Is Shaklee a Pyramid Scheme? Honest Review

Shaklee is a US-based direct selling company that claims to sell chemical-free products that mainly include anti-aging products and weight loss shakes.

The headquarter of Shaklee is situated in Pleasanton, California. The company carries out its activities in countries such as Canada, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, China and Malaysia.

What is Shaklee?

Forrest C. Shaklee started MLM Shaklee Corporation in 1956.

After the death of Forest Shaklee, the Chairman and CEO Roger Barnett heads Shaklee.

When this post is written, Shaklee shows on its official website that it has completed 65 years of existence and is still working well.

Shaklee’s Vitalized Minerals was the first multivitamin in the USA and later Shaklee Corporation was started.

Shaklee claims to provide safe, proven and guaranteed products to users.

The company follows the Eco-friendly before it was a thing tagline for its products.

Shaklee also claims to run a Health Resource site that provides explanations of Shaklee products and gives health and nutritional updates.

Shaklee was questioned twice by the FTC on its activities. First in 1974 for wrongly advertising and marketing its product “Instant Protein.” And second in 1976 for retail price rigging.

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Shaklee Products

Shaklee started as a multivitamin product selling company but later started selling the products of nutrition, weight loss, home cleaning, sports and personal care.

The company claims to provide supercharged immunity with its nutritional products, burning fat and building lean muscles with healthy weight products, 212% more skin hydration with beauty products, and safe home care products.

Every product has a personal volume associated with its purchase.

Shaklee provides a “Prove It Challenge” package at $159 that consists of customizable products.

Shaklee also claims that its products are backed by around 120 scientific papers but no proof of it is available.

Joining Shaklee

One has to purchase one of the two options to become a Shaklee Affiliate.

1. Purchase Distributor Welcome Pack
2. Purchase Prove It Challenge package

Any of the purchases provide three months of access to Shaklee online retail store.

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Shaklee Affiliate Ranks

There are 12 affiliate ranks in the Shaklee Compensation Plan.

Here PV states Personal Volume meaning sales volume through retail customers and own purchases.

• PV: Purchase of products + Received transfer – Out transfers
• PGV is PV of Shaklee affiliate and his personally recruited affiliates together.
• GV states Group Volume meaning PV generated by Affiliate and his downline.

Rank	Requirement
Affiliate	Joining as a Shaklee Distributor
Director	Purchasing 100 PV of product with maintaining 2000 PGV every month.
Senior Director	Maintaining Director rank along with recruiting a Director ranked affiliate.
Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank along with recruiting two Directors.
Senior Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, two personally recruited Directors and 10,000 GV every month.
Executive Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank with recruiting three Directors and generating 20,000 GV every month.
Senior Executive Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, three personally recruited Directors and 30,000 GV a month.
Key Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, recruiting four Directors and 50,000 GV a month.
Senior Key Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, five Directors and 75,000 GV every month.
Master Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, six Directors and 100,000 GV every month.
Senior Master Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, eight Directors and 200,000 GV per month.
Presidential Master Coordinator	Maintaining Director rank, eight master Directors, two Master Coordinates and 500,000 GV a month.

Shaklee Compensation Plan

The Affiliates mainly earn through Retail Commission, Residual Commission and Bonuses.

Retail Commission

The affiliates also called Shaklee retail customers can purchase the products from Shaklee at a discounted price.

These products are further sold at MRP to the customers and the difference is earned as a profit.

Hence, Retail Commission = MRP of product – Discounted Price.

It is to be noted that Affiliates need to pay a one-time membership fee of $19.95

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Residual Commissions

Shaklee follows Unilevel Compensation Plan to distribute residual commissions.

The affiliate is placed at top of the Unilevel team and his personally recruited affiliate is placed directly under him in level 1.

If any level 1 affiliate recruits any new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate and so on for six levels.

Shaklee caps the downline levels at six. The residual commissions paid are as follows:

Rank	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6
Senior Director	6%	3%	–	–	–	–
Coordinator	6%	4%	–	–	–	–
Senior Coordinator	6%	5%	–	–	–	–
Executive and Senior Executive Coordinator	6%	6%	4%	–	–	–
Key and Senior Key Coordinators	6%	6%	4%	4%	–	–
Master Coordinators	6%	6%	4%	4%	3%	–
Senior Master and Presidental Master Coordinators	6%	6%	4%	4%	3%	3%

Bonuses

There are mainly 5 types of bonuses provided by Shaklee to the affiliates.

• Personal Group Volume Bonus
• Infinity Bonus
• Matching Bonus
• Prove It Bonus
• Presidential Bonus

Each bonus is calculated differently and requires specific achievements.

The Presidental Bonus is paid to Presidential Master Coordinators and it is calculated as a 1% volume bonus.

Is Shaklee a Pyramid Scheme?

Now the main question is, Do Shaklee is a Pyramid scheme?

No, Shaklee is not a pyramid scheme. It is a product-based MLM company operating for more than 6 decades.

Shaklee has a global presence and it is product-oriented, not recruitment-driven.

Distributors can purchase products of Shaklee and sell ahead to earn retail profit.

Commission from the downline is also based on product purchase. Till 6 level of downline, Shaklee gives commission. As MLM is legal in most countries, Shaklee can’t be called a scam.

But success rate in MLM is less than 1% and various skills are required to get success in MLM.

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