The Shocking Reality of MLMs = $0.67 Per Hour

Marsha above doesn’t really exist. She’s our avatar to represent a typical person trying to make money online with Multi-Level Marketing (MLM).

Wikipedia’s explanation of MLM…

Multi-level marketing (MLM), also called network marketing or pyramid selling, is a controversial and sometimes illegal marketing strategy for the sale of products or services in which the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce selling the company’s products or services, while the earnings of the participants are derived from a pyramid-shaped or binary compensation commission system.

Participants of traditional offline MLMs, such as Mary Kay or Tupperware, usually focus on in-person sales and recruitment.

(Ever heard of a Tupperware party?)

But there is a growing online element to multi-level marketing as well, with participants using digital marketing techniques to make sales and recruit new people.

There have been a number of studies and investigations into the earnings of MLM participants – Wikipedia has a handy list – and frankly they’re all quite discouraging.

The most recent, large-scale MLM income report I found was a 2018 survey by Magnify Money.

They surveyed 1,049 MLM participants and these were their key takeaways…

The hourly earnings of those surveyed worked out to a paltry $0.67 per hour…

Given that and many similar studies, I’d highly recommend steering clear of MLMs as a way to make money online.