So, you’ve been approached by an Arbonne Independent Consultant who has suggested that you join their team and you can’t help but question how to make money with Arbonne and wonder ‘how much do Arbonne Consultants make?’ and if the opportunity is really as good as it appears to me.
It sounds great, right?
Get discounted Arbonne products, recommend them to your family and friends and receive commissions when they buy something – who wouldn’t want some extra cash, especially the kind of ‘passive income’ that Arbonne offers?
However, you want to know more before you take the plunge.
It costs $50 just to sign up as an Arbonne Consultant, and that’s without factoring in the annual renewal fee, as well as any Arbonne products that you buy in order to promote them on social media.
So then, can you make money with Arbonne?
More to the point, how much do Arbonne Consultants make?
Let’s find out.
Can You Make Money Selling Arbonne? A Look at Arbonne’s Income Disclosure Statement
What is Arbonne?
Arbonne International was founded in Norway in 1975, and by 1980 its international headquarters had been set up in Irvine, California.
Arbonne sells cruelty-free health and wellness products, and since 2018 it has been owned by worldwide health and beauty brand, Yves Rocher.
Arbonne claim that all of their products are vegan and use the best quality ingredients that money can buy (this is why they are so expensive!).
Rather than selling their products in stores like a regular company, Arbonne’s products are sold online and in person through their distributors, or ‘Independent Consultants.’
Arbonne Consultants will purchase Arbonne products themselves (at a discounted price) and make social media posts and videos where they use the products and talk about how great they are, encouraging their followers to buy the products through their personalised links.
In addition to this, Arbonne distributors can earn money by signing other people up to become distributors, because Arbonne is an MLM company, just like Avon.
While they don’t get paid directly for recruiting people, they do get bonuses and promotions for ‘building a team,’ and they also earn commissions from every sale that people in their downline make.
There is no Arbonne salary (unless you count the people working in the corporate side of the company, which the Consultants are not).
Pyramid Scheme Allegations
MLM companies like Arbonne frequently come under fire for functioning like illegal pyramid schemes.
I actually provided a more in-depth analysis of Arbonne as a company and found that they do indeed resemble a pyramid scheme in many ways, including the fact that Arbonne Consultants are the company’s biggest customers, and there is a huge focus on ‘growing a team’ rather than selling products.
However, that’s not what this article is about.
This article is about whether you can actually make money selling Arbonne, and how much you can expect to earn if you sign up as an Arbonne Independent Consultant.
How Do You Make Money with Arbonne?
If you’re wondering how to make money with Arbonne, you’re not alone.
Arbonne Consultants are not always specific about the ways that they make money, and you have to do a bit of digging to figure out how it all works.
I took a look at the Arbonne SuccessPlan to see the various ways in which you can make money with Arbonne.
The main ways that you can make money with Arbonne are as follows:
- Selling Arbonne products to clients and receiving Arbonne Consultant commission (Arbonne commission is 35% for regular clients and 15% for preferred clients)
- Additional income as a result of how much your team sells
- ‘Achiever Awards’ are awards given when you and your team make sales. There are different Achiever Awards at each level within the company
- Vice President Success Award – a special bonus paid to Vice Presidents based on their team’s earnings
How Much Do Arbonne Consultants Make? Can You Make Money with Arbonne?
So, how much do you make selling Arbonne?
While there are several ways to make money with Arbonne, it isn’t actually as easy as you might think to make a decent income with them.
The vast majority of people in Arbonne are not actually making a liveable income, or even an amount that could be seen as a ‘side hustle’ kind of income.
To see how much money people are making with Arbonne, I checked out the Arbonne Income Disclosure Statement (IDS) from 2020.
This is a document which outlines the average Arbonne earnings, according to where people rank in the business.
The numbers show us that:
- 56% of Consultants earned a median average of $108
- 33% earned a median average of $1769
- 8% earned a median of $12,037
- 2% earned a median of $58,719
- 1% earned a median of $173,677
Can you make money with Arbonne?
Well, unfortunately, these numbers show us that 97% of people in Arbonne earned less than $12,000 in the entire year.
Only the top 3% earned what could be considered a ‘good’ wage, with the Regional Vice Presidents (2%) making around $59,000 annually and the National Vice Presidents (1%) making $173,677 on average.
Another thing to take into account is that these numbers don’t represent profit because they do not factor in any expenses that the Consultant incurs when running their Arbonne business.
These expenses include:
- $49 signup fee
- $29 renewal fee
- Arbonne products
- Samples, promotional materials etc.
- Electric/WiFi/phone bill
- Other equipment used to promote Arbonne (ring lights, webcams etc.)
All of these expenses must be subtracted from the $108 that most Arbonne Consultants are earning in order to get a clear picture of what they actually make.
When we do this, it is clear that the truth about Arbonne Consultants is that 56% of them are likely losing money – sure, the signup fee is ‘only’ $49, but have you ever seen somebody working in Arbonne that has never brought a product?
Didn’t think so.
More to the point, Arbonne products are so expensive!
This is because the price of the product has to reflect the fact that commission is travelling up the business.
If the person selling you a product is making a 35% commission, and the people above them are also making a commission from that product, the mark-up has to be very high.
This is the reason that Arbonne is so expensive to buy.
Can You Really Make Money Selling Arbonne? Final Thoughts
The numbers on Arbonne’s Income Disclosure statement don’t lie, but they are not surprising either – no matter which network marketing company you look at, the average earnings of participants are always the same.
This is because, on average, 99.6% of people in MLM companies lose money or make no money due to the way that the business model is structured.
If you read the income disclosure statements for other MLM companies like Isagenix, Monat or Color Street you will see very similar figures.
I’m not saying that Arbonne is a scam per se, but I certainly do NOT recommend joining Arbonne, or any MLM company for that matter.
An Alternative to Arbonne
So then, how the hell do you make passive income online?!
Well, a much more viable alternative to network marketing is affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is very similar to network marketing, but unlike multi-level marketing, you actually stand a chance at making a substantial amount of money from the comfort of your own home!
Just like multi-level marketing, affiliate marketing involves promoting products you love and making a commission every time you make a sale.
However, unlike MLM, there are no monthly quotas, no sign-up fees, no recruitment involved, and most importantly, the money that YOU earn will be going straight into your pocket, NOT trickling up the pyramid.
Affordable Affiliate Marketing Courses
Below are a few recommendations of courses and other tools that may be useful if you want to build a blog, grow your social media account and make money with affiliate marketing.
The best bit is that if you use our discount code to sign up, you can save as much as 70%, meaning that you getting all of the material at a fraction of the price!
Here are the best affiliate marketing courses:
Affiliate Marketing Diploma – This Centre of Excellence course will teach you all you need to know to get started with affiliate marketing and build your own successful affiliate marketing business. The usual price is £147, but if you use code TRAVELLINGJEZEBEL466 you will get 70% off! (The code is the name of NYBB’s travel blog!)
Blogging Business Diploma Course – This is another Centre of Excellence course that will help you turn your blog into a business. This course is usually £127 but you can get 70% off using the code TRAVELLINGJEZEBEL466.
Travel Blog Prosperity – This is a fantastic selection of blogging courses that you pay for monthly access to, with new material being added all the time. You can get your first month for only $9 (usual price $59.29) when you use code JEZEBEL.
Social Media Marketing Diploma Course – Want to create a successful affiliate marketing business using only the power of social media? Turn your socials into money with this course. It is usually priced at £127 but you can get 70% off with code TRAVELLINGJEZEBEL466.
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