Wealthy Affiliate Pros and Cons

Today, the internet is saturated with online courses, make money online products but in my experience, most of them do not bring value to a customer. That is why it is very important to check the product before we decide to use our credit card.

And that applies to Wealthy Affiliate as well.
You probably already heard about WA and you want to know what are the Wealthy Affiliate Pros and Cons.

I am a member of WA since December 2017. That might raise a question; will I be able to write an unbiased review about Wealthy Affiliate? Will I be able to reveal the downsides as well?

Well, I will do my best.

Check Out the Walk-through video of the Platform

First of all, I want to say that I was really doubtful before joining WA and truth to be told even a few months after I join. I was so sick and tired of the misleading products (they are especially on ClickBank) that my brain was focusing solely on what is wrong with the product. Once I saw an upsell, or some hype sales video, even the hype voice of the spokesperson, I was off the site.

But let’s focus on Wealthy Affiliate. We will check the Starter trial version of membership. What you can get there, whether you can stay member without paying after the trial period.

Then we will check the premium membership. That is it. There are no other options inside the Wealthy Affiliate, so it makes it easier for all of us.

Starter Membership of Wealthy Affiliate – For How Long Is The Starter Free?

pros and cons of wealthy affiliate

You can sign up for Wealthy Affiliate Membership for free. It is called Starter membership. You only need your email address. This is the common practice, basically everywhere (even if you go to a fitness studio).

So to be precise, you need:

  • Your Name
  • Your Email
  • Choose a Password
  • Nick Name

Once you inside the platform I recommend taking a deep breath and start slowly to explore.

What I find very helpful is the walk-through video, which is part of the 1st lesson – described as “Getting Started” – You see it in the screenshot above. You can watch the entire video (it is about 30 minutes long) even if you are not a member. You will have the pop-up window asking you to sign up, but you can close it and continue to watch.

You have limited access to most of the features since you are not part of the paid membership, but for the first 7 days, you have many features unlocked.

Here is just a shortlist, including the temporary unlocked feature:

  • Beginner Training Course – as mentioned above
  • 2 Websites (hosted at Wealthy Affiliate and they are for free)
  • Limited Search on Jaaxy (Keyword research tool)
  • 1-on-1 Coaching – Limited for 7 Days
  • Live Chat – Limited for 7 Days

Oh, and I forgot. Wealthy Affiliate is also very social.
People interact with each other – whether it is inside of the chat area, or commenting on a blog post, or also by private message. Having said that, it is recommended to write a few words about yourself as well as set up the profile picture. But that is completely up to you and there are many premium members with just Gravatar as a profile picture.

Basically the same as with Facebook. For somebody it is OK to reveal personal information, some people keep it private, including the profile picture. No big deal at all.

Pros and Cons of Starter Membership

pros and cons of wealthy affiliate

The biggest advantage of Starter Membership is that it is for free. No credit card needed.
The downside is that it lasts only for 7 days.

So if you have a 9-5 job, family of kids, you probably will not have a chance to grasp all the information.
With that being said, if your schedule is really busy and you cannot find 10 hours a week for building your business, then it is probably not for you.

I hope you realize that building on online business requires some effort and time.

Don’t get me wrong.
There are people within WA who used to work 70-80 hours per week and yet they were able to pull this off. I mean it took them a bit longer but eventually they have their own online business with 6 or 7 figures a month.

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Wealthy Affiliate is also a social platform. People can write blogs, they can follow each other, they can comment, like, ask questions, communicate inside the live chat, and so on.

There are I believe about 1 million members in WA from all over the world.

pros and cons of wealthy affiliate

Not all of them are active though.
Based on Kyle’s network, there are more than 400,000 users – let’s be conservative and say that only 50% of them are really active.

So let’s focus now on what the Starters can and cannot do.

  • A starter can read all the blogs and also can follow other members
  • can hit the like button on a blog or training
  • can NOT comment others blog (available only during the 7 day trial period)
  • can NOT write a blog
  • can NOT use the live chat
  • can NOT ask the questions

As you see as a starter you do not have much space to operate. You have to take advantage of 1st 7 days and try out as many things as possible.
Then you know whether you like it or you prefer other educational methods.

It is similar to the probation period in a new job. The good thing is, that you can stay as a Starter as long as you want – nobody will fire you 🙂

Also as a free member, you can always get in touch with the owner via the official link: https://www.wealthyaffiliate.com/contact/

One more important thing I would like to mention is that in the past there used to be certain countries where you could not start as a starter. The only way to join the WA was to become a Premium right from the beginning. Apparently that was due to the hack attacks.

Nevertheless, potential members from these countries are now allowed to join the Starter membership.
Here is the list of countries which were on the list, but now they are accepted:

  • Bangladesh
  • Egypt
  • Ghana
  • India
  • Kenya
  • Morocco
  • Pakistan
  • Philippines
  • Vietnam

Unfortunately, Nigeria is still banned to join the Wealthy Affiliate. People from Nigeria can join WA only with a Premium Membership.

Premium Membership of Wealthy Affiliate – Less Than $1.50 a Day?

pros and cons of wealthy affiliate

Once you become premium all the locked features are unlocked to you and you can fully take advantage of the Wealthy Affiliate training platform. I may say, that then the only obstacles you may have is within you only. Well, that was my case thorough the entire 2018.

I had full access to the training but I did not perform as I needed to. But that is another story 🙂

Pros and Cons of Premium Membership

I think the pros are pretty much obvious from what I wrote above. As long as you are committed and you are able to pay the membership, you are on your way to starting earning online.

The complexity of the training may seem like a disadvantage at first, but you just need a bit of time to get oriented. It is not more difficult than Facebook. I like it to compare also with a PC game I used to play, especially Transport Tycoon.
I was so overwhelmed by the complexity at first but a few hours later I had no trouble navigating through the entire game.

Some other Cons I find:

  • The platform might seem obsolete (or some part of it)
  • Lots of information at first. (Walk-through video recommended)
  • Recurring price $49 a month (possible discount – $495 per year = $1.375 per day!)

One must realize that nothing is ideal. And even if you try doing your best, there are still people who do not have your point of view and they tend to criticize. That is normal in every walk of life.

Conclusion – WA is a “Golden Middle Way”

I am sure there are many courses out there even with an added value you can join. Back in 2017 I was determined to pay a couple of hundreds for a course that John Reese was about to launch. He launched his last course at the beginning of 2018. At that time I was already a member of WA, so I did not want to be distracted.

Then I realized, that even John says that content is king. And “if you have problems to come up with content you are in trouble”. I agree with that and WA teaches you the same.

Since WA is a platform where at least 30 people work in the background, it can deliver a wide spectrum of knowledge, training, and support. The creators of WA could easily ask much more for the membership, but they want to have the program be accessible for all people (or at least for most of them).

Wealthy Affiliate is a “golden middle way” to me when it comes to the price. You can either pay monthly or yearly:

Monthly = $49 per month ($1.62 per day)
Yearly = $495 per year = $1.375 per day)

As an educational platform, I think you will have a hard time finding better, especially if you are a beginner or even advanced.

Of course, there is always a need to take a look at other sources (I like to check Neil Patel for example), but the basic principle is taught inside WA pretty well.

In case you want to find out more about Wealthy Affiliate, you can also check my review about this platform.

I know there will be questions so please do not hesitate and ask me the first thing that comes to your mind.
If you would like to know more about the membership, let me know as well in the comment section below.

12 thoughts on “Wealthy Affiliate Pros and Cons”

    • Hello Manuel,

      I see your point.
      Actually primarily, there is a training within WA called Online Entrepreneur Certification. It is 5 phase series with 50 lessons. This course will walk you through the process of creating an online business in any niche you like.
      You will learn how to get organic (free) traffic to your site.
      Basically, you will learn how to outrank the others – since the owners Kyle and Carson do the best to offer the best training there is.

      The 1st phase is accessible also for free, for first 7 days.

      On top of it you have more than 300 hours of recorded webinars, about many topics like: Promoting YouTube Videos, YouTube Marketing, SEO checklist, How to Find Awesome Keywords in Search Console, The money funnel, Email Marketing, how to be an Amazon Affiliate and many many others…

      I believe the best would be to check out the platform for free. You have 7 days to explore it and after the 1st week you will decide whether you want to upgrade to Premium.

      Thanks a lot for your comment,
      If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.
      cheers
      Mike

      Reply
  1. Wow! Its obvious that the pros are too much for this platform. Its actually a one in a million opportunity and I always get happy whenever I remember the prospects of being a WA member. The platform, jaaxy, the support, the training, the ever ready community, access to communicate with the founders. Everything is just awesome. This is the game changer and will always be a topper on my list of affiliate training platforms

    Reply
    • If somebody is determined to build an online business and he struggles which direction to go, WA is definitely the best place to start. Therefore I also find more pros than cons.

      The community is just perfect. And whenever I felt stuck, there are guys ready to help.

      Thanks for your comment, cheers

      Mike

      Reply
  2. Very engaging discourse you have up here concerning wealthy affiliate by outlining the pros and the cons. Honestly, I cannot agree with you less concerning the details of this write up. The membership is what I like most because I was able to join as a free member and I was able to access so many information’s and even have a website of my own without paying a dime. Seriously, its a worthy place and I’m currently working on getting myself upgraded to be a premium member.

    Reply
    • Great that you have tried the starter membership. It is for free and available for everybody (almost;) )

      Wishing you lots of success. 

      Reply
  3. Wow! Very interesting write up on the pros and cons of wealthy Affiliate. Honestly, the pros outweigh the cons as it features so many things that makes the platform a worthy place to be especially for newbies in affiliate marketing. It offers a lot of expert ideas and the training is massive. The platform has been a blessing to me.

    Reply
    • I agree. There are more pros than cons. But still I am not saying that Wealthy Affiliate is for everyone. I have tried to highlight both aspects, so one can determine whether the platform suits him or not.

      Thank you for your comment

      Mike

      Reply
  4. You have summed up everything about WA in just one write up. Wow! Kudos to you for sharing this detailed information about wealthy Affiliate especially by highlighting the cons and the pros. The starter membership is a great way to get things started here on this platform as you can have a see through to decide if this place is meant for you. Though, I most cases, it will. Because it works perfectly well for me too as I started as a free member before upgrading within 24hours after I had gotten detailed information about the potentials that this platform has to offer to me. Wow! Nice write up.

    Reply
    • I did my best to create unbiased review and at the same time I wanted to keep it simple.

      I am glad you like it, thanks.

      I agree, the starter membership is great. I have seen that not that many products have this free trial option. So you have upgraded 24 hours later – congratulations.

      Reply
  5. This is a great review of Wealthy Affiliate . I have been a member as well for almost a year now and when I first started I did begin with the free membership   as you said I wanted to check them out before I invested any money on the program . It didn’t take me that long to upgrade though because i saw the value they were offering and i have been with them ever since

    Reply
    • Thank you Barbara for your comment. It is a great advantage to check the platform before to spend a dime. I do believe that is a fair approach from founders, Kyle and Carson. 

      I am big fan of cars and I remember times when I was at business trip in south France for more than a year. I had a chance to use rental cars. I tried many of them including BMW and Audi which are like popular luxury cars including Mercedes and Lexus. Which one of these 4 are the best? 

      Honestly I do not know. 
      It is all about what suits you best

      To me personally BMW suits me the best (even though I could criticizes some features)
      But I would not be able to form my own opinion without that trial, meaning the Car Rental.

      Same principle with WA free trial as well. 

      Reply

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