered IBOs; income is gross, before expenses, which the disclosure states explicitly.
| Product | Price | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| IBO registration Genuinely free to register. There is no mandatory kit and no purchase requirement to hold the account - a direct legacy of the 1979 order. |
$0 one-time |
— |
| Annual renewal Charged from the second contract year: $55 to Amway, plus $16 if you keep the optional IBOAI membership, $71 in all. Low by any standard. The catch is on the other side: a late renewal lets the company decline to restore your sponsoring relationships, so letting it lapse can forfeit the downline, which is the single asset a long-tenured IBO has built. |
$55 + optional $16 annual |
— |
| Nutrilite Double X - 31-day supply The flagship supplement. About $6.60 of retail margin per unit sold to a customer, before any bonus on volume. |
$66.00 retail monthly |
~10% |
| Artistry Skin Nutrition Hydrating Gel Cream Premium skincare pricing with an in-house research program behind it - but no independent retail channel exists against which a buyer can test the claim. |
$45.00 retail (50 g) per unit |
~10% |
| Personal volume to earn the 3% bonus band The bottom rung. Derived from the company’s stated 3.43:1 BV-to-PV ratio; treat all such conversions as approximations. |
~$343 BV/mo recurring |
3% |
| Group volume to reach the 25% band (Silver) 7,500 PV of group volume, and six qualifying months to hold Platinum. This is the scale at which the plan actually pays. |
~$25,725/mo recurring |
25% |
| Customer Sales Incentive The one genuinely retail-flavoured incentive. Maximum $900 a year, and it expires after the registration year plus two. |
capped at $75/mo recurring |
~10% of BV |
| Business support materials (third-party systems) Training systems run by large IBO organizations rather than by the company. Historically the largest single participant expense, and none of them publish current pricing - this is the biggest unverified line in the budget. |
~$112-117/mo reported recurring |
— |
Who runs it, and what they ran before
Boyhood friends from Grand Rapids, Michigan who built the company from a basement operation into the largest direct-selling business in the world. Van Andel died in 2004, DeVos in 2018. Neither was ever the subject of a criminal conviction, securities bar or personal regulatory sanction. Their families have never sold, and the company states an intention to keep ownership in the family for future generations.
Sons of the founders. Steve Van Andel served as Chairman for more than twenty-three years; Doug DeVos served as President for sixteen. Both families appear on published lists of the wealthiest families in America. The DeVos family is unusually politically prominent for a private consumer company, which means regulatory scrutiny here is inevitably read through a political lens by both critics and defenders - that is a fact about the coverage, not a finding about the business.
An internal promotion after more than thirty years inside the company across strategy, supply chain, human resources and technology. He succeeded Milind Pant, the first chief executive from outside the founding families, who held the role from January 2019 to September 2024. Two chief executive changes in six years against four consecutive years of declining sales is a signal worth registering, even where each individual appointment is unremarkable.
On operator durability this company is at the top of its industry: it has survived a landmark federal adjudication, a British winding-up petition, a US class action and an Indian money-laundering prosecution, and it is still trading after sixty-seven years. A participant assessing counterparty risk can be confident the company will exist next year, which is genuinely not true of most of what is graded here. What durability does not buy is participant outcome - and the company publishes that number itself.
Registered address
Ada, Michigan, USA
Privately held and continuously family-controlled for sixty-seven years through Alticor Inc. There are no audited public accounts and no published board roster beyond the two co-chairs, so revenue figures are company statements. Those statements are unusually consistent and unusually unflattering: global sales of $7.3 billion in 2025, a fourth consecutive annual decline, and roughly 38% below the $11.8 billion peak recorded in 2013. Manufacturing and agriculture are owned rather than contracted - approximately 6,000 acres of certified organic farmland, more than 800 scientists and over 750 patents.
The veteran's checklist
Eight questions that decide whether this is a business or a transfer mechanism. Same eight, every review.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who legally owns it? |
WATCH
Amway Corp., a subsidiary of Alticor Inc., privately held by the Van Andel and DeVos families since 1959. No audited public accounts and no published board roster beyond the two co-chairs.
|
| What does it cost to start? |
OK
Nothing to register and roughly $71 a year to renew, with no mandatory kit and no autoship. The cost arrives as qualification volume and as separately sold training-system subscriptions the company does not disclose.
|
| Regulatory action against the company, ever? |
CONCERN
The 1979 FTC decision found the plan lawful subject to three safeguards; a $100,000 FTC civil penalty followed in 1986. Since then: a 2010 class settlement without admission of liability, three FTC Notices of Penalty Offenses, a live Indian money-laundering prosecution with no conviction, and a September 2026 FTC and Washington State lawsuit alleging deceptive earnings claims and faked customer sales, with a $225 million stipulated order agreed without admission and pending court entry.
|
| Published income disclosure? |
CONCERN
Yes, and it is above sector standard - averages and medians, an explicit 38% who transacted in no way at all, and a clear statement that figures are gross of expenses. It shows an average annual gross of $750 across all US IBOs.
|
| What does it take to break even? |
CONCERN
About $7,500 of customer sales just to reach the published $750 average at the roughly 10% retail margin - and around $25,725 of monthly group volume to reach the 25% bonus band.
|
| Is there a monthly purchase requirement? |
OK
No. There is no autoship and no standing order required to hold an account or to be paid - a direct legacy of the 1979 order and a genuine structural advantage.
|
| Can you get your money back? |
OK
Yes, and better than anywhere else graded here: 180-day product returns plus a contractual Buy-Back Rule requiring repurchase of resalable inventory from a terminating IBO.
|
| Merchant play or miner play? |
WATCH
Miner, structurally, despite the safeguards. Retail pays about 10% and the retail incentive is capped at $75 a month and expires; the uncapped money is all in group volume.
|
What has to be true for you to get paid
| To cover | You need |
|---|---|
| Register and hold an account for a year | $0 free registration and a complimentary first contract year; renewal from year two is $55, plus an optional $16 IBOAI membership; no mandatory kit or autoship |
| Be allowed to sponsor anyone | $300 of Verified Customer Sales a real retail gate, and one of the better ones in the industry |
| Earn the published $750 average from retail alone | ~$7,500 of customer sales at the roughly 10% retail margin the company documents |
| Reach the 25% bonus band | ~$25,725/mo group volume 7,500 PV, sustained six months for Platinum - 0.18% of all IBOs |
Read this twice
The cost side of this business is genuinely the lightest in the industry, and that must be said before anything else: no registration fee, roughly $71 a year to renew, no mandatory kit, no autoship you must hold to be paid, 180-day returns and a contractual buyback on termination. A person can hold an account for a decade for under a thousand dollars. So the arithmetic that decides this file is not about extraction at the door - it is about what comes back. The company publishes an average annual gross of $750 across all US IBOs, before expenses, and states that 38% made no sales, sponsored nobody and were paid nothing. To earn that $750 from retail alone at the documented 10% margin requires around $7,500 of customer sales. The Customer Sales Incentive that supplements it is capped at $75 a month and expires after the registration year plus two, so the maximum retail-flavoured top-up is $900 a year for three years and then nothing. Everything above that is group volume: the 25% band needs roughly $25,725 of monthly group volume, and Platinum - which averages $24,830 and is where the business starts to resemble the pitch - is held by 0.18% of the field. Then there is the expense no disclosure captures. The large IBO training organizations sell books, recordings, seminars and functions separately from the company, historically at somewhere around $112 to $117 a month, and none of them publishes current pricing. That is the biggest unverified number in this file, and for most serious builders it has historically exceeded everything else combined.
Run your own numbers
Drag the sliders. Nothing here is stored or sent.
The documented ~10% retail margin on a customer spending about $150/month. Cost is the $55 renewal plus the optional $16 IBOAI membership ($71) spread monthly; the first contract year is free - there is no autoship, which is unusual and genuinely good. Use the ad-spend slider for the separately sold training systems, reported around $112 to $117 a month; advertising itself needs the company’s written approval. Published average across all US IBOs: $750 a year, before expenses. Your own subscription cost of $6/mo is included.
What it costs to replace this yourself
The company publishes retail prices openly, which makes this comparison unusually easy to run. Comparator prices are typical US open-market equivalents at similar quality tiers, presented as bands because formulations and certifications differ. Note that no independent channel sells these products, so a buyer cannot arbitrage the comparison - the marketplaces are contractually closed.
| What they sell you | What you'd use instead | Your cost |
|---|---|---|
| Nutrilite Double X - $66.00 for 31 days | Whole-food multivitamin with third-party testing | ~$25-45 |
| Artistry Skin Nutrition Hydrating Gel Cream - $45.00 (50 g) | Mid-prestige gel-cream moisturiser, same size | ~$20-38 |
| Home care concentrate range | Concentrated open-market equivalents | ~50-70% of list |
| Energy and sports nutrition line | Established open-market sports nutrition brand | ~55-75% of list |
| Water treatment system | Certified open-market point-of-use system | ~40-70% of list |
| Group volume to reach the 25% band - ~$25,725/mo | No qualification, no volume, no band | $0 |
| Total as sold ~$130-190 for a monthly personal basket |
Total, built yourself ~$60-115 for open-market equivalents |
Price-to-value
Roughly a 1.5x to 2x premium - modest by the standards of this category, and partly defensible. The farmland is real, the patent portfolio is real, and the manufacturing is owned rather than contracted, which is more than most premium supplement brands can say. What you cannot do is verify it: marketplace and retail selling are contractually prohibited, so the product never faces an independent shelf, an independent price or an independent reviewer. And the 10% retail margin means the participant reselling it captures very little of that premium - the money in this plan has never been in the markup.
Three operators, five horizons
Probability of cumulative net profit
Hover any point for median, top decile and bottom quartile.
Registered non-participant
signs up, buys some product for personal use, never builds
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 12% | −$20 |
| 6 mo | 13% | −$40 |
| 1 yr | 14% | −$71 |
| 3 yr | 14% | −$210 |
| 5 yr | 14% | −$355 |
Part-time builder
10 hrs/wk, warm market, one training system subscription
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 11% | −$460 |
| 6 mo | 14% | −$880 |
| 1 yr | 17% | −$1,600 |
| 3 yr | 20% | −$4,300 |
| 5 yr | 21% | −$6,600 |
Full-time builder
30+ hrs/wk, functions and seminars, driving toward Platinum
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 5% | −$1,400 |
| 6 mo | 9% | −$2,700 |
| 1 yr | 13% | −$5,000 |
| 3 yr | 18% | −$12,000 |
| 5 yr | 20% | −$18,000 |
Methodology note. ANCHORED to the company’s published 2025 US income disclosure: average annual gross of $750 across all IBOs and $1,161 across IBOs with any sales; 38% with no sales, no sponsoring and no payment; a median of $551 for the top half of paid IBOs and $4,854 for the top decile; Platinum at 0.18% of all IBOs averaging $24,830. Anchored also to the published cost and plan side: free registration, roughly $71 annual renewal, the roughly 10% retail margin the company documents, the 3%-to-25% performance bonus schedule, the 7,500 PV Silver threshold, the $300 Verified Customer Sales gate before sponsoring, and the $75 monthly cap on the Customer Sales Incentive. MODELED by us: the entire expense side, and it is the reason every builder cohort runs negative at the median. The company publishes no participant expense figure, and the largest real cost - the separately sold training systems run by large IBO organizations, reported in the region of $112 to $117 a month - is not disclosed by anyone, including the systems themselves. Also modeled: the share of each cohort in cumulative profit, and the cohort definitions. Two calibration notes. The registered non-participant row is close to flat by design, because the entry cost is near zero and there is no autoship - that is a genuine structural credit, and the scores give it in full. And the five-year top column for full-time builders reflects the Platinum-and-above band: Platinum alone is 0.18% of IBOs and Founders Platinum a further 0.54%.
Where you are actually allowed to promote this
Platform policy reads, not verifications. Check every one before you spend a dollar - enforcement changes faster than the written policy does.
Red flags and green flags
Red flags
151A federal complaint over earnings claims and faked customer sales, settled for $225 million pending court entry
2The average US IBO grossed $750 for the year, before expenses
338% of registered IBOs made no sales, sponsored nobody and were paid nothing
4The retail margin is roughly 10% of retail price
5The one retail-flavoured incentive is capped at $75 a month and expires
6The ten-customer rule is now an either/or, satisfiable with as little as one customer
7Reaching the top bonus band requires roughly $25,725 of monthly group volume
8Four consecutive years of declining global sales
9A live money-laundering prosecution in India
10Three FTC Notices of Penalty Offenses
11An independent watchdog found income claims on the company’s own properties
12A UK court recorded that 71% of British IBOs earned no bonus at all over five years
13The largest participant expense is not disclosed by anyone
14Missing the annual renewal can forfeit the downline
15A 2010 class settlement whose exact terms are reported inconsistently
Green flags
91The 1979 FTC decision, and the safeguards that came out of it
2Free registration and no autoship, ever
3The best exit terms in the category, and they are contractual
4A real retail gate before you may sponsor anyone
5Genuine manufacturing, farmland and research
6It publishes an income disclosure with a zero-earner rate and medians
7Zero securities exposure in sixty-seven years
8Cold outreach and paid advertising are both banned
9Operator durability that nothing else here can match
We would like to be wrong about this
Upward
- Restoring the ten-customer rule as a genuine requirement rather than an either/or satisfiable with 50 PV, and removing the $75 monthly cap and the expiry after the registration year plus two from the Customer Sales Incentive. Entry of the September 2026 stipulated order would go further than either: once in effect, 70% of each IBO’s monthly volume would have to be sales to registered customers outside the plan, sponsoring would wait on sales to three such customers, and an outside auditor would check the records every year. Independent audit reports showing that working would move this file up.
- Publishing a full per-rank income table with headcounts and a median participant expense figure that includes the separately sold training systems, so a reader can compute a net rather than a gross.
- Resolution of the Indian proceedings without conviction, together with two consecutive years of revenue growth and a clean independent audit of income claims on company-controlled properties.
Downward
- A conviction or adverse judgment in the Indian money-laundering prosecution, a court declining to enter the September 2026 FTC settlement, or a finding that the company breached it once entered.
- Further erosion of the 1979 safeguards - a weakening of the buyback obligation, the sell-through requirement or the remaining customer gate.
- A fifth and sixth consecutive year of revenue decline, or a disclosure showing the average gross falling further while the share of IBOs transacting at all continues to shrink.
Grade is C-. The best exit terms and the deepest history in the industry, an average of $750 a year before costs, and a $225 million federal settlement agreed without admission and pending court entry.
This file deserves its credit stated first and at length, because it is not the usual shape. In 1979 a federal regulator examined this plan and held it lawful, on condition of three safeguards - buy back unsold stock from people who quit, require that stock actually be sold before more is ordered, and require real retail customers before bonuses pay. Those safeguards are now the legal test for the entire industry. Forty-seven years later the terms that came out of that order are still the best on this site: free registration, roughly $71 a year, no mandatory kit, no autoship, 180-day returns, a contractual buyback, termination at will and an inheritable business. Behind it is 6,000 acres of certified organic farmland, 800 scientists, 750 patents and sixty-seven years of continuous family ownership with no principal ever criminally convicted or barred. And $300 of verified customer sales is required before you may sponsor anyone - a genuine retail gate that most companies graded here do not have in any form.
And then the same arithmetic as everywhere else. The company publishes it: average annual gross of $750 across all US IBOs, before expenses; 38% who made no sales, sponsored nobody and were paid nothing; a median of $551 for the top half of IBOs who were paid at all. The retail margin is roughly 10%, so earning that published average from selling alone takes about $7,500 of customer sales. The Customer Sales Incentive that tops it up is capped at $75 a month and expires after three years, while the group-volume bonuses it sits beside have no cap and no expiry - which tells you precisely where the plan wants effort to go. Reaching the 25% band takes around $25,725 of monthly group volume; Platinum, where the numbers start to resemble the pitch, is 0.18% of the field. And the largest cost most serious builders face - the training systems sold separately by large IBO organizations - appears in no disclosure anywhere.
Three things now hold this file down, and only two of them are about direction. Global sales have fallen for four consecutive years to $7.3 billion, roughly 38% below the 2013 peak, which means a shrinking pool funding a shrinking field. An unresolved money-laundering prosecution in India, where a chargesheet alleging Rs 4,050.21 crore of proceeds of crime was accepted in November 2023, remains sub judice with no conviction and no finding of liability. And in September 2026 the FTC and Washington State sued the company and two of its largest approved-provider training organizations, alleging that recruits were told they were likely to earn more than $40,000 a year when most who joined those two groups after 2020 spent more than they received, were pressured to buy product they did not want and could not easily sell, and were told to report customer sales that never happened. The defendants agreed to pay $225 million and to rebuild the plan around verified customer sales, without admitting or denying any of it, in an order that takes force only when the court enters it. None of those is a finding that this company is dishonest, and none should be read as one. Together they are reasons to say that a structure built on the industry’s founding safeguards still leaves three in four of the IBOs who were paid at all at or below $551 a year (our arithmetic from the published top-half median), and that a structure being safe on paper is not the same as an opportunity being good.
Register, but treat the $300 customer gate as the whole test
Registration is free and there is no autoship, so the downside of trying is genuinely near zero - which is rare here. Before spending anything on tools, seminars or product beyond what you use, sell $300 of verified customer volume to people who are not in the plan. If that is hard, the group-volume ladder above it will be far harder, and you have learned it for nothing.
Price the tools system before you price the opportunity
The training organizations are separate businesses from the company, none of them publishes current pricing, and their cost appears in no income disclosure. Ask your prospective upline for the annual all-in figure for books, recordings, functions and travel in writing. For most serious builders it has historically exceeded every other expense combined, and it is the number the $750 average does not include.
Do not build a plan that needs paid traffic or marketplaces
Advertising needs the company’s express written approval, the published digital standards ban paid ads and branded keyword bidding, public e-commerce platforms and retail stores are closed to you, and cold messaging to strangers is a rules violation. Those rules are good for consumers and fatal for anyone whose skill is acquisition at scale. If that is your skill, this is structurally the wrong vehicle for it, no matter how good the products are.
Serve the field rather than joining it
A large, long-tenured field operating under some of the strictest published channel rules in the industry - no paid ads, no marketplaces, no branded domains, prior approval for income claims in video - is a market with a permanent, regulator-created compliance need. Claim-safe content, approval-ready templates and customer-sales tracking are merchant businesses aimed at that need, and none of them require you to hold group volume.
Nine dimensions, weighted
Dimension profile
Further from center is better. Hover any point.
Hard caps that bind here
The lowest binding cap wins, regardless of the weighted arithmetic.
What we read
Every source below links to the document itself. Tier 1 is a primary record - the company’s own plan, policy or disclosure, a court filing, a regulator’s decision or an SEC filing. Tier 2 is a self-regulatory or secondary regulator record, tier 3 reporting or academic work, tier 4 an open-market price comparison. Where a document can be moved or withdrawn, an archived copy is linked beside it. If a link is dead when you try it, that is a correction we want.
- FTC press release, 17 September 2026 - “FTC Takes Historic Action Against Multilevel Marketing Operator Amway for Unfair and Deceptive Business Practices” ($225 million under the proposed order, described as the largest monetary recovery obtained in an FTC action against a multilevel marketing company; the conduct changes)
FTC and Washington State v. Amway Corp., World Wide Group, L.L.C. and Leadership Team Development, Inc. - $225 million under the proposed order; required changes: 70% of monthly purchases resold, reduced recruiter pay on unresold purchases, customer receipts, termination for faked sales, an outside auditor, training before recruiting, and no approved-provider charges to new IBOs in their first year. The release notes that stipulated final orders have the force of law only when approved and signed by the District Court judge.
- FTC case page - Amway, FTC v. (case status: Pending; last updated 17 September 2026), with the complaint and stipulated order
- Complaint for Permanent Injunction, Monetary Judgment, Civil Penalty Judgment, and Other Relief - Federal Trade Commission and State of Washington v. Amway Corp., World Wide Group, L.L.C. and Leadership Team Development, Inc., W.D. Wash. No. 2:26-cv-03474, Document 1, filed 17 September 2026 (PDF)
Allegations only. Six counts: unfairness, misrepresentations on earnings and recruiting, on services provided and on customer sales (FTC Act Section 5), and deceptive and unfair practices under the Washington Consumer Protection Act. Alleged figures from company data: 2023 median total bonus $139 across more than 241,000 IBOs; fewer than 1,600 at $40,000 or more; IBOs bought 77% of products sold in 2023; training costs in the two named organizations of about $1,600 to $3,600 a year from the second year.
- Stipulated Order for Permanent Injunction, Monetary Judgment, and Other Relief - W.D. Wash. No. 2:26-cv-03474, Document 2-1, filed 17 September 2026, proposed and not yet entered (PDF)
Defendants neither admit nor deny the allegations. Judgments: $154.7m against Amway Corp.; $39.78m against World Wide Group and Amway jointly; $26.52m against Leadership Team Development and Amway jointly; $4m to Washington against all defendants ($225m in all). Plan terms effective nine months after entry and lasting ten years: benefits only on eligible customer sales or permitted unsold purchases, 70% eligible customer sales per month with proportional cuts below it, three eligible customers before sponsoring, full 12-month refunds with return shipping paid, no purchase required for benefits. Also: no payments collected from IBOs in their first twelve months except for product, an independent auditor for ten years, and earnings disclosures with medians and expenses.
Not established by this document: Signature line for the District Judge is blank in the filed copy; the FTC case page lists the case as pending. Entry not confirmed.
- Amway 2025 U.S. Income Disclosure - official disclosure page ($750 average for all IBOs at Founders Platinum and below; $1,161 for those reporting sales; 38% with no sales, no sponsoring and no payment; $551 median top-50% and $4,854 median top-10%; Platinum 0.18% averaging $24,830)
Amway 2025 US Income Disclosure - average annual gross of $750 across all IBOs and $1,161 across IBOs with any sales; 38% with no sales, no sponsoring and no payment; median $551 for the top half of paid IBOs and $4,854 for the top decile; Platinum at 0.18% averaging $24,830
- Amway 2025 U.S. Income Disclosure - printable PDF
- Amway Business Reference Guide, U.S. edition (PDF) - the Amway IBO Compensation Plan (Core Plan), performance bonus schedule, Silver/Platinum qualification and the Rules of Conduct at Section C
Amway Business Reference Guide and Money & Rewards documentation - the roughly 10% retail margin ($100 retail / $90 IBO cost), the 3%-25% performance bonus schedule, the 3.43:1 BV-to-PV ratio, the 7,500 PV Silver threshold, the $300 Verified Customer Sales sponsoring gate, and the $75 monthly cap and two-year expiry on the Customer Sales Incentive
Not established by this document: Amway publishes no separate public 'Money & Rewards' document, and the per-SKU PV/BV values behind the 3.43:1 ratio, the 7,500 PV Silver threshold, the $300 Verified Customer Sales gate and the $75/two-year Customer Sales Incentive cap sit behind an authenticated IBO login. Only the Business Reference Guide is publicly retrievable.
- Amway U.S. Business Documents hub - Business Reference Guide, Income Disclosure, IBO Registration Agreement
- Amway Rules of Conduct, United States (current edition) - Rule 2.4 Earnings Claim, Rule 4.4 Advertising, Rule 5.4 Earnings Claims, Rule 5.5 Required Disclosures, Rule 7 Business Support Materials
Amway Rules of Conduct and Digital Communications Standards (April 2026 edition) - paid-advertising prohibition, keyword-bidding prohibition, marketplace and retail prohibition, Rule 4.3 on unsolicited messaging, Rule 4.13 on the customer requirement, Rule 5.4 on earnings claims, Rule 8.1 on trademarks
Not established by this document: The April 2026 Digital Communications Standards PDF that is publicly retrievable is Amway's India edition (its contact address is the India Rules Team). No US-market DCS PDF of the same date could be located on a public URL; the US Rules of Conduct page and QAS Content Standards are cited in its place for the US paid-advertising, unsolicited-messaging, customer-requirement and trademark rules.
- Amway Digital Communications Standards (DCS), April 2026 edition (PDF) - paid-advertising prohibition, keyword-bidding prohibition, marketplace and classified-site prohibition, prior-approval list for digital BSM
- Amway Quality Assurance Standards - Content Standards for Independent Business Owners and Approved Providers (PDF), the document Rule 5.4 and Rule 5.5 incorporate for earnings claims and mandatory disclosures
- In the Matter of Amway Corporation, Inc., et al., Docket 9023 - complaint, initial decision, opinion and final order of 8 May 1979, 93 F.T.C. 618 (PDF, pages 618–738 of FTC Decisions vol. 93)
In re Amway Corp., 93 F.T.C. 618 (1979) - the finding that the plan was not an unlawful pyramid, and the three safeguards (buyback, sell-through and retail-customer requirements) it turned on; FTC civil penalty of $100,000, 1986
- FTC news release, 19 May 1986 - "Amway Corp. To Pay $100,000 Civil Penalty, Settling FTC Charges It Failed to Make Required Earnings Disclosures in Newspaper Ad" (archived copy)
- Pokorny v. Quixtar, Inc., 601 F.3d 987 (9th Cir. 2010) - opinion holding Quixtar's mandatory ADR provisions unconscionable (PDF, No. 08-15880, D.C. No. 3:07-cv-00201-SC)
Pokorny v. Quixtar / Amway class settlement, 2010 - settled without admission of liability; most widely cited at $56m comprising roughly $34m cash and $22m in product, with a second reputable source reporting $55m and a $21m product component
Not established by this document: The executed Amended Settlement Agreement and the final approval order are on PACER only; no free primary copy of either document could be retrieved. The $55m/$34m/$21m figures come from the settlement text as quoted by counsel, and the $56m/$22m variant from contemporaneous press reporting.
- GovInfo docket record - Pokorny et al v. Quixtar Inc et al, No. 3:07-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.)
- Quoted text of the Amended Settlement Agreement §§ 5.1–6.1 - $55m in direct economic relief comprising a $34m Cash Fund and a $21m Product Credit Fund, plus the injunctive terms
- "Amway agrees to pay $56 million, settle case alleging it operates a 'pyramid scheme'" - the $34m cash plus $22m product reporting, 3 November 2010
- Boies Schiller Flexner announcement of the Pokorny settlement, valuing economic and injunctive relief at $155 million
- Directorate of Enforcement press release, 20 November 2023 - prosecution complaint under PMLA against Amway India Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., Rs 4,050.21 crore of proceeds of crime, Rs 757.77 crore attached, cognizance taken by the Special Court (PMLA), Hyderabad (PDF)
India Enforcement Directorate - provisional attachment of Rs 757.77 crore, April 2022; chargesheet alleging Rs 4,050.21 crore of proceeds of crime accepted by the Hyderabad PMLA court on 20 November 2023; matter sub judice, no conviction
Not established by this document: The Directorate of Enforcement's own April 2022 press release announcing the provisional attachment is no longer served from enforcementdirectorate.gov.in (the press-release index now returns nothing for that period). The November 2023 ED release, which restates the Rs 757.77 crore attachment, is cited as the primary record, with contemporaneous reporting for the April 2022 date.
- "ED provisionally attaches assets worth Rs 757.77 crore belonging to Amway India" - reporting the April 2022 provisional attachment order (Rs 411.83 crore of property plus Rs 345.94 crore across 36 bank accounts)
- "ED attaches Amway India's assets worth ₹757.77 crore" - including Amway India's own statement on the 2011-vintage investigation
- FTC Notice of Penalty Offenses Concerning Money-Making Opportunities (PDF, October 2021)
FTC Notices of Penalty Offenses issued October 2021 (two) and April 2023, covering money-making opportunities and endorsements; FTC staff report on MLM income disclosures, September 2024
- FTC page - Penalty Offenses Concerning Endorsements (Notice of Penalty Offenses Concerning Deceptive or Unfair Conduct around Endorsements and Testimonials, 2021)
- FTC press release, 26 October 2021 - "FTC Puts Businesses on Notice that False Money-Making Claims Could Lead to Big Penalties" (1,100+ recipients including multi-level marketers)
- FTC press release, 13 April 2023 - "FTC Warns Almost 700 Marketing Companies That They Could Face Civil Penalties if They Can't Back Up Their Product Claims" (Notice of Penalty Offenses Concerning Substantiation of Product Claims)
- List of April 2023 Recipients of the FTC's Notice of Penalty Offenses Concerning Substantiation of Product Claims (PDF) - Amway Corp. appears on the list
- FTC Staff Report - Multi-Level Marketing Income Disclosure Statements, September 2024 (report landing page)
- FTC Staff Report - Multi-Level Marketing Income Disclosure Statements (full PDF, September 2024)
- "Amway reports sales of $7.3B for 2025" - company newsroom release, 31 March 2026
Amway corporate newsroom and Direct Selling News - 2025 global sales of $7.3bn, the fourth consecutive decline against the $11.8bn 2013 peak; appointment of Michael Nelson as President and CEO, 30 September 2024
- "Amway appoints Michael Nelson as new President & Chief Executive Officer" - company newsroom release, 30 September 2024
- "Amway Reports Full-Year 2025 Financial Results" - Direct Selling News, 31 March 2026
- "Amway reports $7.3B in 2025 sales, growth in emerging markets" - reporting the 1% decline and the fourth consecutive year of falling revenue against $7.4bn (2024), $7.7bn (2023) and $8.1bn (2022)
- Amway 2025 Global Impact Report - $7.3bn in 2025 sales, 100+ countries, 13,500+ employees
- Amway U.S. product page - Nutrilite Double X Vitamin/Mineral/Phytonutrient Supplement, 31-Day Supply with 3-Compartment Case (item A4300), listed at $66.00
Amway US retail price list and product pages - Nutrilite Double X 31-day supply at $66.00; Artistry Skin Nutrition Hydrating Gel Cream at $45.00 for 50 g; BBB business profile (A+)
Not established by this document: The Artistry Hydrating Gel Cream page returned $43.00 on the canonical URL and $45.00 on a variant carrying tracking parameters; the tracking parameters were stripped per the linking rules, so the linked page may show a price a couple of dollars below the figure quoted in the report.
- Amway U.S. product page - Artistry Skin Nutrition Hydrating Gel Cream, 50 g / 1.7 oz (item 123798V)
- BBB Business Profile - Amway, Ada, Michigan (BBB Accredited since 1 October 1991; A+ rating)
What we could not get
- The exact terms of the 2010 class settlement - $56m ($34m cash + $22m product) and $55m ($34m + $21m) are both reported by reputable sources; the $34m cash component is solid, and the much larger figures sometimes quoted include a valuation of injunctive relief
- Current pricing for the separately operated IBO training systems - none publishes public figures, and the commonly cited $112-$117 a month could not be date-stamped to 2026. The FTC’s September 2026 complaint alleges figures for the two training organizations it names (more than $2,100 a year for one; $1,600 to more than $3,600 for the other), but those are allegations, settled without admission, and neither organization publishes a price list. This is the largest unverified cost in the participant budget
- Published PV and BV values per individual product - retail prices are public, but per-SKU volume values require a logged-in account, so all dollar conversions here are derived from the stated 3.43:1 ratio and are approximations
- Full board composition beyond the two co-chairs - no board roster is published for Alticor
- Whether the FTC business-opportunity earnings-claim rulemaking survived beyond January 2025, and how it would apply here
- Current US-only revenue and the current US IBO headcount - the disclosure gives percentages and averages but no denominator
- Any 2011 FTC action against the company - none was located; the FTC file consists of the 1979 decision, the 1986 penalty, the Notices of Penalty Offenses and the September 2026 federal complaint and stipulated order
- Whether the court has entered the September 2026 stipulated order. The FTC case page lists the case as pending; once the order is entered, the money is payable within seven days and the plan changes take effect nine months later
Not advice
This is independent analysis for decision-making, not legal, financial or investment advice. Allegations reported by third parties should be verified against primary court and regulatory records before any decision.
Researched by Claude. Reviewed by an editor.
Every report is researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, from the company’s own plan documents, policies, terms and regulatory file - then reviewed before publication by Rob Fore, who checks the sources and the stage-label on every allegation.
- Nine weighted dimensions, published with their weights
- The editor checks the evidence and cannot change the number - the build rejects any page whose grade does not reconcile to its own arithmetic
- Every affiliate position we hold is disclosed on the report it touches
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Amway - frequently asked
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Author, editor and publisher
This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - Amway’s own compensation plan, its policies and procedures, its terms of service, its income disclosure statement where one exists, and its regulatory and self-regulatory file. It was scored against nine weighted dimensions that are published in full, with their weights, on the methodology page.
Before publication it was reviewed by Rob Fore, who checks every source link, every figure against the document it came from, and every allegation against its stage-label - an investigation is not a finding, a warning letter is not an enforcement action, and a filed claim is not a verdict.
The editor does not set the grade. The published score is the weighted composite of the nine dimension scores, and the build refuses to emit a page where the two disagree by more than 0.06. A grade moves when the evidence moves it and not otherwise.
Rob Fore has marketed online since 1996, wrote Online MLM Marketing (2014), and is CEO of Listech Inc, the Nevada corporation that publishes this site. He holds affiliate positions in companies graded here - including LiveGood, which this site grades D, SendOutCards, which it grades C−, and the Home Business Academy, which it grades B−. Those positions are disclosed on the reports they touch, and changed nothing on this page.
About the author and our conflicts · Contact the editor · Corrections: corrections@opportunitygrade.com
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