The first thing we notice is that there is a severe disparity in the earnings. It seems that the only ones who are earning a full time income are the 0.47% who reach the PDR rank. This also tells us that 99.53% of Reliv distributors earned less than a full time income in 2017.

Remember that these figures only represent the distributors who earned a commission. The income disclosure suggests that only 16.35% earned a commission. In other words, 83.65% of Reliv distributors earned no commission at all in 2017.

If we were to include these all distributors in the income table, we’d find that only 0.07% of Reliv distributors earned a full time income. Or 99.3% of Reliv Distributors earned less than a full time income from this business opportunity

Why Is It Hard To Make Money With Reliv

We believe that the problem is not unique to Reliv. The problem is with the business model. In his book, Multi-level Marketing Unmasked, Jon Taylor found that 99.7% of people who join direct selling companies end up losing money. Despite what you hear in the sales pitches, it is highly unlikely that you will make money from any network marketing company.

Network marketing is a way for companies to sell products without employing a sales force and without having to spend money on traditional advertising and promotions. Instead they build a network of loyal ‘Ambassadors’, who are willing to pay unusually high prices for the added hopes and dreams of financial freedom.

Dr. Taylor has also provided a 5 Step MLM evaluation, which is designed to show you if you have a chance of turning a profit with any MLM opportunity. We looked at each of the 5 flags for Reliv, as shown below:

Red Flag 1 - Constant Recruitment of New Members and Red Flag 2 - Promotion Through Recruitment

If you want to earn anything more than 20% for retail sales, you need to recruit. The only way to climb the ranks with Reliv, is to grow your downline. To maintain your income and rank you will need to replace all the distributors who quit each year. This means you will need to constantly recruit to maintain your Reliv downline.

Red Flag 3 - Pay to Play

If you don’t purchase your PV worth of Reliv products each month, you won’t qualify for any commission. This is known as pay to play. Dr. Taylor found that this can lead to hyper-consumption. Distributors are buying product because they want to be part of the compensation plan, not because they actually want the products. This is why several MLM participants admit to having collected stockpiles of product. If they were buying for personal use, or to sell to retail customers, stockpiling would not happen.

Red Flag 4 - Most of the Rewards go to your upline

If you are a new distributor with Reliv, you can only earn 20% retail commission. However more than 43% of what you spend goes to your upline as commission. This means that people above you in the system earn more double what you do from your sales. When people in your upline encourage you to keep spending money, it’s important to realise that they are earning commission from your spending.

Red Flag 5 - More than 5 levels in the payout plan

The compensation plan pays overrides and Ambassador commissions to unlimited levels in your downline. Dr Taylor says 'Excessive levels in a downline is another sign participants are expected to sell primarily to their downline, rather than to the general public. This makes it an exploitative money transfer scheme, or product-based pyramid scheme'.