unittus-logoSo far a few MLM companies have tried to pair the social network with a MLM compensation but to date all have failed. The main problem consistently remains the failure to attract genuine users not attached to the business opportunity, or the lack of a true retail service which then becomes a simple recruitment game.

Kicking off as 2012’s first social network MLM launch comes Unittus. They’ve got a true retail membership option but is that enough to make it in the MLM social network niche?

Read on for a full review.

The Company

Unittus was founded in late 2011 and operates out of Florida in the US. The company is headed up by Jon Anthony Astore (photo right), who credits himself as being the ‘Founder, Chairman & CEO’ of Unittus.

Astore also founded and runs ’21st Century International’, a ‘strategy consulting and coaching’ business that has been running for over 25 years.

Unfortunately when it comes to MLM however, the only history I was able to find of Jon’s was that he joined the AutoXTen scam last year under the username ‘gojoin’. As of July 2011 Astore was credited with having recruited 441 members to the now defunct scam.

The Unittus Product

Unittus is a social network and as such membership to the network itself is what  Unittus members have to market.

Acting as Unittus’ retail product is the uFind membership level which is a monthly subscription of $10 a month. As a uFind Unittus member you are not able to participate in the MLM business side of the social network.

I do also note that Unittus have set up a third-party merchandise store ‘Shop Unittus’ that they contract out to clothing company ‘ZenPrint’ to run, but this store doesn’t appear to be tied into the Unittus business opportunity or compensation plan structure of Unittus as a MLM opportunity.

As for the Unittus social network, as far as I can see there’s nothing new here. Unittus claim their network offers a combination of social, career and leisure interactions between members.

Unittus Membership Ranks

Within the Unnitus business opportunity are 24 membership ranks with their own qualification requirements. They are as follows:

  • Advisor – a minimum of 5 Personal Sales Volume (PSV) required every 4 pay-periods
  • Manager – the recruitment of at least 4 paid Unnitus members
  • 1-Star Manager – a minimum of 20 Personal Sales Volume (PSV) required every 4 pay-periods, 1 unilevel leg with a Manager in it and 150 minimum weekly team volume
  • 2-Star Manager –2 unilevel legs with a Manager in them and 250 minimum weekly team volume
  • 3-Star Manager – 3 unilevel legs with a Manager in them and 500 minimum weekly team volume
  • 4-Star Manager – 4 unilevel legs with a Manager in them and 750 minimum weekly team volume
  • 5-Star Manager – 5 unilevel legs with a Manager in them and 1,250 minimum weekly team volume
  • Executive – a minimum of 50 Personal Sales Volume (PSV) required every 4 pay-periods, 7 unilevel legs with a Manager in them and 2,500 minimum weekly team volume
  • 1-Star Executive – a minimum of 50 Personal Sales Volume (PSV) required every 4 pay-periods, 1 unilevel leg with an Executive in it and 3,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • 2-Star Executive – 2 unilevel legs with an Executive in them and 3,500 minimum weekly team volume
  • 3-Star Executive – 3 unilevel legs with an Executive in them and 4,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • 4-Star Executive – 4 unilevel legs with an Executive in them and 4,500 minimum weekly team volume
  • 5-Star Executive –  5 unilevel legs with an Executive in them and 5,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • Director – 7 unilevel legs with an Executive in them and 10,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • 1-Star Director – 1 unilevel leg with a Director in it and 12,500 minimum weekly team volume
  • 2-Star Director – 2 unilevel legs with a Director in them and 15,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • 3-Star Director – 3 unilevel legs with a Director in them and 17,500 minimum weekly team volume
  • 4-Star Director – 4 unilevel legs with a Director in them and 20,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • 5-Star Director – 5 unilevel legs with a Director in them and 22,500 minimum weekly team volume
  • Presidential – 7 unilevel legs with a Director in them and 50,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • Ruby Presidential – 5 personally recruited Directors and 100,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • Emerald Presidential – 10 personally recruited Directors and 250,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • Diamond Presidential – 5 personally recruited Presidentials and 500,000 minimum weekly team volume
  • Chairman – 10 personally recruited Presidentials and 2,000,000 minimum weekly team volume

The Unittus Compensation Plan

Dubbed the ‘March to a Million’, the Unittus compensation plan revolves around a unilevel compensation structure and additionally has several bonus payouts and commissions.

These are as follows:

uPro Bonus

For each uPro membership sold ($149 USD), the member who sells the membership receives a $25 once off uPro Bonus commission.

The uPro Bonus also pays 3 generations upline ($10, $10 and $5 respectively) to qualified members.

To qualify for the upline payments of the uPro Bonus, members must have accumulated a minimum of 60 PSV for that pay-period.

uTeam Commissions

Called your uTeam and operating off of a unilevel compensation plan structure, the uTeam commission pays out up to 7 levels (generations) deep.

A unilevel structure places you at the top with each Unittus paid member you recruit branching off into a separate leg underneath you. Any members these members recruit make up your level 2 (2nd generation) and so on and so forth.

There are no width restrictions to a unilevel structure as the width of your uTeam is dependent on how many new members you personally recruit (each branches out into a new leg of lineage).

The uTeam commission is paid out as a percentage of the earnings of those in your team, depending on which level of your uTeam unilevel structure they fall on.

  • Levels 1 and 2 – 4%
  • Level 3 – 2%
  • Level 4 – 3%
  • Level 5 – 4%
  • Level 6 – 5%
  • Level 7 – 6%

uLife Assurance Bonus

Upon reaching the ‘Executive’ membership level, Unittus guarantee the minimum income of members with the uLife Assurance bonus.

If a Unittus member’s income drops below the following amounts

  • Executive – $500
  • Director – $2000
  • Presidential – $10,000
  • Chairman – $10,000

Unittus will make up the difference at the end of the pay-period as a uLife Assurance bonus.

Eg. If  a Presidential only makes $5000 in a pay-period, Unittus will pay them $5000 at the end of the period as part of the uLife Assurance bonus.

uPin Bonuses

Dubbed the ‘uPin Bonus’ each time a member advances in membership rank with the company, Unittus pays them a one time commission.

The uPin Bonus starts at the rank of ‘1 Star Manager’ and below are the Unittus membership ranks and their associated uPin Bonus payouts:

  • 1-Star Manager – $15
  • 2-Star Manager – $25
  • 3-Star Manager – $50
  • 4-Star Manager – $75
  • 5-Star Manager – $125
  • Executive – $250
  • 1-Star Executive – $300
  • 2-Star Executive – $350
  • 3-Star Executive – $400
  • 4-Star Executive – $450
  • 5-Star Executive – $500
  • Director – $1,000
  • 1-Star Director – $1,250
  • 2-Star Director – $1,500
  • 3-Star Director – $1,750
  • 4-Star Director – $2,000
  • 5-Star Director – $2,250
  • Presidential – $10,000
  • Ruby Presidential – $25,000
  • Emerald Presidential – $100,000
  • Diamond Presidential – $250,000
  • Chairman – $1,000,000

The total payout in uPro bonuses up to Presidential is $1,397,290.

uDirect Matching Bonus

The uDirect Matching Bonus is a matching bonus that applies to Unittus members you have personally recruited into the company (the 1st level of your unilevel structure).

The uDirect Matching Bonus kicks in from the Executive membership level starting at 10% and caps at 25% from Director and higher.

uGen Matching Bonus

Whereas the uDirect Matching Bonus pays out on first generation recruits, the uGen Matching Bonus operates in the same manner but pays out using a slightly different generation model.

With the uGen Matching Bonus, a generation is defined as the levels between Directors within your unilevel structure and is a unique structure in each of your various lineage legs (recruits you’ve personally sponsored).

Within each of these legs a generation is defined when a Director is found. The members between yourself and your first Director constitute your first generation, moving on down when another Director is found in the same lineage leg, the second generation is defined and so on and so forth down seven generations.

Using this model to define uGen Matching Bonus generations, the uGen Matching Bonus pays out a percentage up to $2,500 earnt by all members that fall within any generation.

Note that Unittus don’t specify what this percentage is because it varies from month to month depending on the total sales of members within any applicable generation.

The uGen Matching Bonus kicks is paid out to Director members and higher.

uWorld Quarterly Bonus

Each yearly quarter Unittus pays out 5% of the global sales volume the company makes to Presidential and Chairman ranked members.

This 5% is split five ways between Presidential, Ruby Presidential, Emerald Presidential, Diamond Presidential and Chairman members (1% each).

The Presidential bonus pools are split evenly one share a piece between members who are ranked at their respective membership levels. For example, the Ruby Presidential Pool consists of 1% of the global sales volume and is split evenly between all ranked Ruby Presidential members.

The Chairman bonus pool is also 1% but is split according to the number of personally recruited Executives and higher a qualifying Chairman has recruited.

Directors equal 1 share, Executives 3 shares and Presidentials 5 shares. The more shares a Chairman has the larger their uWorld Quarterly Bonus payout is.

4 to Freedom Bonus

To qualify for the 4 to Freedom bonus, a member must join Unittus and by the end of their first full pay period (30 days) enrol 4 paid Unittus members (either uFind members or those participating in the business opportunity).

If you join Unittus mid pay-period, this means you have until the end of the next pay-period to reach this recruitment target.

Unittus don’t specify where the 4 to Freedom Bonus comes from or how much of a share you get, but for those eligible each pay period, the company splits the bonus depending on the personal sales volume of eligible members (including any sales those new recruits made themselves).

50% of the total shares earnt in the 4 to Freedom Bonus is paid to the qualifying member and the other 50% is paid to their upline. The upline proportion of the 4 to Freedom Bonus is paid up four generations split 25%, 10%, 10% and 5% respectively.

Only qualified Advisors or higher are eligible for this upline bonus payment.

uLife Car Bonus

For Unittus’ Director members and above, the company offers two car bonuses that are paid out in a lump sum each four-week pay period.

Directors get a $500 uLife Car Bonus and Presidentials and Chairmen get $2,500.

Apart from branding the cars with the Unittus logo, the only car requirements Unittus stipulate for the uLife Car Bonus is that the ‘exterior color be gloss or metallic white.’

Joining Unittus

Membership to Unittus ranges from free to $75 a month.

  • uFree – $0 to join but must qualify for access to the compensation plan. Qualification requires the recruitment of two paid Unittus members (either uFind or higher)
  • uFind – $10 a month but not elgibile to participate in the compensation plan and earn commissions
  • uBiz – $10 a month + “semi annual” payment of $24
  • uExpert – $35 a month + “semi annual” payment of $24
  • uPro – $75 a month

Unittus don’t stress exactly how often a “semi annual” payment is, but I’d imagine it’s either quarterly or every 6 months.

Conclusion

Unittus is the strongest attempt at offering a more traditional MLM compensation plan structure to the social network niche yet. With the $10 uFind membership option that prohibits members from participating in the income opportunity side of the business, I believe Unittus have the retail side of things covered.

Looking deeper into the compensation plan, the daunting amount of membership ranks aside, perhaps the most important thing to take note of is the direct disconnect between signing members up and commissions.

Rather then directly reward members, with the exception of uPro membership there is no direct commissions for signing up paid members. Rather you are paid through the sales volume of your team which might have some impact on your personal sales efforts but encourage you to get your team to bring in the sales.

I guess the idea is that with everybody motivating their teams some of that motivation will rub off on themselves as others will be relying on their sales to make up their uTeam commissions and other bonuses tied into team volume.

Of course, all of that is ultimately irrelevant if nobody is signing up to Unittus social network – which brings me to the biggest weakness I see with the Unittus opportunity. The social network itself.

Thankfully from what I can see Unittus haven’t fallen into the ‘Facebook is huge so by copying it and whacking on a compensation plan we’ll be huge too!’ marketing trap. Unfortunately though, that pretty much seems to be what they’re aiming at here.

From what I can tell, the Unittus social network brings absolutely nothing new to the table and as a social network, I’m struggling to see why anyone would opt for the uFind $10 a month option (Unittus’ retail product).

There are already tons of social networks that cover social, career and leisure orientated interactions between people online and I’d even go so far as to say there wasn’t much of a market for a combined umbrella service, let alone one you have to pay for.

For evidence of this you only need to look at the news headlines of people getting into all sorts of trouble at work when their social and professional online profiles overlap. If anything, there’s more of a need than ever to separate how you interact with others online and this is where Unittus’ approach fails.

Well, that and pretty much without the income opportunity there’s no reason to use the Unittus network over Facebook or any of the other hundreds of social networks out there.

With the shortcoming of not bringing anything new to the table, despite a relatively solid compensation plan and true retail user option, I see Unittus ultimately struggling to attract the retail customers it needs to survive.

What you’ll inevitably wind up with is not all that different to the previous MLM social network niche companies before it, that being a social network of marketers who are only participating in the network on the possibility of earning commissions.

Whilst this might make for a decent (although expensive) platform to market on, as far as social networks go it’s not going to be of much use.

uFree members I believe can’t access the social network (?) so that leaves you with a $10 signup fee just to browse the network which I believe will only further compound Unittus ultimate take up as a serious social network, if at all.

Overall a worthwhile attempt at trying to solve the problem of how to create a retail membership option within a social network members can earn a commission on, but at the expense of free membership I believe it still falls short and the hit on growth with cause the network to stall.

If you’re thinking of trying out the Unittus business opportunity, before you join I’d strongly advise checking out the network as a uFind member ($10 a month) and evaluating the overall health of the social network before committing to Unittus as a fully-fledged business.