Nu Skin
The only company graded in this batch that files audited accounts with the SEC - which is why almost every figure here comes from a 10-K rather than a trade estimate, and why the numbers that follow can be trusted even where they are bad.
Free to join, a real product, a published income disclosure - and that same disclosure implies roughly 87.6% of enrolled US affiliates earned nothing in a typical month of 2025, inside a business whose Sales Leader count has fallen 38.9% since FY2023.
Can you actually make money with Nu Skin?
Yes, under conditions, and the first condition is that you read the disclosure this company publishes itself. Start with the credits, because they are unusual. Enrollment is genuinely free: no sign-up fee, no starter kit, no minimum order, no autoship and no personal purchase requirement. Every bonus except the retail markup is gated on product sales to five different customers each month, which is an external-sales gate rather than a volume gate that internal buying quietly satisfies.
The evidence here is better than anywhere else on this site because it is audited. Nu Skin files with the SEC, reports field metrics quarterly inside those filings, and Item 1 of the FY2025 Form 10-K states under officer certification that the sales force is not required to recruit or sponsor and that no sales compensation is paid for recruiting or sponsoring. The income disclosure is linked from the recruiting page rather than buried, and it publishes the Active-to-total ratio, 46.54%, which most operators suppress.
That ratio is what makes the arithmetic honest, and the arithmetic is hard. The company reports that 26.67% of Active US Brand Affiliates earned any compensation in a month. Multiply by 46.54% and roughly 12.41% of enrolled affiliates earned anything in a typical month of 2025, which puts about 87.6% at nothing. Among those who were paid, the modal line is the plain Brand Affiliate rank at $51 a month gross before expenses, 19.53% of Actives and about three-quarters of everybody paid.
And the network is contracting fast. Sales Leaders fell 38.9% between FY2023 and the first quarter of 2026, from 44,059 to 26,915. United States revenue fell 26.2% in FY2025, revenue for the Nu Skin business fell 12.7% that year and a further 11.2% in the first quarter of 2026, and that is four consecutive years of double-digit revenue decline. Those are audited figures rather than trade estimates, which is exactly why they carry more weight here than the softer numbers elsewhere on this site.
no sign-up fee, no starter kit, no minimum order, no autoship and no personal purchase requirement - capital at risk on day one is zero
- You can find and keep five different customers every single month, indefinitely. That gate resets monthly, it is the real operating burden of this business, and every bonus except the retail markup sits behind it.
- You are joining to sell skincare rather than to build a title. Under the plan effective 1 May 2026, every title from Gold up is defined by how many Leadership Teams you have developed and their sales volume, and the Leading Bonus pays an extra 5% on the Group Sales Volume of first-generation Brand Representatives you personally registered, so recruiting stays the only route upward even though no bonus is paid per recruit.
- You can build inside a shrinking network without that changing your plan. Sales Leaders are down 38.9% since FY2023, and revenue for the Nu Skin business fell 12.7% in FY2025 and 11.2% in the first quarter of 2026, all from company filings rather than estimates.
- You accept that you will not own the customer. Purchases happen on the company site through your link, the downline is not portable, and Brand Representative status and the Sales Network beneath it are lost in any month that 2,000 Group Sales Volume is missed and Flex Points cannot cover the gap, with a six-month Restart window, usable once, for former Gold and higher titles.
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 - Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. is a listed US issuer in good standing on the New York Stock Exchange, filing audited financial statements with the SEC under officer certification, with a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit opinion carrying no going-concern qualification. No court or regulator has ever found it to be a pyramid scheme. The historical file, stage-labeled precisely: a 1994 FTC consent order (administrative, settled, no admission) requiring competent and reliable scientific evidence for product claims; a 1997 consent decree in the District of Utah under which the company paid a $1.5 million civil penalty to resolve FTC charges that it had violated that order, again settled with no admission of a law violation; a second FTC settlement under an existing order is a more serious posture than a standalone settlement, and both facts belong in the same sentence; 2014 administrative penalties by Chinese regulators of roughly RMB 3.26 million for selling products not registered for direct sale, plus a RMB 100,000 fine over product claims that overstated effectiveness, with no pyramid-scheme (传销) determination made; a 2016 SEC administrative cease-and-desist order settling FCPA books-and-records charges for $765,688, neither admitted nor denied; and a securities class action settled for $47 million in 2016 - a filed claim resolved for cash, not a finding of wrongdoing by anyone. A share-price decline is not a finding of wrongdoing. A 44.9% revenue decline is not insolvency. The letter grade on this page is not a legality verdict.
Confidence: 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
This report is graded against the US Sales Performance Plan effective 1 May 2026. A 42-year-old Utah personal-care, supplement and beauty-device company - brands Nu Skin, Pharmanex, ageLOC and the Rhyz manufacturing group - selling through independent Brand Affiliates on a plan that pays a Retailing Bonus on retail markup, an L1 Bonus of 5% on purchases by your first-level Customers and Brand Affiliates, an L2 Bonus of 5% on the second level reached through affiliates you personally registered, both doubled to 10% for a Brand Representative at 3,000 Group Sales Volume, a Building Bonus of 10% to 25% on Group Sales Volume and a Leading Bonus paid up to six generations deep at the top titles.
Start with what makes this report different from every other one on the site, because it changes how much weight the reader can put on everything below. Nu Skin is the only company in this batch that files audited financial statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The revenue figures, the margin figures, the affiliate headcounts and the customer counts below come from the FY2025 Form 10-K filed on 13 February 2026 and audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, or from the Q1 2026 Form 10-Q filed on 8 May 2026 - under Section 302 and 906 officer certification, with false-certification liability attached. This site normally treats its own watchlist figures as hypotheses to be tested against whatever evidence exists; here both watchlist figures were confirmed exactly. FY2025 revenue of $1,485.2 million against $1,732.1 million is a 14.26% decline, and the company itself states "down 14.3%". Q1 2026 revenue of $320.6 million against $364.5 million is a 12.04% decline. Both CONFIRMED. That level of precision is not available anywhere else in this batch and the reader should take credit for it.
And the good news is not confined to disclosure. Enrollment is free - no sign-up fee, no starter kit, no minimum order, no autoship, no personal purchase requirement, so capital at risk on day one is zero. Every bonus except the retail markup is gated on selling to five different customers a month, and the plan says no one may hold status or title by buying additional products. The 10-K states under certification that no compensation is paid for recruiting or sponsoring. There are 669,535 customers against 120,850 paid affiliates. Returns run at 100% within 30 days for customers regardless of condition and 90% for twelve months for affiliates. Manufacturing is owned, at $205.8 million of segment revenue. Governance is one share class, seven of nine directors independent, 97% say-on-pay. A company doing all of that at once is doing several things its category mostly does not.
Then the numbers, which are the reason for the grade. Applying the company’s own disclosure figures, roughly 87.6% of enrolled US Brand Affiliates earned nothing in a typical month of 2025, and the modal earner among the rest took $51 a month gross before expenses. Revenue has fallen 44.9% from FY2021 to FY2025 across four consecutive double-digit declines with the rate accelerating in the final year, and FY2026 guidance of $1.35–1.50 billion implies a fifth. Sales Leaders - the layer actually earning meaningful money - are down 38.9% since FY2023, faster than the customer base. Consolidated selling expenses fell from $652.0 million to $508.4 million in FY2025, but that line covers the Rhyz businesses too, one of them sold in January 2025, and the company’s own ratio for the Nu Skin business rose: selling expenses were 40.8% of its revenue in Q4 2025 against 40.3% a year earlier, and 40.5% in Q1 2026 against 38.7%.
One number matters more than any other for a reader trying to size up the underlying business, and it is easy to miss. FY2025 net income of $160.2 million looks like a recovery from a $146.6 million loss. It is not. Of the $196.2 million of pre-tax income, $176.2 million is a one-off gain on the January 2025 sale of a Rhyz business that had carried $69.6 million of 2024 revenue, generating $193.7 million of cash proceeds. Strip that out and FY2025 pre-tax income was approximately $20.0 million on $1.485 billion of revenue - a pre-tax margin of about 1.3%. A headline profit that reverses to roughly break-even once a single one-off is removed is the most important thing on this page. The dividend tells the same story from the other side: dividends paid fell from $77.6 million in FY2023 to $11.9 million in FY2024, a cut of 84.7%, and have stayed there at $0.06 a quarter into 2026.
Where enrolled US Brand Affiliates sat in 2025
Derived from Nu Skin’s own published US compensation disclosure for calendar 2025: 26.67% of Active Brand Affiliates earned any compensation in a month, and Active Brand Affiliates were 46.54% of all enrolled Brand Affiliates. Percentages are of all enrolled US affiliates, and the compensation figures are gross - the disclosure states in terms that they do not represent profit and do not consider expenses.
| Product | Price | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Brand Affiliate enrollment Genuinely free. The US opportunity page states enrollment is "quick, easy, and free to sign up" with "no personal purchases necessary", and no sign-up fee, starter-kit requirement, minimum order or autoship condition could be found. Where a large share of the offers reviewed on this site take $50 to $1,000 at the door, Nu Skin takes nothing. |
$0 one-time |
— |
| Prysm iO Launched to US consumers 2 April 2026. Scans a fingertip in 15 seconds to measure skin carotenoid levels and returns a proprietary "Nutrition Health Score", then routes the user toward Prysm-certified supplements. A published study led by dermatologist Dr Zoe Draelos in Food and Nutrition Journal, 97 participants, reports correlation with blood serum carotenoids at R² 0.75–0.77 - a real number in a real paper, and more than most device claims in this category rest on. It is a validated measurement correlation, not evidence that raising the score improves any outcome. Over 20,000 units were distributed to sales leaders ahead of launch, generating more than 700,000 scans: this is a field-demonstration tool as much as a consumer product. No FDA 510(k) clearance found. |
$375 one-time, no subscription |
Retailing Bonus + L1 and L2 Bonuses on its CSV |
| ageLOC LumiSpa iO / RenuSpa iO / Body Spa devices The current device line. No FDA 510(k) clearance was found for any of them in the openFDA database. They are, as far as the public record shows, marketed as cosmetic or general-wellness products, which is lawful and common - many cosmetic devices fall outside FDA device regulation entirely. That is not a criticism; it becomes one only if a field presentation implies otherwise. |
not published in the filings reviewed one-time |
Retailing Bonus + L1 and L2 Bonuses on its CSV |
| Facial Spa / Galvanic Spa lineage The one genuinely FDA-cleared device: K122711, "Facial Spa", traditional 510(k), decided substantially equivalent on 17 September 2013, product code NFO, Class II under 21 CFR 882.5890 (transcutaneous electrical stimulator, aesthetic purposes). Nu Skin is entitled to say "FDA-cleared" about this one, in those exact words. Clearance means substantial equivalence to a predicate device - it is not FDA approval and it is not a safety-and-efficacy finding in the sense a drug approval implies. |
not published in the filings reviewed one-time |
Retailing Bonus + L1 and L2 Bonuses on its CSV |
| Pharmanex supplement line LifePak, G3, ageLOC Youth, Beauty Focus Collagen+, MYND360 and Pharmanex Eye Formula. These are dietary supplements under DSHEA: not FDA-approved, not reviewed for efficacy, and permitted only structure/function claims with the standard disclaimer. Entirely normal for the category, and it should be stated rather than implied away - particularly given the 1997 civil penalty over supplement efficacy claims. |
premium; per-unit pricing not sourced for this report repeat purchase |
Retailing Bonus + L1 and L2 Bonuses on its CSV |
| The five-customer monthly gate Product sales to five different customers each month. This is the real operating burden of the business and it is also its best structural feature: a hard external-sales gate rather than a volume gate that self-purchase can satisfy. |
— monthly, every month |
unlocks all bonuses but the retail markup |
| Brand Representative maintenance 2,000 Group Sales Volume every month, which under the plan effective 1 May 2026 can come from anyone in your Group, including you and the Brand Affiliates in it; the prior plan’s 250 personal Direct Customer Sales Volume requirement is gone. The alternative - at least 500 GSV plus up to 1,500 Flex Points to cover the shortfall - forfeits that month’s Double L1 and L2, Building and Leading Bonuses. Nu Skin does not publish a conversion rate between Sales Volume and dollars, so the dollar cost of 2,000 GSV cannot be stated here and has not been guessed. |
dollar cost unpublished monthly |
unlocks Double L1 and L2, Building and Leading Bonuses |
| Flex Points Capped at a 3,000 balance and 1,500 usable per month, usable only in a month with at least 500 GSV, and never redeemable for cash. The 3,000 cap is new in the plan effective 1 May 2026; the prior plan set no limit on accumulation. An unusually well-designed mechanism: it lets someone ride out a bad month without buying inventory to make volume, at the cost of that month’s team bonuses. The whole balance is forfeited if Brand Representative status is lost. |
allocated, no monetary value 1,500 / 1,000 / 500 in months one to three, and 1,500 may be allocated each anniversary month |
— |
Who runs it, and what they ran before
Co-founded the company in Provo in 1984 and ran it for its first twelve years. No regulatory action, fraud judgment or criminal proceeding against him personally could be located in any source reviewed for this report. The corporate file described under legalStatus is the company’s, not a personal one.
A BYU law graduate who ran the company through the period covering the 1997 FTC civil penalty and returned to the chair. Founders sitting at the top of the board 42 years after founding is a governance fact that cuts both ways: institutional memory, and no external hand on the tiller through a period in which revenue fell 44.9% in four years.
Co-founded the company in 1984 and remains an officer. Continuous founder presence across four decades is rare in this category and it is not, in itself, a criticism - but it is the same leadership group that presided over the whole regulatory file and the whole of the decline.
The governance structure reads better than most founder-led direct sellers and it should be said plainly. Nine directors, seven of them independent, with a Lead Independent Director. A single class of common stock - no dual-class structure, no super-voting founder shares. A PricewaterhouseCoopers audit with Section 302 and 906 officer certifications. The 2025 say-on-pay advisory vote passed with 97% support, and CEO Ryan Napierski’s cash incentive actually paid out at 21.9% of target because financial metrics fell below threshold, on total 2025 compensation of $5.97 million. Against that: James D. Thomas stepped down as CFO in March 2026 "to pursue an outside opportunity", and Chelsea Lantz - corporate controller since 2023, previously at PwC - has held the seat on an interim basis since 20 March 2026 while a permanent search runs. A finance chief departing mid-decline with a controller stepping up is worth noting even where the stated reason is entirely benign. Founder and insider beneficial-ownership percentages were not extracted from the 2026 proxy and are listed as unverified below.
Registered address
Provo, Utah, USA
This report is unusual on this site and the reason should be stated at the top. Nu Skin is the only company in this batch that files audited financial statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Nearly every material figure below comes from the FY2025 Form 10-K filed 13 February 2026 and audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, or from the Q1 2026 Form 10-Q filed 8 May 2026 - not from a trade publication’s estimate, not from a company press release, and not from a distributor’s slide. Where a number is our own arithmetic on filed data it is said so in terms. The site’s ordinary convention is to treat the watchlist’s figures as hypotheses to be tested; here both were confirmed exactly against the filings, which almost never happens. A company that files audited accounts, publishes a US income disclosure and reports its affiliate and customer headcounts every quarter is doing three things its category mostly does not do at all. That earns real credit and it is given below before the trajectory is graded hard.
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? |
OK
Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc., a Delaware corporation listed on the NYSE as NUS, CIK 0001021561, founded 1984 and headquartered in Provo, Utah. Audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, single share class, nine directors of whom seven are independent. Founders remain on the board 42 years on; the CFO seat has been held on an interim basis since March 2026.
|
| What does it really cost? |
OK
Nothing to enroll - no fee, no kit, no minimum order, no autoship, no personal purchase requirement. The cost is operational: five different customers every month to earn any bonus but the retail markup, and 2,000 Group Sales Volume monthly to hold Brand Representative. The dollar equivalent of that volume is not published and is not guessed at here.
|
| Published income disclosure? |
CONCERN
Yes, and linked from the recruiting page - rank-level detail, the share of Actives earning anything, and the Active-to-total ratio most operators hide. Applying its own figures, roughly 87.6% of enrolled US affiliates earned nothing in a typical 2025 month and the modal paid outcome was $51 a month gross. Every figure is a mean; no median is published in any market.
|
| Are the financials audited? |
OK
Yes - the only company in this batch of which that is true. A PwC-audited 10-K filed 13 February 2026 with Section 302 and 906 certifications and no going-concern qualification, plus a 10-Q filed 8 May 2026. Both watchlist figures, FY2025 revenue −14.3% and Q1 2026 −12.0%, were confirmed exactly against the filings.
|
| Which way is the business going? |
CONCERN
Down, consistently, and the filings say so. Revenue −44.9% from FY2021 to FY2025 across four consecutive double-digit declines, guidance implying a fifth. Sales Leaders −38.9% since FY2023. FY2025 net income of $160.2m is dominated by a $176.2m one-off disposal gain; underlying pre-tax profit was about $20.0m, a 1.3% margin. Dividends cut 84.7%.
|
| Is the field being paid more or less? |
WATCH
A larger share of a smaller base. The company states selling expenses for the Nu Skin business at 40.8% of its revenue in Q4 2025 against 40.3%, and 40.5% in Q1 2026 against 38.7%. Because that revenue fell 11.2% in Q1 2026, the dollars still fell: on our arithmetic about $110.1m against $118.5m.
|
| Regulatory file? |
WATCH
A 1994 FTC consent order, then a $1.5m civil penalty in 1997 to resolve FTC charges that unsubstantiated fat-loss claims violated it, settled with no admission. 2014 Chinese administrative penalties of about RMB 3.26m for unregistered direct sales, plus RMB 100,000 over a finding of overstated product effectiveness, with no pyramid determination. A 2016 SEC FCPA cease-and-desist settled for $765,688. A $47m securities class action settled in 2016 - a filed claim resolved for cash, not a finding.
|
| Are the devices FDA-cleared? |
WATCH
One is. K122711, "Facial Spa," Class II, cleared 17 September 2013. LumiSpa iO, RenuSpa iO, ageLOC Body Spa and Prysm iO have no clearance on the public record. Registration and listing are database entries that involve no FDA review; clearance means substantial equivalence to a predicate; approval is a higher bar again. None of those words is interchangeable and only one of them applies here.
|
What has to be true for you to get paid
| To cover | You need |
|---|---|
| Enroll and hold affiliate status | $0 free enrollment, no kit, no minimum, no autoship; the prior plan’s requirement of 50 Direct Customer Sales Volume per six months to remain a Brand Affiliate does not appear in the plan effective 1 May 2026 |
| Earn any bonus other than the retail markup | five different customers, every month a hard external-sales gate - the real operating burden of the business, and it resets monthly and indefinitely |
| Qualify and hold Brand Representative | 2,000 GSV monthly qualification is 3,000 GSV, 1,000 of it L1 SV, in one month, or 4,000 GSV, 1,000 of it L1 SV, over two or three months; the dollar equivalent cannot be stated because Nu Skin does not publish an SV-to-dollar conversion |
| Beat the modal paid outcome of $51 a month | exit the 87.6% first, then the $51 line roughly 87.6% of enrolled US affiliates earned nothing in a typical 2025 month; among those paid, the Brand Affiliate rank at $51/month gross is about three-quarters of them |
Read this twice
This is the most precisely sourceable break-even arithmetic on the site, and the reason is worth restating: the inputs come from an audited annual report and from a compensation disclosure the company links from its own recruiting page, rather than from a trade estimate or a screenshot. Start with the genuinely good news, because it is unusual. There is no day-one cash break-even. Enrollment costs nothing, no kit is required, no minimum order exists, no autoship is a condition of joining, and no personal purchase is required. A prospect who enrolls, tries it for a quarter and stops has lost time and whatever product they chose to buy - and even that is recoverable at 90% on unopened product for twelve months, or 100% within 30 days. Very few offers reviewed here can say any of that. What replaces the cash cost is an operating cost, and it is denominated in customers rather than dollars: five different customers every month to unlock any bonus but the retail markup, 2,000 Group Sales Volume every month to hold Brand Representative, and a status that is lost in the month you miss it and Flex Points cannot cover the gap. Nu Skin does not publish what one Sales Volume point is worth in dollars, so the cost of hitting 2,000 GSV is genuinely unquantified and this report will not guess at it. Then the distribution, from the company’s own disclosure. Roughly 87.6% of enrolled US Brand Affiliates earned nothing in a typical month of 2025. Among the 12.41% who earned something, the modal outcome is $51 a month gross before expenses. Average annual sales compensation across all enrolled US affiliates works out at about $998, before expenses, on approximately $84.1 million paid across roughly 84,251 enrolled affiliates. Blue Diamond Director, where the $37,779 monthly average sits, is about one in 1,020 of everyone enrolled. The prior plan’s own 2023 supporting data shows only 7.8% of Brand Affiliates achieved a Building Bonus, and both plan editions put incentive-trip qualifiers at roughly 1% of average Active Brand Affiliates, for 2023 and 2024 respectively. All of those figures are means, never medians - no median is published anywhere, in any market, and given the shape of these distributions the median sits materially below the mean at every level. Finally, the direction of travel, which is what turns a poor distribution into a shrinking one: revenue for the Nu Skin business fell 12.7% in FY2025 and 11.2% in Q1 2026, and Sales Leaders are down 38.9% since FY2023. The company puts selling expenses for the Nu Skin business at 40.5% of its revenue in Q1 2026 against 38.7% a year earlier, so the share rose; on our arithmetic (40.5% of $271.9 million against 38.7% of $306.3 million) that is about $110.1 million against $118.5 million, a smaller pool in dollars because the base is smaller.
Run your own numbers
Drag the sliders. Nothing here is stored or sent.
Retail markup on a customer spending roughly $100 a month, against a cost of zero - enrollment is free, with no kit, no minimum and no autoship, which is genuinely at the good end of this category. The realistic preset starts at five customers rather than two for a reason: five different customers every month is the gate on every bonus except the retail markup itself, and it resets monthly. Calibrate against the company’s own 2025 disclosure rather than these figures: about 87.6% of enrolled United States affiliates earned nothing in a typical month, and the modal outcome among those who earned anything at all was $51 a month gross, before expenses. Your own subscription cost of $0/mo is included.
What it costs to replace this yourself
One honest caveat before the table. Nu Skin does not publish a Sales Volume to dollar conversion, and per-unit retail prices for the skincare and supplement lines were not sourced for this report - the only published consumer price used here is the $375 Prysm iO. So this comparison is deliberately structural rather than a line-by-line price gap, and it is anchored on a number the company does publish: gross margin on the Nu Skin business alone was 77.6% in Q4 2025, meaning roughly 78 cents of every dollar paid is not product cost. Open-market comparators are given as bands at prestige-counter, drugstore and general-retail positioning.
| What they sell you | What you'd use instead | Your cost |
|---|---|---|
| Prysm iO fingertip carotenoid reader - $375, published | No mass-retail equivalent exists, largely because there is little mass-retail demand for one; the nearest substitute is eating vegetables and asking a GP for bloodwork if you actually want a biomarker | no comparator |
| The Prysm-certified supplement routine the score routes you toward | An ordinary multivitamin, an omega-3 and a collagen powder from a chemist or supermarket | ~$20-45/mo |
| ageLOC serum-and-cleanser regimen at premium positioning | A prestige department-store counter serum plus cleanser of comparable class | ~$60-120 |
| The same regimen bought at mass positioning | Drugstore-brand retinol, vitamin C and cleanser with published actives | ~$25-50 |
| LumiSpa iO / RenuSpa iO cleansing device - not FDA-cleared | A mainstream at-home sonic cleansing device from a general retailer | ~$30-150 |
| 77.6% gross margin on the Nu Skin business (Q4 2025) | Ordinary retail supplement and skincare margins sit materially below that, and the difference is the distribution model | the gap itself |
| Five different customers every month to earn any bonus but the retail markup | No customer quota anywhere in open-market retail | $0 |
| 2,000 GSV monthly to hold Brand Representative | No volume requirement, no rank to lose, no monthly reset | $0 |
| Total as sold $375 for the scanner, plus a premium regimen carrying a 77.6% gross margin, plus a monthly volume obligation whose dollar cost the company does not publish |
Total, built yourself ~$45-95 a month of comparable skincare and supplements at open-market prices |
Price-to-value
The per-item premium is real but it is not the interesting part, and it would be dishonest to pretend the products are worthless - owned manufacturing, a genuine formulation capability, one FDA-cleared device lineage and 669,535 reported customers, a count that includes affiliates who bought, all say a real audience buys these on their merits. The exercise turns on two things instead. First, 77.6% gross margin on the Nu Skin business means the distribution model, not the ingredients, is what most of the price is paying for. Second, a customer can simply buy the products - there is no reason to enroll as an affiliate to get them, and enrolling brings the five-customer gate, the monthly volume reset and the rank mechanics with it. If you like the skincare, be a customer; the 30-day, 100%, any-condition refund is better than most of retail.
Three operators, five horizons
Probability of cumulative net profit
Hover any point for median, top decile and bottom quartile.
Product-first affiliate
enrolls free for the discount, buys what she uses, sells to a few friends
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 30% | −$60 |
| 6 mo | 32% | −$120 |
| 1 yr | 33% | −$210 |
| 3 yr | 34% | −$520 |
| 5 yr | 34% | −$800 |
Part-time affiliate
10 hrs/wk, working the five-customer gate, pushing for Brand Representative
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 12% | −$400 |
| 6 mo | 15% | −$700 |
| 1 yr | 18% | −$1,150 |
| 3 yr | 21% | −$2,600 |
| 5 yr | 22% | −$3,900 |
Full-time builder
30+ hrs/wk, building Leadership Teams, devices and events
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 5% | −$1,900 |
| 6 mo | 9% | −$3,600 |
| 1 yr | 13% | −$6,200 |
| 3 yr | 18% | −$14,000 |
| 5 yr | 19% | −$21,000 |
Methodology note. These are modeled outcome ranges, not claims, not promises and not anybody’s reported results. ANCHORED to Nu Skin’s own published 2025 US compensation disclosure and to its audited filings: that 26.67% of Active Brand Affiliates earned any compensation in a month and Actives were 46.54% of all enrolled, which implies roughly 87.6% of enrolled affiliates earned nothing in a typical month; that the modal paid outcome is $51 a month gross at the Brand Affiliate rank, 19.53% of Actives; that the rank ladder runs $252, $522, $994, $1,961, $3,381, $5,328, $9,829 and $37,779 a month by title, all as means before expenses; that Blue Diamond Director is 0.21% of Actives and roughly one in 1,020 of all enrolled; that only 7.8% of Brand Affiliates achieved a Building Bonus on the prior plan’s own 2023 supporting data and about 1% of Active Brand Affiliates qualified for an incentive trip; and that Sales Leaders fell 38.9% between FY2023 and Q1 2026. The rank ladder and outcome percentages describe 2025, under the prior plan; the plan effective 1 May 2026 pays different bonuses, and no disclosure covers it yet. MODELED by us: the entire expense side in dollars, because Nu Skin publishes no expense figure and no median in any market, and because it publishes no conversion between Sales Volume and dollars - so the cost of holding 2,000 GSV a month is our estimate, not a company figure; the share of each cohort in cumulative profit; and the cohort definitions, which the company does not segment. Three calibration notes, two of which cut in the company’s favor. First, free enrollment is why the three-month medians here are shallow rather than steep: nothing is taken at the door, so early losses are product and time rather than fees. Second, the 90%-for-twelve-months buyback and the 100%-within-30-days customer refund genuinely recover part of the downside for anyone who stops early, which most comparable plans do not. Third, cutting the other way: every figure the company publishes is a mean rather than a median, and on distributions shaped like these the median sits materially below the mean at every rank - which is why the medians modeled here are negative where a rank table would look encouraging.
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
151Roughly 87.6% of enrolled US affiliates earned nothing in a typical 2025 month
2The modal earner takes $51 a month, gross, before expenses
3Four consecutive years of double-digit revenue decline, accelerating
4Sales Leaders down 38.9% since FY2023
5The FY2025 profit is a disposal, not a recovery
6An operating margin of 1.3% in Q1 2026
7The dividend was cut 84.7% and has stayed cut
8US revenue fell 26.2% in FY2025 - the worst of any major market
9A $1.5 million penalty under a prior FTC order
10A 2016 SEC FCPA cease-and-desist order
11Chinese regulators found overstated product effectiveness in 2014
12The current flagship devices are not FDA-cleared
13The Prysm iO measurement-to-supplement loop is closed
14Means everywhere, medians nowhere
1541% of revenue sits in the most restrictive direct-selling regimes it operates in
Green flags
101Audited financial statements filed with the SEC
2Enrollment is genuinely free
3Field metrics reported quarterly inside audited filings
4An income disclosure linked from the recruiting page itself
5A certified 10-K statement that nothing is paid for recruiting
6A hard five-different-customers-a-month gate on every bonus but the retail markup
75.5 customers per paid affiliate, reported in a certified filing
8Returns at or above the FTC and DSA benchmark
9The plan is funded from product margin, not new inflow
10Governance that reads well and owned manufacturing behind it
We would like to be wrong about this
Upward
- Publishing a median alongside the mean at every rank, plus an attrition curve and an average expense figure - and, most valuable of all, the proportion of Sales Volume purchased by end consumers who are not affiliates, which is the single most useful number missing from the entire file.
- Stabilizing the Sales Leader count for four consecutive quarters, and publishing a compensation disclosure for the plan effective 1 May 2026 so the new bonuses can be judged on outcomes rather than on the plan text.
- Obtaining 510(k) clearance for the current device line, or stating its unregulated cosmetic status plainly in field materials - alongside appointing a permanent CFO and returning any major market to revenue growth.
Downward
- Any new FTC, state attorney general or foreign regulator action on the compensation plan or on income claims - particularly given that the company has already paid one civil penalty to resolve FTC charges under the 1994 order.
- Any tightening that raises the personal-purchase or volume burden on participants, or a fall in selling expenses for the Nu Skin business below 38.7% of its revenue, the lowest of the four quarterly ratios the company states in the releases reviewed.
- Sales Leader count falling below 25,000, a dividend suspension, a covenant waiver or a going-concern qualification - or reclassification of "Members" in a way that inflates the reported customer count.
Grade is C−. The most precisely sourceable report on this site - free entry, a real audited business, a published income disclosure - and that disclosure implies 87.6% of enrolled US affiliates earned nothing in a typical month, inside an organization contracting 12 to 14 percent a year.
Take the credit first, because it is unusually substantial and because it is what makes the rest of this page trustworthy. Nu Skin is the only company in this batch that files audited financial statements with the SEC. The revenue, the margins, the payout ratio, the affiliate headcounts and the customer counts on this page come from a PricewaterhouseCoopers-audited 10-K filed in February 2026 and a 10-Q filed in May 2026, under officer certification - not from a trade estimate, not from a press release and not from a distributor’s slide. This site normally treats its own watchlist numbers as hypotheses; here both were confirmed exactly. And the disclosure credit does not stop at the accounts. Enrollment is free - no fee, no kit, no minimum, no autoship, no purchase requirement, so nothing is taken at the door. Every bonus but the retail markup is gated on selling to five different customers a month, a genuine external-sales gate. The plan bars holding status or title by buying additional products. The 10-K states under certification that no compensation is paid for recruiting. There are 669,535 customers against 120,850 affiliates. Returns are 100% for 30 days regardless of condition and 90% for a year. Manufacturing is owned. Governance is one share class, seven of nine directors independent, 97% say-on-pay, and a CEO bonus that actually failed to pay when the numbers missed. A company doing all of that at once is doing several things its category mostly does not do at all, and it should be graded against what it publishes rather than against what its category is assumed to be.
Then read what it publishes. The compensation disclosure reports that 26.67% of Active US Brand Affiliates earned any compensation in a month, and that Actives were 46.54% of everyone enrolled. Multiply those two company figures and roughly 12.41% of enrolled affiliates earned anything in a typical month of 2025 - so about 87.6% earned nothing. Among the minority who were paid, the modal outcome is the plain Brand Affiliate line at $51 a month, gross, before the expenses the disclosure itself says it has not deducted. Average annual compensation across everyone enrolled works out at roughly $998, again before expenses, from about $84.1 million paid across approximately 84,251 affiliates. Blue Diamond Director, where the $37,779 monthly average sits, is about one in 1,020 of all enrolled. And every one of those numbers is a mean: no median is published anywhere, in any market, which on distributions shaped like these means the typical outcome is worse than the figures shown.
The trajectory is what turns a poor distribution into a shrinking one, and it is entirely audited. Revenue has fallen 44.9% from FY2021 to FY2025 across four consecutive double-digit declines, accelerating to −14.3% in the final year, with FY2026 guidance implying a fifth. Sales Leaders are down 38.9% since FY2023, faster than customers. FY2025’s $160.2 million of net income is dominated by a $176.2 million one-off disposal gain - strip it and underlying pre-tax profit was about $20.0 million, a 1.3% margin, on $1.485 billion of revenue. The dividend was cut 84.7% and stayed cut. And the margin left over is thin: operating margin was 1.3% in Q1 2026, or 3.6% excluding certain charges, while selling expenses for the Nu Skin business rose to 40.5% of its revenue from 38.7% as that revenue fell 11.2%. None of that is wrongdoing - a share-price fall is not a finding, a revenue decline is not insolvency, and there is no going-concern qualification on a balance sheet carrying $238.6 million of cash against $224.2 million of debt. It is simply what a person recruited in 2026 would be joining: a contracting organization, on a compensation plan rewritten effective 1 May 2026, that publishes enough to let you check.
Be a customer, not an affiliate
If you like the skincare or the supplements - and the company reports 669,535 customers, a count that includes affiliates who bought - buy them. There is no discount structure worth the five-customer monthly gate, the volume maintenance and the monthly rank reset. And the customer terms are better than the affiliate terms: 30 days, 100% back, regardless of use or condition. That is a stronger refund right than most of retail offers, and it costs nothing to take.
Do the 87.6% arithmetic before you enroll, using the company’s own page
The disclosure is linked from the recruiting page, so this takes two minutes. Multiply the percentage of Actives who earned anything by the Active-to-total ratio. For 2025 that is 26.67% × 46.54% = 12.41%, which means about 87.6% of enrolled affiliates earned nothing in a typical month, and the modal paid outcome was $51 gross. Then write down the specific reason you believe you are not the median - and be honest about whether it is a plan or a hope.
Price the five-customer gate honestly, because it is the whole business
Everything except the retail markup requires product sales to five different customers, every month, indefinitely. Before enrolling, name five people who will buy at Nu Skin’s prices this month, and then name the five for the month after. If you can genuinely do that repeatedly, the plan rewards it: since 1 May 2026 the L1 Bonus pays 5% of Commissionable Sales Value on purchases at your first level, or 10% as a Brand Representative with 3,000 Group Sales Volume, while the larger rates, a Building Bonus of 10% to 25%, pay on group volume. If you cannot, no bonus in the plan is available to you.
Sell into skincare and supplements without the genealogy
The category is enormous and the search intent around actives, ingredient comparison, device efficacy and the registered-versus-cleared distinction is real and largely unmet. Honest, sourced comparison content - including on what an FDA 510(k) clearance actually means, which almost nobody explains correctly - is a merchant business with genuine demand. It requires no monthly customer quota, no volume maintenance, no rank that resets, and it leaves you owning the customer relationship and the domain instead of renting both.
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.
- Nu Skin Sales Performance Plan, United States, effective 1 May 2026 (PDF) - the plan this report grades, replacing the 1 November 2024 edition
Archived 11 Sep 2026. L1 and L2 bonuses replace the Selling Bonus and Affiliate Referring Bonus; Building Bonus 10 to 25%; maintenance at 2,000 GSV with no personal DC-SV requirement; Flex Points capped at 3,000; the five-customer gate remains.
Not established by this document: The report is graded against this plan.
- Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025 (filed 13 February 2026; audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP)
Nu Skin Enterprises FY2025 Form 10-K, filed 13 February 2026, audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP - consolidated income statement (R4), balance sheet (R2), cash flows (R9), segment data (R97), revenue by major market (R101); Item 1 Business on the two ways affiliates earn and the certified statement that no compensation is paid for recruiting or sponsoring; Item 1A risk factors on network-marketing challenges and the Mainland China regulatory environment
- EDGAR submission header for the FY2025 Form 10-K, accession 0001140361-26-005130 (CIK 0001021561, file no. 001-12421)
- Nu Skin Enterprises 2025 Annual Report to Stockholders (PDF) - Item 1 Business, including the two ways Brand Affiliates earn and the statement that no sales compensation is paid for recruiting or sponsoring
- SEC EDGAR - all Nu Skin Enterprises annual-report filings (CIK 0001021561)
- Nu Skin Enterprises Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 31 March 2026 (filed 8 May 2026)
Nu Skin Enterprises Q1 2026 Form 10-Q, filed 8 May 2026, and the Q1 2026 results release - revenue $320.6m against $364.5m, customers 669,535, paid affiliates 120,850, sales leaders 26,915
- "Nu Skin Enterprises Reports First Quarter Results", 7 May 2026 - revenue $320.6m against $364.5m, Customers 669,535, Paid Affiliates 120,850, Sales Leaders 26,915 (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K)
- Nu Skin Enterprises Form 8-K of 7 May 2026 furnishing the Q1 2026 results release
- "Nu Skin Enterprises Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-year 2025 Results Within Guidance" - company newsroom release
Q4 and full-year 2025 results release, 12 February 2026 - revenue down 14.3%, consolidated gross margin 70.7% in Q4 against 62.7%, Nu Skin business gross margin 77.6% against 67.5%, selling expenses 35.5% of revenue against 37.1%, regional customer, affiliate and sales-leader detail
- Nu Skin Enterprises investor relations - SEC filings index (the 12 February 2026 Form 8-K attaching the Q4 and full-year 2025 results release)
- Nu Skin U.S. Brand Affiliate Sales Compensation Summary for 2025 (Compliance Corner) - $178.75 average monthly compensation to Active Brand Affiliates, 26.67% of Actives earning, $670.04 among those who earned, 39,211 average monthly Actives, Actives 46.54% of all Brand Affiliates, ~$84,107,000 paid, rank table $51 to $37,779
Nu Skin US compensation disclosure, calendar year 2025 (compliance corner, linked from the recruiting page) - $178.75 average monthly compensation to Active Brand Affiliates, 26.67% of Actives earning anything, $670.04 average among those who earned, 39,211 average Actives per month, Actives 46.54% of all Brand Affiliates, approximately $84.107m total paid, and the rank table from $51 at Brand Affiliate to $37,779 at Blue Diamond Director
- Nu Skin U.S. Opportunity and Testimonial Guidelines (PDF) - the mandatory disclosure carrying the 2025 figures ($178.75; 26.67%; 46.54%)
- Nu Skin Sales Performance Plan, United States market, effective 1 November 2024, superseded 1 May 2026 (PDF) - the prior plan’s bonus types, the 2,000 GSV plus 250 Direct Customer Sales Volume maintenance requirement, the 5%/10% Building Bonus tiers, and the statement that approximately 7.8% of Brand Affiliates achieved a Building Bonus in 2023
Nu Skin Sales Performance Plan, US market, effective 1 November 2024, and the Europe & Africa plan effective 1 June 2026 - the five bonus types and rates, the five-different-customers monthly gate, 2,000 GSV plus 250 personal DC-SV maintenance, the Flex Point schedule and forfeiture rules, the title ladder and the generation depth by title, and the 2023 supporting data showing 7.8% of Brand Affiliates achieving a Building Bonus
Not established by this document: Superseded by the US plan effective 1 May 2026 (the first entry above). Cited only for the prior plan and its 2023 supporting data.
- Nu Skin Sales Performance Plan, Europe and Africa, effective 1 June 2026 (PDF) - Building Bonus tiers of 10%/15%/20%/25% by volume band, and the requirement for volume exclusively from Members and Retail Customers
- Nu Skin 2024 Sales Performance Plan FAQ, U.S. market (PDF)
- Nu Skin Enterprises 2026 Definitive Proxy Statement on Schedule 14A, filed 3 April 2026 (2026 Annual Meeting, 28 May 2026; 49,176,734 Class A shares outstanding on the 31 March 2026 record date; nine director nominees)
Nu Skin 2026 DEF 14A, filed 3 April 2026 - 49,180,000 Class A shares outstanding, single share class, nine directors with seven independent and a Lead Independent Director, 97% say-on-pay support, CEO 2025 total compensation of $5.97m with the cash incentive paying at 21.9% of target
- Complete EDGAR submission text of the 2026 DEF 14A, accession 0001140361-26-013152
- FTC case page - Nu Skin International, Inc., U.S. (FTC Docket No. C-3489; United States v. Nu Skin International, Inc., Civil Action No. 2:97-CV-0626G, D. Utah)
FTC case record for Nu Skin International, Inc., Docket C-3489 (1994 consent order); FTC press release, complaint and consent decree of 6 August 1997, D. Utah 297-CV-0626G - $1.5 million civil penalty for unsubstantiated fat-loss, metabolism and muscle-mass claims on Metabotrim, OverDrive, GlycoBar, Appeal Lite and Breakbar, for settlement purposes only and with no admission of a law violation
- Complaint for Civil Penalties, Injunctive and Other Relief, United States v. Nu Skin International, Inc. (D. Utah 1997) (PDF)
- Consent Decree, United States v. Nu Skin International, Inc. - $1,500,000 civil penalty, for settlement purposes only and with no admission of violation (PDF)
- FTC press release - "Nu Skin To Pay $1.5 Million Penalty To Resolve FTC Charges over Fat-Loss Claims for Supplements" (Metabotrim, OverDrive, GlycoBar, Appeal Lite, Breakbar)
- Nu Skin International, Inc., et al., Proposed Consent Agreement with Analysis to Aid Public Comment, File No. 912 3071 - the 1994 consent order (Docket C-3489), 59 Fed. Reg. (25 January 1994)
- SEC Order Instituting Cease-and-Desist Proceedings, In the Matter of Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc., Exchange Act Release No. 78884, Admin. Proc. File No. 3-17556 (20 September 2016) (PDF) - FCPA books-and-records and internal-controls findings
SEC administrative cease-and-desist order, September 2016 - FCPA books-and-records and internal-controls findings, $765,688 paid, neither admitted nor denied; In re Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. Securities Litigation, D. Utah 14-cv-0033, class period 25 October 2011 to 16 January 2014, settled for $47 million with final approval 5 October 2016; Davis Wright Tremaine and Forbes reporting on the 2014 SAIC, Shanghai AIC and Beijing AIC administrative penalties totaling approximately RMB 3.26 million
- SEC litigation summary - "SEC Charges Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. with FCPA Violations" ($765,688 total: $431,088 disgorgement, $34,600 prejudgment interest, $300,000 civil penalty) (PDF)
- Nu Skin Enterprises Form 8-K, September 2016 - resolution with the SEC, $765,688 paid, neither admitting nor denying the findings
- Final Order and Judgment, In re Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc., Securities Litigation, No. 2:14-cv-00033-JNP-BCW (D. Utah), settlement hearing 5 October 2016, judgment entered 12 October 2016 (PDF)
- Stipulation and Agreement of Settlement, In re Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc., Securities Litigation - $47,000,000 settlement amount, class period 4 May 2011 to 17 January 2014 (PDF)
- Nu Skin Enterprises Form 8-K of 22 February 2016 - $47 million settlement term sheet in In re Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 2:14-cv-00033
- Davis Wright Tremaine - "Nu Skin Fined in China for Improper Direct Sales Activities" (SAIC statement of 24 March 2014; Shanghai AIC RMB 150,000 fine plus RMB 3,114,000 confiscation and RMB 100,000 claims fine; Beijing AIC fines on six sales representatives)
- Forbes - "Nu Skin To Resume Business In China After Pyramid Scheme Allegations"
- Nu Skin Enterprises release, 24 March 2014 - "Nu Skin Provides Update on China Regulatory Reviews" (US $524,000 / RMB 3.26 million penalty, plus RMB 100,000 and RMB 1.50 million on six sales employees) (PDF)
- openFDA 510(k) database record for K122711 - applicant "Nuskin", device "Facial Spa", traditional 510(k), substantially equivalent 17 September 2013, product code NFO, Class II, 21 CFR 882.5890 (API query)
openFDA 510(k) database - K122711, applicant "Nuskin", device "Facial Spa", traditional 510(k), substantially equivalent 17 September 2013, product code NFO, Class II, 21 CFR 882.5890; openFDA device registration and listing database searched 30 July 2026 with no Nu Skin-named owner/operator record returned
- Nu Skin Policies & Procedures, United States (PDF) - Chapter 2, Section 4 (Product Refunds and Exchanges: 100% within 30 days, 90% within twelve months) and Section 5 (Retail Sales and Customer Returns, including the retail-customer money-back guarantee)
Nu Skin returns and refunds policy (Policies and Procedures, Chapter 2, Sections 4 and 5) - 30-day 100% customer refund regardless of use or condition, 30-day 100% and 12-month 90% affiliate buyback; Prysm iO US launch release, 2 April 2026, $375, the Draelos study in Food and Nutrition Journal at R² 0.75–0.77 across 97 participants, and the 20,000 pre-launch devices and 700,000 scans; TINA.org Nu Skin income-claims database and the company response of 8 February 2018
Not established by this document: The Draelos paper itself could not be located at a citable URL - Food and Nutrition Journal has no retrievable article page for it, and every account of the 97-participant study and the R² 0.75–0.77 correlation traces back to Nu Skin's own 2 April 2026 launch release. The company release is cited in its place and labeled as such.
- Nu Skin Brand Affiliate Agreement (PDF) - Section 5, Refunds
- "Nu Skin Launches Prysm iO: A Revolutionary AI-Powered Platform for Personalized Nutritional Wellness" - US launch release, 2 April 2026 ($375; Draelos study in Food and Nutrition Journal, 97 participants, R² = 0.75–0.77)
- Nu Skin investor relations copy of the 2 April 2026 Prysm iO launch release (PDF)
- "Nu Skin Unveils Prysm iO: An Evolution in Intelligent Nutritional Wellness" - 18 December 2025 pre-launch release describing the phased rollout and the 46-participant randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study
- TINA.org - 2017 Nu Skin Enterprises Income Claims Database
- Nu Skin Enterprises' response to TINA.org's income-claims investigation, 8 February 2018 (PDF)
- TINA.org - 2023 Nu Skin Income Claims Database (with the company's 21 February 2024 response letter)
- TINA.org brand file - Nu Skin (timeline of TINA.org's investigations and Nu Skin's responses)
What we could not get
- Any median earnings figure. Nu Skin publishes means at every rank and in every market, and no median could be found anywhere - which matters more here than usual, because on distributions this skewed the median sits materially below the mean at every level, most obviously at the Blue Diamond line
- The dollar value of one Sales Volume point in the US plan. Nu Skin does not publish a conversion, so the dollar cost of holding 2,000 GSV a month is genuinely unquantified. We declined to estimate it rather than guess, and no figure in this report depends on one
- Any income disclosure covering the US plan effective 1 May 2026. Every earnings figure in this report describes 2025, under the prior plan, and how the new L1, L2, Double and Building Bonus rates change those outcomes is not yet published
- What share of Group Sales Volume and L1 Sales Volume under the plan effective 1 May 2026 comes from Brand Affiliates’ own purchases rather than from Customers. The plan counts both toward those volumes, while the five-customer gate counts only Customers and Unregistered Customers; the company publishes no split
- Whether the parallel DOJ FCPA inquiry was formally closed, and on what terms - no primary source confirming either way. Also unconfirmed: any Direct Selling Self-Regulatory Council case decision naming Nu Skin, of which none was found, and absence of a search hit is not proof of absence; and the company’s BBB rating and accreditation status, which was not checked
- Any FDA establishment registration or device listing under a Nu Skin-named owner or operator - none was returned by openFDA. This does not establish that none exists, since devices are commonly and lawfully registered under contract manufacturers’ names, and it would carry no regulatory weight in any event, because registration and listing involve no FDA review of anything
- Founder and insider beneficial-ownership percentages, which were not extracted from the 2026 proxy’s ownership table; and debt covenant terms and headroom, because the credit-facility and covenant detail sits in an MD&A section of a 3.68 MB primary document that could not be retrieved in full
- Q2 2026 results, which had not been filed as at the review date - every 2026 figure in this report is Q1 only. Also unverified: an independent review of the Prysm iO clinical study, including its funding disclosure, the journal’s peer-review standard and the paper’s methodology, none of which was assessed here
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
- No company has paid for a grade, and no report carries an affiliate link
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Nu Skin - frequently asked
QIs Nu Skin a pyramid scheme?
QHow much do Nu Skin Brand Affiliates actually earn?
QHow much does it cost to join Nu Skin?
QAre Nu Skin devices FDA-approved or FDA-cleared?
QIs Nu Skin in financial trouble?
Author, editor and publisher
This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - Nu Skin’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
Tell me if this grade changes
Nu Skin is graded C- as of July 30, 2026. Grades move when the evidence moves - a new income disclosure, a regulatory action, a rewritten compensation plan. Leave your address and you will get one email if this one does.
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Corrections
Every factual claim on this page is sourced, and the ones we could not stand up are named in the unable to verify list above. If something here is wrong, we want to know, and we would rather hear it from Nu Skin than from a reader.
Write to corrections@opportunitygrade.com. Point at the specific sentence and send the document that contradicts it - a plan document, a filing, an income disclosure, a policy page. We will check it against the primary source, correct the page if it is wrong, and keep a dated record of the change. A grade moves if the evidence moves it.
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