Chances are you’re here because you’ve been approached by somebody selling Modere products who has told you about an incredible ‘business opportunity.’
It sounds great – who wouldn’t want to make some extra cash by recommending products you love to your friends while getting fit and losing weight at the same time?
However, you’re a little hesitant.
Maybe you think that everything sounds too good to be true, or you’ve heard people saying things like ‘Modere is a pyramid scheme!’ and ‘Modere is a scam!’ and you want to do your research before diving in headfirst.
In this article, we are going to dive into the Modere MLM opportunity and find out what being a Modere distributor is really like, why Modere is so secretive, and whether Modere is just another pyramid scheme in disguise.
Is Modere legit?
Let’s take a look.
Is Modere a Pyramid Scheme? A Deep Dive Into the Modere MLM
The Basics
What is MLM?
Is Modere an MLM?
In case you were wondering, YES, Modere is an MLM company.
MLM stands for multi-level marketing, and MLM companies are also referred to as network marketing companies or social selling companies.
MLMs have been around for years, and popular MLMs include Nu Skin, Monat, Arbonne, Color Street, and even Avon!
You don’t receive a salary in a multi-level marketing company.
Instead, you earn money from selling products to people you know and recruiting others into the business.
When you recruit a new person and that person begins earning money, you will earn commission from the sales and recruits generated by THAT person.
This continues down in multiple levels (hence multi-level).
Imagine a triangle.
If the person at the very top of the triangle recruits 10 people, and every one of those 10 people recruit another 10 people, and each one of those people recruit another 10 people, you’ll be making commissions from EVERYBODY within the triangle because they’re all in your direct downline (the people underneath you in an MLM are referred to as your ‘downline’ and you’re their ‘upline’).
All you had to do was recruit 10 people and you make money from 1100.
While MLM companies like Modere also give you the chance to make money from selling their products, most of the people in MLM companies prefer to recruit others because they stand to make a lifelong passive income from that person, whereas if they sell a product they’re just going to receive a one-off commission.
The ultimate aim of somebody in an MLM then, is to have as many people in their ‘downline’ as possible, enabling them to form large amounts of passive income for little work.
What is Modere?
Modere, which was originally called ‘Images and Altitude,’ was founded in 1987 by Thomas and Leslie Mower.
After rebranding and changing hands a couple of times, it was acquired by Z Capital Partners in 2012 and has been operating as Modere ever since, with CEO Asma Ishaq.
Modere is a health and wellness MLM that sells personal care products, nutritional supplements, and even laundry powder!
Many of their products are designed for weight loss and anti-ageing, and their motto is to ‘live clean,’ away from harmful chemicals and compounds. Their flagship line is the M3 range, comprising of 3 nutritional weight loss supplements based on the Mediterranean diet.
However, although their website states that their approach is a ‘science-based’ one, it is important to note that Modere products have not been evaluated by the FDA.
Inside the Modere MLM Opportunity
How do you make money with Modere?
Modere refers to its distributors as ‘Social Marketers,’ and ‘Social Marketing Consultants,’ and so I will be using these terms interchangeably throughout this post!
The Modere compensation plan, like most MLM compensation plans, is veeeeery complicated (Modere is very secretive about how to make money within the company), but the overall gist is as follows.
Modere reveals 3 ‘key behaviours’ that make up the framework of the whole compensation plan:
- Acquiring customers
- Becoming a team leader
- Training others to become team leaders
There are various bonuses, including the Rank Advancement Bonus, and Rank Advancement Matching Bonus, that act as incentives for Modere Social Marketers to recruit others into the business and build ‘teams,’ (also known as ‘downlines’).
A particularly interesting bonus on the Modere compensation plan is called the ‘Breakout Bonus.’
The Breakout Bonus is only on the table for 30 days after you join Modere. You will get a 25% rebate on all the money you’ve spent on Modere products, and the person who recruited you will get 25% commission, with the person above them getting 10%.
It may seem like a great deal at first glance, but the Breakout Bonus is actually designed to encourage you to spend as much as possible as soon as possible.
How much do you make with Modere?
In order to see how much money Modere Social Marketing Consultants are making, we must take a close look at their 2021 Income Disclosure Statement.
An Income Disclosure Statement is a document that allows us to see exactly how many people are earning money with an MLM company, and how much of it they’re making.
The Modere Income Disclosure defines ‘active Social Marketers’ as anybody who signed up in the year 2021, regardless of whether they actually sold any products or recruited anybody.
It goes on to detail that only 34.3% of active Social Marketers earned monthly commissions with Modere, meaning that 65.7% of people earned nothing.
Of the Social Marketers who earned any commission with Modere, their average monthly commission was $1,015.29.
This may seem great at first, but this average is skewed by the top 1% of earners, some of whom took home over $100,000 per month.
Of all active Modere Social Marketers in 2021:
- 22.10% earned an average of $53.60 per month, or $12.36 per week
- 6.02% earned an average of $350.47 per month, or $80.87 per week
- 3.50% earned an average of $1121.04 per month
- 1.77% earned an average of $3375.61 per month
- 0.33% earned an average of $7854.48 per month
- 0.29% earned an average of $13,618.54 per month
- 0.16% earned an average of $31,395.33 per month
- 0.10% earned an average of $106,291.25 per month
The remaining 65.7% of Modere Social Marketers earned nothing.
It’s a bit of a brain scramble, but we can clearly see that most Modere distributors are making very little money, and only 2.65% earning above the federal minimum wage.
How much does it cost to be a Modere Social Marketer?
In the income disclosure statement, we saw that most Modere distributors were either making zero or very little money.
However, this number does not take into account the costs involved in signing up to Modere and maintaining your Modere ‘business.’
The Social Marketer Enrolment fee for Modere is $39.99. This is an annual charge that will automatically renew after 12 months.
However, you must also purchase 250 ‘points’ worth of products in order to begin earning commission in your first month.
Modere advises that you should select one of their XM Launch packs to get the best value, which cost anywhere from $359.99 to $659.99 – yikes!
The cheapest option that I found that would give me 250 points cost $159.99, so I added this to my cart.
I went through the sign-up process with Modere and found that in addition to the $199.98 cost of the enrolment fee and product, I also had to sign up to a monthly autoship that would guarantee that I was eligible to receive commissions each month.
The cheapest autoship option I found was $89.99 per month, totalling $1079.88 per year.
Shipping costs $7.99 each time you get something delivered from Modere (so 12 months of autoship plus your initial order would come to $103.87).
What this means is that the absolute minimum that you can spend to be a Modere Social Marketer and be eligible for commissions is:
$39.99 + $199.98 + $1079.88 + $103.87 = $1423.72
Because all that this buys is one chocolate flavour weight loss supplement, a 30-day supply of vitamins and a monthly supply of coffee and creamer, you’ll probably end up buying more Modere products that you can show to your audience in the hope of making sales.
What all of this means is that Modere are essentially forcing their distributors to spend a significant amount of money on Modere products every single month in order to receive any commission from sales they make to their own customers.
There are also other expenses such as:
- Products for personal use
- Products used for samples/demos/ giveaways and promotions
- Expenses incurred through hosting ‘socials’ including products, food and drink, gas etc.
- Social media promotions
- Cost of attending meet-ups and conferences
- Phone bills, Wi-Fi bills, electricity bills etc.
- Costs of running a blog or other promotional website (including webcams, microphones, lighting etc. if the person has a YouTube channel)
This means that 87.8% of Modere Social Marketers are likely spending more than they are earning with Modere (in other words, they are losing money).
Is Modere a Pyramid Scheme?
In order to see whether Modere is a pyramid scheme in disguise, we must first outline what a pyramid scheme actually is.
What is a pyramid scheme?
Pyramid schemes are very similar to MLMs, but the main difference is that MLM distributors are supposed to make more of their money from product sales rather than recruitment.
A traditional pyramid scheme takes an initial investment from each member and promises to pay them for enrolling others into the scheme, meaning that people are buying into an ‘opportunity’ to get rich.
However, as members increase, recruiting quickly becomes impossible and so most members are unable to profit or even make their initial investment back.
The Wikipedia diagram below illustrates just how unsustainable this business model is – after just a few levels of recruitment, the scheme would have recruited everybody in the world and there would be no-one left to recruit!
Because it’s impossible for most people to make any money in a pyramid scheme, pyramid schemes are illegal.
However, most pyramid schemes have got wise to the fact that they have to offer a product in order to appear legit, but even though a business may have products, the focus will always be on recruitment rather than product sales.
Because there are so many of these ‘pyramid schemes with products,’ around, the FTC hasn’t quite caught up yet, and so many people believe that just because a company hasn’t been shut down yet, it can’t possibly be a pyramid scheme, which simply isn’t true.
In order to see whether Modere is a pyramid scheme, we must attempt to answer 3 questions.
1. Are most people unable to profit?
Yes.
When we looked at Modere’s Income Disclosure Statement, we saw that the vast majority of distributors were not even making minimum wage, and that almost 90% of them were likely losing money.
With this in mind, the idea that the Modere MLM is a legitimate business opportunity seems ludicrous – would you join a company if you knew there was a 90% chance of losing money?
2. Do you have to ‘pay to play?’
Absolutely.
Not only are Modere distributors having to buy super expensive sign-up packages in order to qualify for their commissions, but they must also sign up to expensive monthly autoships if they want to be guaranteed commission on sales they make.
The Modere compensation plan and business model are designed to make distributors spend as much as possible, as quickly as possible, meaning that most Modere Social Marketers will end up spending in excess of $1000 during their first year with Modere.
3. Is there a heavy focus on recruitment?
Just like most MLM companies, Modere has a very aggressive approach to recruiting, with most bonuses and higher commissions only being paid to those who build a large downline.
However, it is important to note that Modere do not pay their members directly to recruit people. Instead, they give ‘bonuses’ for ‘building a team’ and including others in the ‘opportunity.’
This is one of the sneaky ways that Modere avoids being classified as a pyramid scheme by the FTC, although the results are the same.
Of course, you can make a small amount of money selling Modere products (you will receive just 3% commission when selling products if you have not ranked up in the company), but retail sales alone will never get you to those higher commission ranks or make you any bonuses.
The only real way to make real money with Modere is by recruiting a lot of people and earning residual income through their sales and the sales of people under them.
FAQ
Yes, Modere is an MLM, or multi-level marketing company.
Modere is not a scam because the income disclosure statement is truthful about how much Modere reps earn and you will receive products if you order them. However, just because Modere is not a scam, it doesn’t mean that it is a legitimately good way to make money.
Unlike many MLMs, Modere is NOT Mormon-owned. Its headquarters are based in California, and its CEO is Asma Ishaq, who is not a Mormon.
With only 2.65% of Modere distributors earning above the federal minimum wage, Modere cannot be considered a good company to work for in terms of financial success.
Although Modere products are generally considered safe to use, they are not recommended for vegans or pregnant women, and you should always consult with a doctor before taking any dietary supplements.
Like most MLM companies, Modere is very secretive about how to make money and how much money consultants can make. This is because Modere is similar to a pyramid scheme and very few of its recruits ever make money.
Is Modere a Pyramid Scheme?
Most MLMs closely resemble pyramid schemes and Modere is no different.
With a huge emphasis on recruitment, a ‘pay to play’ model and the vast majority of participants making no money in the company, Modere definitely appears to be functioning like a pyramid scheme.
If it wasn’t already clear, Not Your Boss Babe does not recommend joining Modere, or any other MLM!
An Alternative to Modere
If you’re looking for a side hustle or a work from home job, you may find these articles helpful:
Advantages and Disadvantages of Blogging
Easy Freelance Jobs for Beginners
Best Side Hustles for Single Moms
How to Sell Feet Pics Online
Secrets to Selling on Poshmark
Profitable Digital Products to Sell on Etsy
How to Become a Micro Influencer
That’s about it for today, but as always, if you have any questions then don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you!
Until next time,
XOXO
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