iGrow Network Review: $50 a month recruitment scheme

iGrow Network began life as vLeaf (also known as Leaf International or Vision Leaf), an ad-credit Ponzi scheme with a matrix recruitment backend.

vLeaf launched in 2012 and collapsed after a brief run.

In 2014 the scheme resurfaced as Leafit, with Founder and CEO Lawrence Sowell at the helm.

Leafit sought to distance itself from its vLeaf Ponzi days, by branding itself as a “people’s app”.

The basic gist of the mobile app was that it allowed users to post third-party images on social network. Those images contains products, which the Leafit app tagged and attached affiliate shopping links to.

Someone buys the product through that link, Leafit gets commission and then splits that revenue with its affiliates.

Tacked on to that was a recruitment scheme, which also saw Leafit affiliates paid to recruit new affiliates.

Ultimately Leafit failed, with the website today notifying visitors that the Leafit “product is no longer available”:

The latest incarnation of the opportunity is the iGrow Network, which launched mid last year.

Listed as CEO of the iGrow Network is Michael Green (right), former Vice-President of Sales in Leafit.

Lawrence Sowell is still on board but appears to have taken a behind the scenes role in iGrow Network.

Sowell was promoting iGrow Network in Asia earlier this year:

Read on for a full review of the iGrow Network MLM business opportunity.

The iGrow Network Product Line

A new kind of Social Marketing

We provide the EDUCATION and TOOLS to explode any business, whether online, offline, networking, or traditional – through leveraging and monetizing thepower (sic) of social networks.

iGrow Network market their social network, “it” (“lifeonit.com”).

“It” is purportedly

the first social network where you can shop, save and earn all while sharing content with your family and friends. Patent Pending.

“It” membership is free, with the membership itself separate from iGrow Network affiliate membership.

“It” social network seems to be the only service marketed through iGrow Network, with the company otherwise failing to have any retailable products or services.

The iGrow Network Compensation Plan

The iGrow Network pays affiliates when affiliate links in the It social network are used, with the rest of the compensation plan dedicated to the recruitment of $50 a month fee-paying affiliates.

iGrow Network Affiliate Ranks

There are six affiliate ranks within the iGrow Network compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

• Associate – pay $50 a month in affiliate fees
• Manager – recruit and maintain three affiliates and have a downline paying $600 or more in monthly affiliate fees
• Director – recruit and maintain five affiliates (at least one Manager ranked affiliate in two individual unilevel legs), and have a downline paying $1500 or more in monthly affiliate fees
• Senior Director – recruit and maintain ten affiliates (at least one Director ranked affiliate in three individual unilevel legs), and have a downline paying $5000 or more in monthly affiliate fees
• Executive – recruit and maintain fifteen affiliates (at least one Senior Director ranked affiliate in four individual unilevel legs), and have a downline paying $25,000 or more in monthly affiliate fees
• Senior Executive – recruit and maintain twenty affiliates (at least five Executive ranked affiliate in five individual unilevel legs), and have a downline paying $200,000 or more in monthly affiliate fees

E-commerce Commissions

If a user of the It social network purchases a product or service through a network-generated affiliate link, iGrow Network pay the affiliate whose social network page the link was placed on, a commission.

This commission is payable down nine levels of recruitment, using a unilevel compensation structure.

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 go on to 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.

For e-commerce commissions, iGrow Network cap payable unilevel commissions as follows:

• personal purchase by an iGrow Network affiliate on their own social network page = 5% commission
• someone else purchasing through an affiliate link on an iGrow Network affiliate’s social network page = 10% commission
• levels 1 to 9 through the unilevel = 5% commission

Note that these percentages are not of the sale price of whatever is purchased, but rather are a percentage of the commission paid to iGrow Network via the third-party that owns the product or service purchased (typically 1-5% of the price paid).

Recruitment Commissions

iGrow Network affiliates are paid to recruit new affiliates, down three levels of recruitment (unilevel).

For each new iGrow Network affiliate recruited, the recruiting affiliate is paid a $12.50 commission.

Once an iGrow Network affiliate recruits one affiliate, they unlock level two commissions which pay out a $1.50 commission per affiliate recruited.

Two personally recruited affiliates are required to unlock the third level of recruitment commissions, which also pay out $1.50 per affiliate recruited.

Recruitment Bonus Pool

iGrow Network take 10% of all affiliate fees and pay them out to their top recruiters each month.

These payments are made via two Recruitment Bonus Pools, each made up of 50% of the 10% in affiliate fees set aside each month (effectively each pool is made up of 5% of affiliate fees collected company-wide).

iGrow Network affiliates can earn shares in each of the two pools via meeting the following recruitment criteria:

• Pool 1 – every 3 affiliates recruited in one calendar month generates 1 share
• Pool 2 – every 5 affiliates recruited in one calendar month generates 1 share

Shares reset at the start of each month, with an affiliate able to qualify for as many shares in a month as they are able to satisfy the above criteria.

Note that iGrow Network affiliates who qualify at the Director rank only receive Recruitment Bonus Pool payments the first month they qualify a the Director rank (see “Director Recruitment Commissions” below).

Director Recruitment Commissions

Once an iGrow Network affiliate reaches the Director rank, they cease earning in the Recruitment Bonus Pool and instead qualify for Director Recruitment Commissions.

These commissions are paid by way of three bonuses, with the bonuses paid out once per new affiliate recruited.

• Bonus 1 – $1 per new affiliate recruited, paid out to Director, Senior Director, Executive and Senior Executive ranked affiliates
• Bonus 2 – 50 cents per new affiliate recruited, paid out to Director, Senior Director, Executive and Senior Executive ranked affiliates
• Bonus 3 – 50 cents per new affiliate recruited, paid out to Director, Senior Director and Executive ranked affiliates

Across each Bonus, the applicable ranks qualify for a payment. Ie. in Bonus 1, a $1 commission is paid to a Director, Senior Director, Executive and Senior Executive ranked affiliate separately.

Each bonus is paid to the immediate upline of an affiliate who recruits a new affiliate, with the system searching for the first qualified Director or higher to begin paying the bonus out to.

Once Bonus 1 has been paid out, the system resets back to the immediate upline and begins paying out Bonus 2. Once Bonus 2 has been paid out the system returns to the immediate upline and pays the final Bonus 3 payment.

Note that affiliates who receive payments in earlier bonuses may be skipped so that other qualified affiliates higher in the upline at the same rank receive a bonus payment.

Depending on how many affiliates are in the upline, it is also possible for an affiliate to receive multiple payments across the Bonus levels.

Residual Recruitment Commissions

Associate and Manager ranked iGrow Network affiliates are paid a cut of recruited affiliate fees each month.

These commissions are paid out via bonus pools, similar to the direct Recruitment Bonus Pools.

There are two residual recruitment bonus pools, each made up of 3% of affiliate fees collected by iGrow Network each month.

Affiliate can qualify for shares in each of these pools as follows:

• Pool 1 – maintain three fee-paying personally recruited affiliates for that month
• Pool 2 – maintain five fee-paying personally recruited affiliates for that month

These are ongoing qualifications, with affiliates able to earn multiple shares based on the total number of fee-paying affiliates they have recruited (who retain iGrow Network affiliate membership from month to month).

Matrix Commissions

Residual recruitment commissions in iGrow Network are also paid out via a 3×9 matrix.

A 3×9 matrix places an affiliate at the top of the matrix with three positions directly under them (level 1):

The second level of the matrix is generated by splitting each of these first level positions into another three positions each.

The third level of the matrix is generated by splitting level 2 positions into another three positions each, and so on and so forth down a total of nine levels.

Commissions are paid out as a percentage of the monthly affiliate fees charged affiliates placed in the matrix.

How much of a commission and how many levels of the matrix an iGrow Network affiliate can earn on is determined by their personal recruitment efforts:

• recruit and maintain one affiliate = 4% on levels 1 to 3 of the matrix
• recruit and maintain three affiliates = 4% on levels 1 to 6 of the matrix
• recruit and maintain five affiliates = 4% on all 9 available levels of the matrix

Note that as affiliate fees are monthly recurring, so too are the above matrix commissions.

Infinity Leader Bonus

The Infinity Leader Bonus kicks in once an iGrow Network affiliate achieves the rank of Director.

The Infinite Leader Bonus pays out in an identical manner as Director Recruitment Commissions, but on the residual $50 a month affiliate fee (the Director Recruitment Commissions pay out on the first $50 fee payment).

Joining iGrow Network

iGrow Network affiliate membership is $50 a month.

Free iGrow Network affiliate membership exists, but these affiliates do not participate in the iGrow Network MLM business opportunity.

Conclusion

iGrow Network is obviously an expansion of the Leafit app, except this time around the company is pushing affiliate links through its own social network.

The problem?

The social network commissions (“e-commerce”) pay peanuts, with the bulk of the iGrow Network compensation plan built around affiliate recruitment.

To emphasize just how peanuts e-commerce commissions through the It social network are, typically you’re looking at a 1-5% affiliate commission via a referral link.

On a $100 product, this equates to $1 to $5 paid to iGrow Network as the owner of the affiliate link.

They then share 5 to 10% of that with their affiliates.

5 to 10% of $1 is 5 to 10 cents and 5 to 10% of $5 is 25 to 50 cents; Neither of which is anything to get excited about.

As such it’s pretty obvious the bulk of commissions paid out through iGrow Network are going to be based on affiliate recruitment, which reduces the opportunity to that of a pyramid scheme.

iGrow Network affiliates sign up for $50 a month, recruit others affiliates who do the same and get paid.

Commissions continue as long as everyone pays their $50 a month, with those at the bottom required to recruit to justify their own $50 a month continued payment.

As with all pyramid schemes, once affiliate recruitment slows down those at the bottom are going to have a hard time justifying $50 a month.

This will see them one by one cancel their $50 a month payments.

That in turn means the affiliates above them stop getting paid, which means they too will eventually stop their monthly fee payments.

As this effect trickles up the iGrow Network company-wide affiliate genealogy, eventually an irreversible collapse is triggered.

This is pretty much what happened with Leafit, with iGrow Network featuring a deeper compensation plan but the same core recruitment-driven problem.

Until the lack of a retail offering to retail customers being an aside rather than the core of the business is addressed, iGrow Network will suffer the same fate at Leafit before it.