Wealthy Affiliate vs Empower Network.
If you're involved in affiliate marketing, blogging, or digital marketing of any kind, you've probably heard of both companies.
Both offer training and resources for people looking to make money online, but which one is the better choice?
The creators of Wealthy Affiliate (WA) and Empower Network (EN) both target beginners for instance.
Contrary to this fact, there aren't many similarities further on.
So, in case you search for the best way to start earning money online, you will get a clear winner after reading my review.
Some findings will blow your mind.
Trust me!
Shall we start?
Wealthy Affiliate or Empower Network: My Review
First of all, I want to give you insights into how I structured my comparison.
Firstly, I have written some kind of short description of both.
Secondly, I wrote a comparison of the most important elements of each program.
Lastly, I wrote my own opinion, and indeed, my recommendation.
During the blog post, I offer sometimes my own experience, so I hope you'll enjoy this first-hand, comprehensive, and honest comparison:
Wealthy Affiliate vs Empower Network.
Tip: You can also read my in-depth Wealthy Affiliate Review.
What is Wealthy Affiliate About?
Wealthy Affiliate is a company that offers training and resources for people looking to make money online through affiliate marketing.
The company was founded in 2005 by Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim.
Wealthy Affiliate has since grown to become one of the largest and most popular affiliate marketing training platforms in the world with over 2 million members.
How Does Wealthy Affiliate Work?
In short, the training inside of WA is going to teach you how you can start your affiliate business from scratch.
The way, how this is done, is that you will have to create your website.
Depending on your MEMBERSHIP, you will get siterubix.com domain (FREE) or your own domain name, like bestmanintheworld.com (PREMIUM).
After that, there are two main trainings to be followed.
One is for general Affiliate Marketing, second one is intended for people promoting Wealthy Affiliate.
In both cases, you be shown step-by-step training covering, SEO content, traffic generation, social marketing (Pinterest, FB, IG, Twitter), keyword research, niche selection, and such...
All important aspects of successful AM business.
In addition to this training, there are weekly held live classes and members generated training. Both very useful features.
Last but not least, you have support of 24/7 live community of other members, including the possibility to message the creators who are daily available.
What is Empower Network About?
Empower Network is a company that offers training and resources for people looking to make money online through network marketing.
The company was founded in 2011 by David Wood and David Sharpe.
Empower Network has since grown to become one of the largest digital marketing training platforms in the world with over 100,000 members.
How does Empower Network Work?
Contrary to WA, Empower Network is MLM business.
As you might know, MLM businesses have in majority, no own product or service. The most common way how you can earn money with them, is to recruit new people.
What might distract you with this form is the fact, that you are much likely seller of Empower Network, without any other opportunity.
(Unlike WA, where you can choose completely different niche and you don't have to promote WA)
In addition to fact, that not everyone is comfortable selling EN to friends and family, you will quite often be exposed to new trainings within EN to make money.
So, you might want to pay for their upsells.
Those, are quite costly and are nothing more than "motivational boosters". Meaning, there isn't much more value aded.
In terms of support, you are left to hope for a good, responsive and caring sponsor.
If not, you have almost no support as everyone inside EN is your competitor.
What is the difference between Empower Network and Wealthy Affiliate?
Memberships
Wealthy Affiliate
When inside WA, you have 3 MEMBERSHIPS you can choose from:
- FREE
- PREMIUM ($49/month or $359/year)
- PREMIUM PLUS($99/month or $999/year)
The great stuff is that even within FREE MEMBERSHIP you are able to start your online business.
That's right!
You don't have to pay a single $ to be able to build your first website and to receive money.
On the other hand, it would be fair to say, you should switch to PREMIUM if you want to get access to all features, training, and tools WA offers.
As PREMIUM PLUS is quite new, PREMIUM membership is totally fine for you.
With it, you really would have access to EVERYTHING you need in order to start, run and scale your own online business.
What you will get inside for $0.82/day (PREMIUM yearly)?
For instance, FREE WEBSITE HOSTING, 50 websites, and 52 weekly live video classes, ...
Empower Network
Now, the pricing and mainly the membership modules are a bit vague to me.
However, the basic FEES are for everyone the same. So, when you decide to get inside EN, you need to pay 2 basic monthly fees:
- User Fee ($17.95/Month)
- Viral Blog System ($25/Month)
After that, you have to get email marketing software (Aweber will cost you $20/month).
When those compulsory fees are applied, you will be exposed to additional upgrades. Honestly, they seem to be more of UPSELLS.
- Viral Blog Academy (One-Time Fee of $297)
- Inner Circle (100/month)
- High Ticket Academy (One-time fee of $497)
- Internet Traffic Formula (One-time fee $997)
- Costa Rica Intensive (One-time $500)
- $15 k Formula (One-time $1000)
- Master Course (One-time $3,500)
That's a lot of money, right?
That's not the biggest problem by far, read further to see the real headache.
The Creators
Wealthy Affiliate
The creators of WA are Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim.
They have started the company back in 2005 and they started their business as part of their friendship, built yet during their college years.
Both are digital marketing experts.
While Kyle is more of the content, copy, and PPC guy.
Carson is responsible for the design, and the technical part of the program.
Even so, they both are different, what will interest you is, that both of them are reachable daily via private message or inside of the chat.
Kyle and Carson are both family guys, having wives and kids.
Empower Network
David Wood is a guy who was homeless when starting his adult life.
David Sharpe was a drug addict at a certain point in his life.
Apart from Empower Network, he is responsible for Legendary Marketer.
When seeing the stories of both Davids, you see that they have quite tough times behind their backs. They certainly know, how to use those hard circumstances.
As you will read about their past almost everywhere on the sales page and during the training modules.
This isn't particularly bad, it actually can be quite motivational.
But you need to be prepared that they will use this as part of their marketing strategy.
Training
Wealthy Affiliate
There are 2 main modules within WA.
1. Certification Core Training 50 Lessons
2. Bootcamp Core Training 70 Lessons
Apart from those modules there are weekly live classes.
These cover various topics within any internet marketing business.
You can think of social marketing, YouTube, SEO, PPC, traffic generation, and email marketing...
Depending on your membership, you'll get access to 52 or 200 live classes!!!
Tell me what platform offers that?!
The great stuff is that those classes are recorded and you can view them as much as you want and whenever you want.
In addition to basic training modules and live classes, there is also users generated training.
These training sessions are created by members who are experienced in a certain area.
Via this way, I learned how to outsource my writing, how to optimise my website speed and usability, and some secrets for SEO.
You can read about Wealthy Affiliate here.
Empower Network
There is the core level where you will learn mostly selling strategies.
Note, there is no talk about any product or service you will be offering people.
Just the selling part.
Anyway, there are 3 parts inside of EN:
The Top Producer Formula
The Team Building Formula
The Mass Influence Formula
Indeed, the training structure goes hand-in-hand with MLM.
So, basically, you will be here shown how to "recruit" other people inside of your network. As this is the only way you can earn money within EN.
In addition to this basic training, there are above mentioned upsells. I really see this as motivational booster, without added value.
In fact it reminds me another locked-in program, The Six Figure Mentors.
Support
Wealthy Affiliate
24/7 Live Chat, SiteSupport, and Private Messaging are the main ways of support inside WA.
So, it is obvious, you will be helped instantly, and with relevance to your issue, inside WA regardless of your membership.
Empower Network
The quality of the support you will get depends highly on your "sponsor".
As there are those people will be the ones you want to communicate with daily.
So, if you are lucky you can get an answer quickly if you are unlucky, you will be waiting longer.
Tools
Wealthy Affiliate
The most used synonym for WA is an all-in-one platform, and all I can do is...AGREE!
Let me briefly show you why.
It starts with the training already, as you are offered step-by-step training.
Also, you have the freedom to choose which way you go.
The first core certification training is teaching you affiliate marketing and you can choose any niche you want.
The second training, the core BootCamp is meant to show you comprehensive strategies for promoting the WA training program.
Apart from in-depth training, you have websites and hosting (with PREMIUM) automatically assigned to you.
Additionally, there is a keyword tool called Jaaxy as a part of every membership.
Furthermore, there are tools that make this program comprehensive enough such as: affiliate marketplace, domain marketplace, content platform, duplicate checker and much more.
Empower Network
All that I found and could be counted as a tool inside EN, is the DFY blog.
One template for everyone joining the program is purely not enough.
Additionally, as with the majority of DFY, the domain you will be assigned is actually a subdomain of the EN.
In other words: both Davids are going to be actual owners of your website/business.
Other DFY rubbish: Devon Brown is Incomplete
Wealthy Affiliate vs Empower Network-The controversies
When it comes to successful business there is always a group of people that will dislike the actual programs.
Some complaints are relevant and some are not.
Let me show you some negative observations people have about these two.
Wealthy Affiliate
There aren't many negative reviews when it comes to WA.
Those few, are angry people who didn't like that the platform teaches FREE TRAFFIC, and the results will thus take longer.
Another common complaint is that the platform hasn't updated its core training.
That was true up until about 2 years ago.
If those (ex) members would be seeing the platform now, they might have changed their opinions.
Yet, not updating training was relevant controversy some two years ago, but not anymore.
As there are weekly classes added on regular basis.
Also, the core training has updated videos, text modules, and content.
Empower Network
The complaints about EN are much more about.
You see, almost everyone who was a member of it, hated it.
While WA complaints were minor and are in the majority fixed, EN is really screwed.
As MLM, it doesn't surprise me.
Anyway, the fact you want to know is that many people jumped out of this sinking ship.
You see, the biggest problem with MLM is that the only people who became rich are the creators and the top 1%.
The rest will suffer. Emotionally, but also often financially.
In the saddest cases, their lives will be destroyed.
Do you think, I am joking?
Read this review, from a real Empower Network (ex) member.
The biggest sign of this program being s**t is when its co-creator, states the very same.
Wealthy Affiliate vs Empower Network- Final Verdict
First of all, thank you very much for reading my comparison.
When you are deciding about a training platform that can teach you to earn money online, you have to be careful.
There are many vague, suspicious, or immoral programs. Also, there are plenty of SCAMS.
As a beginner, you might easily fall for a nice presentation and a fascinating story.
Something that those two Davids tried to do with you. One ex-homeless guy and a second ex-dug addict want to "help" you.
I don't judge them.
They might have had tough lives before and might want to help you now.
Unfortunately, it won't be with the help of Empower Network.
Empower Network is a pyramid scheme that will make wealthy the people on top of it, but not you!
The rest, will not make more than $500.
Seeing the initial investment (around $5000), it's obvious you will lose your money.
So, in case you are serious about making money online and you are sane (and want to stay sane) don't buy EN.
On the other hand, WA has proven for the last almost 20 years to help many people with their dream businesses.
Moreover, this platform is more of a community where people are helping each other.
Additionally, innovation, new weekly training, and training updates are signs of growth.
(One example: when I joined in 2019 there were 1.5 million users, now in 2022, there are 2.5 million users. )
Cheers,
Julius
Is Empower Network still a thing? I was a member around 2013 for 2-3 months and lost around 2000€ back then. It´s really weird to me that this company still seems to exist…
Gladly there are way better programs out there than that scam!
Thanks for the post and take care!
Yes, Empower Network is still operating. If you ask me, I also think of it as a surprise, to see so many complaints against them. Also at some point, they announced bankruptcy. The internet is from that point strange view. Therefore it is crucial you double-check, what you are investing in. So sorry to hear you lost $2000. I hope my comparison will help people to stay away from it. Thanks for your experience and good luck with your further steps.