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Wealthy Affiliate Review
You are here most likely because you want to make money online and you’re wondering if Wealthy Affiliate can help you make money online.
I was in the same situation you are now, and thanks to my decision a few years ago I am able now to work from home. At the moment of writing this there’s Coronavirus epidemic, but I can work from home and I don’t need to worry about the job situation and traveling to work.
So, if you are looking for a chance of escaping a rat race and want to know if Wealthy Affiliate can help you with it, please keep on reading this Wealthy Affiliate Review.
Also, I’d like to congratulate you for being brave and for looking for a way to start your own online business. Most of the people aren’t ambitious and brave enough to try something new. OK, let’s go back to Wealthy Affiliate.
There are lots of Wealthy Affiliate Website and Program reviews, but unfortunately many of them are misleading. Because of the popularity of Wealthy Affiliate Website and the possibility of high commissions it can bring the affiliates who promote it, some affiliates just promote it for the money, without really knowing the value of it.
On the other hand, there are a lot of affiliates and online marketers who use Wealthy Affiliate to promote their own businesses and other programs to make money. They know that people search for Wealthy Affiliate reviews, so they write such a review, criticizing Wealthy Affiliate, so that they sell their own ideas.
Why Am I Writing Wealthy Affiliate Website and Program Review?
I’m writing it, so you can learn about the things that you should really know about Wealthy Affiliate (WA). It’s also a personal story.
I joined Wealthy Affiliate in April 2016, but I wasn’t a newbie in the online marketing world. I had been doing online marketing, including affiliate marketing for years before. I used to have a few websites, who made me some good money, for some time, maybe 2 or 3 years.
Unfortunately, because of some black hat and gray hat SEO methods I used, all my income was quickly gone, right after Google introduced Panda and Penguin updates.
After that, I got frustrated with my online marketing, gave up on all my websites and took up a job in a digital marketing agency. But, after a few years the desire of making money online myself and having my independent online business came back. I wanted to do affiliate marketing again, because I did not want to deal with clients, stocking and sending products, etc. The affiliate marketing seemed so simple; you just send someone to a website, where someone buys something, and you get a commission.
Of course, I knew from my work that it’s not so easy to rank well in Google and get good traffic to a website. So, I decided to educate myself, and did some research online about affiliate marketing, looking for a tutor who could help me. I did not want to do any black or gray hat SEO. I wanted to follow someone who was very successful in affiliate marketing and who did it with white hat SEO only. I knew that Google, sooner or later will punish websites that use black and gray hat SEO methods.
That’s how I found the Wealthy Affiliate website. When I saw that I could sign up for free, without a credit card, I decided to try. What I saw inside really surprised me. I saw a lot of really good quality training. A lot of step-by-step training with videos. Because I knew already quite a lot about online marketing, I could immediately see the value of Wealthy Affiliate training.
I also saw that there are many tools, and that I won’t need to go anywhere else for any marketing tools like domains, web hosting, keyword research, etc. I was contacted in the beginning by Kyle, the owner of WA, who offered me help personally. He helped me with choosing my niche and gave advice about the content of my first website created by WA software.
I quickly became a premium member, which means a paid member of WA. I did not join to promote WA and to make money from WA commissions. I joined, because I wanted to have my own successful online business and I thought WA is the place that I can learn how to do it.
I started a business in the beauty/health niche and with the help of my wife, we started to work to make our business a success. It wasn’t hard to learn how to do it, but it was quite hard to write an article after article, without making any money in the first few months. After that, we started making some money, but the real money came after a year, really. Comparing to the other members of WA community, I know I was quite slow, and that some people made more money much quicker, but I was happy anyway that I finally have had my own successful online business.
I have never promoted WA. I have never made any WA commissions. I have just started this website a few weeks ago, and decided to share my story and experience about making money online and affiliate marketing.
Of course, I started to promote Wealthy Affiliate too now, and I get a commission when people buy through this website. I must be honest with you about that. But, I did not join WA because I wanted to promote WA, I joined WA because I wanted to learn how to be successful in affiliate marketing and make money online by doing what I like. That’s why I can write honest and unbiased WA review. I know it from the inside out. I know what it can give you. I know its pros and cons (yes, there are some cons; nothing is perfect).
What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
First, I should say what WA is not. Because so many people promote it as the best program to make money online, many people think that it’s the make money quick affiliate program. So, I must make it clear – The WA is not:
- Make money quick program or make money online program in general
- It’s not a scam
- It’s not a program that will make you rich fast and easy
- It’s not a place to go to, to solve your financial problems very fast
I wrote the above because I saw that some people join WA and think they will be making money after a month or even quicker, and that they will be able to earn enough to quit their job. It won’t happen.
Wealthy Affiliate is the place online, where you can find almost everything you need for affiliate marketing. Actually, not just affiliate marketing, but online marketing in general. There are many members of WA who run local online marketing agencies. Members who use what they learn in WA to sell their own products and run their own online businesses and who don’t sell as affiliates.
WA is like an online university, where you can learn all you need to know about online marketing. But, it’s also much more than education. In WA:
- You’ll be able to create your own website (or many websites if you want to) in less than a minute
- You’ll have top quality web hosting for your website
- You’ll be able to buy domains
- You’ll get privacy protection for your website
- You’ll have top security for your website
- You’ll get very fast technical support for any website problems 24 hours, within a few minutes (it really works like that; I have experienced it many times).
You can see here all you get in WA account
Site Rubix
The Site Rubix is a software in Wealthy Affiliate that creates a website in less than a minute. You can check it out below:
There’s much more in the WA Premium account, but let me first explain the difference between the free and premium account.
Free or Premium Wealthy Affiliate Account?
You can join WA for free without a credit card. I haven’t experienced any pressure in WA to upgrade to premium, but I quickly saw the value of the premium account, so I upgraded anyway. Now, the question is if the free account will be enough and can you make money with it?
You can learn a lot with the free account, but it’s harder to stay up to date. You can certainly make money with the free account, but it’s much harder because you won’t have all the tools that come with the premium account.
I personally think that the free account is just a good place to start to see what WA is about and if it’s for you. If you decide it’s for you and you’re serious about building online business that will make you money, then you should upgrade to premium.
Click here to see exactly the difference between Starter and Premium accounts, and to see all that you’ll have the access to, in both accounts.
Wealthy Affiliate Webhosting
Most of the people who want to join WA, don’t do it because of the Wealthy Affiliate Webhosting. You don’t think about such things when you just want to learn how to make money online. It’s understandable.
But, there are many people who, after joining WA became very successful online marketers and they already know all that they need to know about affiliate marketing. Yet, they stay with WA because of the state-of-the-art webhosting.
WA Webhosting is one of the best in the world and it’s included in the membership. Even if you join for free you can have it.
One of the ranking factors nowadays is website loading speed. WA websites load very fast. The average website load time is only 1.3 seconds.
From my experience, my websites hosted on WA webhosting are almost never down. If there are any technical problems you can access WA Help Team 24/7, and they reply and solve problems in minutes.
The other benefits of Wealthy Affiliate Webhosting:
- You can host 10 websites if you are a paid (premium membership) member
- You can host 1 website if you are a free (starter membership) member
- Instant DNS setup for WordPress websites
- 30 GB of website space
- Bandwidth for 500K visitors per month
- Free SSL certificates
- Full redundancy
- Enterprise security
- Daily website backups
- Unlimited email accounts
- BotNet Security
- Site Health Monitoring
- And more….
Click Here for More Info About Wealthy Affiliate Webhosting
Wealthy Affiliate Prices
To upgrade to the premium account costs $19 for the 1st
month. It gives you the opportunity to experience the premium account for a lower price. After that it costs $47 per month, everything included.
You can save money by paying for 6 months or for a year. The one-year payment is $359 which will save you $209, comparing to paying monthly ($29.92 per month) If you pay for 6 months, you’ll pay $234 ($39 per month). You can cancel any time.
The interesting thing is that you can also pay using WA credits. When you join WA you can earn credits by writing comments on members’ websites, giving feedback and getting referrals. So, if you’re really active in the WA community, you might save even more money.
There are no upsells in WA. When you become premium you get all that there is in WA. I hate those offers, where after you buy, you learn there’s more and that you must pay more to get it. Nothing like that in WA. Another interesting thing about WA is that the price $47 per month has been the same since the beginning. Although they add more and more value to WA, the price stays the same.
Who Is Wealthy Affiliate For?
It’s for everyone who wants to:
- Learn affiliate marketing
- Learn online marketing in general
- Wants to make money online
- Wants to have a successful online business
The great thing about WA is that it’s suitable for complete beginners and intermediate and advanced marketers (although there’s the least training for the most advanced marketers).
Anybody who wants to get free from the rat race and want to enjoy the freedom of working from home will find all that he/she needs in WA. If you want to learn how to make some extra money in WA, you can do that too.
Who Shouldn’t Join Wealthy Affiliate?
In my opinion WA membership is not for everyone. If you want to make money fast, it’s not for you. There are many online programs and memberships that promise quick and easy money, but I know from my own experience that none of them work. WA does not claim that you can make fast and easy money with them. If you expect that, don’t bother joining.
To start an online business, you need some money and time to invest. It’s the same like with any kind of business. The difference is, that you need much less money and time to invest in your own online business.
If you a person that has very little money and thinks that you can just pay $19 for the first month and you’ll make enough to pay for the next months of the membership, it’s not for you. It usually takes a few months before you start making money. You need to be committed and have some money to invest in your business first (in the form of the membership payment) before you start making some money.
So, don’t spend money on WA that you desperately need for your family. It’s not going to work when you’re desperate to make money fast.
The same is with time. If you don’t have at least 2 hours every day to spend on building your online business (at least in the beginning), then WA is not for you.
You will need to write a lot to create content for your website or websites. You’ll be trained how to write the content that ranks well in the search engines, but it’s you who’ll need to do the writing. If you’re a person who hates writing, then WA is not for you; unless you can change.
Wealthy Affiliate Inside
There’s so much in WA that I could write and write about it. But you can watch the video below to have some more understanding about WA.
Join Wealthy Affiliate for Free
The Cons of Wealthy Affiliate
I wrote so many good things about WA, that you might think it’s just perfect. It isn’t. So here is what I don’t like about WA:
There’s too much chatting about things not related to online marketing. Of course, it’s just my opinion. Sometimes people just need to chill out and chat about something different from work. But, it might be distracting sometimes, so you can turn off the chat.
There’s not enough advanced training, but I think it’ll be more in the future.
There’s not enough email marketing training. But, I heard from Kyle that it’ll be more in the future.
Testimonials
You should never trust 100% in any reviews. You should always look for the testimonials from more than one member. So, below are testimonials from a few WA members who have been with WA for years.
Summary
As a member of Wealthy Affiliate I am fully convinced that it’s the best place to build a successful online business and to make money online. Actually the great thing is that you can join for free, without any strings attached, without a credit card and test it for yourself. So, you don’t need to trust anyone. You can sign up here and see for yourself.
Update: May 11, 2020
Since May 11, 2020 you can still join Wealthy Affiliate as a Starter Member for free. But, the price of the yearly price of the Premium Membership has increased.
Price: $495 per year
Discount: $93 off (basically a 2 month discount)
Bonuses: Free .com Domain ($14 value), 100 Community Credits, Bonus Live Class (AMA With Kyle, Succeeding in 2020)
The monthly price is $49 per month, and there’s $19 for the first month for newcomers. As always, with WA, there are no upsells, and no hidden costs, just 2 kinds of memberships – Starter and Premium.
Hi, I love your review about Wealthy Affiliate, and you could not be more right about everything. Wealthy Affiliate has changed my life in so many ways, too many to count. before WA I knew nothing about marketing, Internet or Online business and it is thanks to their training and support that I am where I am today running my own successful business online.
Thank you Barbara for this very inspiring comment.
Your articles are very timely. I’ve never heard of black and gray hat SEO. Could I be doing this without knowing? Time to research further on this.
With Wealthy Affiliate, I must say that the training and support is out of this world. For newbies into the world of affiliate marketing, this is the right place to start. Being a new member myself, I can definitely say that it is not a scam.
Thank you for your post and advice.
Thank you for your comment Carol! You’re a member of WA, so you don’t need to worry about black or gray hat marketing. If you follow WA’s training you’ll be on the right track anyway, and WA teaches only white hat marketing.
I thought this was a good and thorough description of Wealthy Affiliate. You really make it clear that we will have to work but that there will be support. Your own story was very interesting. I enjoyed reading about the various ways you had messed up before you gave this program a try! It makes the things you say about the program more believable. Not get rich quick but learn and do.
Thank you for the comment Zana!
Hi, Chris.
Thanks for the detailed Review on Wealthy Affiliate. Your unique style to describe the positives in a negative way is quite interesting.
Being a proud premium member of WA from more than one year I can say that whatever you said is 100% correct.
Those who are in a hurry to make money and have very little time or love their boss a lot, should not try this program.
Only serious people with long term goals and a tankful of patience should only be on board, as it requires consistency and persistence of efforts.
Warm Regards,
Gaurav Gaur
Thank you for the comment Gaurav!
Your story and review of Wealthy Affiliate is awesome!
I can relate to so much of what you went through.
I tried writing e-books and that became too competitive.
I tried many things online that were mostly scams.
But I too, was interested in affiliate marketing and while I haven’t really made money yet after 2 years, I stick with it because I know it will eventually come.
Your story is truly an inspiration!
What would you do differently if you had to start over with WA?
Thank you for your nice comment Rob. I would just follow the WA training as much as possible, putting the most stress on writing some quality content and posting as often as possible.
The money will come if you stick with it. I had to be patient and wait for some time too.
Chris, You are so right in saying if they offer to be rich overnight that they better look somewhere else.
This is the first red flag for me. Thank you for the comment Jim.
I would like to give thanks and respect for this kind of article because you have shared about affiliate marketing which is extremely important to me. I just want to say that I am a premium member of a wealthy affiliate. This is the outstanding way to earn money from at home and I am more independent to work in that place.
Thank you for the comment.
Thank you for sharing this article about affiliate marketing as well as Wealthy Affiliate. I enjoyed reading your start up story a lot. My story is also quite similar to yours. I have been in affiliate marketing for the last 4 years. At the beginning my journey was really hard. but eventually i was able to learn many things about affiliate marketing. Moreover when i got know about Wealthy Affiliate I was astonished to see the features of it. it gives us free training lessons for our betterment. We can easily make money from home with Wealthy Affiliate. It’s a very helpful platform as well. Your review is recommendable. Hope to get more reviews like this.
I will surely share this article to my social media accounts so that other can know it too.
Thank you for the comment.
Hey, I enjoy a lot while reading your review and find it very helpful for everyone. I love your review about Wealthy Affiliate, and you could not be more right about everything. Wealthy Affiliate has changed my life in so many ways, too many to count. It makes the things you say about the program more believable. Not get rich quick but learn and do.Thanks for sharing.
Hey. Thank you for the comment.
Hi Chris, I joined Wealthy Affiliate to learn everything about Affiliate Marketing and Online Marketing in general. I am setting up my website at the moment and I already wrote 14 articles, so I guess it won’t be a problem to write more. It’s true that you have to invest at first into the Wealthy Affiliate Business before you can earn something, currently I am investing time in order to get an expert in my niche, but I also bought the yearly memebership. I think I also have to buy books in order to get an expert. Do you think this is the only possibility to educate myself on things related to my niche? Thank you very much! Fabian
Hi Fabi,
I am convinced you can find everything you need on the Wealthy Affiliate website to succeed in online marketing.
I don’t know what your niche is, but you can find nowadays almost all kinds of info on the internet. There are lots of videos, articles, eBooks, etc. So, probably buying books is not necessary. But, of course the more you know about your niche, the better, so books is one of the ways to learn.
Thank you for the comment.
For me, Wealthy Affiliate is the best affiliate marking tutorship website. I have been using them for a very long time now and I must say it has been a bumpy ride but i am enjoying the services that they provide.. thanks anyway for sharing, I know it would be of help to us all.
Thank you for the comment.
Hello, You are doing an awesome work for beginners in affiliate marketing. Your step by step guide help them a lot. Being a proud premium member of WA from more than one year I can say that whatever you said is 100% correct. Only serious people with long term goals and a tankful of patience should only be on board, as it requires consistency and persistence of efforts. Thanks for sharing it.
Thank you for the comment.
I’m so glad you have shared your story here! We all need to hear a success story to help motivate us throughout the week!
I’m also pleased you have shared some honest and truthful info for everyone that visits your site! I especially liked the paragraph on “who shouldn’t join WA”.. people need to know upfront what to expect.
Thank you so much for sharing!!
Thank you for the comment.
Wealthy Affiliate has been a very good experience for me. I have have learned so much about online business. I often say I have learned more in one year than the previous 20. The great thing about Wealthy Affiliate is that you can learn something and then use the platform to actually do it. I call it a true learning and earning experience.
Thank you for the comment.
Thank you for your post. It is intensive, informational, and useful for any one who is interesting in online business. I read a lot of reviews on Wealthy Affiliate and there is no any negative comments on the program.
I like your description on The Cons of Wealthy Affiliate. I know that money is in the email list and I take some time and efforts on email marketing, but so far I have limited success. The reason that I use Mailchimp for my platform, which turns out that this system does not allow to promote affiliate marketing.
It is nice to hear that Wealthy Affiliate is going to have more training on email marketing. I will certainly follow the training they provide to enhance my email marketing skill.
Thank you for the comment.
I really appreciated your story because it’s very different from my own, and yet we’ve come to the same conclusions for much the same reasons. Kind of makes me more confident in my own decisions.
I no experience with internet marketing and barely even knew what affiliate marketers were when I stumbled on WA. I had just lost a job and was looking for an alternative way to make money. I also didn’t expect to stay long with WA. Like you, not having to give a credit card right away was a big draw. Over the years, I’ve just been repeatedly impressed by the resources, the hosting, and how much the founders really do seem to care about their product and the people using it. I can’t say these things about a lot of products out there, both on and off line.
Thank you for the comment.
Thanks so much for posting this review, but especially for sharing your personal story in the world of Affiliate Marketing. I really get encouraged in my own online business when I hear that other people have struggled and overcome to succeed. It helps me to think that it is possible too! This may be unrelated to the post in a way, but what do you think, is the single biggest thing someone needs to master in order to become successful at Affiliate Marketing? I’m interested to hear from your perspective! Thanks again!
Thank you for the comment. I think the biggest and most important thing is to not give up. Someone must learn, apply what has learned, continue learning and applying, and this is only possible if someone does not give up.
Wealthy Affiliate gives all the tools and training, but we must do the work, and keep on working till we are successful. The success does not come overnight.