LuLaRoe
The offer everybody remembers - a five-figure box of clothes somebody else picked for you - no longer exists; the entry is now $499 for 33 garments you choose, and the risk has moved from a settled state case to a $164,000,000 jury finding of fraud against both founders.
A November 2024 Riverside County jury found fraudulent inducement against the company and both founders and awarded $164,000,000 - a litigated finding thirty-four and a half times larger than the Washington settlement the public associates with this brand.
Can you actually make money with LuLaRoe?
No, and the reason is not the one most people remember. The five-figure box of clothes somebody else picked is gone - entry today is $499 for 33 garments the retailer chooses. What replaced it is heavier on the record: in November 2024 a Riverside County jury found fraudulent inducement against the company and both founders and awarded $164,000,000.
The 2024 disclosure is better than most of what this site grades, and that should be said before the figures inside it. It publishes a median next to the average, defines gross profit net of what the retailer spent on stock, uses a wide and unflattering denominator, and itemizes the expenses it leaves out, down to hangers, mileage and the accountant.
The median retailer cleared $1,045.55 of gross profit for the whole of 2024, against an average of $11,914.53 - an eleven-fold gap the company lets you see. Some 90.37% earned nothing at all from the compensation plan, and participation has fallen from 13.72% in 2021 to 9.63% in 2024. At $25 legging pricing the $499 pack does not repay its own cost inside its own 33 pieces.
The contract is the other half of it. The Ninth Circuit held the arbitration agreement unenforceable as unconscionable on 31 July 2023 and the one-year limitations period unenforceable on 30 October 2025, and both terms are still in the live policies. The company may rewrite the agreement, the pricing and the product line at its sole discretion, with a back-office posting deemed notice. The chief executive died in September 2025 and no successor has been named.
the LuLaRoe Retailer Business Pack - 33 garments, chosen by the retailer with help from an onboarding team; the only purchase the company requires
- An entry rank the median participant can reach. Sponsor requires $2,000 of personal retail inside a single month, against a median retailer whose entire year produced $1,045.55 of gross profit.
- Rank advancement that counts selling. Coach requires three personally sponsored retailers, ten people on the team and three first-level leaders; Mentor requires six leadership legs. No volume of personal selling reaches either rank.
- The two struck clauses out of the live contract. A federal appellate court has now voided this company's arbitration agreement and its limitations period, and the policies on the live CDN still carry both.
- A non-disparagement clause removed. Silencing the retailers a prospect most needs to hear from is the term that makes every other disclosure in this file harder for that prospect to check.
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 BUT ADJUDICATED AGAINST - LuLaRoe trades openly, recruits openly and has never been found by any court or regulator to be a pyramid scheme. There is no FTC action, no FTC warning letter, no Notice of Penalty Offenses recipient status, no SEC matter and no federal finding of any kind. Two state attorney general matters exist and both resolved without admission: a Washington consent decree of 2 February 2021 ($4,000,000 in restitution to roughly 3,000 Washington retailers plus $750,000 in costs) which states in terms at paragraph 2.3 that it "does not constitute evidence or an admission" and at paragraph 3.2 that the defendants "have denied and continue to deny any and all wrongdoing of any kind whatsoever"; and a Pennsylvania Assurance of Voluntary Compliance of 9 October 2020 ($95,950 civil penalty plus $14,050 in costs) in which the company likewise disputed the alleged violations. A consent decree is not a litigated finding of fact and an assurance of voluntary compliance is not a court finding - sources that say a state attorney general "found" LuLaRoe to be a pyramid scheme are overstating the record. The item that is a litigated finding sits elsewhere: on 5-11 November 2024, after a two-month trial in Riverside County Superior Court (Providence Industries LLC dba MyDyer v. LuLaRoe LLC, No. RIC1825263), a jury awarded more than $164,000,000, comprising $96.3 million for fraudulent inducement and $33.6 million for breach of contract, against the operating company and both founders, on evidence that thirty-plus entities were used to move cash and assets away from a supplier that was destroyed. Defense counsel flagged post-trial motions; whether final judgment was entered in the full amount, reduced, or is on appeal could not be verified for this report. Separately, the Ninth Circuit has twice held LuLaRoe contract terms unenforceable - the arbitration clause as unconscionable and non-severable on 31 July 2023, and the one-year limitations clause on 30 October 2025 - and the putative pyramid class action revived by that second order (Ponkey v. LLR, Inc., C.D. Cal. 5:21-cv-00518) has never been certified and has never been tested on the merits.
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 California-run, Wyoming-incorporated apparel business selling through independent contractors called Independent Fashion Retailers, who buy garments at wholesale, resell them at prices they set through home pop-ups and live video sales, and may additionally earn overrides of up to 8.25% on the retail sales of an organization they recruit and lead.
The single most useful thing this report can tell a reader is that the offer has changed and the public memory of it is out of date. In 2016-17 the buy-in was reported at $4,925 to $9,000 - the Washington attorney general pleaded a $500 to $5,000 range, one consultant complaint pleaded "upwards of $5,000" and another pleaded $2,000 to $9,000 - the company chose the assortment ("Retailers could not choose specific sizes or prints of the inventory they bought," per the attorney general), the recommended stock level was around $20,000, and bonuses were calculated on wholesale purchase volume. In August 2026 the entry is $499 for a 33-piece Retailer Business Pack, the onboarding sequence tells the joiner to "connect with our onboarding team to choose your items," there is no monthly purchase minimum, no autoship, no tools subscription, no lead purchase, no event levy and no replicated-site fee, and every percentage in the compensation plan is denominated in retail sales. Three of the four mechanics that produced the 2017 catastrophe have been removed. The fourth - buy the stock before you sell it, and take a 10% haircut to give it back - remains.
The second thing worth knowing is that the risk has moved. The watchlist filed this company under the $4.75 million Washington attorney general settlement of February 2021. That matter is a consent decree with an express no-admission clause, a full release of the claims pleaded, and a compliance and monitoring window that runs out at the end of 2026. The live item is a jury verdict of more than $164,000,000 returned on 5-11 November 2024 in Riverside County Superior Court against the company and both founders, including $96.3 million for fraudulent inducement, after a two-month trial in which the jury was persuaded that thirty-plus entities had been used to move cash and assets away from the supplier bringing the claim. Four point seven five million, settled with no admission, against one hundred and sixty-four million, found by a jury. The second number is roughly thirty-four and a half times the first, and it is the one that matters.
The economics are disclosed better than most of this sector and they are still poor. The company publishes a median beside its average - $1,045.55 against $11,914.53 for 2024 - defines gross profit net of what the retailer spent on stock, uses a denominator of anyone who transacted at all during the year, and itemises the costs the figure excludes. On those figures the median retailer cleared just over a thousand dollars for a full year before racks, shipping, packaging, advertising, mileage, insurance, accountancy and tax, and 90.37% of retailers earned nothing whatsoever from the compensation plan, down from 13.72% participation in 2021 to 9.63% in 2024. At $25 leggings pricing the $499 pack does not repay its own cost inside its own 33 pieces.
And the contract is the weakest part of the file. The Ninth Circuit held the arbitration clause unconscionable and non-severable in July 2023 and the one-year limitations clause unenforceable in October 2025; both survive in the Policies and Procedures published on the live CDN, which are still the February 2024 revision. The company may amend the agreement, the policies, its pricing and its product range at sole and absolute discretion, with a back-office posting deemed sufficient notice; rejecting an amendment cancels the agreement. A non-disparagement clause bars retailers from making negative statements about the company or the plan. The 45-day full-refund right with company-paid return shipping is written as a Washington-State term; everywhere else the entitlement is 90% of net cost, resalable only, within one year, seasonal and capsule excluded, return postage at the retailer.
Where a $25 retail sale actually goes
Built from LuLaRoe’s own published plan (REV.20230308.1) and the $15.12 blended wholesale cost of the 33-piece pack, at the one currently sourced retail price - $25 leggings. The upline slice is the theoretical maximum: 8.25% across three organizational tiers plus a 1.2% Leadership Pool, and every percentage requires the upline to hold the relevant rank that month. With 90.37% of retailers earning nothing from the plan, the realized figure is far below it.
| Product | Price | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| LuLaRoe Retailer Business Pack Thirty-three garments, chosen by the retailer with an onboarding team. The company states it is "the only purchase required to become a LuLaRoe Retailer." Blended wholesale cost $15.12 a piece. Every dollar of it buys physical goods - there is no separate joining fee. |
$499 one-time |
— |
| Gold / Platinum / Diamond add-on packages Optional larger inventory tiers, purchasable only within three days of the initial order, described as including the cost and features of the starter pack. The prices are published on the onboarding pages as images only and could not be extracted - that is a retrieval limitation, not an allegation that they are hidden. Sales tax on add-on items may apply depending on location. |
not published as text one-time, optional |
— |
| Leggings - One Size and Tall & Curvy The only current retail price this research could source directly, from a live retailer storefront and multiple independent 2025-26 reviews. Spec on the current product page: 4x6 rib, 95% polyester, 5% spandex, sizes OS, TC and TC2. At $15.12 blended wholesale that is $9.88 a unit. |
$25.00 retail per unit |
39.5% gross margin |
| Tops, dresses, denim and capsule lines The public catalog carried 517 live items on 1 August 2026 and displays no prices at all - buyers are routed to an individual retailer’s storefront. The last full published price list is from 2016 (Perfect T $36, Irma $35, Julia $45, Amelia $65, Sarah $70) and is a historical reference, not a current quote. |
set by each retailer per unit |
~35-50% historically quoted |
| Ongoing inventory replenishment There is no stated monthly purchase minimum and no autoship anywhere in the current Policies and Procedures - a genuine and unusual absence in this category. What exists instead is an activity test: fewer than one unit sold a month, or fewer than three in three consecutive months, counts as inactive. |
open-ended retailer’s choice |
— |
| Operating costs the company itemises but does not price The company’s own words, from the 2024 income disclosure, covering racks, hangers, storage bins, mannequins, camera, internet, phone, label printer, home warehouse, vehicle or trailer, business cards, shipping, packaging, advertising, giveaways, travel to corporate events, employees, insurance, accountant, attorney and bookkeeper. Publishing that list is to the company’s credit; it is also the honest first-year cost line. |
"several hundred dollars or thousands of dollars annually" ongoing |
— |
| Paper copy of the governing documents Charged for a paper copy of the current or any archived version of the contract you are bound by. The documents are free online, which is why this is a minor item - but a fee schedule is a fair guide to how a relationship is structured. |
$25.00 per request as needed |
— |
| Exit - the buyback Resalable stock only, purchased within the prior year, personally bought from the company, seasonal, discontinued, capsule and promotional items excluded entirely, return shipping at the retailer’s cost. On the $499 pack that is a $49.90 haircut plus postage. The 45-day full-refund right with company-paid return shipping appears in section 5.5.5 as a Washington-State provision. |
90% of net cost on cancellation |
— |
Who runs it, and what they ran before
A serial entrepreneur who, per a 2018 trade-press profile, most recently owned a concrete contracting business before this one - no prior direct-selling venture and no prior collapse could be attributed to him. He was a named individual defendant in the Washington attorney general action, in the consultant litigation and at the Riverside trial, and the November 2024 jury verdict of fraudulent inducement ran against him personally. His death is a fact, not a mark against him, and this report scores it only for what it does to the company: a Suggestion of Death was filed on the Ninth Circuit docket on 26 September 2025 and counsel confirmed on 6 October that no party would be substituted for the decedent. Note the correction: widely circulated online content says he "stepped down as chief executive in 2025." He did not step down; he died.
Prior ventures, per the same trade-press profile: two nail salons, a childrens performing group, and selling childrens dresses at pop-up home parties - the last being the direct antecedent of the model the company still uses. She was a named individual defendant in every major action, including the Riverside trial that produced the November 2024 fraud verdict against both founders. On the available evidence she is the surviving founder and the person running the business, but no company statement confirms her current title and the position is not publicly established.
DeAnne Bradys son, a senior figure during the peak period, named at paragraph 1.2 of the consent decree as a judgment debtor and bound by its injunctions at paragraph 5.1. His current role is not established. The consent decree contains an express no-admission clause and he, like the other defendants, denied all wrongdoing.
As of 1 August 2026 - ten months after the chief executive died - the company had issued no public succession announcement. The "About LuLaRoe" page on the corporate site still speaks of the founders in the present tense and names no chief executive. A registry mirror of the Wyoming record still lists Mark Stidham in every officer role: President, Secretary, Treasurer, Vice President and Shareholder. That mirror is a scrape rather than the Secretary of States own record and it has not been updated for his death. A prospective retailer signing a contract with LLR, Inc. today cannot establish from any public source who legally controls the counterparty. That is a governance fact, stated plainly, and it is separate from - and additional to - the litigation record.
Registered address
Corona, California, USA
Privately held, founder-owned, never funded and never audited. No public accounts have ever been filed and no company revenue or headcount figure has been published since 2017-2018 - the last were a reported $2.3 billion for 2017 (a press-reported figure, not a filed account) and wholesale guidance of $800 million to $1 billion given by the chief executive to a trade publication in September 2018. Every current figure in circulation - 3,500 retailers, 10,000 retailers, $200 million of revenue, 2,618 or 3,587 or 882 "employees" - comes from scraper aggregators that appear to be counting people who list LuLaRoe on a professional networking profile. None is a company figure, none is audited, and this report uses none of them. The only defensible statement about scale is that the base has contracted very substantially from a 2017 peak the company itself put at more than 80,000 retailers with 13,000 more in a sign-up queue.
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? |
RED
LLR, Inc., a Wyoming corporation formed 18 February 2015, trading from Corona, California alongside LuLaRoe, LLC and Lennon Leasing, LLC. Privately held, founder-owned, never funded, never audited, no filed accounts. The chief executive died on 25 September 2025 and no successor has been publicly named.
|
| What does it really cost? |
WATCH
$499 for the 33-piece Retailer Business Pack - the only purchase required. No autoship, no monthly minimum, no tools fee, no event levy. The company itself says the unlisted operating costs run to "several hundred dollars or thousands of dollars annually," and optional Gold, Platinum and Diamond add-ons exist whose prices are published only as images.
|
| Published income disclosure? |
CONCERN
Yes, and it is better than most: a median of $1,045.55 beside an average of $11,914.53 for 2024, gross profit defined net of stock cost, a denominator of everyone who transacted at all, and an itemised list of excluded expenses. It also shows 90.37% of retailers earning nothing from the compensation plan. No 2025 statement could be found as of 1 August 2026.
|
| Regulatory action against the company? |
WATCH
No FTC action, no SEC matter, no federal pyramid finding of any kind. Two state attorney general matters, both settled without admission: Washington, $4.75 million, February 2021, with monitoring expiring at the end of 2026; Pennsylvania, a $110,000 assurance of voluntary compliance, October 2020. Neither is a litigated finding.
|
| Has any court found against it? |
RED
Yes. A Riverside County jury returned more than $164,000,000 on 5-11 November 2024 against the company and both founders, including $96.3 million for fraudulent inducement, after a two-month trial. Post-trial and appellate status could not be verified. Separately the Ninth Circuit held the arbitration clause unconscionable in 2023 and the one-year limitations clause unenforceable in 2025.
|
| Can the company change the deal after you sign? |
RED
Yes. Section 2.2 permits amendment of the agreement, the policies, pricing and the product offering at "sole and absolute discretion," with a back-office posting deemed sufficient notice and rejection of an amendment canceling your agreement. Guidelines may be changed with no notice at all.
|
| Can you get your money back? |
CONCERN
90% of net cost on resalable stock personally purchased within the prior year, seasonal, discontinued, capsule and promotional items excluded, return shipping at your cost. The 45-day full refund with company-paid return shipping is written as a Washington-State provision; whether it is extended nationally in practice could not be confirmed.
|
| Merchant play or miner play? |
WATCH
Merchant, more than most things graded here - the money is made selling clothes at roughly 40% to 57% margin, and nine in ten retailers touch the override layer not at all. But rank advancement is gated on recruiting leaders rather than selling, the plan diagram starts with "Enroll," and a $500 sponsor bonus exists.
|
What has to be true for you to get paid
| To cover | You need |
|---|---|
| Recover the $499 pack at $25 leggings pricing | 51 garments sold $9.88 of gross margin a piece - more units than the 33-piece pack contains, so the pack cannot repay itself |
| Recover the $499 on a mixed basket | 26 garments sold at a $35 average price and $19.88 of margin a piece, leaving seven pieces of the pack as profit stock |
| Reach the published 2024 median outcome | ~53 pieces at $35, or ~106 at $25 $1,045.55 of gross profit, before shipping, packaging, advertising, racks, mileage, insurance and tax |
| Qualify at the entry rank, Sponsor, for one month | $2,000 of personal retail in that month 80 pieces at $25 or 57 at $35, costing $860-$1,210 at wholesale, plus at least one enrolled retailer beneath you |
Read this twice
Two figures set this arithmetic and both come from the company. The pack is $499 for 33 pieces, a blended $15.12 a garment. The only currently sourced retail price is $25 for leggings, taken from a live retailer storefront and corroborated by independent 2025-26 reviews - everything above $25 comes from a 2016 published list and is a historical reference, not a quote. At $25 the margin is $9.88 a piece, so recovering $499 takes 51 sales: more garments than the pack holds. That is the single most important number for a prospective retailer, and it means the first order is structurally a loss unless the basket average is higher than the one price this research could verify. On a $35 mixed basket the pack repays itself at 26 pieces and leaves seven as profit. Then set that against the disclosure. The median 2024 retailer cleared $1,045.55 of gross profit for the entire year - already net of stock cost, which is a stricter measure than most operators publish, but before every operating expense the company itself itemises and prices only as "several hundred dollars or thousands of dollars annually." At a $35 average that median is about 53 garments sold in twelve months. And the bottom rung of the compensation ladder, plain Sponsor, requires $2,000 of personal retail in a single month, which is roughly the entire annual retail turnover implied by the median retailer, compressed into thirty days. The ladder starts above where the typical participant finishes. Three honest caveats cut the other way. There is no monthly purchase minimum, no autoship and no tools subscription, so a retailer who buys the pack and stops has lost at most $499 minus whatever they sell and minus the 90% they can claim back on unsold resalable stock inside a year. The margin band itself is normal for apparel. And a retailer with a genuine customer base - a real one, not a downline - sits materially better than any of these medians, because the whole model is downstream of whether the clothes actually sell.
Run your own numbers
Drag the sliders. Nothing here is stored or sent.
This slider models retail selling rather than the compensation plan, because retail selling is what the $499 actually buys and because 90.37% of retailers earned nothing at all from the plan in 2024. Nine dollars ninety is the gross margin on one garment: $25 at retail against $15.12 wholesale, which is the entry package of 33 pieces divided by its price. Two things sit outside the slider. The $499 is paid in cash up front and comes back, if at all, at 90% within a year with return shipping at your cost - the 45-day full-refund right is written as a Washington-only term. And the compensation plan itself pays a maximum of roughly 8.25% plus a 1.2% pool on organizational retail sales, which is a genuine improvement compelled by a consent decree but is not what most retailers experience. The company publishes a median, which is better disclosure than most of this site manages: $1,045.55 of gross profit for the whole of 2024, net of stock cost, with an itemised list of the expenses it excludes. Its own new-with-tags stock resells at $10 to $15 on the secondary market, which is the ceiling on what the retail column above can really fetch. Your own subscription cost of $0/mo is included.
What it costs to replace this yourself
The capability LuLaRoe sells a participant is a specific one: source apparel at wholesale, run a social-selling storefront, take payments and ship. Every line below is a named 2026 open-market route to the same capability, at list or typical pricing. The margin LuLaRoe offers is ordinary for the wholesale apparel trade - roughly 40% at $25 leggings, up to 57% on a mixed basket. What is not ordinary is the terms, and the last row is the one that has no equivalent anywhere else on this site.
| What they sell you | What you'd use instead | Your cost |
|---|---|---|
| $499 cash up front for a fixed 33-piece pack | Faire - thousands of apparel brands at roughly 50% of recommended retail, many with no minimum, net-60 payment terms and free returns on a first order with a brand | $0 to join, pay in 60 days |
| A pack whose contents you influence but do not fully control | FashionGo, LA Showroom or OrangeShine - Los Angeles wholesale marketplaces, low minimums, you pick every size and every print | $0 to join |
| Buyer routed through the company retailer map and point-of-sale system | Shopify Basic - a storefront, a domain and a customer list you own outright | ~$39/month |
| No storefront you can sell, transfer or keep | Etsy - no fixed cost, listing fee plus transaction fee | $0.20 per listing + 6.5% |
| Company-supplied point of sale, no data export provision located | Square Online free tier, or Stripe / Square payments on your own site | $0 fixed; ~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction |
| Live selling on social platforms, permitted under the policies | The identical channels - live video on the major social platforms | $0 |
| Inventory and live-sale tooling supplied by the operator | CommentSold and equivalents, if you want the same functionality | ~$149+/month entry tiers |
| Exit at 90% of net cost, resalable only, seasonal excluded, return postage yours | Poshmark ($2.95 flat under $15, 20% at or above) or Mercari (~10%) to clear stock at market | commission only, no haircut, no window |
| Wholesale cost basis of $15.12 a garment | The identical LuLaRoe garment, new with tags, on Poshmark, Mercari, eBay and ThredUp | $10-$15, lower in bulk lots |
| Total as sold $499 up front plus, on the company’s own account, several hundred to several thousand dollars of unpriced operating cost in year one |
Total, built yourself ~$40-$190 a month of tooling, with stock bought on 60-day terms and returnable free on a first order |
Price-to-value
The margin is not the problem - 40% to 57% is a normal apparel wholesale margin and the company is not gouging its end customers at $25 a legging. The terms are the problem. Faire will give a new retailer the same margin band with no minimum, sixty days to pay and free returns on a first order; LuLaRoe wants the cash today and keeps 10% of it if you leave. And then there is the row nothing else on this site has: the retailer competes directly against a decade of liquidated inventory in their own SKUs, new with tags, at $10 to $15 - at or below their own cost basis, for the identical garment in the identical print. A new apparel wholesaler sourcing on the open market simply does not face that.
Three operators, five horizons
Probability of cumulative net profit
Hover any point for median, top decile and bottom quartile.
Cautious starter
buys the $499 pack, sells to friends and a small local following, does not re-order heavily
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 22% | −$210 |
| 6 mo | 30% | −$120 |
| 1 yr | 34% | −$60 |
| 3 yr | 33% | −$180 |
| 5 yr | 32% | −$260 |
Committed seller
$499 plus roughly $3,000 of replenishment in year one, regular live sales, no team
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 12% | −$1,100 |
| 6 mo | 18% | −$1,400 |
| 1 yr | 24% | −$1,200 |
| 3 yr | 27% | −$1,900 |
| 5 yr | 27% | −$2,600 |
Team builder
$499 plus roughly $9,000 of stock in year one, recruiting toward Trainer and Coach
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 6% | −$3,400 |
| 6 mo | 9% | −$4,600 |
| 1 yr | 13% | −$5,200 |
| 3 yr | 17% | −$9,000 |
| 5 yr | 18% | −$13,000 |
Methodology note. These are modeled outcome ranges, not claims, not projections and not anything the company has published. ANCHORED to LuLaRoe’s own 2024 income disclosure - an average gross profit of $11,914.53 against a median of $1,045.55, a denominator of every retailer who processed any transaction during the year, gross profit defined net of wholesale purchases, and 90.37% of retailers receiving nothing at all from the Leadership Compensation Plan (participation having fallen from 13.72% in 2021 to 9.63% in 2024). Anchored also to the published cost side: the $499 pack, the $15.12 blended wholesale unit, the $25 legging price, the 8.25% maximum organizational override plus a 1.2% pool, the 90% buyback with seasonal and capsule stock excluded, and the company’s own statement that unlisted operating costs run to "several hundred dollars or thousands of dollars annually." MODELED by us: the replenishment volumes that define each cohort, the split of that unpriced expense band, the proportion of each cohort in cumulative profit, and - the largest single assumption in the exercise - sell-through. Nothing in the record supports 100% sell-through; the company’s own chief executive told a trade publication in 2018 that new tracking had revealed retailers "were not selling all of the product they were buying from us," and every figure above assumes a materially lower rate. A third-party read of the published 2024 distribution charts puts 72% of retailers below $5,000 of annual gross profit and 19.65% at an outright loss; the charts are images and those bucket figures could not be independently extracted, so they inform the shape of these ranges rather than fixing them. The cautious starter is the only cohort where a meaningful minority reaches break-even, and that is a direct consequence of the $499 entry: the downside is bounded in a way it was not in 2017.
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 jury found fraud against the company and both founders and awarded $164,000,000
2Thirty-plus entities were found to have been used to move cash and assets away from a creditor
3The judgment sits against a company that has never published accounts
4The chief executive died in September 2025 and no successor has been named
5The median retailer cleared $1,045.55 for the whole of 2024
690.37% of retailers earned nothing at all from the compensation plan in 2024
7The entry rank is out of reach of the median participant
8Rank advancement is gated on recruiting leaders, not on selling
9You buy the stock before you sell it, and pay 10% plus postage to give it back
10The Ninth Circuit has twice struck LuLaRoe’s own contract terms, and both survive in the live document
11The company may rewrite the deal and notify you by posting it in the back office
12A non-disparagement clause silences the people a prospect most needs to hear from
13Everything you build is forfeited on exit, including if your business entity dissolves
14The published disclosures are stale and internally inconsistent
15The retailer competes against a decade of the company’s own liquidated stock
Green flags
101Every dollar of the $499 buys physical goods
2The entry cost has fallen by roughly 90% and the retailer now chooses the stock
3The compensation plan is denominated in retail sales, not wholesale purchases
4It publishes a median alongside the average, and defines gross profit net of stock cost
5The denominator is wide and unflattering, which is the right way round
6It itemises the expenses the disclosure excludes, and says they can run to thousands
7The consent decree built real operational controls and they appear to be in place
8The income disclaimer is prominent and the governing documents are public
9No FTC action, no SEC matter and no federal pyramid finding, ever
10The product is real, still in development, and fairly priced to the consumer
We would like to be wrong about this
Upward
- Final resolution of the November 2024 verdict on terms that leave the fraud finding reversed rather than merely reduced - a reduction in quantum would not lift the cap, a reversal on the fraud counts would - together with a clear public statement of who now leads and owns the company.
- Publication of a 2025 income disclosure on time, with the Washington statement correctly labeled and carrying a cancellation figure that has a stated denominator, plus disclosure of the current active-retailer count and reviewed or audited revenue.
- Rewriting the arbitration and limitations provisions to remove what the Ninth Circuit held unconscionable and unenforceable, dropping the class waiver and the non-disparagement clause, and extending the 45-day full-refund-plus-shipping right to every state in the Policies and Procedures rather than as a Washington carve-out.
Downward
- Entry of final judgment for the full amount with no viable satisfaction path, or any evidence that buyback obligations are being slow-walked as was alleged in Pennsylvania in 2020.
- Reintroduction of any purchase-volume-denominated bonus, any wholesale bonus, or any rank qualification keyed to organizational purchases rather than retail sales - or a return to randomised assortments and five-figure onboarding tiers.
- Expiry of the consent-decree monitoring window at the end of 2026 followed by dilution of the RFID, audit, pop-up-disclosure or refund provisions, or a third consecutive year without a current income disclosure, or removal of the median figure.
Grade is D−. The composite is 4.79, which lands in the D band; the grade publishes one band lower on a single item, and the entry says exactly what that item is and what it is not.
Two things about this company are genuinely better than its reputation, and they should be said before anything else. The offer has been fixed. The buy-in that made this brand a byword - reported at $4,925 to $9,000, in an assortment the company chose for you, against a recommended stock level around $20,000 - is gone. It is now $499 for 33 garments the retailer picks with help from an onboarding team, with no monthly minimum, no autoship, no tools subscription and no event levy, and every dollar of it buys goods rather than a license to participate. And the bonus is now calculated on retail sales of the organization rather than on wholesale purchases, which was the exact thing the Washington attorney general challenged and the exact thing the consent decree compelled. The disclosure is better than most of this site too: a median published beside an average, gross profit defined net of what the retailer spent on stock, a denominator that includes everybody who transacted at all, and an itemised list of the costs the figure leaves out. A reader who declines this business on the strength of a 2021 documentary is declining a product that has been withdrawn.
What the fixed offer buys is still poor. The median retailer cleared $1,045.55 for the whole of 2024 - before racks, packaging, shipping, advertising, mileage, insurance, accountancy and tax, which the company itself prices only as "several hundred dollars or thousands of dollars annually." The average is eleven and a half times the median. Some 90.37% of retailers earned nothing at all from the compensation plan, and participation in it has fallen from 13.72% in 2021 to 9.63% in 2024. At the one retail price this research could source directly - $25 leggings - the $499 pack cannot repay its own cost inside its own 33 pieces; it takes 51 sales. The bottom rung of the ladder, plain Sponsor, wants $2,000 of personal retail in a single month, which is roughly the whole year of retail turnover implied by the median. And the same garments, new with tags, sit on the resale platforms at $10 to $15 - below the retailer’s own wholesale cost, in the identical print. Meanwhile Faire will supply a new apparel retailer at roughly the same margin with no minimum, sixty days to pay and free returns on a first order.
The third element is why the grade publishes below the arithmetic, and it has to be stated at its exact stage. On 5-11 November 2024, after a fully tried two-month trial in Riverside County Superior Court, a jury returned more than $164,000,000 against the company and both founders, including $96.3 million for fraudulent inducement, on evidence that thirty-plus entities were used to move cash and assets away from the supplier bringing the claim. That is a litigated finding after trial. It is not the $4.75 million Washington consent decree, which carries an express no-admission clause, a positive denial of wrongdoing by every defendant, a full release and a monitoring window expiring at the end of 2026. It is not the Pennsylvania assurance of voluntary compliance, in which the company also disputed the allegations. It is not any of the putative class actions, none of which was ever certified or tested on the merits. And it is not the documentaries, which are journalism. Whether the verdict has since been reduced, entered in full or appealed could not be verified for this report - defense counsel said post-trial motions might significantly affect it. What is on the record is a jury finding of fraudulent inducement against the two people who built this company, one of whom died in September 2025 with no successor named ten months later, and the other of whom appears to be running it.
Buy the clothes, do not buy the business
If you like the garments - and plenty of people genuinely do, at $25 a legging that is level with Old Navy and Uniqlo - buy them. Buy them from a retailer near you through the locator map, or buy the identical thing new with tags on Poshmark, Mercari or eBay for $10 to $15. There is no version of "I like these leggings" that requires $499, a contract you cannot amend, a twelve-month worldwide non-solicit and a clause telling you to speak well of the company.
Do the 51-garment sum before you pay
At the one retail price this report could verify, recovering $499 takes 51 sales at $9.88 of margin each - and the pack contains 33 pieces. That means the first order is a structural loss unless your basket average is materially above $25, and the whole model then rests on sell-through, which the company’s own chief executive said in 2018 was worse than the order book suggested. Write down what you will sell, at what price, to whom, before you order.
Source the same capability on open-market terms instead
Faire lists thousands of apparel brands at roughly 50% of recommended retail - the same margin band - with many at no minimum, net-60 payment terms and free returns on a first order with a brand. FashionGo, LA Showroom and OrangeShine let you pick every size and every print. Shopify at about $39 a month, or Etsy at $0.20 a listing plus 6.5%, gives you a storefront and a customer list you own and could one day sell. None of that asks for the cash today or keeps 10% when you leave.
Read section 5.5.5 and ask which state you live in
The 45-day full refund with company-paid return shipping - the term that makes the entry genuinely low-risk - is written in the Policies and Procedures as a Washington-State provision. Everywhere else the published entitlement is 90% of net cost, resalable stock only, purchased within a year, seasonal and capsule excluded, postage yours. Ask, in writing, whether the 45-day term applies to you. If the answer is vague, price the 10% haircut into the $499 before you decide.
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.
- LuLaRoe Nationwide 2024 Income Disclosure Statement (Rev.111721.02)
LuLaRoe 2024 Income Disclosure Statement (Rev.111721.02), live at lularoe.com on 1 August 2026 - average gross profit $11,914.53, median $1,045.55; 9.63% participating in the Leadership Compensation Plan and 90.37% not; median leadership compensation $875.53; five-component definition of gross profit net of wholesale purchases; itemised list of excluded expenses
- 2024 LuLaRoe Income Disclosure Statement - average gross profit $11,914.53, median $1,045.55
- LuLaRoe Washington State 2024 Income Disclosure Statement (required by the 2021 consent decree)
- 2022 LuLaRoe Income Disclosure Statement (PDF, company CDN - earlier revision for comparison)
- LuLaRoe Leadership Compensation Plan, REV.20230308.1 (PDF)
LuLaRoe Leadership Compensation Plan REV.20230308.1 - every percentage stated against retail sales; Sponsor / Trainer / Coach / Mentor monthly requirements of $2,000 / $4,000 / $8,000 / $12,000 personal retail and $1 / $20,000 / $250,000 / $1,000,000 total retail; 3.75% + 2.00% + 2.50% maximum stack; sub-rank one-time payouts; the "Organization Building Business Loop" beginning with "Enroll a New Boutique Owner". Compared against Rev.033120.08 of March 2020 for the graduation mechanics, the 1.2% Leadership Pool and the $1,500 / $500 90 Day Start Now bonuses
- LuLaRoe Leadership Compensation Plan Rev.033120.08, March 2020 (archived copy on a document-hosting mirror)
- LuLaRoe Policies and Procedures, Rev.020124.001, effective 1 February 2024 (PDF, company CDN)
LuLaRoe Policies and Procedures Rev.020124.001, 1 February 2024, live on the company CDN - §2.2 unilateral amendment and back-office notice, §3.2.6 non-disparagement, §3.3 business-entity forfeiture, §§4.1-4.5 advertising, MAP and channel rules, §5.5.3 and §5.5.5 buyback and the Washington-State 45-day term, §8.2 twelve-month worldwide non-solicit, §§9.2-9.3 JAMS arbitration, class waiver and Riverside County venue, §10.2 inactivity
- Consent Decree, State of Washington v. LLR, Inc. et al., King County Superior Court No. 19-2-02325-2 SEA, signed 1 February 2021 (PDF)
Washington Consent Decree, King County Superior Court No. 19-2-02325-2 SEA, 2 February 2021 - $4,000,000 restitution to approximately 3,000 retailers plus $750,000 in costs; ¶2.3 no admission; ¶3.2 continuing denial of all wrongdoing; ¶3.3 full release; ¶5.3.A the ban on purchase-based compensation; ¶5.4.B audits; ¶5.4.C refund terms; ¶¶5.5-5.6 income-claim injunctions; ¶¶5.7-5.8 the 30 April annual disclosure deadline; ¶6.1.B RFID; ¶6.1.C monitoring "for the years 2021 through 2026"
- "LuLaRoe to pay $4.75 million to resolve AG Ferguson's lawsuit over pyramid scheme" - news release, 2 February 2021
- State of Washington v. LLR, Inc. - filed complaint, 23 January 2019 (stamped PDF)
- "AG Ferguson sues LuLaRoe over pyramid scheme" - news release, 25 January 2019
- Providence Industries, LLC v. LuLaRoe, LLC et al., Riverside County Superior Court No. RIC1825263 - case docket (filed 29 November 2018; 24 January 2025 judgment entry on LLR, Inc.'s cross-complaint)
Providence Industries LLC (dba MyDyer) v. LuLaRoe LLC et al., Riverside County Superior Court No. RIC1825263 - jury verdict 5-11 November 2024 exceeding $164,000,000 after a two-month trial, comprising $96.3 million for fraudulent inducement and $33.6 million for breach of contract; plaintiff counsel and Daily Journal reporting of 11 and 15 November 2024 on the thirty-plus entities and the assets identified; LuLaRoe counterclaims rejected; co-defendant directed verdict; LLR, Inc. cross-complaint "Nothing Awarded" 24 January 2025; defense counsel statement that post-trial motions may significantly affect the verdict
Not established by this document: No free public copy of the signed jury verdict form or the entered judgment could be located. Riverside County Superior Court's public portal (epublic-access.riverside.courts.ca.gov) is a session-based search interface with no stable per-case URL and returned HTTP 403 to retrieval; the case is not on CourtListener because California state trial courts do not file to PACER. The docket entries and the November 2024 verdict amounts are therefore evidenced by the UniCourt docket record plus Daily Journal and Law360 trial reporting, not by the verdict document itself.
- "$164M Riverside jury verdict for apparel supplier driven out of business" - Daily Journal, November 2024
- "LuLaRoe Hit With $164M Verdict In Contract, Fraud Trial" - Law360, November 2024
- Tentative ruling, Providence Industries LLC v. LuLaRoe LLC, No. RIC1825263, 25 April 2024 (pre-trial motion record)
- Tentative ruling by Judge Sam Lavorato, Jr., Providence Industries LLC v. LuLaRoe LLC, No. RIC1825263, 21 November 2021
- Ponkey v. LLR, Inc., No. 22-55532 - Ninth Circuit memorandum of 31 July 2023 holding the arbitration agreement unconscionable and non-severable (PDF)
Ponkey v. LLR, Inc., C.D. Cal. 5:21-cv-00518 and Ninth Circuit No. 22-55532 - order of 31 July 2023 holding the arbitration agreement unconscionable and non-severable under California law; dismissal with prejudice 5 September 2024 on the one-year limitations clause; Ninth Circuit order docketed 30 October 2025 holding that clause unenforceable and returning the case to the district court; Suggestion of Death filed 26 September 2025 with no substitution
- Ponkey v. LLR, Inc., No. 24-5729 - Ninth Circuit memorandum of 30 October 2025 holding the one-year limitations clause unenforceable (PDF)
- Jessica Ponkey v. LLR, Inc. et al., C.D. Cal. No. 5:21-cv-00518 - district court docket
- Ponkey, et al. v. LLR, Inc., et al., No. 24-5729 - Ninth Circuit appellate docket
- "LuLaRoe Settles Refund Policy Lawsuit In Pennsylvania After Consultants Say Company Never Refunded Them" - CBS Philadelphia, October 2020
Pennsylvania Attorney General Assurance of Voluntary Compliance, Dauphin County, 9 October 2020 - $95,950 civil penalty plus $14,050 in costs; more than 1,725 national refund requests generally of $3,000-$5,000 totaling over $9,000,000 with delays of up to a year; 52 Pennsylvania consultants with overdue refunds, all since paid; LuLaRoe disputed the alleged violations and the assurance records that it fully cooperated
Not established by this document: The Pennsylvania Assurance of Voluntary Compliance document itself (Dauphin County, 9 October 2020) is not published on attorneygeneral.gov. The PA OAG posts AVCs under /wp-content/uploads/<year>/ but no LuLaRoe file appears in that path or in any site or web search; the 2020 press release for it is also no longer reachable. Only contemporaneous news coverage of the $95,950 penalty and the refund figures could be sourced.
- Katie Van v. LLR, Inc. dba LuLaRoe, No. 21-36020, 61 F.4th 1053 - Ninth Circuit opinion of 13 March 2023 vacating class certification on predominance (PDF)
Van v. LLR, Inc., D. Alaska 3:18-cv-00197 and 61 F.4th 1053 (9th Cir. 2023) - class certification vacated on predominance grounds, renewed certification denied 5 December 2023 and again 15 January 2025, case dismissed with prejudice 22-23 January 2026 on undisclosed individual terms with each side bearing its own costs. Headlines describing a "$36 million settlement" refer to the statutory maximum pleaded for a class that was never certified
- Van v. LLR, Inc., No. 21-36020 (9th Cir. 2023) - full opinion text
- Van v. LLR, Inc. et al., D. Alaska No. 3:18-cv-00197 - district court docket
- Join LuLaRoe - $499 Retailer Business Pack of 33 pieces stated as the only required purchase, plus optional add-on packages
LuLaRoe join and onboarding pages, catalog and product pages retrieved 1 August 2026 - $499 Retailer Business Pack of 33 pieces described as the only required purchase; "choose your items" onboarding step; three-day add-on window; 517-item catalog with no displayed prices; leggings spec 95% polyester / 5% spandex; income disclaimer text; $25 legging price from a live retailer storefront and independent 2025-26 reviews
Not established by this document: The Gold/Platinum/Diamond add-on package prices remain unretrievable as text: lularoe.com/pages/join-lularoe renders them inside images (filenames reference "3DAYS" for the add-on window) and no text price is exposed.
- LuLaRoe "Let's Get Started" onboarding page with income disclaimer
- LuLaRoe Disclosure Statements index (onboarding funnel)
- Old Navy women's leggings - current retail price list (open-market comparator)
Comparator pricing checked at 2026 list or typical levels: Old Navy, Target, Uniqlo, H&M, Amazon, Athleta, Lululemon and Fabletics for leggings; Faire, FashionGo, LA Showroom, OrangeShine and Tundra for wholesale sourcing; Shopify, Etsy, Square, Stripe, CommentSold and Pirate Ship for storefront, payments and shipping; Poshmark, Mercari, eBay and ThredUp for resale, where the identical garments list new with tags at $10-$15
Not established by this document: The remaining comparators in this prose entry (Target, Uniqlo, H&M, Athleta, Lululemon, Fabletics; Faire, FashionGo, LA Showroom, OrangeShine, Tundra; Shopify, Etsy, Square, Stripe, CommentSold, Pirate Ship; Poshmark, Mercari, eBay, ThredUp) are live storefront and pricing pages whose URLs change continually. One durable comparator link is cited rather than twenty brittle ones, per the effort-budget rule.
What we could not get
- The Gold, Platinum and Diamond add-on package prices. They are published on the onboarding pages only as images, with the numbers inside the graphics and the surrounding text rendering as "Basic / Budget / Great Value / Best Value." They could not be extracted as text - a retrieval limitation, not a claim that they are concealed.
- The current retailer count and current revenue. No company figure has been published since 2017-2018. Every number in circulation - 3,500 or "fewer than 10,000" retailers, $200 million of revenue, 2,618 or 3,587 or 882 "employees" - traces to scraper aggregators that appear to be counting people who list LuLaRoe on a professional networking profile. None is a company figure, none is audited, and none is used anywhere in this report.
- The final status of the $164,000,000 verdict. Defense counsel stated that post-trial motions might significantly affect it. Whether final judgment was entered in the full amount, whether it was reduced, and whether an appeal is pending or has been decided could not be established. A docket entry recording a ten-year judgment expiration running to 5 November 2035 is consistent with judgment having been entered, but that is an inference. This report does not treat the verdict as final or as a collected debt.
- Whether a 2025 income disclosure exists anywhere. Five separate company URLs were checked on 1 August 2026 and all resolve to 2024 or earlier data. The consent decree requires an update with the prior year’s figures by 30 April annually. No 2025 statement was found, which is not the same as establishing that none exists.
- Domain WHOIS. The registry lookup served an interactive CAPTCHA challenge rather than record data, so no WHOIS-based conclusion is drawn anywhere in this report. That is "could not retrieve," not "no record."
- BBB complaint counts and the customer-review star rating. The live profile rendered the rating and accreditation status but not the complaint tables, which sit behind tabs that did not load, and the company appears under more than one listing. One correction belongs here: several widely circulated 2026 articles assert that LuLaRoe currently holds an "F" with the BBB. On the profile retrieved for this report the rating shown is A+, with the company recorded as not accredited. The historic F ratings of January 2017 and February 2019 were real; the current rating is not F. A BBB rating is a private ratings body’s opinion covering a rolling window, and both figures should be read as that.
- Whether the Leadership Pool still operates. It took 1.2% of the value of all retail sales in the March 2020 plan revision and is expressly preserved by name in the consent decree, but the current two-page plan document contains no Leadership Pool section at all. Whether it has been discontinued or simply omitted from a summary document could not be established.
- Whether the 45-day full-refund right is extended outside Washington in practice, and whether the Policies and Procedures have been revised since February 2024 in response to the two Ninth Circuit rulings against the company’s own contract terms. The version on the live CDN is still Rev.020124.001, and the current Independent Fashion Retailer Agreement itself sits behind the enrollment flow and was not obtained.
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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LuLaRoe - frequently asked
QIs LuLaRoe still in business in 2026?
QHow much does it cost to join LuLaRoe now?
QHow much do LuLaRoe retailers actually earn?
QWhat is the $164 million LuLaRoe verdict?
QIs LuLaRoe a pyramid scheme?
Author, editor and publisher
This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - LuLaRoe’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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