Young Living Review – Is Young Living A Scam

Welcome to our Young Living MLM business opportunity Coffee Talk.

This coffee talk is a review of Young Living… Especially, discussing the popular question, “Is Young Living a scam?”

When people ask this question, they also mean, “Is Young Living a pyramid scheme?”

All pyramid schemes are scams!

If Young Living is a pyramid scheme, then Young Living is a scam.

In our previous Mlm Coffee Talk, MLM vs Affiliate Marketing, we have discussed the FTC guideline in determining a legit mlm vs a pyramid scheme, under the laws.

Truth… the FTC guideline offers a legal procedure to help companies structure a legit mlm operation.

But… this legal guideline doesn’t tell us anything about Young Living mlm home-based business opportunity?

Is Young Living business profitable? Or Can you make money with Young Living?

Remember, why we want to start a business?

Yes, we start a business to make money and gain financial freedom.

There are many home-based business opportunities, which are more lucrative and profitable than Young Living, available for us to invest.

Before making a business investment, we need to know more than a simple answer to, “Is Young Living a scam?”

We must find Whether,

  • How to become a young living distributor?
  • How much does it cost to join Young Living?
  • Can you make money with Young Living? And
  • Whether Young Living mlm business opportunity is profitable?

“Profitability” is the reason we start a business… It’s the only way for us to make money and recover our investments with Young Living.

Before investing your hard earn dollars into the Young Living home-based business, you should at least read this Young Living Review to fully understand the risks and rewards of owning a Young Living business.

Tired Of Scams And Pyramid Schemes?

Your Work From Home Opportunity!

Young Living Review Summary

Business name:
Young Living

Direct Competitors:
Nu Skin, doTERRA, Shaklee, Melaleuca, Mary Kay, Herbalife, Amway

Annual Revenue:
$1.5 Billion

Business Opportunity:
Multilevel-Marketing (MLM)

Initial Investments:
$45 to $260

Business Earnings Estimate: 
$312 for the year, or $26 per month

  • Young Living is an mlm company that produces and sells pure natural essential oils.
  • Based on the Young Living financial information, it is unlikely to earn a good monthly income as a Young Living distributor, when the average distributor’s yearly income was only $312 per year… roughly, less than $26 per month.
  • To make money with Young Living, you must be super talented with Face-To-Face selling and recruiting people into your organization.
  • Less than 1% of Young Living distributors make a decent income with this mlm business.
  • If you don’t like face-to-face recruiting, the Young Living mlm business opportunity is not for you.

NO FACE-2-FACE SALE – NO RECRUIT – JUST PASSIVE INCOME
CHECK OUT THIS #1 HOME-BASED BUSINESS

What Is Young Living?

Young Living is an mlm company manufacturing and distributing their own essential oils and essential oil products, over 600 wellness products, worldwide.

Young Living was founded in 1993 by Donald Gary Young.

Donald Young was arrested and convicted for the unlicensed practice of medicine in 1983.

Young Living annual sales revenue is $1.5 billion dollars.

According to Young Living, the company primarily sells its products through an mlm network of 5.6 million members worldwide.

However, according to Young Living, of the 6.5 million members, only 10.5% are distributors or approximately 588,000 members.

In 2014, Young Living received a warning letter from the FDA for allowing its consultant making misleading or unverifiable claims that the company products as a possible treatment or cure of terminal illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, or Parkinson disease.

Based on the information available to the public, we can conclude:

  • Young Living is an mlm company.
  • The Young Living home-based business opportunity is operating similar to a pyramid scheme, or a scam, with a few at the top, less than 1% of distributors, earned the most.
  • Young Living distributors failure rate is high, and
  • The Young Living business is very competitive.

The Young Living home business opportunity doesn’t seem to be a good investment.

Before investing with Young Living, it’s smart to compare with other home-based business opportunities…

You can use My Writing Business to make a comparison.

How to Join Young Living?

Young Living offers three options for people to join the company:

  • Retail customers can join for free but receive no benefit. Retail members get exclusive access to Young Living products.
  • Become an Independent Distributor by purchasing one of Young Living starter kits, from $45 to $260. As an independent distributor, you receive a 24% discount, the wholesale price. You can then retail Young Living products for a profit. However, you must commit to $50 yearly product purchase to continue receiving the wholesale discount.
  • Become A Distributor and build a business with Young Living, you must purchase a starter kit ($45 to $260) and enroll in the “Young Living Essential Rewards” program which requires distributors to commit minimum monthly products purchased of $100 to earn commissions.

The Process To Join Young Living

You don’t need a sponsor to join Young Living business opportunity.

You can join by visiting the company website and completing the signup process by yourself.

Once completed, the application and purchased a starter kit, you’re now a Young Living distributor.

But, before you can earn commissions, you have to sell or recruit others to join Young Living.

How Much Does It Cost to Join Young Living?

I have told you the initial cost to join Young Living above, between $45 to $260, depending on the starter kit that you have chosen.

Young Living review starter kits
Young Living starter kit

All Young Living distributors are required to purchase one of the enrollment starter kits.

Young Living is likely encouraging you to purchase the most expensive starter kit to boost your chance of success with Young Living… But,

I honestly don’t believe it makes a difference.

Besides the starter kit cost, there are additional costs associated with operating a Young Living distributor business.

These costs are known as business operating costs.

I will discuss the two biggest operating costs for you in this Young Living Review:

1. Time Investment To Build Young Living business

The time investment is varied. But, to build a successful Young Living mlm business, you need to invest over 80 hours per week into building the business.

If we use the minimum wage of $7.25 per hours, this means a Young Living distributor must invest at least $580 per week, $2,320 per month, of times in operating a Young Living distribution.

2. Young Living Hidden Operating Costs – “Monthly Minimum Products Purchase Requirement”

To earn commissions, all Young Living distributors are required to purchase $50 to $100 worth of products each month, referring to as Personal Volume (PV) in the Young Living compensation plan.

I refer to this monthly purchase requirement as, “Pay and Play!” If you fail to meet the PV, you are considered inactive distributor and receive no commissions from all your sales.

I call this a hidden cost because most mlm companies do not disclose this purchase requirement to new distributors.

READERS ALSO LIKE  Free Long Tail Keyword Generator

Distributors usually discover this requirement after making the first sale.

However, Young Living distributors have to commit a minimum of $50 auto monthly order upon joining the Young Living Essential Rewards program.

So, the real investments to launch a Young Living business is more than the starter kit… This is minimal.

The major investment is the monthly PV, which can cost a Young Living distributor thousands of dollars over the years.

The monthly personal volume requirement is the reason why many investors do not make money with mlm business opportunities.

This monthly expense destroys your chance of making a profit, because you don’t earn commissions unless you purchase products from the company, even in the month you make no sale.

Other businesses, like affiliate marketing, you get paid commissions on every sale.

MLM companies have a monthly personal volume requirement for two reasons,

  • First to sell Young Living essential oils, and
  • Second to meet the FTC guideline as a legit mlm business.

Without product sales, Young Living is a scam or a pyramid scheme.

This to show you that the FTC guideline was not written to protect investors, but rather to protect the mlm businesses.

I personally view all mlm businesses including Young Living as a pyramid scheme based on the compensation plan, where only a few at the top of the pyramid make money.

Don’t you want to know how you can make money with Young Living?

To do this, let look at,

Young Living Compensation Plan

Many people decided to invest in an mlm opportunity without fully understand the compensation plan.

All mlm compensation plans are designed with a high level of confusion and difficulty to hide the fact that the distributors’ success rate is less than 1%.

The Young Living compensation plan is the key factor in determining your profitability as a distributor.

I’ll provide you a quick overview of the Young Living compensation plan. If you want to see it in detail, just download a copy by clicking on the link.

Under the Young Living compensation plan, distributors earn commissions 3 ways.

  • Earnings from retail sales,
  • Earnings from recruiting, and
  • Earnings override on team sales volume, downline performance.

However, to earn the commissions above, Young Living distributors must recruit others to join the company and meet the minimum PV of $100.

No commission is paid for failure to meet both conditions above.

Retail Earnings

Young Living distributors earn a flat 24% on retail sales. The difference between wholesale price and retail.

So, if you sell $100 retails volume, you make $24.

Retail commissions are easy to determine.

But, it’s hard to determine the exact dollar commissions when looking at the other two options to make money with Young Living.

Recruiting Commissions

Based on Young Living compensation plan, recruiting commissions is not earned unless a recruit purchased Premium Starter Kits (PSK), $150 and up.

This means a Young Living consultant could potentially earn nothing from recruiting.

If your recruit purchased a PSK, you receive a $25 commission bonus. And,

When the recruit joins the Essential Reward (ER) program with a $100 per month order commitment, you earn $15 commission bonus.

The PSK and ER purchase requirement is a lot harder to achieve than you might think.

Earnings From Downline Performance – Override Commissions

The commissions under this option are determined using team total sales.

The first commissions under this option are from direct recruits, people you personally enrolled. A 25% commission, up to $200, is earned on purchases by your personal recruits for the first three months.

Then, the second a 10% commission, up to $80, is earned on purchases by your second-level enrollers, people enrolled by your recruits within the first three months.

After the initial three months, Young Living pays 4% to 8% of team sales commissions up to 5 generations.

However, to earn these commissions, a Young Living distributor must meet the following conditions:

  • $100 PV monthly sales,
  • Must recruit 2 members purchasing a PSK, and
  • Your recruits must meet their own $100 PV purchases.

The Young Living compensation plan requires distributors to build two separate organizations, two legs, to earn commissions.

Under this compensation plan, it is very difficult to earn commissions. The Young Living compensation plan is designed for this purpose.

I understand there are many ways to explain the Young Living compensation plan, and I can assure you, none of them is 100% right.

However, we don’t need to fully understand the Young Living compensation plan, Because…

The Young Living compensation plan only tells us how Young Living distributors can make money.

This compensation doesn’t give us the actual earnings of a Young Living distributor.

Actual earning is the information that helps us determine the profitability of owning a Young Living mlm business.

Then, why we discuss the Young Living compensation plan?

Simple, to prepare us for the following discussing,

Can You Make Money With Young Living?

If you ask any Young Living distributors this question, they’ll start explaining the Young Living compensation plan.

Do you know why they do this?

Well, that’s the way they were told when joining Young Living.

Using the compensation plan, Young Living is selling you a dream, not a real business.

Do you want to invest in a dream or a real business?

Then, where can you find the answer to this question, “Can you make money with Young Living?”

The answer to this question is in the Young Living earnings disclosure statement.

Here’s what I mean,

  • The Young Living compensation plan offers the POTENTIAL EARNING, a guess or an estimate.
  • Young Living Earnings disclosure statement contains ACTUAL COMMISSIONS distributors earned in the prior year.

As a business review writer, I look to the actual commission/earnings to advise clients on an investment. Potential earning is just a guess, an estimate.

Are you investing based on a guess?

If your answer is NO, then let discuss Young Living earnings statement.

Here’s what we know from Young Living earning disclosure statement:

Total Distributors Earned Commissions

Out of the 588,000 Young Living distributors, only 33% (194,040 are active distributors) earned commissions with an average of $26 per month or $312 per year.

Star To Executive Group Average Income

BUT, of the 194,040 active distributors, we have 63% reached the Start to Executive level, approximately 122,246 distributors. Here’s the earnings breakdown for this group.

  • Star (64.8%) – 79,216 Young Living distributors, earned an average income of $75 per month or $906 per year.
  • Senior Star (24.8%) – 30,317 distributors, earned an average income of $235 per month or $2,819 per year.
  • Executive (10.4%) – 12,713 distributors, earned an average income of $502 per month or $6,028 per year.

What do we see from this earnings information?

Well, to make a decent monthly income with Young Living… let say $502 level… You must reach the Executive level. But…

With 588,000, we have 12,713 became Executive.

This means your chance of making $502 per month with Young Living is 2.2%.

Or should I say… your failure rate as a Young Living distributor is 97.8%.

Now, let look at the next upper rank,

Silver To Platinum Group Average Income

A small 3% of 194,040 active distributors are members of this group, about 5,822 distributors.

  • Silver (77.1%) – 4,489 distributors earned an average income of $2,088 per month or $25,059 per year.
  • Gold (17.4%) – 1,013 distributors earned an average income of $5,666 per month or $67,995 per year.
  • Platinum (5.5%) – 321 distributors earned an average income of $13,872 per month or $166,468 per year.

So, what is your chance of making a middle-class income with Young Living?

  • Your chance of making $67, 995 a year as a Young Living distributor is 0.2%, and
  • Your chance of earning $166,468 a year with Young Living is 0.01%

We don’t need to analyze the income of the top group, the Diamond Group.

READERS ALSO LIKE  Affiliate Institute Review - Is Affiliate Institute Legit

The Young Living Diamond group makes up only 1% of distributors, less than 2,000 members. These are distributors that had joined the company at the early stage.

I can tell you that your chance of making a Young Living Diamond is ZERO!

Then, what can we learn from analyzing the Young Living earnings disclosure statement?

  • Well, we know that more than 90% of Young Living distributors made less than $100 in commissions per month,
  • Less than 1% distributor earned a middle-class income, and
  • It’s impossible to generate $200,000 per year income with this mlm business.

But remember, all the income we discussed above are not profits.

If you want to know the profits, you must take out the operating expenses.

Here’s what I am talking about:

The majority of Young Living distributors earned $75 commissions per month. However,

Every Young Living distributor is required to purchase $100 PV each month… This means,

A distributor paid $100 to earn $75 commissions, a net loss of $25 per month operating Young Living mlm business.

So, Is this a good investment?

Here’s another business comparison,

In a bad year, my online writing business generated a little less $200,000 easily!

You cannot say this as a Young Living distributor.

Now, can you see how difficult to make money with Young Living?

So, to make money with Young Living, you have to reach the leadership levels.

But according to Young Living earnings disclosure, less than 1% of all Young Living distributors can reach this level.

Do you understand, why Young Living provides people a compensation plan when asked, “Can you make money with Young Living?”

Who’s going to invest if they find out the business failure rate is over 90%?

So, then…

Is Young Living A Scam?

Yes, it is difficult to make money with Young Living, but this doesn’t make Young Living a scam.

Here’s why?

Young Living mlm business is an investment opportunity.

Every investment has a certain level of risk, which means there a possibility of losing your investment.

Young Living is a very risky investment with the profitability of less than 1%.

When you invest in Young Living, becoming a distributor, you are willing to take on the highest level of business risk, over 90% of losing your investment.

So, you cannot call Young Living a scam when you lost your investment.

Calling Young Living a scam would mean labeling all business investments as scams… because there’s always a chance of losing money in every business venture.

Risk is a part of every startup business.

Before you start a business, like becoming a Young Living distributor, you need to do research on the business opportunity.

Reading this Young Living Review is a good way to learn the investment risk before investing.

Never take on investment with over 90% chance of losing all your money. If you do, then…

You cannot turn around and call Young Living a scam.

Many entrepreneurs hire professional financial analysis to evaluate the risk of every business deal before they invest.

As a Business Review Writer, I have evaluated hundreds of businesses to help investors managing the investment risks…

That’s all we can do, managing risks.

To me, Young Living is not a scam. It’s just a very risky business investment.

However, when it comes to pyramid scheme… here’s

My View Regarding ‘Is Young Living a pyramid scheme?’

I personally think Young Living is a pyramid scheme.

But, Young Living will deny they are a pyramid scheme using the FTC guideline as proof.

Why do I think Young Living a pyramid scheme?

Looks at their earnings disclosure statement,

Do you notice a pyramid shape?

Yes, the largest commissions were earned by a few at the top.

Less than 1% earned thousands and millions while over 90% lost money as Young Living distributors.

Here… what do you see below? This picture is taken from the Young Living compensation plan.

Young Living scam - Young Living pyramid scheme

Doesn’t this look like a pyramid scheme?

Yes, the more people you recruit into your team, the more money you earn.

The $100 Personal Volume (PV) is the monthly fee to become a member of a pyramid scheme.

Do you know why mlm companies use PV?

It was introduced to meet the FTC mlm guideline requirement and nothing else.

If you look carefully at the Young Living compensation plan, you notice that the PV for leader ranks are the same as the low-level managers, $100 PV.

Under this mlm compensation plan, Young Living is rewarding distributors that recruit the most people into the organization, not selling products.

Recruiting is how you get promoted and make money with Young Living!

Isn’t this a pyramid scheme?

I know Young Living will tell you the company is a legit mlm under the FTC requirements.

However, based on the financial documents, I have to say, “Young Living looks like a pyramid scheme.”

Well, you don’t have to agree with me. It’s not important

What is important?

The Young Living earnings disclosure statement.

This financial document has shown us that the chance of making a decent income with Young Living is less than 1%, OR

Should I say, “the chance of losing your entire investment with Young Living mlm business opportunity is greater than 95%.”

So, Is Young Living Worth It?

Would you invest, if Young Living discloses that there’s a 95% chance of losing your investment and earning nothing?

Well, Young Living did tell the public this fact, through their earnings disclosure statement, but no one care to look at it.

I’ll never invest in a business opportunity unless is profitable.

And profitability is determined by carefully analyzing the financial information, especially the earnings disclosure, not the compensation plan.

Young Living is a risky investment.

Do you know why you want to start a home-based business?

To earn extra money from home, to be your own boss, or to achieve financial freedom?

And to make money, we invest in a PROFITABLE business!

There are much better and less risky home-based business opportunities.

If you want to be an owner of a lucrative and profitable business that generates six-figure passive income, then read my #1 recommended online business opportunity.

You should use the writing skill to start your own highly lucrative online writing business, TODAY!

There’s NO traveling around town to attend late-night meetings and NO face-to-face sales or recruits with my online business.

The best part, you are working on the computer in your own home or anywhere you like.

Another major business risk associated with Young Living which people rarely discuss is the risk of the Young Living going Whether of business.

If Young Living going Whether of business, every Young Living distributor is Whether of business on the same day.

This means, when you become a Young Living distributor, you are not the owner of your own business.

Don’t you want to own your own business?

There’s a lucrative method that I and millions of people have been using to generate six-figure passive income online.

You must read my #1 recommended online business opportunity.

Can you write?

If your answer is “YES”, then why not use this skill to start your own highly lucrative online writing business, TODAY!

Can you see?

Based on our Young Living Review, your chance of achieving financial success as a Young Living distributor is low, less than 1%. Even if Young Living is not a scam!

Do you agree?

Leave a Comment