Unbiased Affiliate Review 2022- Worth it? Pros and Cons Revealed!

Disclosure (full version- https://nikolaroza.com/affiliate-disclosure/): Some of the links you’ll encounter are affiliate links. If you click and buy something, I may get a commission. Thank you! 

In my unbiased Wealthy Affiliate review 2021 you’ll learn what Wealthy Affiliate is, what it does, and how this platform can help you become a full time affiliate marketer and online business owner.

Let’s get started right away!

Wealthy Affiliate Review 2021
Wealthy Affiliate Review 2022- Scam or Worth it?

What is Wealthy Affiliate University Exactly?


Wealthy Affiliate University is an all/included training platform that teaches people internet marketing and how to create an online business based on affiliate marketing.Kyle and Carson own Wealthy Affiliate

Wealthy Affiliate University was started in 2005 by two Canadian guys, Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim, both of whom were successful marketers before joining forces to start WA.

in 2005 and for next several years, WA was simply a huge database of profitable keywords for PPC (Pay Per Click).

But over the years, it matured into the world’s largest community and home for aspiring affiliate marketers.

Ah, how things have changed for the better…

Wealthy Affiliate offer several tiers and not all of them are paid.

Let’s  continue my Wealthy Affiliate review with analyzing what you get as a Starter (free) WA member.

Wealthy Affiliate Starter Membership Review- Worth Joining WA Because Of This?


Starter Wealthy Affiliate membership is not enough to build a full-time online business.

I say it upfront because this is my honest review, and because I know you’ll ask. After all, who doesn’t want to get something for nothing?

Starter membership is great and offers a lot of value, but it’s there to serve as a taste of what Wealthy Affiliate program really has to offer to their paying members.

Here’s a quick breakdown of things you get for free at Wealthy Affiliate Program:

  • 1 free SiteRubix website (with thousand’s of free themes) hosted for free on their premium hosting platform;
  • Live Help – First 7 Days;
  • Website Backup;
  • Beginner Training Course- Phase 1 only;
  • Affiliate Bootcamp training- Phase 1 only;
  • Video Walkthroughs made by members;
  • Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool – 30 free Searches;
  • Training Classrooms – hundreds of video classrooms;
  • Wealthy Affiliate’s Affiliate Program;
  • 1-on-1 Coaching – First 7 Days;

Starter is free to join and you don’t need a credit card. Do it now!

Note: Starter is also time-unlimited, meaning you can stay a free member for as long as you’d like, and you don’t have to ever upgrade to premium if you don’t want to…

Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership Review- Worth it?


Unlike Starter membership, WA Premium is the real deal.

Going Premium ensure you get the best training, tools and support you need to seize your dream of owning an online business.

Here’s exactly what you get with Premium membership.

#1- SiteRubix Free Websites

SiteRubix website builder

SiteRubix is WA platform’s elite site builder and WordPress hosting platform.

With it you can build a website on WordPress, and that site can serve you any way you want.

You can use your SiteRubix websites to be your:

  • Journal;
  • Dear diary;
  • Hobby blog;
  • Recipe book;
  • Wedding photos website;
  • Drop-shipping business;
  • Niche website;
  • Any other type of online business;
  • And my imagination fails me.

But really, it can be anything you want.

What’s more, both free and premium WA memberships come with some of the fastest and most secure hosting in the world today.

I won’t talk about it here, because WordPress hosting and websites are just a small part of what Wealthy Affiliate offers, but if you’re interested, check out my full SiteRubix review here.

Hey, interested in hosting?

#2- Online Certification Course (levels 2-5)

With Starter WA membership you get  level 1 training of Online Certification Course.

There you’ll learn the ropes and basic stuff like choosing a niche, setting up a website and adding in a few of obligatory and legitimacy pages (about page, privacy policy, contact page…)

If you joined for free and went through that first module, then you should now own a website that’s fully equipped with content and plugins and is also indexed in Google.

But being indexed is only the beginning.

We also want to rank out sites in Google so we can get traffic and earn money, and for that Wealthy Affiliate has 4 additional levels, built for those truly ready to commit to their websites.

Level 2- Building Your Own Traffic Producing Website

Online certification course 2
In this training module you will learn:

  • How to redirect your free website to a self-hosted WordPress;
  • How to find your unique angle and make a personal brand;
  • How to choose keywords you can actually rank for in the search engines;
  • How to write content that search engines love (so it ranks quickly and converts handsomely);
  • And much more.

Level 3- Making Money With Your Website

Online certification course 3
In this training module you’ll learn:

  • How money is really made online;
  • How to find affiliate networks;
  • How to join affiliate programs;
  • How to cloak affiliate links;
  • How to find affiliate products to promote (for example, from ClickBank and Amazon);
  • How to write product reviews;
  • How to start monetizing early with ads;
  • And much more

Level 4- Mastering Social Media

Online certification course 4

In this training module you will learn:

  • How to choose social networks that are crucial for you (which you chose depends on the niche you’re in);
  • How to use social media channels and not squander precious time (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter);
  • How to engage your audience- the right way;
  • How to funnel people onto your site;
  • How to promote on social media without getting banned;
  • And much more.

Level 5- Achieving Maximum Success Through Content Creation

Online certification course 5

The gist of this module is expanding your knowledge further and learning how to scale your business to be as big as you want it to be.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to make a realistic marketing strategy;
  • How to make a keyword strategy to match;
  • How to write quality content;
  • How to structure your site for UX (User Experience);
  • How to boost conversions;
  • How to strategically funnel people to your money pages;
  • How to outsource (anything from hiring cheap labor from the Philipinnes to using advance shared sms 2fa for absolute security).
  • And so much more.

Listen, I promised you at the very start that this is going to be my honest review of Wealthy Affiliate, so here it goes:

Info from this premium course is freely available online. And you could find if for free if you tried hard enough.

The problem is that it’s scattered across the web and divided between dozens of different blogs. And to use it, you, the newbie who wants badly to be successful online, would have:

  1. To join dozens of forums;
  2. To plow through endless content;
  3. To gather information;
  4. To systemize for effective learning;
  5. To separate the wheat from the chaff.

All the while knowing there are lost of scams out there, and pondering things like:

“Is this resource reputable?
Is this resource outdated?
This blogger says one thing and recommend this system; but that other one says the opposite. Whom to trust?
Are they just trying to sell to me?”

It’s a pain and I know it; Because I’ve been there myself.

Before joining Wealthy Affiliate, I tried to learn internet marketing by reading tips from here and there. This is an insightful story that I tell just a few lines below:

But now I want to make something clear:

The BIGGEST STRENGTH of the Online Certification Course is that it’s just that- a course.

A concentrated packet of knowledge that delivers the meat of usefulness while leaving the hard bones behind.

Think of it as an easy answer, a paved road through the wilderness of conflicting advice.

A HUGE time saver and it really makes building a business so much easier and faster.

#3-Wealthy Affiliate Webinars- Advanced Training Tutorials

Have you ever wondered whether Wealthy Affiliate training is outdated? The answer, of course, is a big fat NO!

Within Wealthy Affiliate, webinars are by far the most valuable part of WA. They are weekly live classes (four every month, every Sunday) hosted by Jay Neil, a seasoned marketer, and a super affiliate.


Jay has 12-years of experience in online marketing and his advice is internet marketing gold.

You can take this literally, since, if you do what he says, you can earn a lot of money and then buy gold with it 🙂

But really,

I regard his material as a rare shortcut in climbing the Google rankings and building a successful business.

Storytime:

I’m from Serbia, a very poor country in Europe (Novak Djokovic is also from Serbia).

Most of the population here is jobless and those that do work are lucky to earn 200$ per month.

As for me?

I was dead broke.
I was in debt

I was looking for a way to make a buck.
I knew that money can be made online, and I even knew about Wealthy Affiliate- but had no money to join.

Then I got this bright idea:

“The Internet is a free resource.

Why not learn internet marketing for free? I don’t need my credit card for this”.

Only a fool pays for free resources and I sure don’t need to pay to learn how to make money online”.

I was pumped and started reading like crazy all day, every day. Learning SEO was only a matter of time for me.

But soon, the crash came 🙁

Can you guess why?

Here’s a clue.

I was reading articles from neilpatel.com and moz.com

See my mistake?

Those blogs were way TOO advanced for me, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

Sad days followed for me.

Many a day I cried myself to sleep thinking how SEO is too hard, and learning it mission impossible for me; and how I’m destined to live a poor man, to die a poor man.

Finally, when I was about to give up, my best friend Milan, who was in the United States at the time, said:

“No, you won’t quit. You can’t quit as this is a way out for you. I will give you the money but you have to promise to give it you’re all. That’s all I ask and I think it’s fair”.

I accepted.
He paid
And my BEST I gave.
I went through the Online Certification Course 3 times in a row, and I watched Jay’s webinars.

My campaign’s strategy?

Pick a hundred most recent and learn them BY HEART. I didn’t actually do it of course but I came mighty close for some of them and I definitely absorbed all that wisdom.

Yes, I worked hard, but the real question is:

Did my insane learning spree pay off?

What do you think? You are reading my Wealthy Affiliate review 2022, that I ranked on Google for free.

Yes, I learn the advanced stuff now from neilpatel.com and moz.com now.

But the foundation- I got it from Jay and I’m forever grateful to him.

#4- Live Chat With the Community

Wealthy Affiliate Program prides themselves on being a place and community of thousands ready to help and talk you through any situation you encounter.

And this is best shown in their spam-free and unique live chat feature.

Here’s how it works:

You need help, for example, you don’t know how to install and set up a certain plugin. So you go in and ask for advice, and usually, after a minute, two or three, you get your answer from helpful WA community members.

Within WA, there are so many members that it’s virtually impossible not to get an answer quickly.

Wealthy Affiliate live chat

#5- Jaaxy Tool-Set

Jaaxy keyword tool

You might have heard that SEO is free?

That’s true, sort off.

Yes, you get FREE traffic, but the way to get that traffic is to invest a ton of time and just a little bit (it’s actually a substantial amount for beginners) of money.

You need:

  • Website and hosting (+ free hosting support);
  • Domain names;
  • Keyword tools;
  • Rank trackers (for example, Accuranker is the best Rank Tracker but also really expensive- I’m talking hundreds of $$$ every month);
  • Expensive courses.
  This all adds up much too quickly.

The good news is?

The Jaaxy tool-set WA gives you is everything you’ll need to build an online business from home. Meaning, once you join Wealthy Affiliate, you’ll have everything you need to start, run and make a profitable online business.

So you won’t need to spend money on third party tools and apps.

Interested in Jaaxy? Click here to read my Jaaxy review (opens in new tab):

Wealthy Affiliate Premium+ Membership- Worth The Price?


Premium Plus is the newly introduced paid tier inside Wealthy Affiliate.

This plan gives you everything you get with Premium, but taken up a notch,

For example you get 2 times faster hosting; 50 websites instead of just 20; you get Jaaxy Enterprise instead of Jaaxy Pro, premium security and priority support.

Everything gets upgraded here but the true gem of this level are the advanced classes you get.

Namely, every week there are a minimum of 3 additional live classes which you can attend and where you can pick the brains of the experts on the topics ranging from local SEO, to hiring freelance writers, to designing an SEO-friendly website, to covering the necessary tools you need to succeed. For example, there’s an entire mini course on using Grammarly to proofread content before publishing.

related: love Grammarly? Thencheck out my Grammarly student discount page to get a 20% discount.  It’s the legit Grammarly coupon.

There’s even a whole series of webinars on how to become a freelancer yourself and thus start to monetize your blog quickly.

Things covered there are:

  • Choosing your niche;
  • Researching your market
  • Correctly pitching services;
  • Outsourcing the boring parts
  • Tax upkeep and best accounting software for freelancers
  • etc

It’s a lot of value!

Every aspect of internet marketing is going to be covered in these special classes and you get to learn from the pros and millionaires in the trenches.

This is the feature I like best, but honestly, you DON’T need it.

If you’re a newbie starting out your first site, then please don’t go with Premium+. You don’t need it and Premium is more than enough for you.

And there’s one more problem here…

WA Premium+ is expensive. It costs $999/yr or $99/mo. That’s just too much for everyone but those marketers who’re already successful but want to become super successful.

Wealthy Affiliate Pros, Cons and Complaints


Pros

  • Free website builder- SiteRubix is an excellent, newbie-friendly builder that churns out SEO-optimized WordPress sits like nothing.
  • Excellent hosting- going with Wealthy Affiliate eliminates the need to buy separate hosting to host your website.
  • Huge community- Wealthy Affiliate University boast 2 million+ members and help is always just a few minutes away.
  • Live chat- live chats are like forums, but much better. You get immediate help and whatever your question, there’s a quick answer.
  • Online Certification Course (OCC)– This course alone has turned tens of thousand of people into affiliate marketers. It can help you too.
  • Advanced training in video format (webinars)- Webinars run by Jay Neil are internet marketing gold. Jay has 16 years of experience in IM and he’d like to share his wisdom with you, once every week in a live webinar.
  • Free keyword research tool (Jaaxy)- Jaaxy is the tool you need to find long tail, zero- competition keywords. Exactly the one’s new sites can easily rank for.

Cons and Complaints

  • No lessons on link building- Links are still very important to rank in Google and you need to know how to build them the right way. But you’ll have to learn that elsewhere because WA doesn’t teach you link building.
  • “Ambassador” feature is useless and potentially harmful- Wealthy Affiliate ambassadorship is a scoring system inside WA where members are scored based on engagement. My advice- pay no attention to it.
  • Huge community- when a group gets too large it becomes hard to moderate it. So, occasionally you’ll find bad advice mixed in with good one.
  • No refunds- Wealthy Affiliate offer no refunds to those who joined. So you need to think well before you upgrade from Starter to Premium
  • You can’t downgrade your membership from Premium to Starter. Once you become a premium member you can’t downgrade to Starter account. But you can create a new account.
  • Plenty of outdated content- Only user-generated content ever gets outdated. Official training is still top-notch.
  • English only platform- Wealthy Affiliate is a platform run entirely in English so if you don’t speak the lingo it’s obviously not for you.

What Does Wealthy Affiliate Cost? Pricing Tiers Explained


Wealthy Affiliate University have 3 pricing tiers.

They cost:

  • Free;
  • Premium ($49/mo or $495 on a yearly plan.);
  • Premium Plus ($99/mo or $995 on a yearly plan).

Here’s the table that breaks down monthly vs yearly premium membership.

PLANMONTHLYYEARLY
StarterFreeFree
Premium$49$495
Premium Plus$99$995

How To Join Wealthy Affiliate (Tutorial) 


My suggestion is you join as a Starter member first. There’s no need to pay for anything until you’ve tested it out, and Wealthy Affiliate University gives you one week where you’ll be able to enjoy the perks reserved for premium members.

One week is plenty of time for you to see if Wealthy Affiliate platform is your cup of tea.

Steps are below…

First, click this link and go to Wealthy Affiliate landing page.

Click on the “Sign Up” button.

Sign up to Wealthy Affiliate
Second, choose membership level.

Pick Starter and open an account with Wealthy Affiliate.

To create an account with Wealthy Affiliate you need to give your name, email address and you need to pick your username on the platform.)

Third, now you’ll be logged into WA dashboard and into you new profile.

You next step is to add in some profile details to make it stand out and to connect with other members better.

Click the “edit bio” button and write a few lines about yourself. Also add in a profile image and add your money goals.

Complete profile at Wealthy Affiliate

Fourth, by this point you should’ve gotten a message from me greeting you and welcoming you to Wealthy Affiliate. From my message you can go to my profile to say hi, or you can immediately click the link I give you to jump into the training.

Nikola welcome message

Another way to access the training is to click on “Training” from the nav bar and go to phase one of Online Certification Course.

Online certification course phase 1

And that’s it.

Try it out.

Wealthy Affiliate University FAQ- All Your Questions Answered


#1- What is Wealthy Affiliate Platform?

Wealthy Affiliate University is a newbie-friendly platform that can teach you the basics of affiliate and online marketing.

With Wealthy Affiliate you get the training, tools and support you need to make your dreams of passive income a reality.

Amateur bloggers there can become pros.

#2- Is Wealthy Affiliate Good For Beginners?

Yes it is. WA is built from the grounds up with beginners in mind. Kyle and Cason have geared their training towards making it super newbie friendly and I guarantee you that if you were to try them out today, you’d have no difficulty in following along.

#3- Is Wealthy Affiliate Good for Retirees?

Again, yes it is.

Retired people have extra free time and don’t want to lie around the house feeling like a burden to themselves and others. Instead they want to be productive and get busy.

Wealthy Affiliate and affiliate marketing can be that outlet for extra creativity with a high potential for substantial additional income.

#4- Will I Get a Free Website?

Yes you will.

  • With Starter membership you get 1 SiteRubix website;
  • With Premium membership you get 20 SiteRubix websites;
  • With Premium+ you get 50 SiteRubix websites.

#5- Will I Get a Free Keyword Tool With Wealthy Affiliate Platform?

Yes you will.

You will get Jaaxy keyword tool and unlimited use of said tool.

  • With Starter membership you get Jaaxy Free;
  • With Premium membership you get Jaaxy Pro;
  • With Premium+ you get Jaaxy Enterprise;

#6- Is Wealthy Affiliate Free?

Wealthy Affiliate is not free. They have a free tier (called Starter) and they also have 2 paid options (Premium and Premium+).

#7- Is Wealthy Affiliate a Pyramid Scheme or an MLM?

WA are a legitimate business that can convert you from a noob into a successful affiliate marketer.

#8- What Are Some Of the Success Stories at WA? Who’re The Top Earners?

Please read my Wealthy Affiliate success stories article to learn more about it

Or read this success story compilation to see more proof that WA works.

#9- Do Wealthy Affiliate Have an Affiliate Program I can join?

Yes they do. Click here to read my Wealthy Affiliate affiliate program review.

#10- Is Wealthy Affiliate Outdated?

Wealthy Affiliate University have a lot of member-created outdated training But they also have a lot of up-to-date member training + the official training run by Kyle (owner of WA) is up to date.

Read the article below to learn more about this.

#11- What is Wealthy Affilaite Bootcamp?

Wealthy Affiliate Bootcamp is an official WA training built for people who want to promote WA. This training module teaches people how to promote Wealthy Affiliate ethically within the MMO (make money online) niche.

#12- Is Wealthy Affiliate Available in All Countries of The World?

WA used to be available worldwide but because of high level of fraud,  people of certain countries have been banned from having Stater accounts

Banned countries are:

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

Citizens of all listed countries (except Nigeria) are allowed to have Premium accounts, but not Starter accounts.

Nigerians can’t even have paid accounts.

A shame.

#13- What Is Wealthy Affiliate BBB Score?

Their BBB rating is A+ which is extremely good.

Wealthy Affiliate BBB rating

They also have a high Trustpilot score and most customer reviews are extremely positive.

Wealthy Affiliate trustpilot score

 

Testimonial 1

Testimonial 2

Wealthy Affiliate positive testimonial 3

Concluding My Wealthy Affiliate Review 2022… Scam or Worth it?


I covered everything I wanted in my Wealthy Affiliate University review for 2021.

You now know everything you need to know and the question is, what now?

Well, you can simply close this page and leave, but that would be pure waste for you.

After all, you spent several minutes of your life on this page, and now you’re just going to leave without taking any action?

Where’s the value gained for you?

Do you value your time?

That value could be that you could become a free member of Wealthy Affiliate’s and then see what it’s like for yourself.

Don’t let anyone tell you what Wealthy Affiliate is and how it works. Including me!

See for yourself as that is the best way to judge things.

Remember, Wealthy Affiliate is free to join and you don’t need your credit card to do it.

So just do it! 🙂 

And I will meet you on the other side…

Nikola Roza

Nikola Roza is an affiliate marketer and blogger behind Nikola Roza- SEO for the Poor and Determined. He writes for bloggers who don't have huge marketing budgets and who still want to carve out a niche online and a better life for themselves. Learn about Nikola here, or read his blog posts and guides here.

35 Comments

    • http://nikolaroza.com/jaaxy-review/
    • #2-
      Again- yes. It is possible to earn even as a free member, however you will have to be creative a bit. What I mean is, since you already have a website, you only need the tools. Namely, you need a premium keyword research tool. When you sign up for free with Wealthy Affiliate, you get 30 searches with Jaaxy to try t out. This is not enough .
      Here’s what I suggest you do:
      You sign up for one month of WA premium. First month is always $19 and then you will have unlimited searches with Jaaxy. Use them to build a database of a few hundreds good low hanging fruit keywords. And also in that one month go through the training if you need to brush up on the basics.
      Ok, now you have a site and keywords you’re going to target.
      But your month has passed, now what?
      Well, you can’t downgrade from premium to free, so instead- open a new account with a new email address.
      Then use that free account to be a part of community and have access to thousands of training and videos that WA members have contributed over the years. You will also have 2 SiteRubix sites to play around with and 30 searches with Jaaxy keyword tool.

      And finally,, when the time comes, and your site is profitable, you can return to your old account or upgrade that new one to have the full premium WA experience.
      So it ca be done, but you need to be organized, disciplined and creative.
      And don’t push it too far.
      Two accounts is maximum.
      I hope that answer your question.
      If you have something else you want to ask feel free to do so. I always respond the very next day. And if you join through my site here, you will have access to me via private messaging inside Wealthy Affiliate.
      Cheers!

      Reply
  • Add a Comment

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *