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Weight-loss and metabolic-health coaching · Unilevel MLM inside a listed food manufacturer

Optavia

A listed, audited, zero-debt food company with the cleanest regulatory file on this site and one of the most honest income disclosures in the category - publishing a median annual coach gross of about $349 against a $199 kit and a $199 renewal, in a business whose revenue has fallen 75.9% from its 2022 peak.

Reviewed July 30, 2026 Founded Medifast, Inc. has reported to the SEC for over 30 years; the OPTAVIA coaching brand launched in 2017 out of the predecessor Take Shape For Life channel, and was rebranded Trilivy on 17 July 2026 Confidence: High
C-GRADE
5.7/10
Weighted composite

CLEAN OPERATOR, COLLAPSING BUSINESS

The entry fee pays nobody a commission and the balance sheet is debt-free - but the company’s own 2025 disclosure puts the median coach at roughly $349 gross for the year, and the network being recruited into has lost 77.0% of its active earning coaches since the end of 2022.

The question you came with

Can you actually make money with Optavia?

NO No - not on the numbers this company publishes

No, on the company's own 2025 disclosure. The median United States coach grossed roughly $349 for the entire year. That is gross, before the $199 kit, before the $199 renewal, before events and travel, and before the coach's own product purchases, on which coaches earn nothing and which are credited to their sponsor instead. Some 23.28% of all United States coaches earned nothing at all.

Go further down the same table. 69.79% earned $1,000 or less for the year. 82.21% earned $2,500 or less. Only 1.37% earned over $50,000, and 0.15%, one in 667, earned over $200,000 after a median of 122 months in business. There is also a designed cliff at month seven: the base level-one rate drops from 15% of Compensation Volume to 10% unless the coach has assembled five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV by then.

The business underneath all of that is contracting hard, and these figures are audited rather than estimated. FY2025 revenue was $385.8 million, down 36.0% in a year and 75.87% below the FY2022 peak of $1,598.6 million. Active earning coaches stood at 14,000 in the first quarter of 2026, down 44.9% year on year and 77.0% from the peak of 60,900. Management guides to another year of decline.

Now the part that is genuinely better than almost anything else graded here. The $199 kit and the $199 annual renewal are expressly non-commissionable, so nobody upline earns a cent on a body walking through the door. There is no purchase requirement of any kind. Coaches cannot buy their own rank, because they earn nothing on personal orders. Anti-stockpiling is written into the policies. And the disclosure covers all United States coaches rather than only active ones, printing the non-earners on its face. Very few operators do any of that. This one does all of it.

What it costs to be in
$199

Coach Business Kit at enrollment, then $199 every twelve months to renew - both explicitly non-commissionable, so no one in the upline earns anything on either

What would have to change
  • The month-seven rate cut removed, or moved. Dropping the base level-one rate from 15% to 10% on a fixed date is a churn cliff placed exactly where enthusiasm fades, and it cuts a working coach's rate by a third.
  • Rank advancement above Executive Director that is not a pure sponsorship count. One Executive Director team for Regional, three for National, five for Global and ten for Presidential, with no volume alternative anywhere in the ladder.
  • An end to permanent forfeiture of the whole downline for a missed $199 renewal. An organization that took a decade to build should not be destroyed by one late annual payment.
  • A stabilized earning base. The network being recruited into has lost 77.0% of its active earning coaches since the end of 2022, so a new coach is joining a shrinking field rather than a growing one.

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.

$385.8M
FY2025 revenue, down 36.0% year on year
and 75.87% below the FY2022 peak of $1,598.6M - from the FY2025 10-K
$349
Median annual gross earnings per US coach, 2025
interpolated from the company’s own Income Disclosure Statement, before the $199 kit and $199 renewal
23.28%
Share of ALL US coaches who earned nothing in 2025
published on the face of the company’s own disclosure - most operators define this bucket away
14,000
Active earning coaches at Q1 2026
down 44.9% year on year and 77.0% from the Q4 2022 peak of 60,900

Legal status

LEGAL - and unusually so for this category. No federal or state regulator has ever brought an enforcement action against Medifast, Inc. or OPTAVIA, LLC: no FTC complaint, no consent order, no civil penalty, no injunction, no SEC order, no Wells notice, no cease-and-desist and no state attorney-general action was located. What the file does contain is two general FTC Notices of Penalty Offenses (October 2021 on money-making opportunities, April 2023 on product-claim substantiation) sent broadly across the sector - the 2021 notice went to roughly 1,100 companies - which are notices, not allegations and not findings; one self-regulatory case (DSSRC #252-2026) closed administratively on 10 March 2026 after the company removed all nine flagged posts; two advocacy-organization income-claims investigations by TINA.org in 2017 and 2023, which carry no legal force; a private ratings body’s pattern notice on refunds and cancellations; and two consumer auto-renewal class actions, which are filed claims, not findings, one reported as resolved by settlement with no admission of liability. A 2011 securities class action brought by investors, not participants, resolved in the company’s favor.

Confidence: High

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

What this actually is

Follow the money

A weight-loss and metabolic-health program sold in the United States by independent contractors called Coaches, operating as the direct-selling channel of a company that has filed audited accounts with the SEC for more than thirty years. The product is portion-controlled meal-replacement food - "Fuelings" - sold as monthly kits, with the flagship Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan Kit at $470. The coach ladder runs Coach, Senior Coach, Manager, Associate Director, Director, Executive Director and then five higher ranks. The brand was renamed Trilivy in an 8-K furnished on 17 July 2026, and optavia.com now redirects to the new domain; both names describe the same business.

The good part is large and it belongs first, because it is unusual. Every material financial number in this report is audited and public - revenue, gross margin, SG&A, coach counts, guidance, cash and the going-concern assessment. The company publishes an Income Disclosure Statement covering ALL independent US coaches rather than only "active" ones, with a 23.28% non-earner bucket printed on the face of it. The $199 business kit and the $199 annual renewal are expressly non-commissionable, so nobody upline is paid for signing a body. Coaches earn nothing on their own purchases, which makes buying your own rank structurally impossible. Anti-stockpiling is written into the policies. There is no purchase requirement at all. There is a 90% buyback for twelve months, with no time limit in four jurisdictions. And no regulator, federal or state, has ever brought an enforcement action against the parent. That is a materially better compliance and disclosure posture than the large majority of income opportunities graded on this site.

And then the business the recruit is joining. FY2025 revenue was $385.8M, down 36.0% year on year and 75.87% below the FY2022 peak of $1,598.6M. Active earning coaches were 14,000 at Q1 2026, down 44.9% year on year - a Q1 2026 figure, not a FY2025 one; the year-end 2025 fall was 40.6%, to 16,100 - and 77.0% below the Q4 2022 peak of 60,900. FY2026 guidance of $270–300M implies a fifth consecutive year of decline, and management has told investors so in writing. The cause is disclosed by the company itself: the Q1 2026 call attributes the coach decline in part to "the rapid adoption of GLP-1 medications, which continues to impact the traditional weight loss category," and management stated in February 2026 that roughly a quarter of its patients either have used or are on a GLP-1.

The participant arithmetic follows from the company’s own disclosure. Median annual gross earnings interpolate to about $349 - less than the $398 a coach pays in kit plus first renewal. 23.28% earned nothing, and the median tenure of that group is thirteen months, which describes the modal experience precisely: enrol, pay, earn zero, lapse at renewal. 69.79% earned $1,000 or less. Five committed clients on the flagship kit - $28,200 of client spend across a year - yields roughly $5,380 and puts that coach in the top 8.4% of the entire US field. And the base rate on level-one client volume drops from 15% of Compensation Volume to 10% at month seven for any coach who has not assembled five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV.

The structural criticism is narrow and precise, and it should not be overstated. Commissions are paid on movement of real consumable product out of a 71.3% gross margin, not out of entry fees. But advancement above Senior Coach can be achieved by sponsoring rather than selling, because a Qualifying Point is earned for each 1,200 FQV or each qualified Senior Coach team sponsored; every rank above Executive Director is defined solely by the count of Executive Director teams sponsored, with no volume alternative; and because a coach’s own orders are credited to their sponsor as client volume, an undisclosed share of what the plan counts as customer sales is coach self-consumption. That last figure is the single most important unknown in the whole file, and it is not published anywhere.

What all US coaches earned in 2025

From OPTAVIA’s own 2025 Income Disclosure Statement, which covers ALL independent US coaches operating under the US compensation plan - not a filtered "active" subset. Figures are annual gross earnings; the disclosure states in terms that they exclude any expenses coaches incurred in building their businesses.

23% 47% 19% 10%
Earned nothing at all (23.28%)Earned something, up to $1,000 (46.51%)$1,000.01 to $5,000 (18.79%)$5,000.01 to $50,000 (10.05%)Over $50,000 (1.37%)
ProductPricePays
Coach Business Kit (entry)
The single most important Koscot-side fact in the plan. The Integrated Compensation Plan lists "books, tools, apparel, program materials, events, fees, taxes, and shipping" as excluded from Compensation Volume, so no upline earns anything on this. Includes a smart scale, digital resources, twelve months of a branded personal website and twelve months of business-management access. Shipping is free.
$199.00
one-time
$0 - non-commissionable
Annual business renewal
Also pays no one a commission. The plan states the cost "is currently $199.00 and is subject to change." Missing it forfeits the entire downline organization and all commissions permanently - there is no stated cure period.
$199.00
annual
$0 - non-commissionable
Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan Kit
The flagship. About $3.13 per Fueling across 150 servings. A post-six-month coach with fewer than five ordering entities earns $38.00 on it, or 8.1% of what the client paid; with five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV, $76.00 or 16.2%; at the top level-one tier in the first six months, $125.40 or 26.7%.
$470.00
monthly kit
380 CV - $38 at the 10% base rate
GLP-1 Nutrition Support Kit
Introduced in 2024 as the strategic response to pharmacological displacement - positioned around the research the company cites that 20–50% of weight lost on medically supported programs is lean muscle. It is a coherent product answer to the problem; it has not arrested the revenue decline.
$397.50
monthly kit
313 CV
Individual Fueling box (7 servings)
$3.36 per serving à la carte. Buying the same food outside a kit costs $16.79 a day, or $503.70 a month - more than the kit. This is also the sampling cost: a coach giving boxes to prospects is spending real cash on which nothing is earned.
$23.50
per box
19 CV - $1.90 at the base rate
OPTAVIA Premier+ autoship (client)
The subscription clients and coaches are steered onto: 20% off the first order and 15% off subsequent orders at $350 or above, 10% at $250–$349.99, no membership fee, cancellable any time. The written terms are not unreasonable. Modifications must be submitted by 6:00 pm ET the day before processing, and it is the enrollment path - not the terms - that has drawn two class actions.
≥$350/order for the full discount
every 4 weeks
per product CV
The coach’s own product
Not mandatory, and the company is entitled to that credit: there is genuinely no purchase requirement. But the entire pitch is that coaches are products of the product, and the plan states coaches are "considered the personal Clients of their Sponsors." A coach on the plan at roughly $400 a month is $4,800 a year of commissionable volume flowing to the person above them, on which they earn nothing.
$385–$550/month
recurring
$0 to the coach - credited to their sponsor
Events and national convention
The company does not publish registration prices and this report asserts no figure. Q4 2025 SG&A included a $1.6M increase in coach event costs even while every other line was being cut, which confirms events remain central to field culture. Treat the cost as real and unquantified.
not published
annual
Background check

Who runs it, and what they ran before

DR
Daniel R. Chard
Chief Executive Officer October 2016 – June 2026; Chairman thereafter

A career direct-selling executive recruited from a legacy skincare-and-supplement direct seller, where he was president of global sales and operations. He presided over both halves of the story: revenue compounding from $301.6M in FY2017 to $1,598.6M in FY2022, and then the fall to $385.8M in FY2025. No regulatory action, fraud judgment or criminal proceeding against him could be located in any source reviewed. The mark against him is commercial rather than legal - he also chaired the board that discontinued the quarterly cash dividend entirely on 13 December 2023 and redirected the cash into customer acquisition, technology and a $20M collaboration that was exited eighteen months later.

NJ
Nicholas Johnson
President from 5 January 2026; Chief Executive Officer from June 2026

Joined the company in 2018 as market president of OPTAVIA USA, then president of coach and client experience in 2020 and chief field operations officer in 2022. Also came from the same legacy skincare-and-supplement direct seller, where he ran Latin America and US sales across 27 countries. No regulatory or criminal action against him could be located. The observation worth recording - and it is an observation, not an allegation - is that both the outgoing and the incoming chief executive are career direct-selling professionals rather than food scientists or clinicians, and the strategy shows it: the response to pharmacological displacement has been a distribution and branding response.

JM
James Maloney
Chief Financial Officer

Signs the SG&A and coach-compensation disclosures this report relies on for the payout derivation. His Q4 2025 call commentary - SG&A down 31.5% year on year to $59.9M, driven by an $18.6M decrease in coach compensation, a $5.8M decrease in company-led marketing and a $4.2M realignment decrease - is the disclosure that makes it possible to derive the field payout rate at all. Very few operators in this category hand a reviewer that number, even indirectly.

Gn
Governance note
A listed issuer with no controlling shareholder

Medifast, Inc. is a widely held NYSE-listed Delaware corporation. OPTAVIA, LLC is a wholly owned operating subsidiary. There is no controlling founder-shareholder, no offshore holding structure and no related-party opacity disclosed in the FY2025 10-K. The FY2025 net loss includes a $12.1M non-cash valuation allowance against deferred tax assets - $1.10 of the $1.70 loss per share - which is management formally concluding it may not generate enough future taxable income to use them. That is a governance signal about the durability of the decline, published by the company itself, and it is worth more than any outside commentary.

Registered address

Baltimore / Owings Mills, Maryland, USA
Every material financial figure in this report comes from audited SEC filings or from XBRL data tagged by the company itself - the FY2025 10-K filed 17 February 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-008656) and the Q1 2026 10-Q filed 4 May 2026. Nothing here rests on a trade-publication estimate, a leaked deck or a marketing release. That places this file in the top decile of this category for verifiability and it deserves to be said before anything else. FY2025 revenue was $385.8M, down 36.0% year on year, against a FY2022 peak of $1,598.6M - a fall of 75.87%. The company carries zero interest-bearing debt, $167.3M of cash and investments, $158.7M of working capital and no going-concern qualification. It is not financially distressed. It is commercially distressed: a $14.2M operating loss and an $18.7M net loss in FY2025, the first in the modern era, and FY2026 guidance of $270–300M that implies a fifth consecutive year of decline.

Compensation plan

What has to be true for you to get paid

To coverYou need
Cover the mandatory cost in year one $199
the Coach Business Kit, which includes twelve months of website and business tools. This floor is genuine - there is no purchase requirement behind it
Cover kit plus first renewal from commissions $398 gross
against an interpolated median annual gross of about $349. The median coach does not clear it
Escape the month-seven rate cut 5 ordering entities and 1,200 FQV
otherwise the base level-one rate falls from 15% to 10% of Compensation Volume on the first day of month seven
Cover a year of your own product at ~$400/month ~$5,000 gross
which requires roughly five committed clients on the flagship kit - a level that places a coach in the top 8.4% of the entire US field

Read this twice

Two honest facts sit at the top of this arithmetic and they cut in the company’s favor. The floor is genuinely $199, because there is genuinely no purchase requirement - the Procedures say so in terms - and neither the kit nor the renewal pays anybody a commission. A coach who never buys product and finds two clients on the flagship kit grosses about $1,140 in year one, nets $941 after the kit, and breaks even in month two. That is a real outcome and the plan permits it. But then read the same coach against the disclosure: $1,140 for the year would place them in the $1,000.01–$2,500 band, which is the top 30% of all US coaches. Now the median. Interpolated median annual gross is about $349, against $398 of kit and first renewal - so the typical coach does not clear their own fees from commissions in the first two years. And the model expects them to be on the program themselves. At Premier+ pricing of roughly $400 a month, a median coach eating the product is out $4,800 a year on which they earn nothing, because the plan credits their orders to their sponsor. Net position: roughly −$4,650 a year. The median coach breaks even only by never buying the product, which is precisely what the culture tells them not to do. The properly executed case is instructive rather than encouraging. Five committed clients each on the $470 kit generates $475 a month in the first six months and $380 thereafter, plus a $250 accelerator bonus - about $5,380 gross in year one, $5,181 net of the kit. Those five clients spent $28,200 with the company across the year; the coach kept 19% of it. And $5,380 lands in the $5,000.01–$7,500 band, which is the top 8.4% of the field: only 8.41% of US coaches earn more than $5,000. If that coach is also on the plan themselves, the year-one net is about +$381, and a single convention trip - cost unpublished - takes it negative. Steady state in year two is $4,560 gross, $4,361 after renewal. Finally, the top. The 0.15% above $200,000 reached it after a median 122 months - ten years and two months - and their income comes overwhelmingly from six generations of Executive Director overrides totaling 11.0% and three overlapping 0.5% elite pools, not from client commissions. That position is real and it is large. It is also not reproducible today: it was built in an entry cohort, roughly 2017 to 2019, when revenue was compounding at 40–66% a year and the coach base was expanding. The coach base has since fallen 77.0%.

Run your own numbers

Drag the sliders. Nothing here is stored or sent.

-
Cumulative net, after costs
Retained clients on the plan -
Commission that month -
Total commissions earned -
Total you paid in -
Net -

10% of roughly $380 of Compensation Volume on a client running the 5&1 plan at about $470 a month. That 10% is the base rate from month seven onward - it is 15% for your first six months, and it rises by ten points to 20% in any month you hold five ordering entities and 1,200 Frontline Qualifying Volume, so the slider understates a coach who clears that gate and overstates one who does not. Cost is the $199 annual renewal spread monthly; the $199 kit is one-off and excluded. There is genuinely no purchase requirement, which is unusual and creditable - though most coaches are also on the program at around $400 a month, which is not modeled here. For calibration: the company’s own 2025 disclosure puts the median coach at about $349 for the year and 23.28% at nothing at all. Your own subscription cost of $17/mo is included.

Your money

What it costs to replace this yourself

What the same capability costs on the open market, assembled by the customer. The comparison is deliberately generous to the program: it prices real food against real food, not against restaurant meals. The company’s own published price comparison benchmarks an 800–1,000 kcal meal-replacement day against premium-supermarket groceries at $732.60 a month and fast-casual restaurant meals at $1,000.80 a month, which flatters it considerably. The honest comparison is against other meal replacements at the same calorie count.

What they sell youWhat you'd use insteadYour cost
150 high-protein meal-replacement servings a month at ~$3.13 eachSupermarket and warehouse-club protein shakes (~$1.30), bars (~$1.20–1.75) and instant oats or soups (~$0.35–0.80), blended at ~$1.50 a serving~$225
Structured plan, tracking and behavior change - bundledA commercial weight-management program sold direct to consumers (~$23–70/mo), a mainstream tracking app (~$20/mo), or a free one$0-70
Human accountability from an unlicensed coachA registered dietitian consultation at $100–150, frequently insurance-covered, or a free peer community$0-25
Smart scale, inside the $199 coach kitA consumer smart scale bought once~$30 one-off
Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan Kit - $470/monthThe assembled equivalent above$245-320
Fuelings-only basis on the company’s own sheet - $385.50/monthSame assembled equivalent$245-320
The comparison the market is actually makingSelf-pay GLP-1: tirzepatide at $299–$449 through the manufacturer’s direct channel; semaglutide at $349, promotional doses $149–$199; the federal direct-purchase channel averaging $346–$350$149-449
The same, for an insured patientGLP-1 with commercial insurance coverage$25-100 copay
Total as sold
$470/month, or $5,640 a year
Total, built yourself
$245-320/month of comparable food and structure

Price-to-value

A premium of roughly $150–$225 a month, 47% to 92%, or $1,800–$2,700 across a year. That alone would be an expensive-but-defensible number for a branded program people like. The finding that decides this dimension is the last two rows: at $470 a month the kit costs more than every self-pay GLP-1 option surveyed in March 2026, and five to nineteen times an insured copay. The company’s own filings say roughly a quarter of its patients have used or are on one of these medicines. That is not a competitive-pressure risk; it is a price inversion against the substitute that is taking the market, and it is the clearest single explanation for why revenue and the coach base have both fallen roughly three-quarters. In fairness - and it is a real point - Fuelings are food and displace a grocery bill the customer would incur anyway, so the marginal cost over what they would have eaten regardless is nearer $245 a month than $470, and a prescription does not feed anyone. It is expensive. It is not fraudulent.

Odds of profit

Three operators, five horizons

Probability of cumulative net profit

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

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%3 mo6 mo1 yr3 yr5 yr 37% 6% 12%
Coach who never buys the product - takes the $199 floor literally, a handful of friends ordering, no eventsProduct-of-the-product coach - on the 5&1 plan herself at ~$400/mo, two or three client orders, the most common real caseFull-time builder - 30+ hrs/wk, on the plan, recruiting toward Executive Director and beyond

Coach who never buys the product

takes the $199 floor literally, a handful of friends ordering, no events

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 38% −$140
6 mo 44% −$60
1 yr 46% +$150
3 yr 41% +$310
5 yr 37% +$390

Product-of-the-product coach

on the 5&1 plan herself at ~$400/mo, two or three client orders, the most common real case

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 4% −$1,290
6 mo 4% −$2,350
1 yr 5% −$4,650
3 yr 6% −$13,900
5 yr 6% −$23,200

Full-time builder

30+ hrs/wk, on the plan, recruiting toward Executive Director and beyond

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 3% −$1,700
6 mo 5% −$2,900
1 yr 8% −$5,200
3 yr 11% −$13,000
5 yr 12% −$20,000

Methodology note. These are modeled outcome ranges, not claims, not company figures and not a prediction for any individual. ANCHORED to the company’s own published documents: the 2025 Income Disclosure Statement covering ALL US coaches (23.28% earning nothing; median band $250.01–$500, interpolating to about $349; 69.79% at or below $1,000; 82.21% at or below $2,500; 1.37% above $50,000; 0.15% above $200,000 after a median 122 months); the $199 Coach Business Kit and $199 annual renewal, both non-commissionable; the level-one rate table (15% of Compensation Volume falling to 10% at month seven without five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV, rising to 20–33% with volume); the $470 flagship kit at 380 CV; the $250 accelerator and consistency bonuses; and Premier+ pricing of roughly 15% off. MODELED by us: the cohort definitions, which the company does not segment; the share of each cohort in cumulative profit; and the expense side beyond published prices, because the disclosure states in terms that it excludes any expenses coaches incurred and publishes no expense figure. Two calibration notes cut in the company’s favor and are built into the first cohort. There is genuinely no purchase requirement, so a coach who declines to buy the product can be cash-positive on very modest client volume - that cohort is the only one on this page with a plausible route to profit, and it exists precisely because the entry fee is non-commissionable and self-purchase earns nothing. And events are excluded from every row above because the company does not publish a price; a single national convention would push the first cohort’s median negative and deepen the other two. One note cuts the other way: the top column in the third cohort reflects an entry cohort - roughly 2017 to 2019 - that no longer exists, in a network that has since contracted 77.0%.

Go-to-market

Where you are actually allowed to promote this

Platform policy reads, not verifications. Check every one before you spend a dollar - enforcement changes faster than the written policy does.

Channel
Status
Notes
Publishing income or earnings claims
RESTRICTED TO OFFICIAL DISCLOSURES
Income claims and earnings representations may only use official company materials, any earnings discussion must be accompanied by the Income Disclosure Statement, and the company publishes standalone guidance on social-media income disclosure and compliant disclaimers. The written rule is strict and correct. Enforcement is the weakness: a self-regulatory case in March 2026 found nine non-compliant posts live in the field until a third party flagged them.
Health and disease claims
EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED
Coaches may not represent that the program treats, cures or prevents disease. Better still, Health Professional Coaches - nurses, dietitians and the like - must separate their clinical practice from their coaching and must not be portrayed as clinicians when monitoring people on the products. That rule directly addresses the "my coach is a nurse, so this is medical advice" problem, and very few operators in this category have written it down.
Paid and local advertising
PERMITTED BUT PRE-APPROVED
Local radio, telephone directories, community newspapers and online classifieds are allowed, but every such advertisement must be reviewed by the company before placement. The company may approve or deny at its discretion and may rescind an approval already given "at its sole discretion." A marketer can work here, but not on their own timetable and not with any security of tenure over a running campaign.
Social media
PERMITTED, WITH SEPARATION RULES
The model is social-media-driven and social selling is permitted. A coach who also runs another direct-selling business must use entirely separate accounts and may not cross-post on any account previously used to promote this brand, and may not promote other businesses on team pages built for this organization. Reasonable in itself; it does mean a personal audience built here cannot be reused elsewhere.
Speaking to the press
REQUIRES PRIOR AUTHORIZATION
Media contact requires the company’s approval in advance. A coach may not publicly discuss their own business with a journalist without permission - which, combined with mandatory arbitration and a jury waiver, means the person best placed to describe what participation is actually like has contracted away the ability to do so on their own initiative.
Holding inventory for resale
PROHIBITED
Coaches may not carry an inventory of products for resale and may not purchase more in a month than they and their household can reasonably expect to consume. There is no garage-qualifying in this model and no route to inventory loading. This is one of the three anti-pyramid guardrails a regulator looks for, and it is written into the policies.
Buying on another account, or artificial rank advancement
PROHIBITED
Purchasing under another client’s or coach’s account is banned, and artificial rank-advancement schemes are defined as violations. Combined with the rule that a coach earns no compensation and no credit on their own orders, pay-to-play qualification is structurally impossible at the individual level.
Working with another direct-selling program
RESTRICTED DURING, AND FOR 12 MONTHS AFTER
During the agreement, coaches may not participate in competing programs; Global Directors and above may not participate in ANY other direct-selling program at all. For twelve months after termination, a former coach may not directly or indirectly sponsor clients or coaches into another program. Only exclusive coaches get access to company lead pools and special events. The exit is therefore slower than it looks.
Retail arbitrage and marketplace resale
FORECLOSED BY THE INVENTORY BAN
Because coaches may not hold inventory for resale, the marketplace resale route common in other product MLMs is closed here. That is a consumer protection rather than a restriction - there is no stranded inventory to liquidate because there was never supposed to be any - but it does mean the only sales channel is the company’s own ordering system, and the customer record sits with the company.
The evidence

Red flags and green flags

Red flags

15
1Revenue is down 75.87% from the FY2022 peak, and management guides to another year of decline
FY2022 $1,598.6M to FY2025 $385.8M, a fall of 36.0% in FY2025 alone, with FY2026 guidance of $270–300M - a midpoint 26.1% below FY2025 and 82.2% below the peak. A recruit today is joining the fifth consecutive year of contraction, and the company has told its investors so in writing.
2The active earning coach base has fallen 77.0% from its peak
60,900 at Q4 2022 to 14,000 at Q1 2026. Note the period labels precisely: the 44.9% year-on-year fall is the Q1 2026 figure, quarter ended 31 March 2026. The FY2025 year-end fall was 40.6%, to 16,100. The network a new coach would be joining is disintegrating in real time.
3The median US coach grossed roughly $349 for all of 2025
Interpolated from the company’s own Income Disclosure Statement - the median falls in the $250.01–$500 band with 45.20% cumulative below it. That is less than the $398 the same coach pays in kit plus first renewal, and it is before every other expense.
423.28% of all US coaches earned nothing at all in 2025
And the median tenure of that group is thirteen months. That number is the tell: the modal experience is enrol, pay $199, earn zero, and lapse at the first renewal.
569.79% earned $1,000 or less; only 0.15% earned over $200,000
82.21% earned $2,500 or less and 88.58% earned $5,000 or less. The 0.15% above $200,000 got there after a median 122 months - ten years and two months - in an entry cohort that no longer exists.
6The base commission rate is cut by a third at month seven
Level-one client-support compensation drops from 15% of Compensation Volume to 10% once the six-month honeymoon ends, unless the coach has assembled five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV. On the flagship kit that is the difference between $38 and $57 a month per client. A designed churn cliff placed exactly where enthusiasm typically fades, and the most participant-hostile feature in the plan.
7Coaches earn nothing on their own purchases, which are credited to their sponsor
The plan states coaches "do not receive Compensation or credit for their personal orders" and are "considered the personal Clients of their Sponsors." This is good in one direction - it makes buying your own rank impossible - and bad in the other: every coach who is a product of the product is a full-price customer of the person above them, and the company nowhere discloses what share of commissionable volume is coach self-consumption rather than genuine end-client demand.
8Every rank above Executive Director is a pure sponsorship count
Regional Director requires one Executive Director team, National three, Global five, Presidential ten. There is no volume alternative anywhere on that ladder. The money at every level is paid on product movement, but the promotion at the top is bought with recruits.
9Qualifying Points make recruiting and volume interchangeable
One point for each 1,200 FQV or each qualified Senior Coach team sponsored. A coach can climb from Senior Coach to Executive Director without ever increasing personal sales, purely by sponsoring. That is a legitimate Koscot concern about the promotion ladder - it is not a finding that the business is a pyramid, and no regulator has made one.
10Six generations of overrides sit above the working coach
The Executive Director Generation Bonus totals 11.0% across six generations, and three overlapping 0.5% Elite Leadership pools sit above that, so a Presidential Director can collect 1.5% of organizational overrides on top of everything else. Roughly 40% of every revenue dollar reaches the field; the distribution of that 40% is extreme.
11The product costs more per month than a self-pay GLP-1
The $470 flagship kit exceeds tirzepatide at $299–$449 through the manufacturer’s direct channel, semaglutide at $349 with promotional doses at $149–$199, and the federal direct-purchase channel averaging $346–$350, all as of March 2026 - and it is five to nineteen times an insured copay of $25–$100. Management stated in February 2026 that roughly a quarter of its patients have used or are on one of these medicines.
12Missing the $199 renewal forfeits the entire downline permanently
The agreement states that a coach who does not renew "will permanently lose all rights as an OPTAVIA Coach," forfeiting the whole organization and all commissions. No cure period is stated in the documents reviewed. A missed annual payment can destroy an asset built over a decade.
13Mandatory arbitration with a capitalized jury-trial waiver
All disputes are resolved under a Dispute Resolution Agreement incorporated by reference, with the policies stating in capitals that the parties waive their rights to have a dispute tried before a court or jury. A class-action waiver is incorporated by reference; the standalone agreement text could not be obtained, so its precise scope, forum, fee-shifting terms and any opt-out window are unknown.
14A self-regulatory body confirmed atypical earnings claims in the field
DSSRC Case #252-2026, closed 10 March 2026, reviewed nine social posts by salesforce members conveying monthly bonuses of $544 to $5,500, six-figure claims, "unlimited income potential" and lifestyle claims about paid vacations, debt payoff and medical expenses. This is a self-regulatory determination by an industry-funded body, not a government finding, and the company removed all nine posts shortly after notice. But they were live until a third party found them.
15Two consumer class actions over the subscription enrollment path
Both allege pre-checked enrollment boxes into an autoship above $500 a month, missing pre-enrollment disclosures, absent affirmative consent and difficult cancellation, pleaded under California automatic-renewal and consumer-remedies law. These are filed claims, not findings; one is reported as resolved by settlement, which is not an admission. They are recorded here because they corroborate the refund-and-cancellation theme in a private ratings body’s complaint postings.

Green flags

10
1The entry fee is not commissionable to anybody
The Integrated Compensation Plan lists "books, tools, apparel, program materials, events, fees, taxes, and shipping" as excluded from Compensation Volume. No upline earns a cent on the $199 Coach Business Kit or the $199 renewal. This removes the single most common Koscot problem in the category, and it is the strongest fact in the whole file.
2There is no purchase requirement of any kind
The Procedures state flatly: "You are not required to purchase any other products or other materials to become a Coach." A participant can genuinely take part for $199 and nothing more. That floor is real and it is why this dimension does not score lower.
3Coaches cannot buy their own rank
Personal orders earn no compensation and no credit; coaches are treated as the personal clients of their sponsors. Pay-to-play qualification is structurally impossible at the individual level, and purchasing under another account is separately prohibited.
4Anti-stockpiling is written into the policies
Coaches may not carry inventory for resale and may not buy more in a month than their household can reasonably expect to consume. There is no garage-loading in this model, which is the second of the three guardrails a regulator looks for.
5The Income Disclosure Statement covers ALL US coaches and prints the non-earners
The population is "ALL Independent OPTAVIA Coaches operating in the U.S. under the U.S. Compensation Plan" - not a filtered "active" subset - and the NO EARNINGS bucket at 23.28% appears on the face of the document, alongside average and median months-in-business for every band. Most operators in this category define their non-earners out of existence. This one does not, and that is a genuine credit even though the numbers it reveals are the reason for the grade.
6Everything material is in audited SEC filings
Revenue, gross margin, SG&A, coach counts, guidance, cash and the going-concern assessment are all independently verifiable in 10-Ks, 10-Qs and XBRL data tagged by the company. No figure in this report’s financial section rests on a trade estimate or a marketing release. Very little else on this site can say that.
7The payout is funded by product margin, not by inflow
Roughly 40% of revenue reaches the field, derived two independent ways - 42.4% marginal in Q4 2025 and 40.8% in Q1 2026 from management’s disclosed change in coach compensation, and 39.3% from the company’s own "$3 billion paid since 2017" against $7,636M of cumulative revenue - and it is paid out of a 71.3% gross margin on real food. Entry fees contribute nothing. There is no new-entrant dependency in the mechanism at all.
8The balance sheet is genuinely strong
$167.3M of cash and investments, zero interest-bearing debt, $158.7M of working capital, $3.5M of total long-term purchase obligations and no going-concern qualification at 31 December 2025. The company can fund a multi-year turnaround without raising capital, which is not something most operators in a 75.9% revenue decline could say.
9No regulator has ever taken action against the parent
No FTC complaint, consent order, civil penalty or injunction; no SEC order or Wells notice; no state attorney-general action located. For a direct-selling business that peaked at $1.6 billion in revenue with 60,900 field members, that file is remarkably thin. The two FTC Notices of Penalty Offenses in the file are general industry notices sent across the sector - the 2021 one went to roughly 1,100 companies - and receiving one is not evidence of wrongdoing.
10A 90% buyback, weekly pay, and correct written claim rules
Buyback at 90% of net cost on unopened marketable kits and materials for twelve months, with no time limit at all in four jurisdictions and a one-year lookback in ten states - above the legal floor. Commissions paid weekly, bonuses monthly, with no stated minimum threshold. And the written rules on income claims, health claims and the portrayal of clinically qualified coaches are correct, with prompt remediation when a self-regulatory body flagged nine non-compliant posts in March 2026.
What would move this grade

We would like to be wrong about this

Upward

  • Disclosing the split between genuine end-client volume and coach self-consumption. Because a coach’s own orders are credited to their sponsor as client volume, nobody outside the company knows what share of "sales to real customers" is coaches buying their own food. If that figure were published and it were high, it would be the single most powerful piece of evidence any operator in this category could produce.
  • Removing the sponsorship-only path above Executive Director - adding a volume alternative to the one, three, five and ten Executive Director team requirements and dropping the sponsored-team option for Qualifying Points - and abolishing the month-seven cut from 15% to 10%, or extending the higher base to any coach with real client volume.
  • Publishing earnings by rank and the denominator in the Income Disclosure Statement, adding typical expenses so it reports net rather than gross, publishing event and convention costs pre-enrollment, and adding a cure period so a missed $199 renewal no longer forfeits an organization permanently.

Downward

  • Any FTC, SEC or state attorney-general enforcement action on the compensation plan or earnings claims, or a court certifying a pyramid-scheme class - any of which would replace the current clean regulatory file with a real one and would trigger a binding cap.
  • Making the business kit or the renewal commissionable, introducing any fee-based bonus, or adding a personal-volume purchase requirement to qualify for commissions. Each of those would remove one of the four structural protections that carry this grade.
  • Median disclosed earnings falling below $250 or the non-earner bucket exceeding 30%; the active earning coach base falling below 10,000, at which point the network effects the plan depends on stop functioning; or a going-concern qualification, covenant breach or dilutive capital raise.
The better trade

Grade is C-. The cleanest regulatory file and one of the most honest income disclosures on this site, attached to a median annual gross of about $349 in a business that has lost three-quarters of its revenue and its field.

Say the good part properly first, because it is unusually large. Every financial figure here is audited and public. The $199 kit and the $199 renewal pay nobody a commission, so no one is rewarded for signing a body. Coaches earn nothing on their own orders, which makes buying a rank impossible. Inventory loading is prohibited by name. There is no purchase requirement whatsoever, so the floor really is $199. The buyback is 90% for twelve months and unlimited in four jurisdictions. Pay is weekly. The written rules on income and health claims are correct, and the rule barring clinically qualified coaches from being portrayed as clinicians while monitoring people on the program is better than anything comparable on this site. The Income Disclosure Statement covers all US coaches rather than only the active ones, and prints a 23.28% non-earner bucket on its face. And no regulator, federal or state, has ever brought an action against the parent. Those are the four structural things a regulator looks for, plus disclosure quality most listed companies would not bother with. They are all real and they are why this grade is C- rather than something lower.

The disclosure is where it turns, and again the company publishes it itself. Median annual gross earnings interpolate to roughly $349 for the whole of 2025 - less than the $398 of kit plus first renewal. 23.28% of all US coaches earned nothing, and that group’s median tenure is thirteen months, which is a precise description of the modal outcome: enrol, pay, earn zero, lapse. 69.79% earned $1,000 or less. Only 0.15% cleared $200,000, after a median 122 months. Those figures are gross, before the kit, the renewal, events, travel, samples and - decisively - before the coach’s own product, on which they earn nothing because their orders are credited to their sponsor. A median coach on the plan at roughly $400 a month is out about $4,650 for the year. Doing it properly does not fix it: five committed clients spending $28,200 across the year returns about $5,380, of which the coach keeps 19%, and that outcome sits in the top 8.4% of the entire field. And at month seven the base rate falls from 15% of Compensation Volume to 10% for anyone who has not assembled five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV.

The third element is the one to weigh longest, and it is not an allegation about anybody. This business is being displaced by a drug. Revenue fell from $1,598.6M in FY2022 to $385.8M in FY2025 and guidance says $270–300M in FY2026. Active earning coaches fell from 60,900 at Q4 2022 to 14,000 at Q1 2026, a 44.9% fall in that quarter alone. Management’s own words carry the cause: the Q1 2026 call attributes the coach decline in part to "the rapid adoption of GLP-1 medications, which continues to impact the traditional weight loss category," and in February 2026 management said roughly a quarter of its patients have used or are on one. The strategic response is documented and coherent - a $20M collaboration with a virtual primary-care provider announced 13 December 2023 alongside the dividend being cut to zero, a GLP-1 Nutrition Support Kit in 2024, ASCEND mini-meals in 2025, the investment sold in Q2 2025, and a rebrand to Trilivy on 17 July 2026 with clinical claims furnished in an 8-K whose own risk factors flag "inconsistent future study results." Four straight years of 33%-plus declines say it has not worked yet. At $470 a month the kit costs more than any self-pay prescription now taking this market. A recruit today is buying a distribution position in a category whose primary customer need is being met faster and more cheaply by an injectable - and the company itself is the source for that.

1

Be a customer, not a coach, and take the discount without the ladder

If the food and the structure work for you - and for some people they genuinely do - the Premier+ subscription gives 20% off the first order and 15% after, with no membership fee and cancellation at any time. Note the deadline: changes must be in by 6:00 pm ET the day before processing, and that enrollment-and-cancellation path is exactly what two class actions are about. Set a calendar reminder the day you sign up. You avoid the $199 kit, the $199 renewal, the jury waiver and the twelve-month non-solicit entirely.

2

Do the $349-against-$398 sum before you enrol

Both numbers are the company’s own: median annual gross of about $349 from the 2025 Income Disclosure Statement, against $199 for the kit and $199 to renew. If the typical participant does not cover their own fees from commissions inside two years, the question is not whether anyone can win - 1.37% cleared $50,000 - but what specific, written reason you have to believe you are not the median. And check the second number: is the coach base you would be joining growing or shrinking? It fell 44.9% in the most recent quarter.

3

If you do enrol, build to five ordering entities before month seven or accept a third less

The base level-one rate is 15% of Compensation Volume for six months, then 10% unless you hold five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV. That cliff is in the plan document, it is dated from your enrollment, and nobody is obliged to remind you. Five clients on the flagship kit clears it, generates about $5,380 in year one and puts you in the top 8.4% of the field - which tells you both how achievable and how rare five committed clients actually are.

4

Sell into metabolic health without the plan

The category is enormous and the search intent - GLP-1 side effects, muscle loss on pharmacotherapy, what to eat while on a prescription, what happens when you stop - is growing precisely as this business shrinks. Honest, sourced comparison content on meal replacements, dietitian consultations and prescription costs is a merchant business with real demand, and it does not require a $199 kit, an annual renewal, pre-approval of your advertising, permission to speak to a journalist, or a twelve-month non-solicit on the way out.

The entry fee pays no one a commission and no regulator has ever acted against the parent - and the company’s own disclosure still puts the median coach at about $349 for the year.
Scorecard

Nine dimensions, weighted

Comp structure & KoscotDoes the plan pay for recruitment or for sales to real customers?
20%
5.0
Start with the credits, because they are the strongest compensation-plan facts on this site and they are all in the primary documents. The $199 Coach Business Kit and the $199 annual renewal are expressly non-commissionable - the plan lists "books, tools, apparel, program materials, events, fees, taxes, and shipping" as excluded from Compensation Volume, so no upline earns a cent on a body walking through the door. Coaches earn nothing on their own orders: the plan states they "do not receive Compensation or credit for their personal orders," which closes the self-qualification loop entirely. Anti-stockpiling is written into the policies - coaches may not carry inventory for resale and may not buy more in a month than their household can reasonably consume. There is no purchase requirement of any kind. Those are precisely the four things a regulator looks for, and the company has all four on the right side. Against that, three structural criticisms. Every rank above Executive Director is defined purely by the number of Executive Director teams sponsored - one for Regional, three for National, five for Global, ten for Presidential - with no volume alternative anywhere. Qualifying Points make recruiting and volume interchangeable currencies: a point is earned for each 1,200 FQV or each qualified Senior Coach team sponsored, so a coach can climb the ladder without ever selling more. And then the month-seven cliff, which is the single most participant-hostile feature in the plan: the base level-one rate drops from 15% of Compensation Volume to 10% the moment the six-month honeymoon ends, unless the coach has assembled five ordering entities and 1,200 FQV. That is a designed churn cliff placed exactly where enthusiasm typically fades, and it cuts the working coach’s rate by a third on a single date. Pays on product; promotes on recruitment.
Securities exposureAny passive return on capital? Howey, staking, tokens, withdrawal friction.
15%
9.0
No capital is taken in against any promised or implied return, and that is the whole test. The $199 kit buys goods and a twelve-month license; the $199 renewal buys another twelve months. There is no yield, no staking, no token, no pool, no revenue share on a deposit, no lock-up, no minimum balance, no withdrawal gate and no redemption friction. Commissions are earned income paid weekly. Inventory purchasing for resale is expressly prohibited by the policies, so there is not even a stockpile that could be dressed up as an investment position. Under Howey there is no investment contract anywhere in this arrangement. State this plainly, because it is the dimension most often misread: the parent’s NYSE listing played no part whatsoever in this mark. A listed issuer gets no credit here for being listed and no penalty for it either. The listing concerns the company’s shareholders, not its coaches, and a shareholder’s risk is a different question from a participant’s. The only reason this is 9 rather than 10 is that a fee is charged for entry into an income opportunity at all, which is the mildest possible version of participant capital at risk.
Ownership & track recordWho runs it, what did they run before, and what happened to it.
15%
7.0
More than thirty years of continuous, audited SEC reporting by a widely held Delaware corporation with no controlling shareholder, no offshore structure and no related-party opacity disclosed in the FY2025 10-K. Zero interest-bearing debt, $167.3M of cash and investments, $158.7M of working capital, $3.5M of total long-term purchase obligations and no going-concern qualification. And the fact that matters most for this dimension: no regulator, federal or state, has ever taken action against the parent - no FTC complaint, no consent order, no SEC order, no state attorney-general action. The 2011 securities class action, brought by investors rather than participants, resolved in the company’s favor; the 2010–11 short-seller campaign was an interested party’s allegation whose author was later convicted of unrelated fraud, and it must never be cited as evidence against the company; the 2023–24 plaintiff-firm "investigation" press releases are law-firm marketing following a share-price fall, not filed claims. Against that record sits the commercial stewardship. Two chief executives drawn from the same legacy skincare-and-supplement direct seller presided over a 75.9% revenue collapse from the FY2022 peak, the first operating loss in the modern era, a $12.1M valuation allowance against deferred tax assets, and the discontinuation of the quarterly cash dividend to zero in December 2023. Disclosure quality is excellent. Commercial stewardship is not.
Product reality & demandWould a rational buyer purchase this if no income offer existed?
12%
6.0
A real, physical, consumable, FDA-regulated food that people actually eat - not a course, not a license, not a "system," not a token. The demand was and remains genuine: $1.6 billion of revenue in FY2022 from customers who ate the food, and $385.8M in FY2025 from customers still eating it. The company cites clinical work behind the July 2026 relaunch, including a 14% reduction in visceral fat and 98% of lean mass retained over sixteen weeks, and has shipped category-relevant SKUs - a GLP-1 Nutrition Support Kit at $397.50 and the ASCEND mini-meal line positioned as GLP-1 companion products. Against that, it is a commodity meal replacement with no defensible moat, in a category being structurally displaced by pharmacotherapy rather than merely competed with. Demand has fallen four consecutive years and management guides to a fifth. The clinical claims supporting the relaunch are furnished in an 8-K whose own risk factors flag "inconsistent future study results," and the underlying study design, sample size, control arm and publication status could not be located. A good real product in a category that is being taken away from it.
Participant economicsReal cost in, realistic money out, and whether they publish the numbers.
10%
2.0
This is the mark, and every figure in it comes from the company’s own 2025 Income Disclosure Statement. Median annual gross earnings interpolate to roughly $349 for the entire year - the median coach sits in the $250.01–$500 band, with 45.20% cumulative below it. Some 23.28% of all US coaches earned nothing at all. 69.79% earned $1,000 or less; 82.21% earned $2,500 or less. Only 1.37% earned over $50,000 and 0.15% - one in 667 - earned over $200,000, after a median 122 months in business. Those are gross figures before the $199 kit, the $199 renewal, events, travel, samples and, decisively, before the coach’s own product purchases, on which they earn nothing and which are credited to their sponsor. A median coach who is also on the program at roughly $400 a month is net negative by about $4,650 a year. Five committed clients, representing $28,200 of client spend across the year, yields roughly $5,380 in commissions and places that coach in the top 8.4% of the entire US field. And the earning base is contracting 44.9% year on year. The company does publish an Income Disclosure Statement covering ALL US coaches rather than only "active" ones, with the non-earner bucket on the face of the document - that is real credit and it is scored in mktg and recorded in the green flags. The credit is for publishing. The mark here is for what the numbers say. The only thing keeping this off 1 is that the true floor cost is genuinely $199 with no forced purchase behind it.
Price-to-valueWhat the same capability costs on the open market.
8%
4.0
The flagship Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan Kit is $470 a month, about $3.13 per Fueling across 150 servings; the company’s own fuelings-only figure is $385.50 a month. An assembled replacement stack - mainstream protein shakes and bars from a supermarket or warehouse club at roughly $1.50 a serving, plus a commercial weight-management or tracking app at $0–70 a month, plus a free peer community and a one-off consumer smart scale - runs $245–$320 a month. That is a premium of roughly $150–$225 a month, or 47% to 92%, and $1,800–$2,700 across a year. Worse for the pitch is the comparison the market is now actually making: at $470 a month the kit costs more than every self-pay GLP-1 option surveyed in March 2026 - Zepbound at $299–$449 through the manufacturer’s direct channel, Wegovy and Ozempic at $349 through theirs with promotional doses at $149–$199, and the new federal direct-purchase channel averaging $346–$350 - and five to nineteen times an insured copay of $25–$100. In fairness, and it matters: this is food, it displaces a grocery bill the customer would incur anyway, the portion control and structure genuinely work for some people, and the marginal cost over "what I would have eaten regardless" is nearer $245 than $470. A GLP-1 does not feed you. It is expensive, not fraudulent. The company’s own published price comparison is the weakest part of the case - it benchmarks an 800–1,000 kcal meal-replacement day against full-size premium-supermarket and fast-casual restaurant meals, which flatters it considerably.
Payout sustainabilityCan the company fund the plan out of margin, or only out of inflow?
8%
6.0
Margin, unambiguously - not inflow - and the derivation is unusually solid for this sector. The field takes roughly 40% of revenue, and that figure is arrived at two independent ways. First, management’s own disclosed year-on-year change in coach compensation: SG&A commentary puts the change at −$18.6M on a −$43.9M revenue change in Q4 2025, a 42.4% marginal rate, and −$16.2M on −$39.7M in Q1 2026, 40.8%. Second, the company’s own recruitment page claims $3 billion paid to coaches since 2017, against cumulative FY2017–FY2025 revenue of $7,636.2M from the 10-K series - 39.3%. Two methods, two data sources, the same answer. That payout is funded out of a 71.3% product gross margin on sales of real food, and the entry fees contribute nothing to it because they are non-commissionable. There is no structural dependence on new-entrant money anywhere in the mechanism. Against that, the pool is evaporating. Gross profit fell from $1,140.4M in FY2022 to $275.2M in FY2025 - a 75.9% contraction - SG&A ran at 75.0% of revenue, the company posted a $14.2M operating loss, and FY2026 guidance of $270–300M says in writing that the pool shrinks again. The mechanism is honest; the source is drying up.
Marketing conductIncome claims, regulator run-ins, hype, deadline stacking.
7%
4.0
The credits are real and they should be first. The company publishes an Income Disclosure Statement covering ALL independent US coaches rather than only "active" ones, with the NO EARNINGS bucket printed on the face of the document - most operators in this category define their non-earners out of existence. The written rules are correct: income claims and earnings representations are restricted to official disclosures, any earnings discussion must be accompanied by the Income Disclosure Statement, prohibited health claims are expressly forbidden, and there is a genuinely good rule requiring that Health Professional Coaches - nurses, dietitians - must not be portrayed as clinicians when monitoring people on the program, which addresses the "my coach is a nurse so this is medical advice" problem directly. And when a self-regulatory body knocked, the company answered: DSSRC Case #252-2026 closed administratively on 10 March 2026 after all nine flagged posts came down shortly after notice, with the response recorded as "appropriate and consistent with self-regulatory expectations." Against that: the same case confirmed that atypical earnings claims were circulating in the field until a third party found them - monthly bonuses stated as $544 to $5,500, six-figure claims, "unlimited income potential," and lifestyle claims about paid vacations, debt payoff and covering major medical expenses. That is a self-regulatory determination, not a government finding, and the distinction matters. Separately, an advocacy organization compiled income-claims databases on this brand in both 2017 and 2023 - investigations by a credible non-profit, not findings of law. Two consumer class actions allege pre-checked auto-enrollment into a subscription above $500 a month; those are filed claims, not findings, and one is reported as resolved by settlement with no admission. And a private ratings body - not a regulator - posts a pattern notice on refund and cancellation complaints. Policy good; field practice repeatedly non-compliant; consumer-side enrollment litigated twice.
Operator terms & exitWho owns the customer, what you forfeit, how hard it is to leave.
5%
6.0
For: a 90% buyback on business kits and company-produced materials, unopened and marketable, for twelve months - with no time limit at all for residents of Maryland, Massachusetts, Wyoming and Puerto Rico, and a one-year lookback on anything purchased for residents of ten states. That is above the legal floor. No purchase requirement of any kind: the Procedures state flatly that a coach is not required to purchase any other products or materials. Anti-stockpiling written into the policies. Client autoship cancellable at any time with no membership fee. And weekly commission payment through a pay portal, with monthly bonuses on the 15th - weekly pay with no stated minimum threshold is a genuine positive that many operators do not offer. Against: mandatory arbitration under a Dispute Resolution Agreement incorporated by reference, with an explicit capitalized waiver of the right to have a dispute tried before a court or jury; a twelve-month post-termination non-solicitation covenant; advertising approval that the company may rescind "at its sole discretion"; renewal price and plan terms unilaterally alterable, the plan itself stating the renewal is "currently $199.00 and is subject to change"; and, worst of the set, permanent forfeiture of the entire downline organization and all commissions for missing that $199 renewal - an asset that may have taken a decade to build, destroyed by a missed annual payment.
Weighted composite
5.70
C-

Dimension profile

Further from center is better. Hover any point.

Comp structure& Koscot 5.0 Securitiesexposure 9.0 Ownership &track record 7.0 Product reality& demand 6.0 Participanteconomics 2.0 Price-to-value 4.0 Payoutsustainability 6.0 Marketingconduct 4.0 Operator terms& exit 6.0

Hard caps that bind here

Non-binding ceiling at 6.0 a ceiling on participant economics, resting on a single company-published document - the 2025 OPTAVIA Income Disclosure Statement, which shows 23.28% of all US coaches earning nothing, an interpolated median gross of about $349, and 69.79% earning $1,000 or less, all before any expense including the coach’s own product. No amount of corporate quality, disclosure integrity or balance-sheet strength should let an opportunity clear the C band while the operator’s own figures show seven in ten participants grossing under a thousand dollars a year. But the ceiling does no work here and it should be said plainly: the weighted arithmetic already lands at 5.70, below 6.0, so this cap binds nothing. It would only bite if a future re-score lifted other dimensions high enough to push the composite past it. There is no securities cap, because no capital is taken in against a promised return anywhere in this offer. There is no pyramid-finding cap, because no regulator - federal or state - has ever made any finding against the parent, and no court has adjudicated this business as a pyramid. Manufacturing a binding cap out of a file this clean would misdescribe it.

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

Sources consulted

What we read

Every source below links to the document itself. Tier 1 is a primary record - the company’s own plan, policy or disclosure, a court filing, a regulator’s decision or an SEC filing. Tier 2 is a self-regulatory or secondary regulator record, tier 3 reporting or academic work, tier 4 an open-market price comparison. Where a document can be moved or withdrawn, an archived copy is linked beside it. If a link is dead when you try it, that is a correction we want.

  1. Medifast, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025, filed 17 February 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-008656)
    SEC filingTier 1Medifast, Inc., filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-17archived copy

    Medifast, Inc. FY2025 Form 10-K, accession 0001628280-26-008656, filed 17 February 2026 - FY2025 revenue $385,788,000 (−35.96% year on year); gross profit $275.2M on a 71.3% gross margin; SG&A $289.4M (75.0% of revenue); operating loss $14.2M; net loss $18.7M including a $12.1M non-cash valuation allowance against deferred tax assets; $167.3M cash and investments; zero interest-bearing debt; $3.5M of unconditional purchase obligations beyond one year; no going-concern qualification

  2. EDGAR filing index for Medifast FY2025 Form 10-K, accession 0001628280-26-008656 (exhibit list, XBRL data files and Exhibit 23.1 auditor consent)
    SEC filingTier 1U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR · 2026-02-17archived copy
  3. Medifast, Inc. Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 31 March 2026, filed 4 May 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-029898)
    SEC filingTier 1Medifast, Inc., filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-05-04archived copy

    Medifast, Inc. Q1 2026 Form 10-Q, accession 0001628280-26-029898, filed 4 May 2026, and the Q1 2026 results release of the same date - revenue $76.0M against guidance of $65–80M; 14,000 active earning coaches, −44.9% year on year against 25,400 at Q1 2025; CFO attribution of the coach decline in part to "the rapid adoption of GLP-1 medications"

  4. Medifast Q1 2026 earnings release, Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K of 4 May 2026 - revenue $76.0M, 14,000 active earning coaches against 25,400, revenue per coach $5,432, "rapid adoption of GLP-1 medications for weight loss"
    SEC filingTier 1Medifast, Inc., furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-05-04archived copy
  5. Medifast, Inc. Form 8-K of 4 May 2026 reporting Q1 2026 results (Items 2.02 and 9.01, accession 0001628280-26-029812)
    SEC filingTier 1Medifast, Inc., filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-05-04archived copy
  6. SEC XBRL company-concept API, Medifast Inc. (CIK 0000910329), us-gaap:Revenues - the machine-readable annual and quarterly revenue series
    SEC filingTier 1U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR XBRL frames and company-concept APIarchived copy

    SEC XBRL company-concept data, CIK 0000910329 - the FY2016–FY2025 revenue series used for the peak comparison ($1,598,577,000 in FY2022, giving −75.87% to FY2025) and for cumulative FY2017–FY2025 revenue of $7,636.2M; GrossProfit and SellingGeneralAndAdministrativeExpense concepts

  7. SEC EDGAR company submissions index for Medifast, Inc., CIK 0000910329 (full filing history in JSON)
    SEC filingTier 1U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGARarchived copy
  8. SEC EDGAR annual-report filing index for Medifast, Inc., CIK 0000910329 (FY2016–FY2025 Forms 10-K)
    SEC filingTier 1U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGARarchived copy
  9. Medifast Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings release, Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K of 17 February 2026 - 16,100 active earning coaches (−40.6%), SG&A down 31.5% to $59.9M on an $18.6M decrease in coach compensation, FY2026 guidance $270–300M and loss per share $(1.55)–$(2.75)
    SEC filingTier 1Medifast, Inc., furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-17archived copy

    Q4/FY2025 earnings release furnished on Form 8-K, 17 February 2026, and the Q4 2025 earnings call - 16,100 active earning coaches at year-end 2025 (−40.6%); SG&A down 31.5% year on year to $59.9M driven by an $18.6M decrease in coach compensation; a $1.6M increase in coach event costs; FY2026 guidance of $270–300M revenue and a loss per share of $(1.55)–$(2.75); management’s statement that roughly a quarter of patients have used or are on a GLP-1

    Not established by this document: No primary transcript or webcast archive of the Q4 2025 earnings call itself was located on a company or SEC-hosted domain; management's GLP-1 remark is sourced here to the furnished release rather than to a transcript vendor.

  10. Medifast, Inc. Form 8-K of 17 February 2026 furnishing the Q4/FY2025 results (Items 2.02 and 9.01, accession 0001628280-26-008641)
    SEC filingTier 1Medifast, Inc., filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-17archived copy
  11. OPTAVIA Integrated Compensation Plan, effective 1 January 2026 (PDF) - level-one rate tables, Team Growth Bonus to 12%, Executive Director Generation Bonus, three 0.5% Elite Leadership pools, $250/$500/$1,000 Coach Consistency Bonus, renewal "currently $199.00 and is subject to change"
    Compensation planTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.) · 2026-01-01archived copy

    OPTAVIA Integrated Compensation Plan, effective 1 January 2026 - non-commissionable items including fees and program materials; the rule that coaches receive no compensation or credit for personal orders and are treated as the personal clients of their sponsors; Qualifying Points at 1,200 FQV or a sponsored qualified Senior Coach team; the rank table through Presidential Director; the level-one rate tables at 15%/25%/27%/29%/31%/33% falling to 10%/20%/22%/24%/26%/28% after six months; Team Growth Bonus to 12%; Executive Director Generation Bonus of 11.0% across six generations; three 0.5% Elite Leadership pools; the $250/$500/$1,000 flat bonuses; weekly commissions and monthly bonuses; renewal "currently $199.00 and is subject to change"

    Not established by this document: The Executive Director Generation Bonus in the 1 January 2026 plan reads 2.5%/2.5%/2%/2%/1.5%/1.5% across six generations, totaling 11.5%, not the 11.0% stated in the prose entry.

  12. OPTAVIA Integrated Compensation Plan Quicksheet (PDF) - the rank table through Presidential Director and the Qualifying Point definition of 1,200 FQV or a qualified Senior Coach team
    Compensation planTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.)archived copy
  13. OPTAVIA Integrated Compensation Plan Glossary, "Terms to Learn" (PDF) - the defined terms including FQV, GQV and commissionable volume
    Compensation planTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.)archived copy
  14. OPTAVIA 2025 U.S. Income Disclosure Statement (PDF) - 23.28% with no earnings at a median thirteen months, 0.15% above $200,000 after a median 122 months, and the footnote that the figures exclude expenses coaches may have incurred
    Income disclosureTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.) · 2025archived copy

    OPTAVIA 2025 Income Disclosure Statement - the full sixteen-band distribution over ALL independent US coaches, including 23.28% with NO EARNINGS at a median thirteen months in business, the $250.01–$500 median band (45.20% cumulative below, interpolating to about $349), 69.79% at or below $1,000, 82.21% at or below $2,500, 1.37% above $50,000, 0.15% above $200,000 after a median 122 months, and the verbatim footnote stating that the figures exclude expenses coaches may have incurred

  15. Independent OPTAVIA Coach Agreement - U.S. Policies (PDF), effective 3 May 2024 (V2024-001-US) - Policy 3.10 anti-stockpiling, Policy 3.15 no required purchase, 5.12.c prohibited health claims, Policy 2.2 health-professional portrayal, 5.5 interaction with the media, Policy 3.21 the 90% twelve-month buyback with no one-year limit in MD, MA, WY and PR, Policy 3.7.b.v the twelve-month post-termination non-solicit and Policy 2.7 downline roll-up on non-renewal
    Policies & proceduresTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.) · 2024-05-03archived copy

    OPTAVIA Policies and Procedures and Terms and Conditions - the anti-stockpiling rule; the express statement that no product or material purchase is required; prohibited health claims; the Health Professional Coach portrayal rule; advertising pre-approval revocable at sole discretion; media contact requiring prior authorization; the 90% twelve-month buyback with no limit in MD, MA, WY and PR and a one-year lookback in ten states; the twelve-month post-termination non-solicit; permanent forfeiture of the downline on non-renewal; and the capitalized jury-trial waiver under a Dispute Resolution Agreement incorporated by reference

  16. Independent OPTAVIA Coach Agreement - Terms and Conditions (PDF), effective 31 March 2026 (V2026-001) - §3.5 compensation and the rule that a coach's personal order is always credited to the sponsor, and §14 capitalized jury-trial waiver under the Dispute Resolution Agreement
    Policies & proceduresTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.) · 2026-03-31archived copy
  17. OPTAVIA U.S. Policies and Procedures - signature-required Coach Agreement form (PDF, earlier revision retained on the company's media domain)
    Policies & proceduresTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.)archived copy
  18. OPTAVIA Price Index List, product list effective 5 June 2026 (PDF) - 5 & 1 Plan Kit $470.00 / 380 CV / 355 QV, ACTIVE kits at $531.75 and $499.50, GLP-1 Nutrition Support Kit $397.50, Essential Fuelings box $23.50 for seven servings
    Company documentTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.) · 2026-06-05archived copy

    OPTAVIA Price Index List and Premier+ terms - 5 & 1 Plan Kit at $470.00 / 380 CV / 355 QV; ACTIVE kits at $531.75 and $499.50; GLP-1 Nutrition Support Kit at $397.50; Fueling box at $23.50 for seven servings; Coach Business Kit and renewal at $199.00 with 0 CV and 0 QV; CV at roughly 80.9% and QV at roughly 75.5% of retail; Premier+ discounts of 20%/15%/10% with no membership fee and a 6:00 pm ET day-before modification deadline. Company price-comparison sheet (Philadelphia, October 2022) giving $385.50 a month fuelings-only and $549.00 for the full plan

    Not established by this document: The Coach Business Kit and $199.00 renewal line with 0 CV and 0 QV does not appear in the currently served 5 June 2026 Price Index List; the $199.00 renewal figure is carried in the Integrated Compensation Plan at index 4 instead.

  19. OPTAVIA Premier+ Official Terms and Conditions (PDF) - 20%/15%/10% discounts, no membership fee, and the 6:00 p.m. ET day-before modification and cancellation deadline
    Company documentTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.)archived copy
  20. OPTAVIA Price Comparison sheet (PDF) - 5 & 1 Plan at $12.85 a day in Fuelings and $18.30 a day for all six meals, against grocery, fast-food and fast-casual baskets priced in the Philadelphia market, data extracted 21 October 2022
    Company documentTier 1OPTAVIA, LLC (Medifast, Inc.) · 2022-10archived copy
  21. DSSRC Case #252-2026: Administrative Closure - Medifast, Inc., closed 10 March 2026
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Direct Selling Self-Regulatory Council, BBB National Programs · 2026-03-10archived copy

    DSSRC Case #252-2026, Medifast, Inc., administrative closure 10 March 2026 - a self-regulatory body operated by BBB National Programs, industry-funded, whose determinations are not regulatory findings; nine salesforce social posts conveying $544–$5,500 monthly bonuses, six-figure claims and "unlimited income potential," all removed shortly after notice, with the response recorded as appropriate and consistent with self-regulatory expectations. TINA.org brand file and the 2017 and 2023 income-claims databases - an advocacy organization’s investigations, not findings of law

  22. DSSRC Case #252-2026 decision, Medifast, Inc. (PDF copy hosting the nine cited salesforce posts, including the $544.57 and $1,356.06 bonus screenshots and the "unlimited income potential" post)
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Direct Selling Self-Regulatory Council, BBB National Programs (copy posted by Truth in Advertising, Inc.) · 2026-03-10archived copy
  23. Truth in Advertising, Inc. brand file: Medifast/Optavia
    ReportingTier 3Truth in Advertising, Inc. (TINA.org)archived copy
  24. 2017 Medifast-Optavia Income Claims Database
    ReportingTier 3Truth in Advertising, Inc. (TINA.org) · 2017archived copy
  25. 2023 Optavia Income Claims Database
    ReportingTier 3Truth in Advertising, Inc. (TINA.org) · 2024-02-14archived copy
  26. BBB Business Profile for Optavia, LLC, Baltimore, Maryland - non-accredited, with the verbatim pattern statement on refund and exchange issues and "As of 8/1/23, BBB has not received a response or action plan"
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Better Business Bureau (BBB of Greater Maryland)archived copy

    Better Business Bureau business profile for Optavia, LLC - a private, non-governmental, membership-funded ratings organization whose letter grades, pattern notices and complaint postings are not regulatory findings and not adjudications: an A+ letter grade, non-accredited, 43 complaints closed in three years and 6 in twelve months, and a verbatim pattern statement on refund and exchange issues with no company action plan recorded as of 1 August 2023. Against roughly $2.06 billion of revenue across FY2023–FY2025, the volume is small; the refund-and-cancellation theme is the meaningful signal because it aligns with the auto-renewal class actions

    Not established by this document: The live BBB profile is a rolling three-year window and now reports 48 complaints closed in three years and 7 in twelve months, against the 43 and 6 recorded in the prose entry; the pattern statement and its 1 August 2023 date are unchanged.

  27. BBB complaints page for Optavia, LLC - the closed-complaint counts and the underlying refund, cancellation and auto-renewal complaint texts
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Better Business Bureau (BBB of Greater Maryland)archived copy
Unable to verify

What we could not get

  • The denominator of the Income Disclosure Statement. The document gives percentages but never states how many coaches they are computed over, and its population ("ALL Independent OPTAVIA Coaches") is wider than the 10-K’s 16,100 "active earning" coaches at Q4 2025. The total roster size is unknown, so the headcount behind the 23.28% non-earner share cannot be stated.
  • The split between genuine end-client volume and coach self-consumption. Because a coach’s own orders are credited to their sponsor as client volume, no public document reveals what share of commissionable volume comes from people who are not coaches. This is the single most important unknown in the file and it is the decisive Koscot number.
  • Coach compensation as a reported absolute figure. The company discloses coach compensation only as a year-on-year change inside SG&A and never publishes the level. The roughly 40% of revenue used throughout this report is derived from two quarters of disclosed changes (42.4% marginal in Q4 2025, 40.8% in Q1 2026) and cross-checked against the company’s own "$3 billion paid since 2017" against $7,636M of cumulative revenue (39.3%). It is a well-triangulated estimate, not a reported line item.
  • Event and convention costs. Neither the company nor the rebranded successor publishes registration prices for its national convention or regional events, and no participant-facing figure was found - so none is asserted anywhere in this report. Q4 2025 SG&A included a $1.6M increase in coach event costs even while every other line was cut, which confirms events remain significant and unquantified.
  • A reported pyramid-scheme and false-advertising class action in a federal district court, said to have been filed in March 2024. It appears on a single plaintiff-side aggregator and could not be confirmed against any primary docket, nor against the advocacy-group file, mainstream legal press, or the FY2025 10-K contingencies note, which discloses no material legal proceedings. It is recorded here as unconfirmed and is not published as fact anywhere in this report.
  • The full Dispute Resolution Agreement. The policies incorporate it by reference and carry a capitalized jury-trial waiver, but the standalone text was not obtained - so the precise scope of the class-action waiver, the arbitration forum, any fee-shifting provision and any opt-out window are unknown. Likewise, whether the pay portal holds back a minimum balance before releasing weekly commissions is not stated in any document reviewed.
  • Earnings by rank, and the substantiation behind the July 2026 relaunch claims. The disclosure publishes no rank breakdown, so there is no way to state what a typical Senior Coach, Director or Executive Director earns. Separately, the clinical claims furnished in the July 2026 8-K - a 14% reduction in visceral fat, 98% of lean mass retained over sixteen weeks, and coached participants losing "10x more weight" and "17x more fat" - rest on a study whose design, sample size, control arm and publication status could not be located, and the 8-K itself lists "inconsistent future study results" among its risk factors.
  • State attorney-general activity and the exact disposition of the earlier auto-renewal class action. No state action was found, but a systematic fifty-state search was not performed - absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. Sources conflict on the court in which the first auto-renewal claim was filed, it is recorded as resolved by settlement, and the settlement terms and amount were not located.

Not advice

This is independent analysis for decision-making, not legal, financial or investment advice. Allegations reported by third parties should be verified against primary court and regulatory records before any decision.

Who writes this

Researched by Claude. Reviewed by an editor.

Every report is researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, from the company’s own plan documents, policies, terms and regulatory file - then reviewed before publication by Rob Fore, who checks the sources and the stage-label on every allegation.

  • Nine weighted dimensions, published with their weights
  • The editor checks the evidence and cannot change the number - the build rejects any page whose grade does not reconcile to its own arithmetic
  • Every affiliate position we hold is disclosed on the report it touches
  • No company has paid for a grade, and no report carries an affiliate link
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Common questions

Optavia - frequently asked

QIs Optavia a pyramid scheme?
No regulator has ever found that it is, and no court has adjudicated it as one. There is no FTC action, no consent order, no SEC order and no state attorney-general action anywhere in the file. The plan has the three features regulators look for and has all three on the right side: the $199 business kit and the $199 renewal are expressly non-commissionable, so nobody upline is paid for signing a body; coaches earn no compensation and no credit on their own purchases, which makes buying a rank impossible; and holding inventory for resale is prohibited by name. Commissions are paid on movement of real consumable food out of a 71.3% gross margin, not out of new-entrant money. The structural criticism is narrower and it is legitimate: advancement above Senior Coach can be achieved by sponsoring rather than selling, because a Qualifying Point is earned for each 1,200 FQV or each qualified Senior Coach team sponsored; every rank above Executive Director is defined solely by the count of Executive Director teams sponsored, with no volume alternative; and because a coach’s own orders are credited to their sponsor as client volume, an undisclosed share of what the plan counts as customer sales is coach self-consumption. That is a concern about the promotion ladder, not a finding that the business is a pyramid.
QHow much do Optavia coaches actually earn?
Use the median rather than the average, and use the company’s own 2025 Income Disclosure Statement, which is unusually honest because it covers ALL independent US coaches rather than only "active" ones. It shows 23.28% earning nothing at all, with a median thirteen months in business for that group. The median coach falls in the $250.01–$500 band, interpolating to roughly $349 for the entire year. 69.79% earned $1,000 or less and 82.21% earned $2,500 or less. Only 1.37% earned more than $50,000 and 0.15% - one in 667 - earned more than $200,000, after a median 122 months in business. All of those figures are gross. The disclosure states in terms that they exclude any expenses coaches incurred, which means the $199 kit, the $199 renewal, events, travel, samples and, decisively, the coach’s own product purchases, on which they earn nothing because their orders are credited to their sponsor.
QHow much does it cost to be an Optavia coach?
The mandatory cost is $199 for the Coach Business Kit and $199 every twelve months to renew - $597 over three years. Both are non-commissionable, and there is genuinely no purchase requirement: the Procedures state that a coach is not required to purchase any other products or materials. That $199 floor is real and it is a credit to the company. What the culture expects is different. The pitch is that coaches are products of the product, so most are on the program themselves at roughly $385–$550 a month, or $4,620–$6,600 a year, on which they earn no commission and no credit because those orders are credited to their sponsor. Convention and event costs are not published anywhere, so no figure is asserted here, though Q4 2025 SG&A included a $1.6M increase in coach event costs even while everything else was being cut. A realistic year-one number for a coach on the plan is roughly $5,000, against a median annual gross of about $349.
QWhy is Optavia shrinking so fast?
GLP-1 medications, and management says so itself. Revenue peaked at $1,598.6M in FY2022 and was $385.8M in FY2025 - down 36.0% in that year alone and 75.87% from the peak - with FY2026 guidance of $270–300M implying a fifth consecutive year of decline. Active earning coaches peaked at 60,900 at Q4 2022 and were 14,000 at Q1 2026, down 44.9% year on year in that quarter and 77.0% from peak. Note the period labels: the 44.9% figure belongs to the quarter ended 31 March 2026, not to FY2025, whose year-end fall was 40.6%. The Q1 2026 call attributes the coach decline in part to "the rapid adoption of GLP-1 medications, which continues to impact the traditional weight loss category," and management stated in February 2026 that roughly a quarter of its patients have used or are on one. The commercial reason is simple: at $470 a month the flagship kit costs more than every self-pay prescription option surveyed in March 2026, and five to nineteen times an insured copay.
QIs Optavia an investment or securities risk?
No, and this is worth separating carefully from the parent being publicly traded. Nothing in the coach offer takes capital in against a promised or implied return. The $199 kit buys goods and a twelve-month license; the $199 renewal buys another twelve months. There is no yield, no staking, no token, no pool, no revenue share on a deposit, no lock-up, no minimum balance and no withdrawal gate. Commissions are earned income paid weekly. Inventory purchasing for resale is expressly prohibited, so there is not even a stockpile that could be characterised as an investment position. Under Howey there is no investment contract here. That the parent is listed on the New York Stock Exchange is irrelevant to this question - the listing concerns the company’s shareholders, not its coaches, and it earns the company no credit and no penalty on this dimension. A coach’s risk is that they spend money and earn little, which is a business risk, not a securities risk.
Who wrote this report

Author, editor and publisher

C
Written by Claude AI
Reviewed by Rob Fore · Published by Listech Inc · July 30, 2026

This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - Optavia’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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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 Optavia than from a reader.

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