I am currently a paying member of Wealthy Affiliate and although I haven’t personally had any points of frustration, I know there have been a few people that have complained and posted online.
Since I am a paying Premium member, I feel that I can speak my mind and offer you some fair and honest feedback on the service that WealthyAffiliate offers. With this in mind I’ll show you what some of the main complaints are that I hear from others within the community, but also outline some of the many benefits of being a member.
There is far more good than there is bad. I first however, want to explain some the complaints you will see if you search the web (amongst the 10,000’s of positive reviews).
Losing Write Access, it Does Happen But for Good Reason
First off “Write Access” means the ability to ask questions, post comments, and interact within the community. The most common complaint that you will find online is people losing their “write access”. As a Starter member of Wealthy Affiliate you have Premium communication privileges for the first 7 days of your membership. This means that you can get help from anyone within the community, including the owners themselves (Kyle & Carson).
After this 7 day period, you will have access to the Wealthy Affiliate platform but you will need to be Premium to communicate and get direct access/help from 100,000’s of Internet marketers (with all types of expertise). So most people that “lose” write access are only losing it because that is how the program works as you get a taste of the best support in the industry for free for 7 days.
On rare occasion though you will see somebody within Wealthy Affiliate get cut off or lose their write access. In my time within WA and it has been over 4 years now, I have never seen this happen unless the person was swearing, being violent, or spamming the community. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to hang out with these types of people especially when I am trying to learn and communicate others. Not a big fan of flaming wars and neither is Wealthy Affiliate.
WA prides itself on the fact that they are a promotion free community. So when someone comes into the community with ulterior motives and starts acting out or promoting their sketchy product, it is only natural that they get the boot. And the boot is usually given by community itself who report can report fraudsters and slime balls right away in efforts to keep the community a safe place for all to learn Internet business.
So people do lose write access and if you behave like a sane individual, you will never have to worry about this within Wealthy Affiliate. It is by far the most helpful and caring community in the world and this is the result of having rules in place.
Billing Issues, They Are Rare But They Do Happen
There are a few complaints online other than the write access, but I did some research and I dug up a few people over the last 9 years (less than 3) that complained about a billing issue.
The owners Kyle & Carson clearly explain the terms before you pay and actually make you confirm that you saw their terms before you join (just to make sure). As a paying member, I am in full control of my membership and I am not tied to any crazy contracts or non-disclosure. I can come and go as I please so I am not sure why someone would complain about billing, but you have all sorts of types out there so I could appreciate that someone might complain if they were billed a recurring bill and they didn’t have much money in their bank.
I want to bring to your attention is the payment and how it works at Wealthy Affiliate, because there is often times a little confusion. It is a true “try before you buy” company meaning that you can try out their services completely free and there are no obligations to join. No different than going to your local supermarket and being able to check out the produce before you have to buy it, you know you are getting the quality you expect when you join WealthyAffiliate.
That free membership is called their “Starter membership” and it includes a lot. Free websites, hosting, support, training, tools and networking within the large community at WA, it’s all available to you as a starter member.
If you do decide you want to upgrade, there is a Premium membership which gives you access to everything at WealthyAffiliate and everything you need to create your business online. This is $19 for your first month, then $47 per month after that and once you are Premium you can upgrade to a yearly membership for $359 per year (works out to $29 per month).
You can cancel your membership at any time, so I am not sure what is so confusing about that? You are in full control of your membership and the tenure you are at WA. You can even contact Kyle & Carson themselves (the owners) and they will help you cancel if need be. Support is everywhere and if for some crazy reason you do decide to cancel Premium, it is brilliantly simple. Cancelling my cell phone service is about 1,000x harder.
What About the BBB Complaints and the A- Rating for Wealthy Affiliate?
I have looked over some of the complaints over at BBB and for a company that has been in business since 2005, Wealthy Affiliate and their mother company Niche Marketing Inc. have a pretty darn good record. An A- BBB rating with 6 complaints in the last 9.5 years.
For a community that currently has over 865,000 active members I would say that is a pretty good ratio. I took a quick look at some other popular companies out there in the same industry and I could not find any with less than 100 complaints so I would say the track record at Wealthy Affiliate of 4 in 12 years is pretty solid. They are leaders in the “low” complaint department.
Within any group you are going to have a few complaints and I am sure that these folks may have had definitely validated the argument in their minds, and that is OK. Not everyone can be happy with every service that they come across. What I do know is that there are far more complaints out there about Apple or Android products than there are with WA. I love my smartphone too!
In fact, Wealthy Affiliate has less than 5 reported complaints out of billions of pages on the Internet and has over 50,000 positive reviews.
I will put the ball in your court, but what I can tell you is that any company that will let you try their service before you spend a penny, tells me that they are legitimate. Trust me, this is one of the only services in the “opportunity” space that you will ever be able to truly try out for free. At the very least I suggest you check out the free account and see what you think for yourself. I KNOW you will be warmly surprised by the community.