Wealthy Affiliate
A real, 21-year-old software and training membership with a genuinely one-level referral plan and no regulator file - sold through a live income calculator with no disclosure behind it, and a review network the company told a federal court it does not check.
The hosting, tools and training are real and the referral plan is one level deep; what drags the grade down is how it is sold - income figures with no disclosure, a review ecosystem nobody verifies, and a monitor that is not live.
Disclosure
The editor of this site, Rob Fore, formerly promoted Wealthy Affiliate. That relationship has ended. He does not set scores: this report’s grade is the weighted composite of its nine published dimension scores, and the build rejects any page where those two disagree. Our full conflict-of-interest statement, including every position held, is on the About page.
Can you actually make money with Wealthy Affiliate?
The plan pays one way. When somebody you referred pays Wealthy Affiliate for their own membership, you receive a share of that payment every month or year they keep paying, and nothing else. The company’s own rate table (an image in its affiliate class, dated 5 December 2023) shows $23.50 a month on a $49 Premium monthly referral and $235 a year on a Premium yearly one, about 47% of what the referral pays. Nobody is paid on the people their referrals bring in. There is no rank, no team volume and no override in any document the research could read.
Two things about the mechanism matter before anything else. A free Starter member is paid at half those rates without buying anything, and a paying member is paid the full rate, so the membership also buys a higher commission. And the rate on today’s $588 Premium Plus+ yearly plan is not published anywhere outside the members’ back office.
What the company does not publish is any record of what members actually earn. There is no income disclosure, no median and no share of members who earn nothing, on the affiliate page or anywhere else on the site. The site’s own page index has no such page. The affiliate page shows a calculator running from “~$120 PER MONTH” at 5 referrals to “~$5,000+” at 200, captioned “Full-time freedom”, and never says how many members have 5 paying referrals, let alone 200.
Live prices on 27 September 2026: Starter free with no card; Premium $49 a month or $497 a year; Premium Plus+ $99 a month or $588 a year. The monthly prices appear only in the pricing page’s JavaScript bundle (archived), because the page defaults to yearly billing and shows yearly prices divided by twelve. Nothing else is required to use the product or to be paid a commission: no starter kit, no inventory, no event ticket, no qualification purchase. A domain adds roughly $11-$25 a year depending on where it is bought.
- You would pay for the hosting, AI tools and training for their own sake. The yearly plans sit near what a beginner pays to assemble the same stack; monthly Premium Plus+ at $1,188 a year does not.
- You get the current commission rate for the plan your referrals would actually buy, in writing, before you promote it. The public rate table is from December 2023, and the $588 yearly rate is back-office only.
- You read the calculator on the affiliate page as a multiplication, not as an outcome. The company publishes no figure for how many affiliates hold 5, 50 or 200 paying referrals.
- You buy monthly, or accept that a yearly payment is sunk on day one. The Terms call subscriptions “generally non-refundable”, with refunds only at the company’s discretion.
- You keep a full WordPress export of every site you build. The Terms say nothing about what happens to hosted sites when a paid plan ends, and members report sites going offline about 30 days later.
That call is computed, not chosen - the rule reads three of the nine published dimension scores and is printed on the methodology page. It describes this company's plan and the figures it publishes about the people already in it. It is not a prediction about you, and nothing on this site is advice.
Legal status
LEGAL - no action of any kind by the FTC, the Competition Bureau of Canada, Consumer Protection BC, the BC Securities Commission or any US state attorney general naming Wealthy Affiliate, Niche Marketing Inc., Skycity Marketing Inc., Kyle Loudoun or Carson Lim was located, and the company is on neither October 2021 FTC Notice of Penalty Offenses recipient list. Two court matters, each at a precise stage. (1) MOBE Ltd. v. Loudoun, BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry S1510710 (consolidated with S165737): a defamation claim brought against the founders and the company; on 26 September 2017 (2017 BCSC 1873) the court struck the defendants’ pleadings and ordered special costs, an interlocutory procedural order about litigation conduct in discovery, not a ruling on whether anything they published was false; the plaintiff was halted by the FTC in June 2018 and, by the company’s own account (no court document retrieved), the action was dismissed by consent on 17 September 2018. The defamation merits were never adjudicated. (2) Niche Marketing, Inc. v. Lenney, C.D. Cal. 8:17-cv-00722: a Lanham Act suit brought by the company against a critic, ended by a stipulated consent decree and permanent injunction on 11 August 2017, an agreed order with no litigated finding of falsity. No class action, consumer suit or regulator complaint against the company was found in the court indexes searched.
Confidence: Medium-High
Primary sources fetched directly where possible. Everything we could not verify is listed at the bottom of this page by name.
Follow the money
A Canadian membership business, run since 2005 by the same two founders through Niche Marketing Inc. of Victoria, BC, that sells beginners a bundle for building content websites: managed WordPress hosting, an AI writing, image and branding suite, the Jaaxy keyword tool, a phased course on search-led niche sites, weekly live classes and a member-staffed help community. Starter is free with no card; Premium is $49 a month or $497 a year; Premium Plus+ is $99 a month or $588 a year.
What is real, and goes first: a 21-year entity whose founding claims check out against the registry, the domain record and the archive; no regulator action of any kind in Canada or the US; a referral plan one level deep that pays only on a referred member’s own subscription; no capital taken against any return; published prices and self-serve cancellation; and yearly plans priced near or below what the same capability costs assembled from named vendors.
What drags the grade down is how it sells, not what it sells. The live affiliate page carries an income calculator topping out at “~$5,000+ PER MONTH” with no disclosure anywhere on the site; the founder’s 2020 “$1.6 MILLION” commission projection is still served; the review pages that sell the membership come from members paid a commission on every sign-up, and the company told a federal court in 2017 that it has no procedure to verify them.
The flagship affiliate course teaches members to promote Wealthy Affiliate itself, and paying members earn double the free commission rate, so a meaningful but unmeasured share of paying customers are also its sales force. The visible top earners are, overwhelmingly, people referring the membership.
A BC judge struck the founders’ defense in a 2017 defamation action for obstructing discovery and found a sworn statement by one founder untrue. That is an interlocutory order about litigation conduct; the underlying defamation claim was never decided, and the case ended by consent after the plaintiff was shut down by the FTC.
Where a referred member’s $49 Premium monthly payment goes
From the company’s own rate table (an image in its affiliate walk-through class, timestamped 5 December 2023): a paid affiliate earns $23.50 of each $49 monthly payment, recurring for as long as the referral pays. A free Starter affiliate earns $11.75, half. Nothing is paid to anyone above the referring affiliate, because there is no second level. The company’s share covers hosting, AI credits, support and everything else; it publishes no financials, so its costs and margin cannot be checked. The rate on today’s $588 Premium Plus+ yearly plan is not published.
| Product | Price | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Starter “4,000 AI Credits (One-time)”, “1 Website (Limited)”, “Limited Support (7 Days)”, “Phase 1: Strategy Only”. A trial rather than a working plan; the company’s own testimonials page still promises “2,000” free credits while the home and pricing pages say 4,000. |
$0 free, no card required |
Starter members earn half the paid rate on their own referrals ($11.75 a month per Premium monthly referral, per the Dec 2023 table) |
| Premium, monthly 10,000 AI credits a month, 3 websites, full course, unlimited support, weekly classes. The monthly price appears only in the pricing page’s JavaScript bundle. |
$49 a month ($588 a year) monthly, cancel anytime |
$23.50 a month to a paid referring affiliate; $11.75 to a Starter one |
| Premium, yearly Same allowances as monthly Premium. Shown on the page as “$41 /mo, Paid Yearly at $497”. The yearly list price rose from $359 to $495 in April 2020. |
$497 a year yearly, prepaid, generally non-refundable |
$235 a year to a paid referring affiliate; $117.50 to a Starter one |
| Premium Plus+, monthly 60,000 AI credits a month, 10 websites, “Private Expert Mentorship”, priority support. Roughly double a comparable self-assembled stack; $600 a year more than the same plan billed yearly. |
$99 a month ($1,188 a year) monthly, cancel anytime |
$46.50 a month to a paid referring affiliate; $23.25 to a Starter one (Dec 2023 table) |
| Premium Plus+, yearly Launched in November 2020 at $995 a year with hosting for up to 50 sites and bundled Jaaxy Enterprise; today $588 with 10 sites. The best value point in the lineup against open-market prices. |
$588 a year yearly, prepaid, generally non-refundable |
Not published outside the back office. The Dec 2023 table priced this plan at about $697 and paid $320 on it; a proportionate rate on $588 would be about $270, which is an inference, not a published figure |
| Premium Plus+, Black Friday yearly Advertised as “58%” off a monthly-billing reference; against today’s $588 yearly price it is about 15% off. Buyers were promised the rate “forever” in blog posts, not in the Terms. |
$497 a year recurring annual four-day offer (2021 at $499, 2024 at $497, 2025 at $497 reported) |
$230 per sale to a paid affiliate (company post, November 2024) |
| Domains and add-ons No mandatory upsell, starter kit, event ticket or qualification purchase was found. Stand-alone Jaaxy paid plans are priced only in third-party reviews. |
About $14-$25 a year per domain (third-party figures); extra AI credits not priced publicly yearly |
none known |
Who runs it, and what they ran before
Full legal name Kyle James Loudoun, as captioned in 2017 BCSC 1873, where the court describes him and Carson Lim as “the principals of Niche Marketing”. He has run the company since 2005 and is its public voice: the weekly member-blog posts, the pricing announcements and the affiliate class all come from him. His 4 November 2020 post projecting “$1,697,250/ year recurring commissions (yes $1.6 MILLION!)” is still served on the member platform. He wrote the January 2014 article about MOBE that led to the BC defamation action; the defendants admitted authorship, and the FTC later sued MOBE in June 2018. In the same action, the court found in 2017 that a boilerplate statement repeated seven times in his affidavit no. 9 “is simply not true” [30]. His public write-up of the case, “We Were Sued. We Stood Up. We Prevailed.” (24 October 2018), does not mention the order striking the defense. Every account of his pre-2005 background traces back to the company or its affiliates; no independent biography or press profile was found.
Full legal name Carson Randall Lim, a named defendant with Loudoun and Niche Marketing Inc. in the BC defamation action and subject to the same 2017 order striking pleadings. He authored the company’s 2018 SiteComments 2.0 announcement, which says a blog post without comments “seems ‘suspect’ these days”, and a 2021 post saying the company decided to “actively manage our reputation at TrustPilot”. His sworn discovery answer, quoted in the judgment, confirms that Amazon supplied facilities used in the hosting service in 2014. No regulator action, failed venture or other court finding naming him was located in 21 years.
No acquisition, outside investment, change of control or failed sister venture was found. The About page names three further leaders by first name only (Jay, KC and Aaron, each “18+ years”). Two BC holding companies registered 29 minutes apart on 1 November 2007, Kyle Loudoun Holdings Inc. and Carson Lim Holdings Inc., match the founders’ names, but shareholdings are not public and the link is a name match only. SiteRubix (free subdomain hosting) now redirects to wealthyaffiliate.com; Jaaxy runs under Skycity Marketing Inc. at the same box address. The record is long and quiet and also narrow: one business, no public financials, no independent press coverage of the principals.
Registered address
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (Box 18, 2354 Millstream Rd, Victoria, BC V9B 6L2)
The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (both last updated 3 March 2026) name Niche Marketing Inc. at this box address; the BBB profile and the Jaaxy terms use the same box. Whether it is staffed premises or a mail drop was not established. Vancouver appears only as the court forum in the Terms. Niche Marketing Inc. is a private BC company and files no public accounts; OrgBook BC shows its incorporation date, status and business number but no directors, officers or shareholders, and the paid registry summary that would list directors was not purchased. No revenue figure, audited or otherwise, exists in public. Data-broker pages showing “18,699 employees” and “$1 B” revenue are artifacts of members listing Wealthy Affiliate as an employer and are not used here. No US contracting entity was found in the Terms or the Privacy Policy, and no payment processor or merchant of record is named on any page read.
The veteran's checklist
Eight questions that decide whether this is a business or a transfer mechanism. Same eight, every review.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who legally owns it? |
OK
Niche Marketing Inc., a private British Columbia company (BC0729385, incorporated 7 July 2005, Active), run by co-founders Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim. No public financials; the director list was not purchased from the registry.
|
| What does it really cost? |
OK
$0 for Starter; $497 or $588 a year on yearly billing; $588 or $1,188 a year on monthly billing; plus about $11-$25 a year per domain. No kit, inventory or qualification purchase.
|
| Published income disclosure? |
RED
No. No median, no zero-earner share, no count of affiliates at any level, and the site’s own page index has no disclosure page, while the affiliate page shows a calculator up to “~$5,000+” a month.
|
| Regulatory or legal action against the company, ever? |
WATCH
No regulator action anywhere. In court: a 2017 BC order striking the founders’ defense for obstructing discovery in a defamation case that was never decided on the merits and ended by consent in 2018; and a 2017 suit the company brought against a critic, ended by a stipulated consent decree.
|
| Does the plan pay for recruiting? |
WATCH
No second level: commissions are paid only on a referred member’s own subscription. But the flagship affiliate course teaches promoting the membership itself, and paying members earn double the free rate.
|
| Can you get your money back? |
CONCERN
Not as a right. Subscriptions are “generally non-refundable”, with refunds only at the company’s discretion. Monthly plans can be canceled at the end of the billing period.
|
| What happens to your sites if you leave? |
CONCERN
The Terms do not say. You own your content, but members report hosted sites, including free SiteRubix ones, going offline about 30 days after a paid plan ends, and accounts cannot be sold or transferred.
|
| Merchant play or miner play? |
WATCH
A real merchant of software and training at near-market yearly prices; the miner risk comes from treating the affiliate calculator as an outcome, when the visible earners are mostly referring the membership to the next buyer.
|
What has to be true for you to get paid
| To cover | You need |
|---|---|
| Cover a Premium yearly plan plus a domain (about $522 a year) from Amazon Associates commissions alone | about $17,400 of referred Amazon sales a year, roughly $1,450 a month, at the 3% rate Amazon pays on Home, Toys and Sports $522 ÷ 0.03 = $17,400. Amazon’s published fee table pays 1% on Grocery and Health & Personal Care and 4.5% on Physical Books, Kitchen and Automotive, so the figure moves with the niche. Nothing here predicts what a member earns; it is the arithmetic of the target. |
| Cover the same $522 from display advertising at the company’s own assumed rate | about 34,800 pageviews a year, roughly 2,900 a month or 95 a day, at the $15 per 1,000 views the pricing page assumes $522 ÷ $15 × 1,000 = 34,800 pageviews. A site must first qualify for an ad network (the entry tier of one named network now takes sites from 1,000 sessions a month), and $15 per 1,000 is a premium-network figure rather than a small-site one. |
| Cover the same $522 from higher-ticket affiliate programs at the company’s own “avg. $20 commission” | 26 sales a year, a little over 2 a month $522 ÷ $20 = 26.1. The pricing page’s “3 Sales / Mo covers your entire membership” uses the same $20 figure; the company publishes no evidence that its members average $20 a commission. |
| Cover the same $522 by referring Wealthy Affiliate itself as a paid affiliate | about 1.85 Premium-monthly referrals retained for the full year, or about 2.2 Premium-yearly referrals $23.50 × 12 = $282 a year per retained monthly referral; $522 ÷ $282 = 1.85. At $235 per yearly referral, $522 ÷ $235 = 2.2. The easiest route on paper, and the circular one: the member’s cost is covered by the next member’s cost. These floors assume zero churn, and the company publishes no retention figure (the affiliate page says only “Retention Rate Industry Leading”). |
Read this twice
All four scenarios use the company’s live yearly Premium price plus a domain at about $25 (a departing member’s June 2026 figure, not confirmed on a company page), the company’s own assumed $20 commission and $15 RPM where it states them, Amazon’s published fee table, and the December 2023 commission image for the referral route. They are arithmetic floors, not forecasts: they say what has to happen to cover the cost, not how likely it is to happen, and the company publishes nothing that would let anyone say how many members reach any of them. Where the brief could only find a third-party figure, the scenario says so.
Run your own numbers
Drag the sliders. Nothing here is stored or sent.
Twenty-three dollars fifty is the paid-affiliate commission on one referred Premium member paying monthly, from the company’s own rate table dated 5 December 2023, the latest primary table this report could reach. A free Starter affiliate earns half that, $11.75, and today’s rate on the $588 Premium Plus+ yearly plan is shown only inside the back office. The cost line is the $497 yearly Premium plan spread monthly, because the full rate is paid only to paying members; set it to zero to model a free Starter affiliate and halve the per-referral figure in your head. The 10% monthly churn is an assumption, not a company figure: the affiliate page calls retention "Industry Leading" and publishes no number. The third preset reproduces the company’s own calculator row, which puts 50 referrals at about $1,200 a month and assumes nobody ever cancels. No income disclosure exists against which any of this can be checked. Your own subscription cost of $41.42/mo is included.
What it costs to replace this yourself
The same capability bought from named vendors at their own list prices on 27 September 2026, none of them graded on this site. AI image and logo generation is not priced here because the relevant pricing pages could not be retrieved, so the comparison slightly flatters the self-assembled stack.
| What they sell you | What you'd use instead | Your cost |
|---|---|---|
| Managed WordPress hosting for 3 sites (Premium) | Hostinger WordPress “Premium” | $2.99 a month on a 48-month term; renews at $10.99 a month ($131.88 a year) |
| Hosting for 10 sites with daily backups (Premium Plus+) | SiteGround “GrowBig” (unlimited sites, daily backups, CDN) | $4.99 a month introductory; renews at $29.99 a month ($359.88 a year) |
| Budget alternative for 10+ sites | Hostinger “Unlimited” (daily backups) | $3.99 a month on 48 months; renews at $16.99 a month ($203.88 a year) |
| A .com domain | Porkbun .com registration | $11.08 a year, registration and renewal |
| AI writing credits and “Pro AI Models” | Anthropic Claude Pro, a general AI assistant subscription | $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually ($200 a year) |
| Keyword research, basic (Starter) | Google Keyword Planner and Google Search Console | $0 |
| Keyword research, “Unlimited” (paid tiers) | Mangools Basic (KWFinder) | about $29.90 a month billed annually (~$358.80 a year), per a third-party price summary |
| A professional SEO suite (no Wealthy Affiliate equivalent) | Semrush “SEO” plan | $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually (~$1,408 a year) |
| Site builder / CMS | WordPress, self-hosted and open source | $0 |
| Core SEO and blogging course | Google Search Central SEO Starter Guide | $0 |
| Live-chat help community | Reddit r/juststart, a public forum of niche-site builders | $0 |
| Total as sold Premium $497 a year or $588 monthly; Premium Plus+ $588 a year or $1,188 monthly |
Total, built yourself Lean stack about $236 in year one ($343 at renewal prices); mid stack about $607-$630 in year one ($774-$930 at renewal) |
Price-to-value
On yearly billing the membership is priced near the market. Premium at $497 costs roughly $150-$260 a year more than a lean stack, which buys a structured beginner course, a help desk and not having to assemble anything - a defensible premium for someone starting from nothing. Premium Plus+ at $588 is at or below the mid stack in year one and well below it at renewal prices, the best value in the lineup. Monthly billing is where the comparison breaks: Premium Plus+ at $99 a month costs $1,188 a year, roughly double the mid stack, for the same product the yearly buyer gets for $588. The company’s own comparisons (“Why pay $20/month for slow hosting”, and a 2020 claim that comparable hosting “runs you at over $250 per month”) overstate what the market charges.
Three operators, five horizons
Probability of cumulative net profit
Hover any point for median, top decile and bottom quartile.
The free Starter who never upgrades
one limited SiteRubix site, one-time AI credits, Phase 1 training only; cost $0 plus an optional domain. Modeled from the brief’s component figures, not a company case study
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 2% | $0 |
| 6 mo | 2% | $0 |
| 1 yr | 3% | $0 |
| 3 yr | 3% | $0 |
| 5 yr | 3% | $0 |
The Premium member building one niche site
$497 a year plus a domain (about $522), roughly 10 hours a week, monetized with Amazon links and ads. Modeled from the brief’s profile ($0-$600 of revenue in year one) and the one detailed member account found (about $45 a month after roughly 18 months), not a company case study
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 1% | -$522 |
| 6 mo | 2% | -$515 |
| 1 yr | 5% | -$470 |
| 3 yr | 10% | -$1,250 |
| 5 yr | 12% | -$2,000 |
The Premium Plus+ member promoting Wealthy Affiliate itself
$588 a year plus a domain (about $613), working through the Bootcamp and publishing a “make money online” review site that competes with every other Bootcamp graduate for the same searches. Modeled from the December 2023 commission table and the brief’s profile, not a company case study
| Horizon | P(profit) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | 2% | -$613 |
| 6 mo | 4% | -$600 |
| 1 yr | 8% | -$560 |
| 3 yr | 12% | -$1,600 |
| 5 yr | 12% | -$2,500 |
Methodology note. These are modeled illustrative outcome ranges, not claims, not forecasts for any reader and not a company case study. Wealthy Affiliate publishes no income disclosure, median, retention figure or earnings distribution of any kind, so every number above is built from the brief’s component figures: live prices, the December 2023 commission table, Amazon’s published fee rates, the company’s own $15 RPM assumption, a handful of self-reported member income posts that are survivorship-biased, a competitor’s 2019 traffic study, and a small 2026 sample of SiteRubix subdomain survival. The “p” value is a modeled chance of being net positive on cash at that point; it is not a published figure, and it does not count the hours put in.
Where you are actually allowed to promote this
Platform policy reads, not verifications. Check every one before you spend a dollar - enforcement changes faster than the written policy does.
Red flags and green flags
Red flags
141A live income calculator with no income disclosure anywhere
2A “$1.6 MILLION” commission projection still served by the founder
3The company told a federal court it does not verify the reviews that sell it
4The product trains buyers to sell the product
5Paying members earn double the free commission rate
6A “Real-Time Threat Monitor” that displays fixed numbers
7Member counts relabeled as success stories
8A company-run paid comment exchange on members’ sites
9A judge struck the founders’ defense for obstructing discovery
10A critic gagged by consent decree
11Yearly fees are sunk on day one
12No exit terms for hosted sites
13No public affiliate agreement
14Bundles shrink under locked and falling prices
Green flags
91Twenty-one years, same founders, same entity
2No regulator action anywhere
3A genuinely one-level referral plan
4No capital at risk against a return
5A real product with published prices and a free tier
6Members own their content and can sue at home-province courts
7Price locks appear to have been honored
8The founder’s own review site discloses ownership
9The company’s 2014 criticism of MOBE preceded the FTC’s case
We would like to be wrong about this
Upward
- A published income disclosure with a median, a denominator and the share of members and affiliates earning nothing, or removal of the affiliate-page income calculator until one exists.
- A written, public affiliate agreement with disclosure-placement and income-claim rules the company is shown to enforce, and a stated rule for commissions when an affiliate’s own plan lapses.
- An export tool and a contractual grace period for hosted sites in the Terms, plus a refund window on yearly plans.
Downward
- Any regulator action on the income claims or endorsements, from the FTC, the Competition Bureau or a state attorney general.
- Evidence that the company directs or rewards false reviews, as distinct from training reviews it does not verify, or a merits finding on the review network by a court or regulator.
- The October 2026 platform rebuild stripping grandfathered allowances or price locks, Cash Credits expiring or being forfeited on cancellation, or sites deleted on exit without the Terms saying so.
Grade is C+. A real, long-lived software and training membership with a clean regulator file and a one-level referral plan, sold with income figures it never discloses against and through a review network it says it does not check.
What is good here is real and should be said without hedging. The same two founders have run the same registered company for 21 years. No regulator in Canada or the US has acted against it. The referral plan pays only on a referred member’s own subscription, one level deep, and nothing is taken from anyone against a promised return. Prices are public, Starter is free, cancellation is self-serve, members own their content, and on yearly billing the bundle costs about what a beginner would pay to assemble hosting, AI writing and keyword research from named vendors. For someone who wants to learn to build a content site and would pay for the tools anyway, the yearly Premium Plus+ plan is a reasonable purchase.
The trouble is almost entirely in how it is sold. The affiliate page tells readers that 200 referrals means “~$5,000+” a month and “Full-time freedom” without saying how many members have ever reached 5; the founder’s “$1.6 MILLION” projection is still online; the flagship affiliate course teaches members to write reviews of the membership itself, and the company told a federal court that it has no procedure to verify those reviews and exercises no control over them even if they contain false information. Add a monitor labeled real-time that shows a fixed number, 2.8 million “success stories” beside a footer claiming 50,000, and a paid comment exchange on members’ sites, and the marketing line earns its 2.5.
The founders’ own record carries one real mark. A BC judge struck their defense in the MOBE defamation action in 2017, finding they had deliberately obstructed discovery and that a sworn statement was untrue. That is an interlocutory procedural order, not a finding that anything they published was false, and the case ended by consent after MOBE was shut down by the FTC. It still belongs on the ownership line, and the company’s “We Prevailed” account leaves it out. Taken together the nine numbers land at C+ without any cap: a genuine product and a fair plan structure, held back by undisclosed income marketing and thin exit terms.
Buy the tools, not the calculator
Decide on the hosting, AI credits and training at the yearly price as if the affiliate page did not exist. If that is not worth $497 or $588 to you, the income figures are not a reason to buy it.
Price the yearly plan against the named stack first
Hostinger or SiteGround hosting, a Porkbun domain, an AI assistant subscription and Google’s free keyword tools cost about $236-$630 in year one. Monthly Premium Plus+ at $1,188 a year is the one option that is clearly poor value.
Export before you cancel
Keep a full WordPress backup of every site from day one. The Terms do not promise any grace period, and members report hosted sites, including free ones, going offline about 30 days after a paid plan ends.
Read every review with its affiliate link in mind
Nearly every page recommending Wealthy Affiliate carries a commission link, and the company has said in court that it does not verify what those pages say. Weight the company’s own Terms, pricing page and this report’s sources over any “#1 Recommendation” box.
Nine dimensions, weighted
Dimension profile
Further from center is better. Hover any point.
Hard caps that bind here
The lowest binding cap wins, regardless of the weighted arithmetic.
What we read
Every source below links to the document itself. Tier 1 is a primary record - the company’s own plan, policy or disclosure, a court filing, a regulator’s decision or an SEC filing. Tier 2 is a self-regulatory or secondary regulator record, tier 3 reporting or academic work, tier 4 an open-market price comparison. Where a document can be moved or withdrawn, an archived copy is linked beside it. If a link is dead when you try it, that is a correction we want.
- MOBE Ltd. v. Loudoun, 2017 BCSC 1873 (reasons for judgment, Choi J.)
Strikes the pleadings of Kyle James Loudoun, Carson Randall Lim and Niche Marketing Inc. in consolidated actions S1510710 and S165737. Findings: “deliberately prolonged and obstructed the discovery process” [28]; affidavit boilerplate repeated seven times “is simply not true” [30]; “deliberate and material non-disclosure” [31]; special costs for conduct found “reprehensible” [36]. Para 2 records the review-template claim as MOBE’s allegation.
Not established by this document: An interlocutory procedural order on litigation conduct. It does not decide whether anything the defendants published was defamatory, and it is the only published ruling in the action; the 4 August 2017 reasons it quotes and the September 2018 consent dismissal were not located.
- Niche Marketing, Inc. v. Jeffrey D. Lenney, No. 8:17-cv-00722 (C.D. Cal.), docket
Lanham Act false-advertising suit brought by the company against a critic: complaint 19 April 2017, settlement 25 July 2017, stipulated consent decree and permanent injunction 11 August 2017.
Not established by this document: A docket, not a ruling; no litigated finding of falsity was made.
- Complaint, Niche Marketing, Inc. v. Lenney (Doc. 1, PDF)
The company’s own pleading. Para 21: “W.A. does not have any procedures requiring factual review or verification before any affiliate publishes such a review.” Para 33: “Even if some of these reviews contain false information, W.A. does not exercise any control over content that third parties create regarding W.A.” Para 17 says the training “does not teach posting false information”. Both key quotes checked against the archived PDF.
Not established by this document: Statements in a plaintiff’s pleading; the allegations it makes about the critic were never tried.
- Consent Decree and Permanent Injunction, Niche Marketing, Inc. v. Lenney (Doc. 21, PDF)
Reported by the research pass to enjoin the critic from publishing “any statement” about the company or Wealthy Affiliate without its express written permission, reciting only that the plaintiff “alleges” false statements.
Not established by this document: An agreed order, not a finding that the critic lied. The main-thread check did not re-read the decree text itself.
- Terms of Service (last updated 3 March 2026)
Names Niche Marketing Inc. at the Victoria box address; subscriptions “generally non-refundable”; cancellation effective at the end of the billing period; content ownership retained by the member; no sale or transfer of accounts; BC law and Vancouver courts with no arbitration or class waiver; liability capped at three months’ fees; earnings disclaimer.
Not established by this document: Silent on what happens to hosted sites on exit and contains no affiliate-program rules.
- Terms of Service, “Last Updated October 13, 2015” version (archived capture of 8 May 2025)
The prior Terms, live until mid-2025: no refunds for prepaid yearly fees, “no further access to your accounts” on termination, fee-shifting, and the stronger content-ownership wording.
Not established by this document: Superseded by the 2026 Terms.
- Privacy Policy (last updated 3 March 2026)
Data controller “Wealthy Affiliate (Niche Marketing Inc.)” at the Victoria address; mentions payment processing providers generically.
Not established by this document: Names no processor or merchant of record.
- Pricing page (Starter, Premium, Premium Plus+; “The Roadmap To Revenue”)
Premium $497 a year, Premium Plus+ $588 a year, Starter free; tier allowances; month 6 “first revenue checks”; “3 Sales / Mo covers your entire membership” at an assumed $20 commission; $15 RPM assumption.
Not established by this document: Shows monthly prices only through the JavaScript bundle below; no typicality data behind the roadmap.
- Pricing page JavaScript bundle (pricing-510ca158062e762b.js)
Declares the monthly prices the default yearly view hides: Premium “$49”, Premium Plus+ “$99”; yearly $497 and $588.
Not established by this document: Does not show any first-month discount at checkout.
- Affiliate Program - Earn Recurring Commissions (live /affiliates page)
Income calculator: 5 referrals “~$120 PER MONTH”, 50 “~$1,200” (“Car payment + Rent”), 200 “~$5,000+” (“Full-time freedom”); “you earn a lifetime salary”; “Avg Commission $23.75/mo”; “Paid Yearly $1M+”; “Ready To Turn ‘Free’ Into Fortune?”. No disclaimer or typical-results statement on the page. Byte-identical to its Wayback capture.
Not established by this document: Publishes no count of affiliates at any referral level.
- Websites & Hosting page (“Real-Time Threat Monitor”)
Hosting claims (“99.99 % Uptime Guarantee”, daily backups, CDN) and a “Real-Time Threat Monitor” showing “Threats Blocked (24h): 14,203” and “Uptime (30 Days): 100.00%”. The 14 April 2026 capture is byte-identical to the page served on 27 September 2026.
Not established by this document: No independent benchmark of the hosting; the finding concerns the presentation of fixed figures, not security.
- Websites page JavaScript bundle (websites-fa75291a7485d436.js)
The monitor’s “14,203” and “100.00%” are string literals in this code and the “Live Network Activity” bars are a hard-coded array, not live data.
- Success Stories - Real Member Transformations (/testimonials)
“Join 2.8M+ Success Stories” above a footer reading “50K+ Success Stories” and “2.9M+ Members”; “the same 2,000 free AI credits”. Live since at least 20 May 2026.
Not established by this document: Neither success figure is defined or sourced.
- Wealthy Affiliate home page
“2.9M+ Members”, “190+ Countries Served”, “50K+ Success Stories”, “20+ Years Online”, “4,000 Free AI Credits”; footer “The world’s most successful affiliate marketing training platform”.
Not established by this document: The member count is undefined and includes free sign-ups.
- About Us - Transforming Online Business Since 2005
Names Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim as co-founders and three further leaders by first name.
Not established by this document: No headcount, ownership or financial information.
- 2,000 AI Credits landing page (/2000credits)
“Launch Your First Profitable Online Business in 30 Days...With AI”; values the same credits at $10 and at $997 on one page.
Not established by this document: No denominator for “32,847 recent entrepreneurs”.
- Public site build manifest (the site’s own route table)
Lists every public page; none is an income disclosure, earnings disclaimer, refund policy or affiliate agreement.
Not established by this document: Does not cover the login-gated members’ area.
- ANNOUNCEMENT: The Future of Wealthy Affiliate is Here! (Kyle Loudoun)
Launches Premium Plus+ at $99 a month or $995 a year with hosting for up to 50 sites; commission schedule; “10 Yearly Sales Per Day = $1,697,250/ year recurring commissions (yes $1.6 MILLION!)” and “Yes, a million+ per year in commissions is possible”. Archived locally and still served on 27 September 2026.
Not established by this document: No income disclosure accompanies the projection.
- WA Affiliate Program Walk-through (members’ class)
Hosts the commission-structure image; “operating our affiliate program since 2005, have never missed a payment”; the 300-sales Las Vegas incentive.
Not established by this document: The payment claim is the company’s own and unaudited.
- Affiliate Commission Structure (company image, timestamped 5 December 2023)
Premium: $20 first-month special, then $23.50 a month; Starter affiliates $10, $11.75 a month and $117.50 a year. Premium Plus+: $40 first month, then $46.50 a month; Starter $20, $23.25 a month and $160 a year. The latest primary rate table.
Not established by this document: Predates today’s $588 Premium Plus+ yearly price; current rates are back-office only.
- Premium Yearly Price Change, Innovation, & An Offer (Kyle Loudoun)
Premium yearly raised to $495 from $359, monthly $49 unchanged; existing yearly members grandfathered; 2020 course structure (Affiliate Bootcamp “all 70 lessons”).
- Black Friday is Live - Our Best Deal Ever! (Kyle Loudoun)
Premium yearly $299 and Premium Plus+ yearly $499, with a promise to “retain that pricing forever”.
Not established by this document: The price lock is a blog promise, not a term of the contract.
- Beer With Kyle: Black Friday is Coming SOON!
Premium Plus+ at $497 a year; AI credits doubled to 60,000 a month; affiliates earn “$230 per sale”.
- Black Friday With Kyle: Prepping You For 2025!
“$497/year (58% off the regular price)” in a four-day window.
- Coffee with Kyle: Image Studio + Black Friday Bonus Credits
The same $497 “58 percent” Premium Plus+ offer a year later; 10,000 AI credits offered to members for producing Black Friday promotions.
- Beer With Kyle: We Are Moving to a SINGLE Membership (A New Era Begins)
Premium Plus+ yearly at $594 as a single membership; existing plans kept. Three public tiers returned by February 2026.
- The New Wealthy Affiliate Platform Has Arrived! (Full Walk-Through)
Core Training in phases, with “Phase 1 still uses the old UX... Other phases will be refreshed”; activity points convert to Cash Credits at $10.
Not established by this document: Lesson-level content behind the login was not retrieved.
- Beer With Kyle Friday: The Funification of Wealthy Affiliate
Community points with cash value that “reset every 30 days”, built to “rebuild the old Ambassadorship system”.
Not established by this document: Pool size, formula and earner distribution are not published.
- Coffee With Kyle: A New Front Door to Wealthy Affiliate (And Why It Matters)
The Starter “5-step business flow”; a proposed referral bonus of 4,000 credits against a regular 2,000.
- Beer with Kyle Fridays: First Full Preview of the New Wealthy Affiliate Experience
“We are not taking anything away” on memberships ahead of a rebuild; “more opportunity than ever to go full-time promoting Wealthy Affiliate”.
- Beer with Kyle Fridays: Inside the New Wealthy Affiliate
Rebuild anticipated for early October 2026; “we are reintroducing the Vegas incentive”.
- We Were Sued. We Stood Up. We Prevailed. (Kyle Loudoun)
The company’s account of the MOBE action: a consent order of 17 September 2018 dismissing it, recovery of C$130,000 security for costs, a C$65,000 donation to MOBE victims, and defense costs over $500,000.
Not established by this document: The only source for the consent dismissal, its wording and the sums; no court or receiver document was retrieved. It does not mention the 2017 order striking the defense.
- Your Reviews Are Your Content. They Are Your Brand. (Kyle Loudoun)
“As bad as any false ‘negative’ review, is any false ‘positive’ review... If you are promoting a scam or scheme, you are an extension of that scam.”
Not established by this document: A stated position, with no public enforcement mechanism behind it.
- SiteComments 2.0 - A Significant Upgrade Has Been Released! (Carson Lim)
A post without comments “seems ‘suspect’ these days”; certified commenters earn WA Cash credits worth $0.50 each, exchangeable for USD.
Not established by this document: Does not say whether exchanged comments are identified to readers.
- SiteComments - The Full Walkthrough & Benefits (Kyle Loudoun)
Confirms SiteComments is live for Premium and Premium Plus+ and pitches it for “better indexing, ranking”.
- Why We Work So Hard to Establish Trust - And You Should Too! (Carson Lim)
“We decided to actively manage our reputation at TrustPilot” and “integrated trust pilot into various marketing campaigns”, reporting 4.8 stars at the time.
Not established by this document: Soliciting reviews through Trustpilot’s invitation tools is permitted; no evidence of paid reviews was found.
- Official Posting Rules at Wealthy Affiliate (Kyle Loudoun)
“Rants are OK”; members may not copy their own community posts to their websites; rule-breakers can be removed “without the ability to ever join again”.
- My Unique 2025 Wealthy Affiliate Review, From Kyle (Co-Founder)
A founder-written review in the independent-review format that discloses his ownership in the title and first line.
- Affiliate Bootcamp - An Introduction to Creating Reviews (archived lesson, October 2021)
Kyle Loudoun’s lesson on “creating a quality review for Wealthy Affiliate”; scoring described as “a really subjective process”. Captured repeatedly through November 2025.
Not established by this document: Whether it descends from the postings named in the 2016 production order cannot be established from outside the login.
- Wealthy Affiliate success page (archived capture, 9 July 2019)
“You Won’t Fail. We Promise.”; “We have never seen someone fail at Wealthy Affiliate that didn’t quit”; “$1,000/day, More? Each of these are entirely possible”.
Not established by this document: Historical; the current site no longer carries this wording.
- Wealthy Affiliate home page (archived capture, 4 June 2019)
“Wealthy Affiliate members OWN Google rankings... That is a fact.”; “over 50,000 independent authority bloggers”; “Endless Opportunity. Zero Risk.”
Not established by this document: Historical.
- Wealthy Affiliate affiliates page (archived capture, 30 May 2023)
Describes Bootcamp as “a 7 Course (70 lesson), intensive bootcamp” on “succeeding as a WA affiliate”; recurring commissions “for the life of that member”.
- Wealthy Affiliate affiliates page (archived capture, 11 December 2025)
A “COMMISSIONS” ticker ($59 Premium, $175 Premium+, $299 Enterprise, $23 Basic) and a “40% Commission Rate” matching no product or schedule the company sold.
Not established by this document: Since rewritten; how long the block was live is not known.
- WealthyAffiliate.com (archived capture, 24 September 2005)
The earliest capture found: a $29.99 keyword-list membership sold with income claims (“from making $500 a month to $500 a day”).
- OrgBook BC entity record: NICHE MARKETING INC. (BC0729385)
BC company incorporated 7 July 2005, status Active, business number 833814874, no name change.
Not established by this document: Shows no directors, officers, shareholders or accounts.
- RDAP record: wealthyaffiliate.com
Registered 31 August 2005; registrar IONOS SE; expires 31 August 2027.
Not established by this document: Registrant redacted.
- Jaaxy Terms of Service
Names Skycity Marketing Inc. at the same Victoria box address as Niche Marketing Inc.
Not established by this document: Does not state shareholdings.
- FTC Action Halts MOBE, a Massive Internet Business Coaching Scheme
The June 2018 restraining order and asset freeze against MOBE, the plaintiff in the BC defamation action.
Not established by this document: An FTC action against MOBE, not against Wealthy Affiliate; the FTC’s claims were allegations later resolved by stipulated orders.
- MOBE Ltd., et al. (FTC case page)
Case record: receiver appointed; stipulated orders totaling more than $17 million.
- List of October 2021 recipients of the FTC Notice of Penalty Offenses concerning money-making opportunities (PDF)
Downloaded and searched for “wealthy”, “niche marketing” and “loudoun”: no hit.
Not established by this document: Inclusion on the list would not have been an allegation against any recipient either; absence is only mildly informative.
- List of recipients of the FTC Notice of Penalty Offenses concerning endorsements and testimonials (PDF)
Downloaded and searched with the same terms: no hit.
Not established by this document: A mass mailing, not an allegation, charge or finding against any recipient.
- Wealthy Affiliate (Niche Marketing Inc.) BBB Business Profile
A+ rating, not accredited, one complaint closed in three years; business started 7 July 2005; Carson Lim President, Kyle Loudoun Vice President.
Not established by this document: A private ratings body’s grade, not a regulatory finding.
- MOBE Ltd. v. Loudoun (case note)
A law firm’s case note on the order striking the defendants’ pleadings.
- Mobe Ltd. v. Loudoun, 2017 BCSC 1873 (Lexology digest)
Summarizes the unreported 4 August 2017 reasons: the defendants had access to many more documents than they produced.
Not established by this document: Returned 403 on fetch; cited from its search listing only.
- Wealthy Affiliate Reviews (Trustpilot)
A rendered read on 27 September 2026 showed 647 reviews at 4.2, with “no recent history of asking for reviews”. The January 2025 cached page showed 642 at 4.6 with “Invited” reviews and a paid Trustpilot subscription.
Not established by this document: Direct fetches returned 403; both figures come from machine renders and a cache and should be re-checked in a browser. Aggregated consumer sentiment, not a finding.
- Wealthy Affiliate Reviews (PissedConsumer)
2.2 from 16 rated reviews; themes of unanswered refund requests after renewal and one resolved lock-out of hosted sites after leaving.
Not established by this document: A self-selected complaint board with low volume.
- 7 Things You Need To Know Before You Quit or Cancel Wealthy Affiliate Membership (member post)
A member’s tested account: 30 days to migrate after Premium ends, account deactivated rather than downgraded, and affiliate payouts paused on cancellation.
Not established by this document: One member, in 2016; current behavior is not confirmed.
- Wealthy Affiliate Platform FAQs - Membership Options & Pricing (member site)
Sites go offline after the 30 days “including your free sites”; SiteRubix subdomains are owned by the company, content by the member.
Not established by this document: Undated member account, not a contract term; the author earns referral commissions.
- Why I Left Wealthy Affiliate After 7 Years
Migration plugin failed on restrictions “on the Wealthy Affiliate side”; the move took two weekends; domains “around $24.99 each”; still paying a $499 locked rate before leaving.
Not established by this document: One member’s account.
- Transfer my website from WA to WordPress (support forum thread)
A departing member told that the platform had banned the Jetpack plugin used for migration.
Not established by this document: A forum thread; not confirmed by the company.
- Wealthy Affiliate Review: The Surprising Facts and Verified Results (competitor traffic study)
About 17,000 active hosted sites; 87% with no detectable traffic; over a third in make-money-online niches.
Not established by this document: Published by a direct competitor to sell its own product; traffic, not earnings; 2019 data.
- Certificate Transparency search for %.siterubix.com
Source of the 2026 survival sample: 7 of 123 member-looking SiteRubix subdomains first certified in 2016-2019 still exist.
Not established by this document: A small sample biased toward subdomains that obtained their own certificate; survival is not earnings, and some members moved to their own domains.
- Wealthy Affiliate Review - I Completed My 100th Blog Post
A member’s itemized income: first commission $46.36 in February 2021; about $45 a month from Amazon and AdSense by January 2022.
Not established by this document: One self-reported account; the author earns referral commissions.
- Wealthy Affiliate Review - Real Talk From a 14 Year Member
A long-tenured affiliate reporting $60,000-$90,000 a year, most of it from promoting Wealthy Affiliate itself.
Not established by this document: Self-reported and survivorship-biased.
- The Authority Site System Review (Updated): Still Worth It?
Reviews another course and pivots to “My #1 Recommendation: Start Free with Wealthy Affiliate”; affiliate disclosure at about the 87% mark of the page.
Not established by this document: One example of the genre, not a measured share.
- Online Success Apprentice Review - Not For Everyone!
Recommends Wealthy Affiliate with “Everyone and anyone can achieve this and even more”; disclosure only in a sidebar describing the reviews as “impartial”.
Not established by this document: One example of the genre.
- Come On Peeps, Please be Honest! (member post)
A member objecting to reviews written “without actually having truly tried and tested the item... with the sole purpose of promoting WA”.
- SiteComments Explained (member explainer)
Credits can be bought at $0.50 (minimum 20); a site owner can edit a comment before approving it.
Not established by this document: A member’s account, not company documentation.
- Where Are My WA Earnings? - Did You Cash Out? (member post)
Earnings now arrive as Cash Credits that must be exchanged and cashed out, about a month after each earnings period.
Not established by this document: Does not say whether credits expire or survive cancellation.
- Wealthy Affiliate Affiliate Program Review
“The current commission rates are visible inside your Wealthy Affiliate dashboard once you are a member.”
Not established by this document: A third-party affiliate site; its claim of higher rates at volume is unconfirmed.
- WordPress Hosting plans
“Premium” $2.99 a month on 48 months, renewing at $10.99; “Unlimited” $3.99, renewing at $16.99.
- WordPress Hosting plans
“GrowBig” $4.99 a month introductory, renewing at $29.99; unlimited sites, daily backups.
- Domain name pricing
.com at $11.08 for registration and renewal.
- Claude plans and pricing
Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually.
- Mangools plans and prices (third-party summary)
Mangools Basic at $29.90 a month billed annually.
Not established by this document: The vendor’s own pricing page could not be retrieved.
- Semrush plans and pricing
“SEO” plan at $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed annually.
- Amazon Associates Program Standard Program Fee Rates
3% on Home, Toys, Sports and Baby; 4.5% on Physical Books, Kitchen and Automotive; 1% on Grocery and Health & Personal Care. Used in the break-even arithmetic.
- Mediavine Requirements
The entry tier takes sites from 1,000 sessions a month since 15 January 2026. Used in the break-even arithmetic.
- How long does it take to rank in Google? (study of 1.3 million keywords)
1.74% of newly published pages rank in the top 10 within a year; the average top-ranking page is about 5 years old.
Not established by this document: A vendor’s own research, not peer-reviewed; says nothing specific to Wealthy Affiliate members.
- The Wealthy Affiliate Black Friday Deal is LIVE (member post)
A member reporting that she has paid her 2016 Black Friday rate every year since, evidence that past price locks were honored.
What we could not get
- The live Trustpilot figure. A rendered read on 27 September 2026 showed 647 reviews at 4.2 with “no recent history of asking for reviews”; the January 2025 cached page showed 642 at 4.6 with “Invited” reviews and a paid Trustpilot subscription. Direct fetches were blocked, so both should be re-checked in a browser. Either way, the watchlist premise (“642 at 4.6”, “risk: none found”) is overturned: the score is lower now that invitations have stopped, and the 2017 judicial findings about the founders are a risk the premise missed.
- The commission on today’s $588 Premium Plus+ yearly plan, and whether the December 2023 rate table still applies. Current rates are shown only inside the members’ back office; a proportionate rate would be about $270, which is an inference.
- What happens to an affiliate’s commissions when their own paid plan lapses or is terminated, and whether the new “Cash Credits” expire. The only direct evidence is one member’s 2016 test showing payouts paused.
- The September 2018 consent dismissal in MOBE Ltd. v. Loudoun, its reported “Justified” recital and the C$130,000 security recovery. All rest on the founder’s own post; no court or receiver document was located, and the report does not rely on them.
- The text of the 11 August 2017 consent decree in the Lenney case, which the research pass quotes but the main-thread check did not re-read; and the unreported 4 August 2017 reasons in the MOBE action, known only through excerpts.
- Whether comments delivered through SiteComments are identified to readers as exchanged, and whether the company’s login-gated training requires affiliates to disclose their commissions next to the link.
- Current behavior for hosted sites after cancellation (the 30-day window and the loss of free sites come from member reports, one from 2016), and whether grandfathered members keep their old allowances after the October 2026 rebuild.
- The directors and officers of Niche Marketing Inc. (the paid registry summary was not purchased), the payment processor and billing descriptor, and what the “2.9M+ Members” figure counts.
Not advice
This is independent analysis for decision-making, not legal, financial or investment advice. Allegations reported by third parties should be verified against primary court and regulatory records before any decision.
Researched by Claude. Reviewed by an editor.
Every report is researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, from the company’s own plan documents, policies, terms and regulatory file - then reviewed before publication by Rob Fore, who checks the sources and the stage-label on every allegation.
- Nine weighted dimensions, published with their weights
- The editor checks the evidence and cannot change the number - the build rejects any page whose grade does not reconcile to its own arithmetic
- Every affiliate position we hold is disclosed on the report it touches
- No company has paid for a grade, and no report carries an affiliate link
Looking at something else?
Enter any company name or website. If a report exists it opens instantly; if not, we start one.
Wealthy Affiliate - frequently asked
QIs Wealthy Affiliate a pyramid scheme?
QDoes Wealthy Affiliate publish how much its members earn?
QHas Wealthy Affiliate been sued?
QCan I get a refund on a yearly Wealthy Affiliate plan?
QWhat happens to my websites if I cancel Wealthy Affiliate?
Author, editor and publisher
This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - Wealthy Affiliate’s own compensation plan, its policies and procedures, its terms of service, its income disclosure statement where one exists, and its regulatory and self-regulatory file. It was scored against nine weighted dimensions that are published in full, with their weights, on the methodology page.
Before publication it was reviewed by Rob Fore, who checks every source link, every figure against the document it came from, and every allegation against its stage-label - an investigation is not a finding, a warning letter is not an enforcement action, and a filed claim is not a verdict.
The editor does not set the grade. The published score is the weighted composite of the nine dimension scores, and the build refuses to emit a page where the two disagree by more than 0.06. A grade moves when the evidence moves it and not otherwise.
Rob Fore has marketed online since 1996, wrote Online MLM Marketing (2014), and is CEO of Listech Inc, the Nevada corporation that publishes this site. He holds affiliate positions in companies graded here - including LiveGood, which this site grades D, SendOutCards, which it grades C−, and the Home Business Academy, which it grades B−. Those positions are disclosed on the reports they touch, and changed nothing on this page.
About the author and our conflicts · Contact the editor · Corrections: corrections@opportunitygrade.com
Tell me if this grade changes
Wealthy Affiliate is graded C+ as of September 28, 2026. Grades move when the evidence moves - a new income disclosure, a regulatory action, a rewritten compensation plan. Leave your address and you will get one email if this one does.
One email when the grade moves, and nothing else. We will never use your address to promote an income opportunity of any kind, we do not sell, rent or share the list, and it is stored on our own infrastructure rather than with any company graded here. Unsubscribe removes everything.
Corrections
Every factual claim on this page is sourced, and the ones we could not stand up are named in the unable to verify list above. If something here is wrong, we want to know, and we would rather hear it from Wealthy Affiliate than from a reader.
Write to corrections@opportunitygrade.com. Point at the specific sentence and send the document that contradicts it - a plan document, a filing, an income disclosure, a policy page. We will check it against the primary source, correct the page if it is wrong, and keep a dated record of the change. A grade moves if the evidence moves it.
This address reaches a person, not a form. We do not require a takedown demand, an NDA or a lawyer to accept a correction, and we do not remove a report because a company disputes its conclusion - only because the underlying facts turn out to be wrong.