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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Meg
It’s ironic that you are bashing Melaleuca to promote your business. Melaleuca fits more into the Affiliate Marketing model than the MLM model. Both Melaleuca and Wealth Affiliates pay you to refer people to join your team. That’s called “building your business”. Melaleuca does not hide any information. You can Google their catalogs, pricing (internationally) and compensation plan. The only astronomical prices I’ve seen are people who purchase Melaleuca as a member, then turn around and sell on ebay or Amazon. Those of us who are passionate about Melaleuca have not been brainwashed. We have simply replaced the products in our homes to protect our family with plant-based, eco-friendly versions of the same types of products we’ve purchased month after month at retail stores. The choice was a no-brainer when we realized that the store brands we grew up using had so many toxins, chemicals, and preservatives in them. We are sharing with others the ability to get non-toxic, safe and healthy versions of the same products at wholesale pricing (instead of astronomically inflated prices from organic labels or from Amazon). There really is no cost of doing business when you look at the savings that Melaleuca offers on everyday shopping for a higher quality of products from their store plus additional savings when you purchase online at 670+ retail stores and services (including health care savings). When I last looked at Wealth Affiliates, they only offered basic services and everything else was an upsell. With Melaleuca, any customer has the option to build a business with free tools and training. Out of pocket cost? $19 annual membership + minimum purchase requirements (which for most people is less than what they previously spent on their shopping budget).
Rachel
According to the BBB, Melaleuca is not an MLM, as they don’t require people to purchase product to then resell – i.e. you don’t need to make an initial investment in inventory. BBB’s about the only place that gives an actual definition, though. And yes, you do still need to make an initial investment in purchases, but the amount that you can then make off of other people is not dependent on how much you buy.
For example, you can get in for one of those $1 premium membership fees they do, and then purchase the absolute minimum amount of product to retain premium membership and avoid autoship. So long as you’re qualified, you make money – as opposed to other MLMs where you have to purchase product *to sell*, as in, you need to have your own inventory, turning you into a retail store.
I’d still stay the hell away from it, though. The commission and bonus pay is ugly, the tiered level marketing is gross, the stress it puts people under is similar to any other MLM, and the products aren’t worth it when you’re a regular (non-paying, not-premium) customer. The cleaning products, at least, aren’t green in the slightest.
Tl;dr, I still think Melaleuca is an awful company and functions on immoral sales principles, despite everything they say they do to support morality. However, it is most certainly not an MLM by all official definitions of the word. It can still be awful without being an MLM, guys.
Watched my mom get suckered into this shit and I’m still worried about how much she’s spending. But no, it’s a good Christian company…
Hard working mom
The only part of this article that rings false to me is the part where you say that stay at home moms “have time ” to run a time intensive business. This absolutely cracked me up and shows that you have NO CLUE how much work raising children is. It’s far more time intensive than any other full time job I’ve ever had. Just thought I’d let you know that it’s not only false, but offensive.
Nathaniell
Haha. Man, moms have such a hard time with this statement. “Don’t ANYONE DARE THINK I HAVE TIME”.
There’s a difference between being and a place where you literally cannot leave or your’ll be fired, versus taking care of kids at home where you have SOME freedom. Oh, and what about when the kids are in school?
WHY DO YOU THINK NETWORK MARKETING IS TARGETED AT WOMEN?!?!?!?!??!??!? (70% or more, in fact)
Come on, this is so frustrating to explain over and over again. You can take your kid to a “party”, or have a couple friends over while they’re at school. You cannot leave a job or sell MLM at “the office”.
Johnnyangel
I been a customer with melaleuca 8 yrs and I highly recommend it . It’s a incredible company.
Melola
Old thread, but I’m new to Melaleuca…and it’s making me crazy that they and MANY of their reps say it’s not MLM…crazy. (I’ll end up sounding like a brainwashed zombie one way or another!)
I do purchase Melaleuca as a customer and I have just signed up for the business (I actually love the products and it lines up with my mission to improve my own health as well as lining up with another non MLM related business venture I am pursuing, as well as affiliate marketing, amazon being my first thought, so I’ll keep this site in my bookmarks)…and Melaleuca IS MLM. There are people below people and the people above are compensated based on the people below them. And they do the “marketing” for the company. I’m not sure what people don’t understand about that.
Now, for them to say they are not like other MLM’s is fine…subjective, seems possibly true, but fine. As someone else said below…just own it! “We are the best MLM company out there”.
IMO the biggest battle that MLM’s have is the fact that they use people to do the “marketing” who do not have the skills or experience in sales & marketing – and the friends and family approach is a poor model to break away from that reputation (but I also understand that if people weren’t using that approach then the company might as well have a traditional sales and marketing structure, which also includes mass production, warehousing, distribution, shelf space, etc. All of these things cost money and end up covered in the purchase price – a for profit company is not going to eat these costs, people!). I appreciate that some companies do allow their “customers” to also profit, it gives many people who may not be able/want to be in the workforce another option.
I think one of the biggest things with Melaleuca in particular is that it’s cloaked in some secrecy – some of it under “proprietary ingredient/blend/science” and some of it to help not “burn the fields” – but many of their policies around these things do make sense.
Overall I think their products are a quality, healthier option and while I will stay within their policies for marketing I’m not targeting my friends and family from a list of 100…or even 10. There are ways to have people come to you who want what you are selling vs. hounding people to “sign up”. That IMO is the difference.
Garth
So why are some of the ingredients protected by the California Trade Secret laws? If you do the math, and see how much is paid out on a single item, on something that is 7 levels below you, that means subtract out 49%, I believe from the points the product is given. After all the money is paid out on the product, and the owner gets his 51%, as he owns 51% of the company, how much money is left to make the product? Owning the factory does not make it better, as it means that they pass on all the manufacturing costs to their only customer, the marketing part of Melaluca. That means the manufacturing part is going to get paid regardless of the quality of the products. A contract manufacturer is the way a lot of companies go, as they don’t have money tied up in a manufacturing facility. They only pay for the finished product, which includes the cost of materials and a portion of the the manufacturer’s expenses. Yes, I was in it a very long time ago, but only to see what their compensation plan looked like. I was in it for a month before getting out. They made it extremely difficult to get out of the company. When it comes to their meal replacement shake, I shared mine with someone who was sucked into Melaluca. She said that mine was much better tasting, and it was also more nutritious. If someone quits Melaluca, their upline gets all upset like it’s the end of the world. I’ve learned that the company is a RBO, aka Recruiting Based Opportunity. In other words, you must be constantly signing people up with a membership. If not, be prepared to be losing money. They want all of your time, and your money. And no, it’s not a Christian run company, as the guy who owns it, is a member of the church of Latter Day Saints, aka Mormon. He’s also a marketing guy, and not a product developer. I use repdigger.com to check out a company’s reputation. You should too.
Steve
All of the product reviews and the compensation plan are clearly available on the Melaleuca website. I wish people would get their facts straight before doing articles like this. Its obvious your only trying to promote your own Affiliate program.
Nathaniell
Maybe they are now, but they were not when I wrote this review.
Jen
I’m in a different MLM and yes, Melaleuca is absolutely an MLM even though they call it a shopping club. Honestly I have seen people who recently became reps for them become very deceptive and that I don’t like. I love MLM, it’s changed my life, but I work with integrity. I don’t see a reason to lie and say things “nope it’s not an MLM” and “I’m not selling anything.”
Nathaniell
Lots of people love MLM. I don’t, but many people do. Exactly as you say – why not just own it?