In my research for Affiliate Marketing for Grandparents, I often run into Wealthy Affiliate reviews. One of the main complaints about Wealthy Affiliate is that there are very few complaints, and that those review Wealthy Affiliate are biased to the positive. Perhaps it seems that way, but in truth, having been with Wealthy Affiliate for a while now, I have very few complaints, the same for the people on Wealthy Affiliate that I associate with.
That doesn’t mean by far that Wealthy Affiliate is perfect by any means. In fact if you research a lot, you won’t find a perfect website hosting platform. But the thing about Wealthy Affiliate is, that the good aspects far outweigh the bad. And there is always work being done to improve the bad. And there’s a support structure that fixes problems right away.
In business, it’s not that you have no issues, because everyone has issues. It’s how you handle issues with your business when problems arise that makes you a good business. And I believe that Wealthy Affiliate is that type of business.
So, here I have compiled a list of common Wealthy Affiliate complaints, some of which I have encountered myself. I explain my take on them and what can be done to deescalate these issues.
Common Wealthy Affiliate Complaints
No Refund:
It’s true that Wealthy Affiliate offers no refunds. However, I can see why. There are many tools that you can use at the Premium Level. And even though you are complaining about the company, you are still able to use the tools. It’s kind of like a gym membership. If you came in and used the gym for a couple of weeks, then asked for a refund, you still used the facility. I can see in this case, refunding any advanced payment of membership, but not for time already used.
Not Enough Offered in the Starter Membership:
It is true that by the time you finish Level 1 of the Online Entrepreneur Certification, the only formal training available in the free membership, you will have a functioning website. However, it is not “up and running” to the point where it will make money. There needs to be more emphasis on “where to go from here” at the end of that training module, so, as a Starter Member Participant, you can continue to function.
I do see the other side of the coin however. If you give away all the secrets in the free membership, what is the point of the Premium Membership? The proprietors, Carson and Kyle work hard to provide the very best training and web hosting site. Why shouldn’t they get paid for it?
Kyle and Carson have every right to charge you for use of their platform. In fact, they have every right to charge you for something that they are giving away for free, i.e. the free Starter Membership. So people need to be happy with what they are getting for free and stop complaining about this.
Some Plugins Banned:
Wealthy Affiliate bans some plugins. But for good reason. Some, such as JetPack eat up server resources. In fact many web hosting platforms ban some plugins, not just Wealthy Affiliate. Besides, an all-in-one type plugin like JetPack can be substituted with other plugins and tools that don’t eat up as much server speed and space.
Only Basic TLDs (Top Level Domains):
Wealthy Affiliate only offers .com, .org, and .net domain names, mainly because those are the most common, the most used, and all you really need for a basic website. If you want some a domain with some other suffix, you are free to buy one from somewhere else, and use it at Wealthy Affiliate.
Too Much Off-Topic Chatter in the Community:
I personally don’t think this is a problem at all. I don’t see anywhere in our Terms of Service where we have to stay on topic on the chat platform. If you want to talk about website design and affiliate marketing, by all means, bring up the subjects you want to talk about. You will get answers, usually good ones. But don’t expect it to be all affiliate marketing, all the time. We are a community of humans, and seeking commonality is in our DNA, so we will likely chat about other things when there’s no Wealthy Affiliate subjects to discuss at that moment.
Too Many Emails:
As a Wealthy Affiliate member, I do get a lot of emails. However, I appreciate getting most of them. It keeps me up to date with people I am interested in following. It also lets me know when someone has reacted to a comment or a post I have put up. I also like to thank people who are following me, which generates a lot of email. This complaint is not really warranted, however, because there are email settings within the platform where you can limit your email traffic.
Too Expensive:
It is relative as to whether Wealthy Affiliate is too expensive or not. If you are struggling to feed your family, then sure, it is hard to come up with the $49 ever month. But, if you shop around for similar web hosting platforms, you will see that you are getting A LOT for your money. See my review by clicking here, and you will see what you get for your $49 per month. And…you can always stay on the free membership, on which you receive plenty of perks.
My husband and I had a conversation about the expense. We agreed that since there is potential to get paid back in full and then some, that it is money well spent. We agreed also that even if it doesn’t pay off, it is something I enjoy and have always wanted to do, so $49 a month is a pretty cheap hobby.
Wrong Answers:
I have struggled with this as well. I have gotten an occasional bad answer or insufficient advice. However, you do need to take responsibility in getting your answers. It’s best to “listen” to several people and go with the most credible answer. Like any other social platform, you have to take everything you read on Wealthy Affiliate with a grain of salt. It helps to look at the person you are talking to as well, as to how long they have been on Wealthy Affiliate, and where they stand in their membership. You can usually trust the trainers who have posted a lot of material, or have several great websites up and running.
Too Much Emphasis on Joining the MMO (Make Money Online) Niche:
This complaint is a little bit unfounded, in my opinion. Aren’t we on Wealthy Affiliate to make money? Aside from that, I did not feel pressured to go into Wealthy Affiliate Promo niche. I chose a niche I always wanted to write about. When I was invited to join the Super Affiliate Challenge, is when I started my Wealthy Affiliate promotion website. I could have turned down the challenge if I wanted to, and there was nobody making me do it. I decided that my business could benefit from it, so I went ahead and accepted the Super Affiliate Challenge, and I was right. It has made me a better website builder and a better blogger, and a better affiliate marketer.
Referrer or Mentor Not Available:
I have not found this to be the case. My mentor has been in contact with me several times, and even took the time to go over my website to critique it. Besides, if your particular mentor is not available, there’s a couple hundred others who can certainly help you and answer your questions, 24/7/365.
No Phone Number:
I too wish there was a customer service number one can call when there are problems. Sometimes it’s hard to type out what you are seeing on your screen, and not everyone knows how to do a screen capture. I really wish there was phone number you can call when the issue is too complicated. Perhaps maybe in the future there will be a help desk you can call.
Free Domain Isn’t Included in the Price:
I think the logic here is, that if you pay for your own domain name, YOU control it. You do get free domains with the Siterubix suffix, but you are admonished not to keep the free domain and pay for your own. If you leave it under the Siterubix domain, you give up some of your control to the Siterubix platform. Buying and using your own domain gives you complete control, and you can own it for as long as you want to. Nobody else can tell you what to do with it.
Cannot Down Grade Membership:
I can see where this would be a problem for some people. Life throws us curve balls no matter how much we plan, and somethings you just have to put your Wealthy Affiliate membership aside to deal with sickness, tragedies, family emergencies, or even exciting opportunities such as volunteer work in a foreign country. I don’t need to take a hiatus now, but I may want to in the future. I wish you could downgrade during those times in your life.
All Reviews are Affiliates Looking for a Commission:
I admit that I am looking for a commission when discussing Wealthy Affiliate on my websites. However you will see here that although I am a member and promote Wealthy Affiliate, I speak up and say what bothers me about it. I love Wealthy Affiliate, and because I love it, I want to speak up and suggest improvements. It’s kind of like living in the USA. I love my country, no matter what. But I can still love it while I’m pointing out and looking for solutions to its issues.
The owners, Kyle and Carson, listen to constructive criticism and are making improvements all the time. They take what we members tell them, and do their best to fix the issues. Plus, you won’t find a better support team for when things go wrong on your website and their platform. They rush in and fix things right away. I’ve even had them fix an issue that I didn’t realize was happening until after the support team fixed it.
Listen, there is not a single perfect web platform out there. Wealthy Affiliate is certainly not perfect either But I judge the quality of a business on what they do when things don’t go wrong, or need improving. When a company is constantly looking to make things easier for their customers, and continues to keep up with new technology trends, I have more respect for them, and am willing to give them my hard-earned money.
I also want to point out here that the posts you see about the hard-core complainers about Wealthy Affiliate seem to have an ax to grind. Wealthy Affiliate DOES NOT promise that you will get rich quick, and they tell you that you will have to work SUPER hard to make your website profitable. It seems that the people who are hard-core complainers did not take either of those admonishment to hear.
Doesn’t Give Enough Niche Direction:
I think you get help with niche direction if you ask for it. As well, there are training modules dedicated to niche selection. I think this is partly on the user, because if you have no clue what to write about, then why are you trying to do this in the first place? Wealthy Affiliate does teach you how to narrow down a niche, and also has hundreds of members who will help you with ideas. And if you just can’t think of something, you can write about Wealthy Affiliate. I din’t know how much more they can do to help you find a niche.
Not Enough Success Stories:
You have to search for them. It would be a good idea if they had a page just for success stories. However, people measure success in a variety of ways. You can read success stories in every blog post on Wealthy Affiliate. People get a website up and running, or get content indexed, or get conversions every day. Click here to read my article about Wealthy Affiliate success stories.
For me, being able to at least get on the program and getting a little work done is a success, because my goal is to get through the summer while I’m working full time, to keep writing content, so that when I’m off work for the winter, I can do the hard, deep down, construction work I know my sites need. My goal is to work on content every day and get it on my site as quickly as possible. That will lead to great success in the long run.
However, as I said before, the support team at Wealthy Affiliate are excellent, and will work with you until your issue is solved. It makes for good reading comprehension practice and honing your writing skills.
In Conclusion:
Yes, Wealthy Affiliate is not perfect, but NOTHING is perfect. You will not find a completely perfect website hosting, training, and community platform. But even though Wealthy Affiliate is not perfect. I love it. I have always wanted to do a blog about my favorite things, but I didn’t know where to start. Wealthy Affiliate started me at the very beginning, and taught me what to do, until I have my site up and running. The training is world class, and the community is there for you to help with whatever you need. So, just because there are complaints doesn’t mean that Wealthy Affiliate isn’t a good platform. It’s a great platform, where the flaws are always being fixed in a timely manner. So, read my review of Wealthy Affiliate here, and read my other articles about Wealthy Affiliate here, and here. And……
===>Click here to start your free membership to Wealthy Affiliate!<===
And see for yourself if Wealthy Affiliate is right for you!
Please leave your comments and questions below, and thank you for reading!
references:
https://www.affiliatemarketertraining.com/wealthy-affiliate-complaints/
https://onemorecupof-coffee.com/wealthy-affiliate-complaints/
Like you said the positives of the platform far outweighs its negatives. No platform is perfect so it does not really matter how well the founders try to perfect the platform because there will always be complaints. That is just how life is. You can never please everyone no matter how hard you try.
I do think the founders are trying the best they can to make sure the platform is at its best to cater for the needs of all their members.
Hi Jay, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Thank you for your input. You are right too about never being able to please some people. There’s a couple hundred thousand active users, and I read somewhere that there’s around 1.4 Million registered members. Keeping that many people happy is impossible. But I would say that Kyle and Carson go a long way to achieving that impossible number. Thanks again for your comments! Rhonda
I completely disagree with what you said about the lack of training for the starter members… While the “official” training is just 10 lessons (they could be zero just as is the case with most other MMO courses), every starter could use the search bar and start learning from the thousands of training modules that have been posted by other more advanced members.
I also disagree with the not enough success stories part… WA is one of the few MMO courses that have so many success stories. You might be right about the fact that they are not that easily accessible and gathered in just one place.
One complaint I have about WA is that its keyword research tool is highly inaccurate. It’s basically completely useless for me as I had to learn how to conduct my keyword research manually.
Harry, first of all thank you for commenting.
About your disagreement with me about the lack of training for starter members. Thank you for pointing out that a beginner can use the search bar to access the WA training library. I did say “FORMAL” training. I was answering this question from the perspective of when I was a beginner. I didn’t even know that search bar existed, and even after I did, I didn’t know how to use it until well after I became a Premium member. I am betting that lot of other beginners don’t know about the search bar either.
On the subject of success stories, I did a post on that last week, and I really had to dig for them. Be they are out there, even if you have to look for them. And I think that was my point.
I find the keyword search tool very helpful and easy to use, and very accurate for my purposes. But it is good to know how to do keyword searches using other methods.
Thanks again for reading and thanks for your comments. Rhonda