Now that we've looked over the ways to earn income, let's look at the USANA Binary Compensation Plan in more detail. This system determines how much USANA associates will get paid, and what they need to do in order to earn their income. If you want to be successful in USANA, then you need to know how the compensation plan works.

For a new USANA associate, to earn commission, they'll need to activate their business and then remain active. This is achieved through 'Personal Sales Volume'. This is something I personally have an issue with. They are essentially telling you that in order to get paid, you need to buy a minimum quota of new product every month. In my opinion this creates synthetic demand, as associates buy product to remain active.

My friend's sponsor told me that remaining active is easy because you can sign up for 'auto order'. You can make sure that every month you buy enough to remain active, and you'll even get a 10% discount on the price. A 10% discount sounds good, but I thought the prices were already at rock bottom! I guess there is a mark up of 10% charged to all associates who choose not to use auto order.

The biggest objection I had with auto ordrer, is that it makes associates commit to future purchases. They are buying product with the goal of remaining active, not because they've run out of product or think they can sell more of it. There is a note that if you don't use or sell 70% of the products you buy, then you must cancel your auto order, but I don't see how they can monitor or enforce this. It's just for USANA's own protection so they can avoid accusations that their system encourages associates to stockpile USANA product.

Naturally your USANA sponsor will tell you not to worry about this and keep ordering product. It might be because any product you buy earns them Group Sales Volume, which goes towards their own commission. This creates what economists would call a negative incentive. Like all mulit-level marketing systems, your sponsor is directly benefiting from the product you buy. It is in their best interest to encourage you to buy as much as possible in order to maximize their own earnings.

How Much Does it Cost to Be a USANA Associate?

The cost of being an active USANA associate depends on whether you are running your business around one business center or several. It is possible to open your USANA business with either one or three business centers. We will look at the costs involved of joining and remaining active in USANA. For simplicity, we will run our calculations in US Dollars using the prices and point values found on the USANA Associate price list

Running One Business Center

To activate a single business center, you will need to order 200 points worth of products. There is a business starter pack which will give you 250 sales value points for a price of US $305. It comes full of USANA products for you try! If you are looking for a cheaper way to activate your business center, then consider buying two Essential health packs. This will give you precisely 200 personal sales value points, at a cost of US $235. Alternatively you could take your time and order products at your own choosing until you reach 200 personal sales volume points. Until you have reached 200 personal sales volume points, your business center will not be active, so you won't be able to build your business.

Once your business center is activated, you can start recruiting friends, and building your team. To be eligible for commission, you will need to remain active. For a single business center this involves accumulating 100 personal sales volume points ever four weeks. We estimate this would cost US $117.50 every four weeks, which equates to $1,527.50 per year.

There are 13 four week cycles in a year, which made me think that USANA chose this system rather than a monthly cycle because they get one extra order every year from every active USANA associate.

Your USANA network with one business center is shown below: