Melaleuca is an MLM company that sells green home and personal care products. The products are not bad, and I’ve used them before! However, the company and its advocates have a weird obsession about not wanting to be called an MLM.
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In my opinion, it definitely is a multi-level marketing company, but before you fire up your keyboard for the comment section please read my whole Melaleuca review to see why I’m saying, “Yeah, it’s actually MLM guys.”
The main reason people say it’s not an MLM is because you “don’t sell products”. What they don’t understand, is that the membership you sell is the product.
Melaleuca Review
Melaleuca is a very secretive organization. Product prices not listed on the website, a full compensation plan is not linked, and they deny being an MLM company. Their independent business representatives attitudes give the company a bad name.
There are many green product companies out there which have much more transparent policies, and are not associated with the negativity stereotypes of direct sales and MLM. That’s why I prefer to promote affiliate products instead.
What Are Melaleuca Products?
Melaleuca sells natural and eco-friendly cleaning, skincare, and health products. They have a wide range of products, including:
- shower cleaner
- tooth paste
- furniture polish
- laundry stain remover
- tea tree oil
- shampoo
- lip balm
- vitamins
- fiber
- tub & tile cleaner
- …many more!
You can purchase Melaleuca products on Amazon (not affiliate link) from their Amazon store. I’d love to show you some of these products, but Melaleuca has attempted to take down this page multiple times with copyright claims, so I won’t be able to show you their products.
According to their website, they have over 400 products, but you can’t actually read about the products on their website.
Join The Melaleuca Shopping Club Instead!
What is featured very prominently on their website is that you should become a member of the shopping club. The only problem is, you can only become a member if someone refers you to the company.
Thank you for your interest in Melaleuca. Every Melaleuca Member is referred by another member. To learn how you can become a Melaleuca Preferred Member, contact the person who referred you to this site.
In other words, you cannot join unless you have a sponsor, referrer, team leader, whatever you want to call it.
I find it strange that they claim to focus on the products (not recruiting), yet at the same time, they seem to be paying much more attention to the team building aspect, just like MLM companies! As a potential customer, I’d like to know whats inside the products and how much they cost! How can I compare them with other brands?
How Does Melaleuca Work?
Since you can just purchase Melaleuca products on Amazon or Ebay, if you’re wondering how Melaleuca works, you’re probably wondering about the business building aspect. In other words, how do you make money with Melaleuca?
There are some details about how to earn money with Melaleuca on their income statistics disclosure. However, the stats haven’t been updated since 2018, so it’s unclear if they are still accurate.
Typical of multi-level marketing companies, there are many “levels” of selling Melaleuca products.
- Product Advocates
- Business Builder (Director 1-2)
- Director 3-9
- Senior Director
- Executive Director
- National Director
- Corporate Director
As a product advocate, you are simply selling a couple products to people you know. As a business builder, you are still just selling products, but doing it more seriously.
Once you get into Director level 3+, the multi-level aspect kicks in. You will be required to recruit team leaders who will then have their own teams which operate under your team.
Those who have reached these leadership statuses have not only invested enough time to refer several customers, but they have also helped some of those customers start a business and become Marketing Executives. Those Marketing Executives have, in turn, referred additional customers who purchase Melaleuca products each month.
How Much Money Can You Make With Melaleuca?
According to their income disclosure from 2018, Directors level 1-2 earn an average of about $2,000 per year with 8 customers. As far as I understand it, that means, to add $160 to your monthly household income, you’d need to be selling Melaleuca products to eight people.
However, the average earnings of a company might not give you the entire picture of what’s going on. Median income is much more revealing, but they don’t tell us that.
Why use median income instead of average income?
The classic example is that there are ten people in a room who each earn $1 per day. Bill Gates walks in, and he earns $1,000,000 per day. The average income of the group jumps to $91,000. The median is still $1.
Regardless, it does appear that you can make up to $39,987 (according to their report) as a Director level 1 or 2, without any recruiting at all. They do not say how many customers you’d need to achieve that kind of income, but they do say it’s done with 8-16 Personal Customers, and 8-75 Active Customers. They don’t tell us the difference between Active and Personal customers, so there may be some kind of auto-ship involved there, but that’s just a guess.
Is Melaleuca An MLM?
There seems to be some controversy as to whether or not Melaleuca is an MLM. Honestly, I don’t really understand how it could not be considered one. There are so many similarities, it’s indistinguishable.
You get paid commissions based on recruiting people who want to build their teams, and so on. You market products, and get paid on multiple levels.
Multi. Level. Marketing.
There are also many other similarities as explained in this video from an actual ATTORNEY that has tons of experience and knowledge about MLMs.
Note: They are also part of the DSA (along with Amway and other network marketing companies)! The DSA is an organization that many network marketing companies rely on to (often unsuccessfully) distance themselves from pyramid schemes.
Though people use different terms, and like to be pedantic about the differences, as far as I’m concerned, direct sales, network marketing, and multi-level marketing are all the same thing. Pyramid schemes are a little different, in that they are strictly defined as “having no product”, but there are plenty of similarities, which is why MLM companies often get accused of being pyramids schemes.
Even big, well-know MLMs like herbalife and Mary Kay are regularly accused of this.
The idea that Melaleuca is not an MLM seems to be rooted in how the products are sold. Apparently, you pay to join the Shopping Club, but do not purchase products from the person who invited you. You purchase from the manufacturer. In other words, you are paying to be part of a club, like Costco. This was the same pitch from Wake Up Now, which is a now defunct MLM company.
My response to this is:
- I can go to Costco and become a member any time I want without a referral.
- Nobody is paid to recruit for Costco memberships
- If I think Costco is a scam, there’s no army of Costco advocates who get pissed off at me
I’m not even kidding with number 3. It was shocking to see the level of rudeness and from Melaleuca members on ANY blog post or video that say anything negative about the company. Full post from The MLM Attorney, with comments included!
- Product doesn’t work? You’re using it wrong.
- Company is MLM? You are an idiot.
- Didn’t make money? Don’t blame us for your failure
- Products not green enough? You have wrong information
A sure sign that Melaleuca is an MLM is that the members are rabid advocates, and have almost a cult-like mentality, where they just can’t let it go.
Melaleuca published a little PDF called Here’s Where We Draw The Line. In my opinion, they conflate. a few different concepts. They emphasize that customers are not required to “invest” (With Melaleuca there is no “investment.” ), but what they fail to distinguish is that buying the products is not part of the money making aspect of the company. The folks who make the money are the ones selling the membership.
Sure, you can purchase products without being a distributor yourself. That part I completely understand. But the top sellers and income earners of the company are managing teams of people who are also selling memberships. The MLM aspect isn’t about the products, it’s about the memberships they’re selling and the downline building you must do to be successful.
Melaleuca Reviews
Melaleuca reviews are all over the place. Some are amazing, some are terrible. They currently have an A+ rating with the BBB, but they also have a lot list of complaints.
Some people love it, some people hate it. Whether or not you choose to join the company will depend on your goals. If you would like to be able to purchase green cleaning and health products as part of a membership club, then this could be a good company to join.
If you would like to earn money, then this is not a company that I would personally recommend.
How To Turn Green Living Into An Online Business
Melaleuca Review
Products
Business Opportunity
Final Review
If you love green products and want to live an eco-friendly, healthy lifestyle, that’s awesome. If you want to share that passion with other people and make money doing it, you can definitely do that.
Personally, I think you'd be better off starting an online business so that you can reach millions of people, instead of just your local friends and family.
By starting an independent website and linking to products, you can get paid for each one sold. Publish reviews of the products you love, and get paid to help people live green and healthy! You can recommend products from Target, Walmart, and many small companies that have affiliate programs. In fact, you could even recommend Melaleuca products which are sold on Amazon.com.
This strategy makes much more sense long term because you'll have full control over your website, instead of being locked in as a member of a single company, and limiting yourself to what type of products or services you can promote.
MLM Critic & Author: Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. I have to be honest though. I'm not a big fan of MLM. Tried it. Hated it.
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Jack
I ordered once to help a friend while she was going through a tough financial period. Then because i liked the products i got a second box. I’m on month 3 and I was not planning on ordering due to Christmas and I’m on disability and unemployment.
Then my friend sent me this message: “Hey Hey Hey! I hate to be a bugaboo during Christmas week! But want to make sure you dont forget your order with all the Holiday festivities and end up with a back up order? Can I help you shop? What do ya think you want to try this month? Need suggestions…. You still have some free money in loyalty dollars to use!”
I felt obligated to order. I didn’t need or want to spend $90 On another note i have another “friend” that is with Melaleuca and that’s her tag line “I’m not with MLM anymore!” Please!! Yes you are!! Because when one talked to this girl the first thing she asks is are you happy where you’re at? That’s all they want to do is recruit their next team member or business partner. I’m not stupid I’ve been in the industry for years!
Jeannine
To clear up any confusion
Consumer Direct Marketing v. Multi-level Marketing
Melaleuca uses a Consumer Direct (factory-direct) Marketing Model (CDM) instead of a Network Marketing or Multi-level Marketing Model to market its products/services. Despite the individual characteristics of the different types of Network Marketing (NM) or Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) firms, they all deliver products through a distribution network of agents/distributors/et al.
Melaleuca delivers products and services directly from itself. No agent/distributor/et al, touches any product that a person purchases from Melaleuca. No agent/distributor/et al, is responsible for collections of money whatsoever and all claims and warranties as to the products’ efficacy rest solely with the manufacturer, Melaleuca.
People who claim that Melaleuca is an MLM only look at the compensation plan where Melaleuca pays seven generations deep. In that regard, it is similar but not the same.
The sole claim to the label of MLM rests with the DISTRIBUTION, or marketing model, not the compensation model.
So, part of the marked-up price of a product in MLM is set aside to pay the distribution network. That is not a factor in Melaleuca since 81% of all customers are not a part of the compensation formula and those that are, are not paid from the “mark-up” built within those higher prices for said products.
An MLM company’s $4.00 bottle of juice has to be sold for $40 just so you can get paid. Melaleuca sells that $4.00 bottle of juice for $4.00!
Therefore, if someone makes such a claim as to how Melaleuca is an MLM to them, they are basing that on the wrong side of the definition.
Any compensation involving referral fees instead of profit margins, relieves that model from the never-ending pressure to sell more products through their agent/distributor/et al. Melaleuca handles ALL sales so the marketing executives don’t have to. We do get paid on the point value of any products/services ordered instead of the price of these products to avoid currency differences in the eighteen countries to which Melaleuca ships.
Lastly, the CDM compensation model provides incentives for people to not only increase the number of customers they personally refer to the manufacturer, but also to reward people for helping others do the same and thereby earn a sizeable income by doing so, which can only be earned by helping those others to do so.
Don’t be dissuaded by negative comparisons of Melaleuca to anyone when it comes to the marketing model. There are none to be made.
Yanna
Hi Jeannine, I’ve read your comments how you explain your experience being a customer by Melaleuca and how you defended this company and also gave up brief explanation about this and I would like to talk or to have some more information about you in this company as I am concerned with this. I look forward for your reply with your email also in order to have a talk in private. Thank you
L
Right off the bat you see #3 coming out
L
Hello. I came in contact with someone who sells Melaleuca and ever since I came into contact with her she has been blowing up my phone to the point to where it’s almost harassment. I was going to send her this kind email but when you mentioned #3 on the list of how Melaleuca defense the product to the point of saying that you just don’t know what you’re talking about, I have decided not to send the email and just ignore her. I’m usually a person that speaks their mind and if I’m not interested then I just tell them in the fall on so they can MoveOn but not in this case. This is the email that I was going to send her.
Thank you for contacting me regarding the $1 dollars promotion to becoming a member in you MLM marketing sending me the video and I did watch some of it but I am not interested in the products personally. They are of no use to me. Remember that I don’t clean. The only thing that I liked were the clusters and I ended up eating the whole bag in one sitting and I would definitely not want to eat that many calories in one sitting. I didn’t like anything else. I found that dehydrated figs help me with my #2 so I am making them my #1 at the moment. I just don’t believe in MLM marketing. I used to sell a product called LIMU and basically they got people hooked to the product and then reformulated their product, Basically watered it down to make it less concentrated and changed the color. The product sucked after the “new formulation”and it just did not work the same way to me because I knew the original formulation. They probably did not like the color either because it used to be green. I am only guessing they changed the color and formula because of the shortage of seaweed located in Tonga that they did this. Now it’s only 83% pure, so they say. They have also changed the location from one specific place to the whole South Pacific island and throughout the Pacific Rim. You see, Products always have to adjust for a shortage of products becoming scarce and having to substitute products for products. It happens all the time and I just don’t trust it. The products that you sell green home and personal care products will end up doing the same thing. The more you sell the scarcity of the clean” products you are able to put into it. Slowly the process will incorporate more and more “unclean” chemicals but not enough for people to notice. I do thank you for the information and your time. I will be happy to take you out to lunch one day, when all of this virus crap is over to say Thank you.
If I change my mind then I know how to find you.
No hard feelings.
L
Jeannine
You obviously know nothing about melaleuca lol your whole article is bashing a great and honest company (your competition) to promote whatever scam it is that you have going on.. very dirty if you ask me ! I sure hope people are intelligent enough to see that this was an article only written to lash out and recruit.. Such a sad and pathetic attempt at growing your business my friend !
Janniee
The company is nit as clean n green as it makes themselves out to be at all check out there dish soap for 1 the consultants are pushy rude n crazy I had one try calling me 5 x on fb video call after telling him not to call me I don’t know him giving me shit for commenting on his post with what he was asking people telling me I cant so that and inwas in trouble and was very abusive n crazy demanding I give him my phone number the guy was nuts the post he made said what cleaning products do you use I mentioned 2 I used that day the one was melaleuca that my bfs sister had left st his trailer when she was living there
Mirawyn
When your only argument against a detailed, well-reasoned article with sources boils down to “Your just a bitter and jealous scammer and melaleuca is the best thing ever,” it’s easy to see you are the one with something at stake.
Wishing you the best.
Cindy
I enjoyed your article. I was ambushed by a Melaleuca seller and I had just met her at a women’s networking event and she asked me out for coffee one day and “I thought how nice I’m making a friend” but once our coffees were ordered she whipped out a catalog and proceeded to tell me the virtues of be a “member” and that it was just a buying club. Long story short, I felt obligated and pressured to join, she even got me on the phone with the person at the company to sign me up, right there at the coffee shop and I ended up calling the company to cancel after I got back to my business. They put me on the phone with a retention person but I remained firm that I wanted to cancel and that I felt pressured to join. When I spoke to my “friend” to tell her I cancelled and I don’t do MLM . She was adamant with me that it was not MLM. When someone says something is not MLM….It’s MLM. Obviously now I am very cautious about people wanting to go get coffee with me. LOL. There are so many women that joined this networking group that are MLM from essential oils, nail stickers, skin care, etc. Fortunately with Covid we have had to stop meeting. I am rethinking about continuing with this group and will find other true business owners to network with.
Matt Cross
I’ve been a Melaleuca customer for years. I get a check in the mail every month for introducing the company to a few people. When you buy a membership at Costco, who gets paid? Every company has a structure. CEO, VPs, marketing, sales, etc. Every company I buy from asks me if I’d recommend them (they ask all their customers) and I tell them no. Not until you promise to send me a check like Melaleuca sends me.
Nathaniell
Yeah but do Costco members get upset when someone else has a negative opinion of the company? If you’re a Costco member, you just go buy the stuff and are done with it. You can also order online. And they have price transparency.
With Melaleuca there’s a weird thing where people feel the need to defend their company constantly, and on top of that I can’t just go buy Melaleuca stuff online. I have to buy it through distributors.
I’ve used Melaleuca products before, and they are pretty good. I can’t complain about that. I’m mostly just saying that YES it’s an MLM in my opinion, and for some reason people can’t handle that.
Jeannine
How is it pyramid scheme if a person I shared the company with makes more than me ??? It depends on what you do with your membership. I have been a customer for a year and just started to share it with others. I still recoeved checks and discounts just shopping with them!
I was a part of 2 MLM company’s.. this is definitely NOT the same lol 😆 😂
Frances
No-one is getting upshere but merely correcting you in your errors in your analysis of this company. It appears that you are the one who can’t handle being called out regarding the fact that you are merely bashing one legit method of doing business to promote you own opinion. This is just shameful and frankly you really could use your intelligence to find a better method to market yourself, such as providing an analysis of exactly why your method works and why you prefer it over other methods you’ve tried. Bashing another company that has been around for 30 plus years and has an A+ rating with the BBB to promote your own just makes you look desperate. This is a common “hook” to reel people in and it’s actually quite counterproductive to your cause and credibility. Good luck in your effort in the future.
Breana
But… Costco wouldn’t charge $60 to your card for products you didn’t need, if you forget to buy something one month…. why have a membership with a company that literally forces you to buy each month!? You may not call it an MLM, but the scam is there.