Click Funnels Review: Internet sales funnel + 2 levels of recruitment
Click Funnels operate in the internet marketing MLM niche and are based out of Idaho in the US.
The Click Funnels website identifies Russell Brunson as CEO of the company.
On his Facebook bio, Brunson (right) refers to himself as a “top super affiliate”.
For over 12 years now Russell has been starting and growing companies online.
He owns a software company, a supplement company, a coaching company, and is one of the top super affiliates in the world.
Brunson is heavily involved in internet marketing, primarily developing and promoting marketing tools which he then sells.
There is some crossover with these tools with respect to being able to market MLM opportunities. The only MLM opportunities I was able to tie Brunson to as an affiliate though are Pure Leverage (gifting scheme attached to blog platform) and Rippln (disastrous attempt at an MLM app company).
Read on for a full review of the Click Funnels MLM opportunity.
Click Funnels Products
Click Funnels has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market Click Funnels affiliate membership itself.
Bundled with $97 a month Click Funnels affiliate membership is access to a sales funnel creator.
An upsell membership for $297 a month provides additional access to
- Backpack – “run smart affiliate programs inside your funnels!” and
- Actionetics – “create smart action funnels (email, text message and MORE)!”
The Click Funnels Compensation Plan
The Click Funnels compensation plan sees affiliates pay $97 or $297 a month in fees. Commissions are paid when they recruit others who do the same.
Click Funnels use a unilevel compensation structure to pay commissions.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Commissions are paid when fee-paying affiliates are placed within a unilevel team via direct and indirect recruitment:
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – 40%
- levels 2 – 5%
Joining Click Funnels
Click Funnels affiliate membership is either $97 or $297 a month.
The difference between the two options are bundled marketing tools.
Conclusion
I’m always a bit suspicious when I see an MLM company built around a sales funnel or some other marketing shtick. Reason being we typically only see these systems resold after whatever it is they were initially attached to starts to fail (Pure Leverage?).
That said if an MLM affiliate wishes to charge their downline for access to whatever system they’re using – more power to them.
Doing so with a pyramid recruitment business model however is not on.
As it stands, there’s no differentiation between affiliates and retail customers in Click Funnels. What that means is effectively there are no retail customers, everyone is an affiliate.
Commissions paid out are therefore attached to recruitment, with affiliate fees constituting 100% of revenue generated by the company. This same revenue is used to pay commissions, rewarding those with the largest recruited downlines.
Click Funnels does barely qualify as an MLM opportunity as it only pays out over two levels, but compliance is still compliance.
If affiliate recruitment dies down, so too will commissions. This will likely prompt a large number of affiliates at the bottom of the company-wide unilevel unable to justify $97 or $297 a month.
They stop paying their fees, the people above them stop getting paid, they stop paying their fees and before you know it the entire system has collapsed.
At that point any affiliates who haven’t recouped monthly fees via recruitment, lose out.
lol “and is one of the top super affiliates in the world.” love it 😛 That looks like his yearbook photo 😛
$297 a month for a newbie to get rich fast.
Yes the super affiliate can show them the way to lose money fast.
I suppose its that time of the year for the recruitment programs to pop on up.
Brunson has been around for quite some time. Surprised he would have no idea of current MLM compliance when he is involved daily, already!
really?
Seriously I have lost your respect Total lack of professionalism here.
I can 100% say you have no clue what you are talking about.I am not affiliated with clickfunels but I can tell you I know hundreds of clickfunel clients who have nothing to do with their affiliate program.
Most of the people in the ecommerce space such as shopify use clickfunels to build their marketing funnels and I can name you the best of the best in the internet marketing industry such as Frank Kern they all use click funnels.
I can list 100+ fitness and other niches experts who use clickfunels to build their business but I dont want to waste my time to do that..
the only reason I am posting this comment is to educate you a bit that you dont even know the target market for this product.
Everyone who signs up is a Click Funnels affiliate. The only way to get paid in Click Funnels is to then recruit new affiliates.
That’s the business model. No need to throw a hissy fit over it.
Frank still scamming away?
theverge.com/2012/5/10/2984893/scamworld-get-rich-quick-schemes-mutate-into-an-online-monster
Guys like Frank and Russell have been around for years peddling their tired frauducts to gullible “make money online” noobs.
I made 350+ by with CF affilaite links, and I never had to be a paying member to get paid.
So this is a false report.
Which has nothing to do with the Click Funnels MLM opportunity.
Oz. There’s nothing wrong with ClickFunnels. Most of their customers are just that … customers. There are plenty of bad companies to focus on. This is not one of them.
Affiliates can be customers, but if you’re going to use an MLM compensation plan then you need to be making retail sales.
A “100% affiliates are out customers” business model in MLM = pyramid scheme.
The sentence is redundant and says nothing. “Most customers are customers” duh.
Besides, an affiliate gets paid for selling stuff. Customers BUY stuff. If you’re saying that customers are selling stuff, then are they really customers or affiliates? Maybe you’re just confused.
I almost every time agree with the posts here. But now im not quite sure. If a costumer becomes automatically an affiliate (because he gains the opportunity to recommend the product and be paid by the purchases the people he recommends make). Whats wrong with that?
And you’ll say: well they need to have retail sales. But why? Because those purchases where made like retail sales from the costumer who opted to be an affiliate in the moment he share a link or sent hist affiliation number in order to get a commission from it.
Its like selling a house or an apartment. If you bught a house and you are happy with you new neighborhood why dont you call you aunt and tell her that theres a house right by yours and you want her to move there and then you talk to the owner of that house and get a comission out of the house you sold (the recomendations you gave to your aunt)?
I just want to understand why there is such a confusion between a pyramid scheme and a regular commission base oportunities.
(My main language is spanish sorry if i made some mistakes)
In MLM if you don’t have retail customers, you’re just paying commissions on recruitment.
Recruitment commissions in MLM = pyramid scheme.
No, it’s really not.
Will you be so kind and explain to me the differences? I really want to understand your point here. Because where i get confused by is that there was an intention from the company to have a retail sale but there was a costumer who wanted to be able to share whats working for them and be benefit about it.
So the retail sale changes in a form of an “affiliate sale” to produce a comission i dont see why in a 2 level unilevel thats a recruitment comission. It is exactly like the example i gave.
Is the customer *really* a customer who wanted the product, or did s/he just bought the product merely in order to become an affiliate (i.e. earn commission)?
If you have gray area in here, there is a GOOD CHANCE you’re in a pyramid scheme as you cannot be sure if you really have retail, or merely “pay to play”.
To the company, a “sale” is a sale. But to the FTC (or other law enforcement agencies) this is VERY important as pyramid scheme is not tolerated.
The problem is you’re trying to relabel an affiliate signup (recruitment) as a retail sale. They’re not.
If there is no retail activity and everyone is affiliate, you’re paying recruitment commissions.
Recruitment commissions in MLM = pyramid scheme.
Alone there is nothing wrong with affiliates purchasing a product or services. Without retail sales however it’s the income opportunity being sold (recruitment) and that’s a pyramid scheme.
This is not about me… im trying to understand what Behind MLM´s consider a recruitment commission based on the knownledge that i believe BehindMLM has.
It’s a hypothetical you. Don’t get rattled as if it’s an accusation. It’s just a figure of speech.
So you would consider an MLM legit when the affiliates/Companies have retail customers that don´t get involved in the business. but if those customers become affiliates then the new affiliates, the old one and the company will have to seek customers to bring retail sales to those products/services so they don’t get tagged as a Pyramid Scheme.
When at the beginning they where all customers (based on the click funnels example and following post comments) who liked the service they provide to them and wanted to get commission out of their referrals.
My point is that when the Product/Service sales well and you want to keep up the progress and you integrate an MLM opp into those Product/Services theres a chance that i get tagged as a Pyramid just because all my costumers now have the ability to refer me some clients and be paid for it?
K. Chang
Oo now i understand the figure speech.
Not possible in Click Funnels, everyone is an affiliate.
Some retail customers might become affiliates, but if every retail customer is changing to an affiliate then there’s something wrong with your product.
Again, everyone in Click Funnels signs up as an affiliate. There are no retail customers.
Oz you have this seriously wrong my friend. Clickfunnels is not pitched as affiliate program. It’s an online tool that just about every single internet marketer out there uses for lead capture pages just like LeadPages. You are reaching way too far on this one.
I’ve used ClickFunnels without ever promoting it as an affiliate because it’s one of the best lead capture pages out there. In fact, I have never once promoted the affiliate option. Digital Marketer who is one of the most reputable online marketing education companies out there uses ClickFunnels, because again, it’s simply the best lead capture software out there.
So this in my opinion is just another one of your ranting puff pieces. I like a lot of what you right, but this is ridiculous. You’re reaching too far.
People buy the product because it actually works. They don’t pitch an opportunity and happen to have an amazing tool. You have this completely opposite.
I’ve been using ClickFunnels for quite some time. In fact, I didn’t eve know there was a multi-tier payout. Sure, they had their little badge at the bottom but you can turn that off.
So I’m pretty suprised you even posted this. It’s pretty dumb article Oz because there’s hardly any lead capture software that is nearly as good as this one.
I don’t care what it’s “pitched as”, Click Funnels by definition of its business model is an MLM income opportunity.
No retail makes Click Funnels a pyramid scheme.
Yeah, everyone loves BehindMLM.
…until we review their opportunity.
I believe Tony’s Comment goes to far rude. And OZ that “until we review their opp..” comment was rookie.
Oz, I really believe you should put together a comp plan in order to see how one should build a perfect plan. I mean i really respect what you do here but this Click Funnels tag as a PS i believe not correct.
Because they do have an actual service that people use, if the recruitment dies what? Nothing happens, happy clients with good lead capture software that actually gets use. (BTW i am not a Click Funnels client) (i use autopilot (same price range) better UX).
And you said to me before that there ahould be clients and affiliates (more clients than affiliates) and i agree, but the thing here is that everyone has the same opportunity if they are already enrolled, and what troubles me is that you say you cant make the difference based on their purchases/invitation to label them correctly as one of those two options.
What do you mean “BUT” ???
There is no “but”.
Rookie? It’s been the same story playing out since 2008.
Hay guys, love your work but…
Barf.
Right, because that’s what people who review stuff do.
Reviewing cars? Hay, build your own car!
Reviewing moves? Hay, make your own movie!
Reviewing a restaurant? STFU and make the food in your own damn kitchen.
MLM comp plan = MLM opportunity.
Paying commissions on recruitment in MLM = pyramid scheme. It’s pretty straight-forward.
Which is the fallback of every product-based pyramid scheme. Only way to prove it is to separate retail customers from affiliates.
That’s on the company to do. Vemma and Herbalife thought they could get away with it, and we all know how that turned out.
No buts. No retail in MLM = pyramid scheme.
Oz. thanks for all the answers.
Except for one thing… I’m a customer not a promoter or affiliate of Clickfunnels.
The only reason I wrote my last comment is because I see your post as being ridiculous. I didn’t buy Clickfunnels so I can promote the software or make money. I bought because it’s one of the easiest tools I’ve used. They could take away the affiliate program for all I care and I’d still use the software.
I use the software as a customer. In fact, not a single person I know of who uses ClickFunnels decide to use it because of its affiliate program. No one that I know said “Dang I can make money with clickfunnels…?? I better go out there and recruit people into this!”
Not a single person I know of who uses ClickFunnels bought it for that reason.
They bought it because it’s one of the best pieces of software out there and easiest to use for building out online funnels.
Everyone who’s against ClickFunnels has probably never actually put together an online sales funnel with upsells and downsells and various lead capture pages.
This is one of the stupidest posts you have ever done Oz. It really is.
Tony i ended up understanding. An after you read what’s happened with Vemma or Herbalife. You’ll understand that there is no gray here.
It has to be real clear, customers and affiliates each with single tags and more that 51% should remain clients. if not you are a pyramid scheme.
Clickfunnels has it easy, they make a small change on how they give the ability to earn commissions to their “Clients” (now affiliates) and that’s it. Correct me OZ if i am wrong.
Your fallacy is personal incredulity. You believe your viewpoint is the only correct one, and you don’t believe any other viewpoint can be correct.
yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity
@Tony
You’re an affiliate. The Click Funnels business model doesn’t have any retail customers.
Your anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.
Spot on. If you don’t have retail customers in MLM (ie. the only way to make money is via affiliate recruitment), you’re operating as a pyramid scheme.
Click Funnels needs to differentiate retail customers (cut off from the business opportunity) from affiliates.
Claiming affiliates who don’t recruit are retail customers is the fallback of every product/service based pyramid scheme.
This review is based on false logic. No retail customers? Of course there are retail customers. The fact that a customer automatically gets the right to promote Clickfunnels as an affiliate is irrelevant. By your logic GetResponse would be MLM. And a huge number of webhosts out there for whom customers automatically become affiliates when they sign up for the service.
“A “100% affiliates are out customers” business model in MLM = pyramid scheme.”
The above point is irrelevant. You don’t have to buy Clickfunnels in order to become an affiliate. And, as you have been told, the majority of people sign up for Clickfunnels for the Clickfunnels service – NOT to sell it.
So 100% of customers might be affiliates (even though a huge number don’t care about that and don’t promote it) but not 100% of affiliates are customers. If you did your research properly you might be able to appreciate this difference.
If people had to buy Clickfunnels in order to promote it and the entire business was centered around the recruitment program which then involved the recruitment of affiliates to recruit affiliates to recruit affiliates, then you might be onto something. But it isn’t. And you’re not.
Clickfunnels is a standalone page builder and funnel building software. So you buy the membership to use the software and this makes you an affiliate (if you choose to promote it) too. Whoopy-doo, who cares?
You’d probably find that a lot of the online services you subscribe to do the same thing if you check, for example, a lot of hosting companies. But of course, by your circular reasoning, that would make them MLMs….
You’re on the ball with many of your reviews but on this occasion you’re wrong. Simple as. No need to get all butt-hurt over it.
Wasn’t irrelevant in the $238 million dollar Vemma settlement. Also wasn’t irrelevant when the FTC fined Herbalife $200 million for being a pyramid scheme.
Click Funnels having no retail customers is of crucial relevancy to anyone doing due diligence on the company.
Yeah you do, because affiliate membership and the service are bundled. There is no retail separation.
You cannot speak for the entire Click Funnels affiliate-base. And in any event, these pyramid excuses neither worked for Vemma or Herbalife.
Not wasting my time on hypotheticals. No retail customers in MLM = pyramid scheme.
There is a matter of semantics here. An associate and an affiliate are not nesessarily the same thing.
For instance, if you were to hire a CPA (Ozedit: CPAs have nothing to do with MLM. Offtopic derail attempts removed).
In MLM an affiliate == associate == distributor == any other name a company comes up with.
If you wish to discuss non-MLM definitions do it elsewhere.
Not sure why they have a separate affiliate sign up link that shows the affiliate side is free if they’re just gonna bundle it up.
All they have to do is not let customers automatically be affiliates and say “if you want to be come a affiliate for free click here”.
They have a good product smh.
Please know the difference between a pyramid scheme and an MLM is not that a person is solely an affilaite or solely a customer.
In a pyramid scheme there are no products or services offered. Simply giving money to get money in return. Clickfunnels can be used without marketing clickfunnels.
Thousands upon thousands of websites including people like Tony Robbins uses clickfunnels without marketing clickfunnels. Which means it has functionality outside of their own commission structure.
Clickfunnels also has services. They provide ease of use software to build websites. This isn’t soliciting money, or get rich quick. It is a valuable service to those who don’t know how to build a website but want one or need one.
Skeptics are the worst critics and often times misconstrue truth to psuedo people into their thinking and beliefs. 99% of skeptics are not skeptical, they’re non-believers. Having a positive belief in the negative.
It made MLM requirements by the government’s standard, the highest law in the land. And you still call it a scam. what a joke, there’s no objectivity here just a non-believer on a rant regardless of the evidences.
There’ is no difference. An MLM company with little to no retail activity is a pyramid scheme (ref: Vemma, Herbalife).
The 1990s called, they want their regulation back. Do keep up with the times.
Good to know because I’ve been collecting dog chit for years. I plan to box it and charge $100 each. MLMers will pay it as long as I promise them a huge cut from their downline recruits paying the same.
Idiot. Even this probably went over your head.
I’ve been in mlm not anymore because making money the right way was waaaay to much work for little pay (hence the 90%+ that make little to no money)….
yeah sure they can change the comp plan to make “IBO’s” bring in more retail customers but no one’s going to get rich from it or quit their jobs even at McDonalds with 50%+ volume in true retail sales..
might as well make MLM illegal lol.
Funny how there’s literally millions of businesses around the world that rely 100% on retail sales to turn a profit.
If an MLM company can’t generate retail sales, the company is the problem.
OZ,
I’d think that b2b software would be reliable but still gets ripped apart.
I’m a bit confused by some things.
Even if they don’t promote they’re still affiliates?
– You make a distinction between the CF affiliate program and CF MLM opportunity.
WHat is the CF MLM opportunity if not promoting CF itself aka the affiliate program?
– You say it’s a pyramid scheme because all customers are affiliates.
Doesn’t that make most of the b2b software and tools a pyramid scheme too?
I mean Aweber, Leadpages, GetResponse, Godaddy, Namecheap, etc.
All these software and tools including CF you need to sign up for the affiliate program which is free, you don’t really need to buy the product (except leadpages and maybe few others).
So being an affiliate doesn’t make you a customer. Same goes the other way.
If you buy the software and you want to promote you still need to sign up for the affiliate program. So being a customer doesn’t make you automatically an affiliate. You need to register as an affiliate first and make your affiliate account at least in CF that’s how you do it.
I’m still confused about “CF affiliate program isn’t CF MLM opportunity”. I don’t know which MLM opportunity is that if not the affiliate program. Also confused by “all costumers are affiliates. So it’s a pyramid scheme”.
If CF is a pyramid scheme then so it’s Leadpages (its competitor), right? Because it’s a tool to make sales funnels just like CF and you can promote if you want it. But even if you don’t you’re still an affiliate, so it’s a pyramid scheme too, right?
I don’t get “there’s no retail” because as far as I know buying CF doesn’t make you an affiliate. And being an affiliate doesn’t give you CF. So isn’t everyone who is using CF but not promoting it and not registered as an affiliates – not affiliate and also count as retail?
What makes every other b2b tool and software not a pyramid scheme? They also have affiliate programs. But this “not retail”. Maybe I’m failing pretty hard to understand CF affiliate program and the concept of retail.
Yep, everyone has access to the income opportunity which makes them an affiliate.
Whether you promote/recruit or not is irrelevant. This was fleshed out in the Vemma/Herbalife litigation.
If you’re talking about the early comments, the distinction was made between using CF funnels to promote affiliate opportunities and being a CF affiliate.
What you do or don’t do with the funnels has nothing to do with the MLM side of the business, unless as you point out the funnels are used to promote CF itself.
I believe the reader in question was referring to promotion of external affiliate offers through CF funnels, hence the distinction made.
None of those are MLM and all of those companies have retail customers with no access to an income opportunity.
Signing up all your customers as affiliates is a contractual distinction. The same doesn’t necessarily go the other way.
In ClickFunnels? It’s all the same. There is no retail. There’s one “member” login.
Explained above.
There is a separate affiliate login, but also all ClickFunnels members are affiliates (there’s one login).
You can be an affiliate without being an CF member, but that’s outside of what was reviewed here (and doesn’t negate the “no retail” aspect of the business).
For the MLM companies, having a clear distinction between retail customers and affiliates, as well as generating the majority of company-wide revenue from retail customer sales.
I see great points made on both sides of this argument. I get it, but people need to pay attention to history.
Prostep had great marketing services that were apart of its membership. The majority of the members did not participate in the MLM plan but none of this stopped the FTC from grilling Prostep.
The bottom line is if you have a membership company set up like this you can not have a MLM Comp plan attached.
The days of arguing which affiliates are builders and which are simply customers are gone. Set it up correctly from the start so that the regulators can see the difference.
Prostep learned the hard way. This is not about what it should be. This is simply how it is.
Oz says “No retail makes Click Funnels a pyramid scheme.”
That’s absolutely false. 5,000+ Companies using it (Ozedit: snip, see below)
What happens outside of the MLM opportunity is irrelevant with respect to regulation of the MLM opportunity.
Interesting that someone is still defending Mister Potato Gun.
What’s interesting? nearly all Internet hosting companies and autoresponder services run the same way (Ozedit: snip, see below)
“Nearly all internet hosting companies and autoresponder services” are not MLM opportunities.
As long as you keep opening with blatant lies I’m going to keep snipping.
The only thing proven is you are clown editing 99% of my posts out to respond to further push your own narrative. (Ozedit: derails removed)
Precious gets mad when called out on his bullshit. Yawn.
If you open with lies and then proceed to build an argument around them, I’m not wasting my time. Snip snip, here’s a tissue.
Best of luck with the scamming, I think we’re done here.