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PM-International AG

Free to join, genuinely easy to leave, thirty-three years without a single regulator action - and no income disclosure anywhere on earth, so nobody outside the company can price the offer.

Reviewed July 28, 2026 Founded Founded 1993 by Rolf Sorg · privately held, unlisted AG since 2005 Confidence: Medium
D+GRADE
5.4/10
Weighted composite

CLEAN TERMS, UNMEASURABLE ODDS

The best exit terms we have documented in this category, attached to a business whose participant outcomes are invisible in every jurisdiction it trades in.

The question you came with

Can you actually make money with FitLine?

NO No - not on the numbers this company publishes

No, and the reason is an absence rather than an accusation. In thirty-three years, across Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, the US, Canada, Italy and India, PM-International has never published an income disclosure. Not a weak one, not an old one. None. The rulebook points participants instead to earnings as projected in the Official PM Business Presentation, which is a sales projection rather than a record of what anybody was paid. Nobody outside the company can price this offer.

The plan is a hybrid, and the recruitment half is where the ladder sits. Above Sales Manager you advance by producing qualified downline Managers rather than by selling more product, so volume stops working as a lever at rank three. A bonus of 60 euros is paid for each activated new partner, raised from 50 euros in January 2026. And the Firstline Bonus, the first thing paying you on people you sponsored, needs about 100 points of your own monthly volume, roughly 51 euros a month or 612 euros a year.

What is good here is the paperwork, and it is stronger than almost anything else on this site. Joining is free and there is no minimum purchase, both written into the binding Teampartnerregeln rather than the marketing. A new distributor has 30 days to withdraw. Consumers get 30 days and the distributor is obliged to honor it. Unopened resalable product goes back for 90 days with prepaid return shipping and no restocking deduction. And no regulator in Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Spain, the UK or the EU has taken enforcement action in thirty-three years.

What it costs to be in
Free

no minimum purchase - stated in the binding Teampartnerregeln

What would have to change
  • An income disclosure, in any single one of the markets it trades in. Thirty-three years with none anywhere is the fact that sets this grade, and it is the cheapest item on this list to fix.
  • A path above Sales Manager that runs on selling rather than on producing downline Managers. While rank three onward requires people who themselves hit rank, the plan pays for organization-building whatever the retail machinery underneath it does.
  • A per-head bonus that is not paid for activating a new partner. Sixty euros triggered by an enrollment plus activation volume is the textbook hybrid feature, and it sits directly against the no-minimum-purchase rule in the same contract.
  • Audited consolidated group accounts. The US$4.088bn figure a recruit is shown is retail-grossed Aussenumsatz, was published while the company said the figures were still being audited, and no group auditor could be identified anywhere.

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.

US$4.088bn
2025 group turnover
self-reported Außenumsatz - retail-grossed, published pre-audit, not audited net revenue
0
Income disclosures, ever, anywhere
none found in DE, LU, UK, US, CA, IT or IN in 33 years
0
Regulator enforcement actions
searched DE, AT, IT, PL, HU, ES, UK and EU - a genuine green flag
~22x
PowerCocktail vs a mainstream multivitamin
€3.57/day at RRP against €0.16/day, both retail-priced

Legal status

LEGAL - a privately held Luxembourg-headquartered group, trading 33 years across 100+ countries with no consumer-protection, competition, food-safety or advertising regulator enforcement action found anywhere.

Confidence: Medium

Primary sources fetched directly where possible. Everything we could not verify is listed at the bottom of this page by name.

What this actually is

Follow the money

A German-founded, Luxembourg-headquartered family-controlled group selling FitLine vitamin and mineral powders, meal-replacement shakes and cosmetics through a unilevel compensation plan paying six levels deep with a differential management bonus on top.

Start with what this company does better than almost anything in its category, because it is contractual and it is checkable. Enrollment is free - the binding Teampartnerregeln §2.1 states that it is not necessary to order FitLine products to become a distributor, and §5.4 states there is no obligation to purchase and no minimum purchase requirement. A new distributor has 30 days to withdraw. A consumer has a 30-day satisfaction guarantee, and the distributor is contractually obliged to honor it. Unopened resalable product with three months of shelf life left goes back for 90 days, with prepaid return shipping and no restocking fee. Subscriptions have no minimum term and cancel by email. Then add the regulatory record: searching Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Spain, the UK and the EU turned up no consumer-protection, competition, food-safety or advertising authority that has taken enforcement action against PM-International in 33 years. For a company of this size in this sector, that is unusual, and it counts.

What drags the grade down is measurement, not misconduct. PM-International publishes no income disclosure in any jurisdiction - not in Germany, not in Luxembourg, not in the UK, the US, Canada, Italy or India - despite holding membership of five separate direct-selling associations. The rulebook itself gestures at the gap: distributors may repeat hypothetical income examples only alongside "fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of the typical distributors earnings as projected in the Official PM Business Presentation". A projection inside a sales presentation is not an income disclosure. This matters legally as well as editorially, because the company operates in Canada, where Competition Act s.55(2) requires that compensation representations to prospective participants include fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of what typical participants actually receive, and s.55(2.1) makes the operator responsible for its participants and representatives complying too. That is an obligation this report describes, not a breach it alleges - no Canadian enforcement action against PM-International has been found.

And then the growth number, which is the analytical center of this file. The widely repeated figure is US$4.088bn for 2025, up about 27% on 2024. It is self-reported, it is Außenumsatz - retail turnover measured at full recommended retail price, before the 20–45% distributor discount the company's own price list documents - and the company itself said in January 2026 that the figures were still being audited when the number was announced. No published consolidated group financial statements, no group auditor's report and no readable Luxembourg or Bundesanzeiger revenue disclosure could be located; the only identifiable auditor in the group, Ernst & Young AG Zurich, covers a single Swiss subsidiary. The most-cited source for the series contradicts itself, publishing both $2,550m and $2,890m for 2022. None of that means the business is fake - the capital expenditure, the payroll and the ATP sponsorship are hard evidence that real trade is occurring at scale. It means the specific number a recruit is shown is a gross-up of consumer-level value, published before audit, and they have no way to check it.

What "$4 billion" actually measures

Reported retail-grossed Außenumsatz for 2025 against the cash the group would have invoiced at the 20–45% distributor discount its own price list documents. The split is this report's arithmetic on a disclosed discount range, not a company disclosure.

73% 27%
Estimated cash actually invoiced (~US$3.0bn midpoint of a $2.8–3.2bn range)Distributor discount grossed into the headline (~US$1.09bn)
ProductPricePays
Joining as a Team Partner
Teampartnerregeln §2.1 - it is not necessary to order FitLine products to become a distributor. §5.4 - no minimum purchase. One German affiliate site quotes a €15–20 registration fee; the official rules say free.
Free
one-time
20% purchase discount
FitLine PowerCocktail
€3.57 a day at RRP. PM's own LMIV label: 53 g carbohydrate per 100 g, of which 50 g sugars, fructose first-named ingredient, 30 mg caffeine from guarana. Cologne List certified.
€107.00 RRP / €85.60 at TP price
450 g, 30 servings
20–45% retail margin
Optimal Set (personal-use basket)
The realistic self-consumption basket: €1,235 a year at team-partner price. Not required by contract, and in practice the thing most participants actually spend.
€128.70 RRP / €102.96 at TP price
monthly
Firstline Bonus qualification volume
The de facto autoship gate. Nothing obliges you to buy, but without the personal volume you earn nothing on your first line. The €0.51 point ratio is from an independent calculator that disclaims official status.
~100 points ≈ €51
monthly
10% of directly sponsored partners' volume
Training Bonus (EAB)
Raised from €50/$50 effective January 2026. A per-head payment on enrollment plus activation volume - the classic hybrid feature and the strongest Koscot-relevant fact in the plan.
€60 / US$60
per activated new partner
recruitment-triggered
Depth / Royalty Bonus (TB)
Levels 5 and 6 unlock only at International Marketing Manager. Generations are defined by Manager-rank appearances, so depth compresses past inactive partners.
5% level 1, 3% levels 2–4
monthly
unilevel, six levels
Management Bonus (MB) and Top Management Bonus
You are paid the difference between your rank percentage and that of the highest-paid qualified person beneath you in each leg. No hard breakaway was identified. All percentages come from the official 2010 plan document - unverified for 2026.
2–21.5%, up to 26% at Champions League
monthly
differential / roll-up
Background check

Who runs it, and what they ran before

RS
Rolf Sorg
Founder, chairman and CEO

Sold cosmetics door-to-door as a student; when his employer went bankrupt in 1993 he used personal savings to start PM-International. No prior failed venture of his own has been identified - this is his single career business, run for 33 years. Luxembourg resident since 1998. Manager Magazin Entrepreneur of the Year 2014, DSN Bravo Leadership Award 2023, appointed with the company to Germany's Federal Economic Senate in 2024.

Lp
Litigation posture
Governance signal

Sorg and the company won at the Bundesgerichtshof on 14 May 2013 (VI ZR 269/12) against Google over autocomplete suggestions, establishing a notice-and-takedown duty. They then sued TV 2 Norway over its 2017 Helsekontrollen broadcast and lost at Oslo tingrett, at Borgarting lagmannsrett and at the Supreme Court Appeals Committee, with costs. Suing critical journalists and losing three times is a governance signal a prospective participant should price in.

PB
Patrick Bacher, Sascha Gamper, Timo Kruppenbacher
German AG management board

Register entries dated 2024–2025 at Amtsgericht Ludwigshafen. Bacher also sits on the Swiss AG board alongside Sorg, Thomas Rauscher, Alexander Plath and Lucrezia Silvia Späth.

E&
Ernst & Young AG, Zurich
Statutory auditor - one subsidiary only

Appointed 16 November 2017 as auditor of PM-International AG (Schweiz). This is the only auditor identifiable anywhere in the group, and it covers one Swiss entity, not the consolidated business whose turnover is publicised.

Registered address

Schengen, Luxembourg
Headquartered in Luxembourg since 2015, but the group is a family-controlled set of 45+ subsidiaries with three legally distinct PM-International AG entities in three countries. The Swiss AG (registered 27 July 1990, share capital CHF 500,000) is recorded by NorthData as the direct and ultimate parent of the German AG. No consolidated group accounts and no group-level auditor could be located, which is why every revenue figure below carries a qualifier.

Compensation plan

What has to be true for you to get paid

To coverYou need
Hold your Team Partner position €0
Teampartnerregeln §2.1 and §5.4 - free entry, no minimum purchase, no back-office fee in the current EU rules
Unlock the Firstline Bonus ~100 points/month ≈ €51
≈ €612/yr of personal volume before you earn anything on your first line
Cover a realistic working year ≈ €170–260/month in commission
against an all-in €2,000–3,100/yr; roughly 8–15 retained Customer Direct customers spending ~€100/month at 15–30%
Reach Manager, then advance beyond Sales Manager 600 points ≈ €306, then qualified downline Managers
volume alone stops working at rank 3 - from there you must produce people who themselves hit rank

Read this twice

The unusual thing about this plan is that the door is genuinely free and the exit is genuinely clean, so the loss a participant can book is smaller than in most of this category - free entry, no inventory loading requirement, and a 90-day no-restocking-fee return on unopened resalable product means a first-year participant who stops can recover a meaningful share of what they spent. What the plan does instead is move the cost downstream into the earning gates. You are not required to buy, but the Firstline Bonus needs about 100 points of personal monthly volume; you are not required to stock product, but the USE–TALK–DEMO model explicitly requires giving product away and PM publishes no sampling budget; you are not required to attend congresses, but rank culture is built around them and ticket prices are not publicly retrievable. Building those line items up from sourced figures gives roughly €2,000–3,100 a year for someone actually working the business, of which €1,200–1,500 is product they consume themselves. That is a real cost, it is self-inflicted rather than imposed, and it is unusually recoverable. What it is not is estimable in terms of return, because no income disclosure exists to tell you what share of people ever cover it.

Run your own numbers

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-
Cumulative net, after costs
Retained Customer Direct customers -
Commission that month -
Total commissions earned -
Total you paid in -
Net -

Assumes a customer spending about €100/month at the 15–30% Customer Direct rate. Entry is free and no minimum purchase is contractually required - the €102.96/mo cost is the Optimal Set at team-partner price, self-inflicted rather than mandated, and 90% recoverable within 90 days on unopened product. Your own subscription cost of $103/mo is included.

Your money

What it costs to replace this yourself

What the same nutritional intervention costs bought openly on the German market, using the per-day figures from the price list and a mainstream pharmacy comparator. This is the honest consumer test, and it is where the price-to-value score is decided.

What they sell youWhat you'd use insteadYour cost
PowerCocktail - daily multivitamin base, €3.57/day RRPHigh-dose multivitamin, 120 capsules for €19.39, one a day€0.16/day ≈ €58/yr
Restorate - evening mineral and acid-base drinkMagnesium citrate plus zinc, pharmacy generic~€50/yr
Basics - fibre, enzyme and probiotic powderPsyllium husk plus a plain multi-strain probiotic~€120/yr
Activize Oxyplus - B vitamins plus guarana caffeineB-complex tablet, and coffee~€40/yr
Cologne List doping-risk screeningA Cologne List or Informed Sport certified mainstream sports-nutrition product~€200–300/yr
Total as sold
~€1,235/yr at TP price (€1,544 at RRP)
Total, built yourself
~€270–570/yr

Price-to-value

Roughly 2 to 4x on the whole basket, and about 22x on the flagship item measured per day. The gap is not explained by the features. The Cologne List certification and the six-monthly ELAB panels with QR traceability are genuinely good and a €19 supermarket multivitamin does not offer them - but certified mainstream sports-nutrition brands do, for a fraction of this. The difference between €0.16 and €3.57 a day is the distribution model priced into the product. A buyer with no income offer attached and no elite-competition doping exposure would not pay it.

Odds of profit

Three operators, five horizons

Probability of cumulative net profit

Hover any point for median, top decile and bottom quartile.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%3 mo6 mo1 yr3 yr5 yr 24% 31% 45%
Part-timer - 8 hrs/wk, warm market, buys the Optimal Set, no adsFull-timer - 40 hrs/wk, builds a downline, attends congresses, samples heavilySport or fitness professional - Existing athlete or client base, sells on Cologne List screening

Part-timer

8 hrs/wk, warm market, buys the Optimal Set, no ads

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 22% −€260
6 mo 28% −€380
1 yr 30% −€520
3 yr 27% −€900
5 yr 24% −€1,200

Full-timer

40 hrs/wk, builds a downline, attends congresses, samples heavily

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 9% −€1,900
6 mo 15% −€3,100
1 yr 22% −€3,800
3 yr 30% +€2,400
5 yr 31% +€7,500

Sport or fitness professional

Existing athlete or client base, sells on Cologne List screening

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 44% +€180
6 mo 50% +€700
1 yr 52% +€1,900
3 yr 48% +€5,200
5 yr 45% +€8,000

Methodology note. These figures are MODELED from the compensation plan, the 2026 price list and the sourced cost lines in this report. They are not observed outcomes. PM-International publishes no income disclosure in any jurisdiction - not Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, the US, Canada, Italy or India - so there is nothing whatsoever to calibrate them against, and that absence is the single most important fact in this section. The only earnings data in circulation is a 2017 distributor-assembled list of top earners with no denominator, no rank distribution and no figure for the share earning nothing, which is the inverse of a disclosure. Figures circulating in AI-generated review content about what percentage of distributors earn under a given threshold are not sourced to the company and should not be relied on. The sport-professional row scores best because the product genuinely fits that practice and because Cologne List certification is a factual selling point that does not require a health claim.

Go-to-market

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.

Channel
Status
Notes
Health claims (Reg. (EC) 1924/2006)
REGISTER-LIMITED
The governing constraint on everything you can say about what the products do. Only claims authorized and entered in the EU Register may be used (Art. 10(1)), the Art. 13(1) general-function list was consolidated by Regulation (EU) 432/2012, wording must carry the same meaning as the authorized form, and disease claims are prohibited outright. On-pack, FitLine sits inside this - the PowerCocktail label frames the product around basic supply and energy metabolism and carries the mandatory varied-and-balanced-diet statement. In the field it does not: a 17 March 2024 Lebensmittelklarheit complaint over "binds heavy metals", "detoxifies" and "restful sleep" claims for Restorate ended only when the promoter deleted the page in September 2024.
Personal testimonials about results
PROHIBITED
P&P A.0.1 defines testimonials as claims: no therapeutic, curative or beneficial property claims beyond those in official PM literature, and nothing about restoring or correcting organic functions. The most natural thing a distributor wants to say is the thing most clearly banned.
Income and lifestyle claims
PROHIBITED BY POLICY
P&P A-7 strictly prohibits income projections, lifestyle-improvement claims, hypothetical income examples and displaying checks, bank statements or tax records. Teampartnerregeln §6.6 requires earnings information to be correct and fact-based, with termination as the stated sanction. There is also no income disclosure anywhere to substantiate any figure you might want to use.
Online marketplaces and auctions
PROHIBITED
Teampartnerregeln §5.2 bars retail stores, trading markets, fairs, online auctions and mass media; P&P F-14 and Trademark Guidelines §8 name eBay, Taobao, Craigslist and classified sites specifically. eBay Germany nonetheless runs a standing FitLine supplements category, so the rule constrains you rather than the gray market.
Your own web shop or landing page
PROHIBITED
§6.5 requires online distribution through the PM-provided internet shop only. You cannot build a sales asset you own, and the customer relationship is registered to the sponsor rather than held by you.
Social media
HEAVILY RESTRICTED
P&P D-2 §9 bars logos and brand imagery in social-network marketing, requires you to identify only as an Independent Team Partner, and prohibits product sales and enrollments through social channels. Strict on paper; the 2024 Restorate case shows enforcement arriving via consumer complaint rather than internal compliance.
Warm-market USE–TALK–DEMO selling
ALLOWED
The intended channel and the compliant one - you demonstrate a product rather than promise an outcome. It carries an unpublished cost, because the model explicitly requires giving product away and PM publishes no sampling budget.
Cross-border selling inside the EU
RESTRICTED
P&P B-20 prohibits exporting PM products from one operating country into another, regardless of whether PM trades there. There are no exclusive territories (P&P B-16) and no geographical limits on sponsoring, but the market you can actually sell product into is the one you registered in.
The evidence

Red flags and green flags

Red flags

14
1No income disclosure exists in any jurisdiction, after 33 years
Checked in Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, the US, Canada, Italy and India, and across the company business-model page, the Teampartnerregeln and the DSA UK member entry. Nothing. A prospective participant has no way to estimate their odds, and this is the single fact that drives the grade.
2The headline US$4.088bn is retail-grossed turnover, not net revenue
The German trade press describes it explicitly as Außenumsatz - aggregate value at full recommended retail price, before the 20–45% distributor discount PM's own price list documents. Treating it as company revenue overstates the business by roughly a quarter to a third.
3The 2025 figure was published before audit, by the company's own admission
In January 2026 PM-International said full-year figures were "still being audited" while announcing that turnover was clearly above the $4 billion mark. The number reached the field ahead of the verification.
4No audited consolidated group accounts and no group auditor could be identified
The only auditor located anywhere in the group is Ernst & Young AG Zurich, appointed 16 November 2017 for PM-International AG (Schweiz) alone. No consolidated statements, no group audit report, no readable Luxembourg RCS or Bundesanzeiger revenue disclosure. This is the most important gap in the file.
5The most-cited revenue source contradicts itself
businessforhome.org publishes both $2,550m and $2,890m for 2022 - a 13% discrepancy - and two different 2021 figures. It is the outlet most widely recycled for PM-International revenue, which demonstrates directly that the industry data is not reconciled to any audited statement.
6The flagship product is 50% sugar by weight on PM's own label
The official LMIV data sheet for PowerCocktail gives 53 g carbohydrate per 100 g, of which 50 g sugars, with fructose as the first-named ingredient. Independently corroborated by fddb.info. This is the hardest verified fact in the file, and it substantiates at the low end the characterisation PM-International sued a Norwegian broadcaster over and lost.
7Price-to-value is roughly 22x a mainstream multivitamin
€3.57 a day for PowerCocktail at RRP (€2.85 at team-partner price) against €0.16 a day for a high-dose multivitamin at €19.39 for 120 capsules. Certification and lab testing are real, and they do not account for a twentyfold premium.
8NTC is a trademark, not a validated mechanism
The Nutrient Transport Concept is a registered mark (WIPO 1495693, 2019). None of the roughly 22 patent families establishes the cell-level delivery effect the marketing describes, and the only identified RCT concerns a guava extract in C-Balance and carries co-authorship by a PM-International employee. No independent replication, no EFSA opinion.
9Advancement above Sales Manager is gated on producing qualified Managers
From rank 3 upward the plan requires a stated number of downline Managers, not merely volume. A distributor cannot advance past Sales Manager by selling more product alone - they must produce people who themselves hit rank. This is the plan's central recruitment-linked feature.
10A per-head bonus is paid for each activated new partner
€60 / US$60 under the Training Bonus, raised from €50/$50 effective January 2026. Payment triggered by enrollment plus activation volume is the classic hybrid structure.
11The Firstline Bonus requires about 100 points of personal monthly volume
Roughly €51 a month, or €612 a year, to earn 10% on directly sponsored partners. A de facto self-consumption gate sitting alongside a contractual no-minimum-purchase rule.
12The company's own recruitment page promises immediate additional income with no disclaimer
The German business-model page presents "sofortiges zusätzliches Einkommen", the BMW car program and pension contributions of up to €1,250 a month, with no earnings statistics and no risk disclaimer of any kind.
13A pattern of litigation against journalists, lost at every level in Norway
PM-International sued TV 2 over its November 2017 Helsekontrollen broadcast. Oslo tingrett refused an injunction on 28 February 2018, holding the pyramid characterisation a value judgment; the subsequent damages claim of over NOK 50m was dismissed with costs of nearly NOK 1m; Borgarting lagmannsrett refused leave to appeal on 4 October 2019, finding it clear the appeal would not succeed; the Supreme Court Appeals Committee unanimously refused a further appeal, again with costs. These are civil claims brought by PM-International and dismissed - not findings against it, and no court found the company to be a pyramid scheme.
14A 2019 California Proposition 65 consent judgment over lead and cadmium
Stage: private-enforcer civil action settled by consent judgment, with no admission of liability. Environmental Research Center served 60-day notice 2018-01629 on 31 August 2018 over ProShape All-In-1 Mousse au Chocolat and Bourbon Vanilla; the complaint was filed 6 December 2018 in Alameda County (RG18931221) seeking penalties in excess of $1 million; settlement followed on 7 February 2019 and judgment on 1 June 2019 for $40,539 - a $7,710 civil penalty plus $32,829 in attorney fees, with a warning requirement. Fairly stated, this is compliance hygiene rather than a safety scandal, and no repeat notice was located in 2020–2026.

Green flags

9
1No regulator anywhere has taken enforcement action in 33 years
Searched across Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Spain, the UK and the EU - Bundeskartellamt, Wettbewerbszentrale, AGCM, UOKiK, GVH, the ASA and German unfair-competition case law. No consumer-protection, competition, food-safety or advertising authority has acted against PM-International. For a company of this size and age in this sector that is unusual, and it is the strongest fact in the company's favor.
2Joining is free and there is no minimum purchase - in the binding contract
Teampartnerregeln §2.1: it is not necessary to order FitLine products to become a distributor. §5.4: there is no obligation to purchase any FitLine products, nor a minimum purchase requirement. The India Policies and Procedures repeat it. No inventory loading requirement anywhere.
3A 90-day resalable return with no restocking fee
Unopened, intact product with three or more months of shelf life left goes back for 90 days from invoice, with prepaid return shipping, for team partners and consumers alike under the Swiss general terms. No deduction. That is materially more generous on the deduction dimension than the standard most regulators treat as the floor.
4A 30-day new-distributor withdrawal and a 30-day consumer satisfaction guarantee
Teampartnerregeln §2.2 gives a new distributor 30 days and a full refund. §5.3 gives the consumer 30 days from invoice with the choice of exchange, credit or refund - and obliges the distributor to honor it. Consumer protection written into the distributor agreement is rare in this category.
5Independent lab testing every six months, with consumer-scannable verification
ELAB Analytik GmbH runs chemical panels (vitamins A, B-complex, C, D, E, K, zinc, selenium, magnesium, calcium, iron, copper, sweeteners, amino acids, CoQ10, omega-3) and microbiological panels (Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, B. cereus, C. perfringens, Enterobacteriaceae, yeasts and molds) on 38+ FitLine products on introduction and then every six months, with follow-up on non-conformity and a QR code on pack. This is a real quality-assurance program.
6Cologne List doping-risk certification across the range
PowerCocktail, Basics, Restorate Classic and Exotic, Beauty, D-Drink, Cell Kapseln, Generation 50+ and Protein Ultra Bar are individually listed on the Kölner Liste. The caveat is that the list screens for anabolic steroids and stimulants rather than certifying freedom from all banned substances - but for a competing athlete it is a rational reason to pay a premium.
7Verifiable hard-asset capital expenditure
A €22m Asia-Pacific HQ opened in Singapore in October 2025, a Sarasota Americas HQ with a $22m first phase and $28m further planned, a €40m global infrastructure program announced June 2024, 300+ staff at the Speyer logistics center, 1,000+ employees, and German AG share capital raised from €10m to €30m between 2017 and November 2022 - a real balance-sheet event in the commercial register. Shell companies do not do this.
8A single-venture founder with an unbroken 33-year record
Rolf Sorg founded PM-International in 1993 after his employer went bankrupt, and has run nothing else since. No prior failed or collapsed business has been identified. That is materially different from the serial-launch profile common in this sector.
9Written policies are stricter than sector norm
P&P A-7 expressly prohibits income projections, lifestyle claims and displaying checks, bank statements or tax records. A.0.1 prohibits testimonial-based and unauthorised health claims. Teampartnerregeln §6.6 threatens termination for false earnings information. The rules are good; the enforcement evidence is the gap.
What would move this grade

We would like to be wrong about this

Upward

  • Publication of a genuine income disclosure - participant counts by rank, median and mean gross commissions, the percentage earning zero, and figures net of personal purchases - in Germany, the US and Canada. This single act would move the grade more than anything else available to the company.
  • Publication of audited consolidated group accounts with a named group auditor, reconciling Außenumsatz to net revenue and disclosing the retail-to-net conversion factor.
  • Publication of the split between sales to registered end customers and sales to distributors, market by market, alongside a current dated compensation plan with the official point-to-currency ratio.

Downward

  • Any regulator opening a file - a Bundeskartellamt or Wettbewerbszentrale matter, a Verbraucherzentrale Abmahnung, an AGCM, UOKiK or GVH proceeding, an ASA ruling, or an FTC or Competition Bureau inquiry.
  • Reintroduction or discovery of currently operating pack-based fast-track qualification with per-head bonuses attached, a mandatory autoship, a paid starter-kit requirement or a fee-bearing back office.
  • Further Prop 65 or heavy-metal notices, any product recall or safety event, or any new litigation against journalists, consumer bodies or critics.
The better trade

Grade is D+. This is not a report about a company behaving badly. It is a report about a company that will not let you calculate anything.

Give PM-International the credit it has earned, because it is unusual and it is contractual. You can join for nothing. You are not required to buy anything, ever, and that is written into the binding distributor rules rather than implied in a brochure. If you change your mind within 30 days you get your money back; if you have unopened product within 90 days it goes back with no restocking fee and prepaid shipping. Your customers get a 30-day guarantee you are obliged to honor. And in 33 years of trading across more than 100 countries, an extensive search of eight European jurisdictions and the EU produced no regulator that has taken enforcement action against the company. Most of what this site grades cannot say a single one of those things.

Now the other side, which is not about conduct but about arithmetic. There is no income disclosure, anywhere, in any jurisdiction, ever. That means the central question a prospective participant is asking - what do people like me actually make - has no answer at any price, from any source, and the company has chosen for 33 years not to provide one while holding membership in five direct-selling associations. In Canada that is not merely a transparency preference: Competition Act s.55(2) requires compensation representations to include fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of what typical participants receive, and s.55(2.1) puts the operator on the hook for its participants too. No Canadian enforcement action has been found and none is alleged here; the point is that a company with a car program, a pension program and a page promising immediate additional income is making compensation representations, and there is nothing published against which to test them.

The growth number is the same problem in a different costume. US$4.088bn is a real-sounding figure attached to a real business - the €22m Singapore facility, the Sarasota HQ, the 300-strong Speyer logistics operation and the ATP Tour partnership are all things a shell could not fund. But the figure itself is self-reported, retail-grossed Außenumsatz, published before audit on the company's own admission, unbacked by any consolidated accounts or group auditor anyone can find, and drawn from an outlet that publishes two contradictory numbers for 2022. The right conclusion is neither to accept it nor to dismiss it. It is to notice that a recruit is being shown a number whose basis they cannot check, in a business whose participant outcomes they also cannot check, and to decide what to do with a proposition that is measurable in neither direction.

1

Use the exit terms as the actual test

Join free, buy one month, sell to real customers who are not you, and see what happens before anything is at risk. The 30-day guarantee and the 90-day no-restocking-fee return exist precisely so this costs almost nothing, and they are the best-documented facts in the file.

2

Sell the certification, not the mechanism

Cologne List listing and a six-monthly ELAB panel with QR verification are factual, checkable and legitimately valuable to a competing athlete. NTC is a trademark with no published mechanism evidence, and health claims outside the EU register are what drew the 2024 Restorate complaint.

3

Ask for the customer-versus-distributor sales split before you commit

If the Customer Direct Program genuinely dominates volume, that is the company's strongest defense and it is currently invisible. Nobody outside PM-International can say what share of that $4bn was bought by people not in the compensation plan.

4

Serve the field rather than joining it

A large European distributor base operating under Regulation 1924/2006, a total ban on independent web shops and marketplaces, a policy book that forbids testimonials and income claims, and no compliant marketing assets provided. Compliance-safe copy, claim libraries and register-checked product materials are a merchant business against a demonstrated need - and one you would own.

Free to join, clean to leave, and impossible to price - because after 33 years nobody outside the company knows what anybody earns.
Scorecard

Nine dimensions, weighted

Comp structure & KoscotDoes the plan pay for recruitment or for sales to real customers?
20%
5.0
A hybrid. Genuine retail machinery exists - a Customer Direct Program paying 15–30% on registered end-customer reorders, and a contractual duty to take product back from a dissatisfied consumer. Against that, advancement above Sales Manager is gated on producing qualified downline Managers rather than on retail volume, a €60/US$60 per-head bonus is paid for each activated new partner, and the Firstline Bonus needs about 100 points of personal monthly volume.
Securities exposureAny passive return on capital? Howey, staking, tokens, withdrawal friction.
15%
8.0
No token, no staking, no passive-return component, no investment framing. Revenue is product sales through a distributor network. The only capital-markets fact in the file is the German AG raising registered share capital from €10m to €30m between 2017 and November 2022, which is a balance-sheet event, not an offering to the field.
Ownership & track recordWho runs it, what did they run before, and what happened to it.
15%
7.0
A named founder with a 33-year single-venture record, no prior collapsed business, and no regulatory finding against him in any jurisdiction. Verifiable hard-asset spending - a €22m Singapore HQ, a $22m first phase in Sarasota, a €40m infrastructure program, 300+ staff at Speyer. Marked down for a three-country entity structure with no consolidated accounts, and for a documented pattern of litigation against journalists that courts in Norway dismissed at three levels.
Product reality & demandWould a rational buyer purchase this if no income offer existed?
12%
5.0
Real manufactured supplements with real quality assurance: ELAB Analytik chemical and microbiological panels on 38+ products every six months with consumer-scannable QR verification, and Cologne List doping-risk certification on PowerCocktail, Basics, Restorate, Beauty and others. Pulled down hard by the flagship itself - PM's own LMIV label states 50 g of sugar per 100 g with fructose as first-named ingredient - and by NTC, which is a trademark rather than a validated mechanism.
Participant economicsReal cost in, realistic money out, and whether they publish the numbers.
10%
2.0
There is no income disclosure statement published by PM-International in any jurisdiction. Not Germany, not Luxembourg, not the UK, not the US, not Canada, not Italy, not India. The nearest thing in the rulebook points participants to earnings "as projected in the Official PM Business Presentation" - a sales projection, not a statistical report of what people actually earned. A prospective participant cannot compute their odds at all.
Price-to-valueWhat the same capability costs on the open market.
8%
2.0
PowerCocktail is €107.00 RRP for 450 g / 30 servings, which is €3.57 a day, against €0.16 a day for a high-dose mainstream multivitamin at €19.39 for 120 capsules. That is roughly 22x at retail and about 18x at the team-partner price. Cologne List screening and six-monthly lab panels are real and worth paying for; certified mainstream sports-nutrition products carry them at a fraction of this price.
Payout sustainabilityCan the company fund the plan out of margin, or only out of inflow?
8%
7.0
Commissions are funded from product margin, paid by the 20th of the following month with a €5.00 minimum payout threshold, in a business with 1,000+ employees, a 300-strong logistics operation and eight-figure capital expenditure that a shell could not fund. The uncertainty is measurement, not solvency: the turnover series is unaudited and retail-grossed, so the payout ratio cannot be checked from outside.
Marketing conductIncome claims, regulator run-ins, hype, deadline stacking.
7%
4.0
The written rules are stricter than sector norm - P&P A-7 bans income projections, lifestyle claims and displaying checks or bank statements; A.0.1 bans testimonial-based health claims. The practice diverges. The company's own German business-model page promises "sofortiges zusätzliches Einkommen" with no risk disclaimer and no earnings data, and a March 2024 complaint over Restorate detox and sleep claims was resolved only when the promoter deleted the page in September 2024. The ATP and federation sponsorships carry implied performance claims that Regulation 1924/2006 would not permit in text.
Operator terms & exitWho owns the customer, what you forfeit, how hard it is to leave.
5%
7.0
The strongest part of the file, and it is contractual rather than promotional. Enrollment is free (Teampartnerregeln §2.1), there is no minimum purchase (§5.4), new distributors have a 30-day withdrawal right (§2.2), consumers get a 30-day satisfaction guarantee (§5.3), and resalable unopened product goes back for 90 days with prepaid return shipping and no restocking fee under the Swiss GTC. Subscriptions have no minimum term. Marked down only for the total ban on independent online selling and for 24-month inactivity deletion.
Weighted composite
5.40
D+

Dimension profile

Further from center is better. Hover any point.

Comp structure& Koscot 5.0 Securitiesexposure 8.0 Ownership &track record 7.0 Product reality& demand 5.0 Participanteconomics 2.0 Price-to-value 2.0 Payoutsustainability 7.0 Marketingconduct 4.0 Operator terms& exit 7.0

Hard caps that bind here

Cap at 6.0 no income disclosure exists in any jurisdiction after 33 years, so the central question - what does a typical participant actually earn - has no answer at any price. The weighted arithmetic already lands at 5.4, so this ceiling does not bind; it is stated so the reasoning is visible rather than implied.
Cap at 6.5 no audited consolidated group accounts and no group-level auditor could be identified, so the headline turnover figure a recruit is shown cannot be checked by the recruit. Also non-binding at 5.4.

The lowest binding cap wins, regardless of the weighted arithmetic.

Sources consulted

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.

  1. Vertriebspartnerregeln der PM-International AG (binding distributor rules, German/English parallel text) (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy

    PM-International Teampartnerregeln (binding distributor rules, DE) - §2.1 free entry, §2.2 30-day withdrawal, §3.2 payment terms, §5.2 channel ban, §5.3 consumer guarantee, §5.4 no minimum purchase, §6.5 online shop, §6.6 earnings claims, §7.4 customer re-registration

  2. PM-International distributor registration page reproducing the Vertriebspartnerregeln in full (§2.1 free entry, §2.2 30-day withdrawal, §5.2 channel ban, §5.3 satisfaction guarantee, §5.4 no minimum purchase, §6.5 online shop, §6.6 earnings claims)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy
  3. Vertriebspartnerregeln der PM-International AG - Swiss edition (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy
  4. PM Policies & Procedures, PM-International India Pvt. Ltd., document CORP 04/21 (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AG / PM-International India Pvt. Ltd. · 2021-04archived copy

    PM Policies and Procedures, CORP 04/21 India edition - A-7 earnings representations, A.0.1 health claims and testimonials, B-16 territories, B-20 cross-border, D-2 §9 social media, F-14 marketplaces, G-1 and G-2 returns

  5. PM Richtlinien zur Nutzung von Warenzeichen, Logos, Marken und Namen für Teampartner, PM_LogosBrandsNamesTP_CORP_1823_DE_D1 (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AG · 2023archived copy

    Not established by this document: DEAD, confirmed 10 September 2026: admin.partner.pm-international.com does not resolve at all, and there is no Wayback capture. This is a trademark and logo usage guideline for team partners - peripheral to every finding in this report, which rests on the compensation plan and the income disclosure, both of which are held. Retained as a record that the document existed; nothing in the grade depends on it.

  6. PM-International Verhaltens- und Ethikkodex (Code of Business Conduct and Ethics) (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy
  7. Allgemeine Geschäfts- und Lieferbedingungen der PM-International AG (Schweiz), 2026 edition - 30-day satisfaction guarantee and 90-day extended resalable return (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AG (Schweiz) · 2026archived copy

    PM General Terms and Conditions, Switzerland - 90-day resalable return with prepaid shipping and no restocking fee; subscription cancellation

  8. Widerrufsbelehrung der PM-International AG (Schweiz), 2026 edition - 14-day statutory withdrawal and subscription cancellation (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AG (Schweiz) · 2026archived copy
  9. PM-International Allgemeine Geschäfts- und Lieferbedingungen (Germany) - §7.1 subscription 30/90-day delivery intervals, distributors restricted to 90 days (PDF)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy
  10. FitLine PowerCocktail official LMIV label and data sheet, FL.PowerCocktailBox.LMIV.3717.DEII.P14 - 53 g carbohydrate / 50 g sugars per 100 g, fructose first-named ingredient (PDF)
    Company documentTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy

    FitLine PowerCocktail official LMIV label and data sheet - 53 g carbohydrate / 50 g sugars per 100 g, fructose first-named; corroborated independently by fddb.info

  11. FitLine PowerCocktail nutrition entry - independent corroboration of 53 g carbohydrate / 50 g sugars per 100 g
    Open-market comparisonTier 3Fddb (Fddb Internetservices GmbH)archived copy
  12. FitLine PowerCocktail (Optimal-Set) current product label, PCRCG50_9700162_DE (PDF)
    Company documentTier 1PM-International AGarchived copy
  13. North Data company record - PM-International AG, Speyer, Amtsgericht Ludwigshafen a.Rhein HRB 53194 (share capital history, officers, parent PM-International AG (Schweiz))
    Corporate registryTier 3North Data GmbH (German commercial register aggregator)archived copy

    NorthData, PM-International AG Speyer HRB 53194, and Moneyhouse, PM-International AG (Schweiz) CHE-106.646.098 - share capital history, boards, and Ernst & Young AG Zurich as statutory auditor of the Swiss entity from 16 November 2017

    Not established by this document: The Moneyhouse extract naming Ernst & Young AG Zurich as statutory auditor of the Swiss entity from 16 November 2017 sits behind Moneyhouse's paywall; the free Swiss register mirrors reachable here list the mutations but not the auditor appointment.

  14. Swiss commercial-register record - PM-International AG (Schweiz), Thayngen, UID CHE-106.646.098, CH-290.3.003.080-6, registered 10 October 1991, capital CHF 500,000
    Corporate registryTier 3Handelsregisteramt Schaffhausen (via help.ch register extract)archived copy
  15. Handelsregisterauszug PM-International AG, Speyer HRB 53194 - incorporated 2 September 2004, share capital EUR 18,000,000
    Corporate registryTier 3Amtsgericht Ludwigshafen a.Rhein (via online-handelsregister.de)archived copy
  16. Impressum - PM-International AG (Schweiz), confirming it is a subsidiary of PM-International AG, 15 Wäistrooss, L-5445 Schengen, Luxembourg (PDF)
    Company documentTier 1PM-International AG (Schweiz)archived copy
  17. California OAG Proposition 65 60-Day Notice 2018-01629 - Environmental Research Center, Inc. v. P.M. International (lead and cadmium), judgment 1 June 2019, $7,710 penalty and $32,829 fees
    RegulatorTier 1California Office of the Attorney General · 2018-08-31archived copy

    California OAG Prop 65 60-day notice 2018-01629 and the Alameda County complaint (RG18931221) - lead and cadmium in two ProShape products, consent judgment 1 June 2019, $7,710 penalty plus $32,829 fees

  18. Complaint, Environmental Research Center, Inc. v. P.M. International Nutrition and Cosmetics, Inc. et al., Alameda County Superior Court No. RG18931221 (PDF)
    Court recordTier 1Superior Court of California, County of Alameda (via California OAG Prop 65 database) · 2018archived copy
  19. Consent judgment, Environmental Research Center, Inc. v. P.M. International, Alameda County Superior Court No. RG18931221, entered 1 June 2019 (PDF)
    Court recordTier 1Superior Court of California, County of Alameda (via California OAG Prop 65 database) · 2019-06-01archived copy
  20. "Borgarting nekter anke i millionsøksmål mot TV 2" - Rett24 on the Borgarting lagmannsrett refusal of PM-International's appeal, 4 October 2019
    ReportingTier 3Rett24 · 2019-10-04archived copy

    Rett24 reporting on Oslo tingrett (28 February 2018) and Borgarting lagmannsrett (4 October 2019), plus BehindMLM on the Supreme Court Appeals Committee refusal - PM-International v TV 2 Norway

    Not established by this document: No BehindMLM article on a Norwegian Supreme Court Appeals Committee refusal could be located; the appellate step actually documented is the Borgarting lagmannsrett ankeutvalg decision of 4 October 2019 refusing to admit the appeal.

  21. "Utenlandsk selskap krever at TV2 sletter artikler om vitaminpulver" - Rett24 on the original injunction application over the November 2017 Helsekontrollen broadcast
    ReportingTier 3Rett24 · 2018-02-06archived copy
  22. TV2 – PM International AG – midlertidig forføyning, Borgarting lagmannsrett kjennelse LB-2018-63287 of 6 July 2018 (Lovdata case note)
    Court recordTier 1Lovdata (Borgarting lagmannsrett) · 2018-07-06archived copy
  23. "Anke avvist. Mener TV 2 var beskyttet av ytringsfriheten" - NTB/Journalisten on the Oslo tingrett judgment of 11 April 2019 and the NOK 70 million claim
    ReportingTier 3Journalisten / NTB · 2019-10-04archived copy
  24. Competition Act (RSC 1985, c. C-34), section 55 - multi-level marketing plan compensation-disclosure obligations, ss. 55(2) and 55(2.1)
    RegulatorTier 1Department of Justice Canadaarchived copy

    Competition Act (Canada) s.55(2) and s.55(2.1) and Competition Bureau MLM guidance; Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 and Regulation (EU) 432/2012 on nutrition and health claims

  25. "Multi-Level Marketing Plans and Schemes of Pyramid Selling" - Competition Bureau enforcement guidelines on sections 55 and 55.1
    RegulatorTier 1Competition Bureau Canada · 2022-01-19archived copy
  26. Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods (consolidated text, EUR-Lex)
    RegulatorTier 1European Parliament and Council of the European Union (EUR-Lex) · 2006-12-20archived copy
  27. Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 establishing the list of permitted health claims made on foods (EUR-Lex)
    RegulatorTier 1European Commission (EUR-Lex) · 2012-05-16archived copy
  28. Lebensmittelklarheit complaint file - "Übertriebene Gesundheitsversprechen für 'Gute-Nacht-Getränk' gelöscht", on FitLine Restorate claims (heavy-metal binding, hair and nails, skin), influencer page deleted September 2024
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband / Lebensmittelklarheit · 2024-06-12archived copy

    Lebensmittelklarheit complaint file on FitLine Restorate (filed 17 March 2024, page deleted September 2024) and the Verbraucherzentrale Klartext Nahrungsergänzung entry on PM-International

  29. Verbraucherzentrale FAQ - PM-International (FitLine): synthetic vitamins, sugar as main ingredient, caffeine content
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverbandarchived copy
  30. Klartext Nahrungsergänzung entry - Produkte von Fitline (BfR maximum-intake and stacking warnings)
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband - Klartext Nahrungsergänzungarchived copy
  31. Lebensmittelklarheit complaint file - "Keine Werbung mehr für Fitline-Produkte auf Geteasyfit.de" (distributor health claims withdrawn)
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband / Lebensmittelklarheitarchived copy
  32. "PM-International Sells One Billion FitLine Products Worldwide" - Direct Selling News, 27 January 2026
    ReportingTier 3Direct Selling News · 2026-01-27archived copy

    businessforhome.org company profile and articles, Direct Selling News (6 January 2026), direct-selling-magazine.de (Außenumsatz and "still being audited"), Kölner Liste product database, ELAB Analytik testing scope, ATP Tour partnership announcement, 2026 FitLine price list and Shop-Apotheke comparator

    Not established by this document: The direct-selling-magazine.de item, the ELAB Analytik testing-scope page, the 2026 FitLine price list and the Shop-Apotheke price comparator could not be resolved to specific retrievable URLs; the Außenumsatz and "still being audited" language is carried instead by the Netcoo and World of Direct Selling reports linked above.

  33. "PM-International Announces Distributor Income Increase, Record Results and Global Expansion" - Rolf Sorg's New Year address confirming USD 4bn Außenumsatz for 2025 with audited figures "still being prepared"
    ReportingTier 3The World of Direct Selling · 2026-01-09archived copy
  34. "Bravo International Growth Award | PM-International" - Direct Selling News, $4 billion annual retail sales for 2025, 32nd consecutive growth year
    ReportingTier 3Direct Selling News · 2026-06-01archived copy
  35. 2026 DSN Global 100 (product-focused) - PM-International, Luxembourg, ranked #5 at $4.1 billion 2025 revenue
    ReportingTier 3Business For Home (reporting Direct Selling News Global 100) · 2026-04-21archived copy
  36. businessforhome.org - "PM-International Reports Sale of One Billion FitLine Products Worldwide" (company profile and press coverage)
    ReportingTier 3Business For Home · 2026-01-28archived copy
  37. Kölner Liste® product database - PM-International listed products (doping-substance testing)
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Kölner Liste® (HEIMSPIELE GmbH & Co. KG)archived copy
  38. "ATP Tour & Fitline forge global partnership" - FitLine named Official Sports Nutrition Partner through 2026
    ReportingTier 3ATP Tour · 2024-07-17archived copy
  39. "PM-International: 4 Milliarden US-Dollar Rekordumsatz in 2025" - Netcoo on the Außenumsatz figure and the 3.3% point-value increase
    ReportingTier 3Netcoo · 2026-01-06archived copy
Unable to verify

What we could not get

  • Audited consolidated group financial statements and any group-level auditor - none could be located; the only identified auditor covers one Swiss subsidiary, and Luxembourg RCS and Bundesanzeiger figures were not retrievable. This is the most important gap in the file.
  • Any income disclosure statement, in any jurisdiction - extensive search, none found. The absence is itself the finding, but an internal document circulated only to prospects cannot be excluded.
  • The retail-to-net revenue conversion factor. The US$2.8–3.2bn net estimate in this report is arithmetic on a disclosed 20–45% discount range, not a company disclosure.
  • The current official compensation plan. The most detailed official document available is dated 2010, so all percentages, generation depth and compression rules are unverified for 2026 - as is the €0.51 point-to-euro ratio, which comes from an independent calculator that disclaims official status.
  • The exact current RRP of PowerCocktail. Two affiliate sources give €107.00 and €93.50; the official shop blocks automated retrieval.
  • Congress and event ticket prices, and the cost of sampling under the USE–TALK–DEMO model - the event portal blocked access and no sampling budget is published.
  • The number of active distributors and the customer-versus-distributor sales split, globally or in any single market. Not published anywhere.
  • Whether "Pool Packs" and the $99 Demo Starter Pack described in an undated historic US review still exist in any market, ELAB Analytik's accreditation status, and the Trustpilot score (direct retrieval returned HTTP 403).

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.

Who writes this

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
  • No company has paid for a grade, and no report carries an affiliate link
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Common questions

FitLine - frequently asked

QIs FitLine a pyramid scheme?
No regulator in any jurisdiction has found it to be one, and an extensive search across Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Spain, the UK and the EU turned up no enforcement action against PM-International in 33 years. A Norwegian court did hold in 2018 that a broadcaster was entitled to describe the structure as a pyramid as a value judgment protected as critical journalism - but that is a ruling about press freedom, not a finding against the company, and PM-International lost that case at three levels. Structurally the plan is a hybrid: it has genuine retail machinery including a Customer Direct Program and a contractual consumer buyback, and it also pays a €60 per-head bonus for each activated new partner and gates advancement above Sales Manager on producing qualified downline Managers.
QHow much does it cost to join FitLine?
Nothing. The binding Teampartnerregeln §2.1 states that it is not necessary to order FitLine products to become a distributor, and §5.4 states there is no obligation to purchase and no minimum purchase requirement. The cost arrives downstream in the earning gates: about 100 points of personal volume a month, roughly €51, to unlock the Firstline Bonus, and a realistic personal-use basket of €102.96 a month at team-partner price. Building the sourced line items up gives roughly €2,000–3,100 a year for someone actually working the business, of which €1,200–1,500 is product they consume themselves.
QDoes PM-International publish an income disclosure?
No. None could be located in Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, the US, Canada, Italy or India, in 33 years of trading, despite membership of five separate direct-selling associations. The nearest thing in the company rulebook permits distributors to repeat income examples only alongside disclosure of typical earnings "as projected in the Official PM Business Presentation" - a projection inside a sales presentation rather than a statistical report. This matters in Canada in particular, where Competition Act s.55(2) requires fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of what typical participants actually receive, and s.55(2.1) extends that responsibility to the operator supervising its participants.
QIs the $4 billion revenue figure real?
It is real in the sense that a large business plainly exists - the €22m Singapore headquarters, the Sarasota Americas facility, 1,000+ employees and the ATP Tour partnership are hard evidence of genuine trade. But the specific US$4.088bn figure for 2025 is self-reported, it is Außenumsatz, meaning turnover grossed up to full recommended retail price before the 20–45% distributor discount, and the company itself said in January 2026 that the figures were still being audited. No consolidated group accounts and no group auditor could be identified, and the most-cited source publishes two contradictory figures for 2022. A recruit is being shown a number whose basis they cannot check.
QAre FitLine products worth the price?
The quality assurance is genuinely good: Cologne List doping-risk certification on PowerCocktail, Basics, Restorate and others, plus chemical and microbiological testing by ELAB Analytik on 38+ products every six months with a QR code on pack. The price is not explained by it. PowerCocktail is €107.00 RRP for 450 g, which is €3.57 a day, against €0.16 a day for a high-dose mainstream multivitamin - about 22x. PM's own label also shows the flagship is 50 g sugar per 100 g with fructose as the first-named ingredient, and NTC, the marketing mechanism, is a registered trademark with no published evidence base behind it.
Who wrote this report

Author, editor and publisher

C
Written by Claude AI
Reviewed by Rob Fore · Published by Listech Inc · July 28, 2026

This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - FitLine’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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