Nutonic Review 2.0: Autoship recruitment addressed?
BehindMLM published its initial Nutonic review on June 17th.
On June 19th co-founder Jerry Booth reached out to, among other things;
- accuse me of copying the review “from another webpage”;
- relying on information that was “from the website before it launched”;
- using compensation information “not from the official company plan”;
One of the things I came down hard on with Nutonic was its lack of retail focus.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that one affiliate order satisfies the minimum 40 PV a month rank requirement.
Seeing as only 5 PV from each retail product orders counts toward PV, eight retail product orders are required to meet 40 PV.
It was obvious that Nutonic expected affiliates to qualify for commissions with a self-purchase, reducing it to an affiliate autoship opportunity.
I.e. you sign up as a Nutonic affiliate and you go on autoship. Then you recruit other affiliates who do the same and get paid.
Booth (right with co-founder Kim Booth) objected to this, stating;
Autoship is an option for customers or distributors and is not mandatory.
It’s free to join, no packages or bulk buying required, buy and pay as a guest if required, but yes reps have to be qualified only to get paid. If they retail 3 products a month @ $20 commission on each,$60 they end up $10 in profit to be qualified.
In fairness, if you cannot sell 3 products in a month, then MLM is probably not for you.
After clearing up that every BehindMLM is written from scratch by myself, I requested a copy of Nutonic’s current compensation plan.
Booth obliged, so today BehindMLM is revisiting Nutonic for an updated review.
Nutonic’s Products
Nutonic’s product catalog lists the company’s full range of products. These products span nutritional supplements and personal care.
As noted in our original review, some of Nutonic’s products are not available in some markets.
Nutonic’s Compensation Plan
Nutonic pays commissions on retail sales and recruited affiliate’s first orders.
Residual commissions are paid through a binary team, along with a two-level deep Matching Bonus.
Several rank-based bonuses are also available.
Nutonic Affiliate Ranks
There are eleven affiliate ranks within Nutonic’s compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Affiliate – sign up as a Nutonic affiliate and generate and maintain 40 PV a month
- Brand Associate – maintain 40 PV a month and satisfy residual commission qualification criteria
- Executive – maintain 40 PV a month and residual commission qualification, and generate 2000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Regional Manager – generate and maintain 80 PV a month, maintain residual commission qualification and generate 4000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Director – maintain 80 PV a month and residual commission qualification, and generate 10,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Team Director – maintain 80 PV a month and residual commission qualification, and generate 20,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Executive Director – generate and maintain 120 PV a month, maintain residual commission qualification, recruit a Team Director or higher and generate 40,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Global Director – maintain 120 PV a month and residual commission qualification, recruit and maintain an Executive Director or higher and generate 80,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Ambassador – maintain 120 PV a month and residual commission qualification, recruit and maintain a Global Director or higher, have two Team Directors in your downline (one on both sides of the binary team), and generate 200,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Senior Ambassador – maintain 120 PV a month and residual commission qualification, recruit and maintain an Ambassador or higher, have four Team Directors in your downline (two on both sides of the binary team), and generate 400,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
- Elite Ambassador – maintain 120 PV a month and residual commission qualification, maintain a personally recruited Ambassador or higher, have eight Team Directors in your downline (four on both sides of the binary team), and generate 1,000,000 GV a month in weaker binary team side volume
PV stands for “Personal Volume” and is sales volume generated by an affiliate’s own orders. 5 PV from every retail product sale also counts towards PV.
GV stands for “Group Volume” and is PV generated by an affiliate and their downline.
Residual commission qualification requires an affiliate to recruit and maintain two Affiliates or higher, placed on on both sides of the binary team.
Retail Commissions
Nutonic affiliates earn a 50% commission on sales volume generated by retail customer orders.
Recruitment Commissions
Nutonic affiliates earn a 50% commission on sales volume generated by a personally recruited affiliate’s first order.
Residual Commissions
Nutonic pays residual commissions via a binary compensation structure.
A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, split into two sides (left and right):
The first level of the binary team houses two positions. The second level of the binary team is generated by splitting these first two positions into another two positions each (4 positions).
Subsequent levels of the binary team are generated as required, with each new level housing twice as many positions as the previous level.
Positions in the binary team are filled via direct and indirect recruitment of affiliates. Note there is no limit to how deep a binary team can grow.
Residual commissions are paid as a percentage of weekly sales volume generated on the weaker side of the binary team.
Nutonic determine residual commission rates based on rank:
- Brand Associates and Executives earn a 10% residual commission rate
- Regional Managers and Directors earn a 12% residual commission rate
- Team Directors earn a 14% residual commission rate
- Executive Directors earn a 17% residual commission rate
- Global Directors and Ambassadors earn a 20% residual commission rate
- Senior Ambassadors earn a 22% residual commission rate
- Elite Ambassadors earn a 25% residual commission rate
Note that Nutonic’s compensation plan states that residual commissions “are ‘Capped’, as defined under Ranks.”
The rank qualification section of the compensation plan however fails to specify residual commission caps.
Once paid out on weaker side binary volume is matched against the stronger side and flushed.
Leftover volume on the stronger binary team side carries over.
Note that Nutonic caps residual commissions and the residual commission match (see below), at 60% of an affiliate’s total weaker binary team side volume for that week.
I.e. an affiliate’s residual commissions plus the residual commission match cannot exceed 60% of generated weaker binary team side volume in any given week.
Residual Commission Match
Nutonic pays a match on residual commissions down two levels of recruitment (unilevel):
- Regional Managers and Directors earn a 50% match on level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) and 10% on level 2
- Team Directors earn a 50% match on level 1 and 20% on level 2
- Executive Directors earn a 50% match on level 1 and 30% on level 2
- Global Directors earn a 50% match on level 1 and 40% on level 2
- Ambassadors and higher earn a 50% match on levels 1 and 2
Lifestyle Bonus
Global Director and higher ranked Nutonic affiliates receive a $1500 a month Lifestyle Bonus.
Rank Achievement Bonus
Nutonic pays a Rank Achievement Bonus when affiliates qualify at Team Director and Global Director:
- qualify as an Executive and receive an undisclosed bonus
- qualify as a Director and receive an undisclosed bonus
Joining Nutonic
Nutonic affiliate membership is free.
Conclusion
I still feel the same about Nutonic’s products:
Nutonic’s product offering, while sizable, is nothing special. It’s your usual run of the mill nutritional supplements with a few hemp extract offerings.
I suspect this has all been white labeled from some wholesale manufacturer.
What I will give Nutonic credit for is their pricing, which evidently aims for the $49.95 mark.
Most of Nutonic’s products hit that mark, keeping things affordably simple.
As far as I can tell, Nutonic has removed the “only 5 PV from each retail product order counts towards rank qualification PV”.
This was the biggest tell with respect to Nutonic operating as an affiliate autoship recruitment opportunity.
Based on the updated compensation plan I was sent, I believe 100% of retail sales volume now counts towards retail PV. I say “believe” because it’s not explicitly addressed.
You have the PV info box on the right, which is immediately followed by “how to qualify for commissions”.
This details both an affiliate purchase and retail sales (no retail volume percentage penalty specified).
Residual commissions remain capped, however previously available capped amounts have been removed from compensation documentation.
The 60% cap on the Matching Bonus remains. As noted in our original review;
Residual commissions are already capped, so this rule effectively limits the Matching Bonus, despite it supposedly paying on infinite width.
As far as MLM compensation plan goes, this is very restrictive.
The other major change worth noting is the switch from accumulated binary volume to a monthly requirement.
This makes rank qualification much harder but does stop affiliates reaching a rank and then failing to maintain volume.
At the end of the day your best bet with evaluating Nutonic is ascertaining how your potential upline is running their business.
Unfortunately in the updated Policies and Procedures that Jerry Booth sent me, there’s no mention of “retail sales slips”.
These were slips affiliates were required to keep whenever a retail customer placed an order.
Not having these slips makes verifying retail sales to qualify for commissions harder.
You can still ask how your potential upline is meeting their monthly PV requirement, but now you have to take them at their word.
Bear in mind there’s no reason they can’t quickly log into their backoffice and show you verifiable retail sales. It’s just that the slips made things easier.