Royaltie was reviewed here on BehindMLM back in 2017.

In the comments of our review a reader recently informed me that it was due for an update.

Today we revisit Royaltie’s MLM opportunity with an updated review.

Two years later and Royaltie is still a faceless corporation.

The company provides no executive information on its website, nor is there a corporate address.

Royaltie’s affiliate agreement still suggests the company is based out of Ontario, Canada.

A video on Royaltie’s official Vimeo channel reveals Justin Belobaba is still running the company:

Why this information still isn’t provided on Royaltie’s website is unclear.

The video also reveals Royaltie rebooted itself about a month ago. Although I believe marketing for the new AI suite began 4-5 months ago.

Royaltie’s Products

Royaltie has ditched their “gem” bluetooth spam devices. The company now cliams to offer the

first all-in-one marketing platform powered by artificial intelligence.

Marketing copy on Royaltie’s website suggests their marketing suite spans website hosting, SEO, online advertising, social media, blogging, email, lead management and analytics.

Pricing for Royaltie’s AI marketing suite is three-tiered;

  • Entrepreneur – $87 a month
  • Small Business – $167 a month
  • Marketing Agency – $327 a month

The primary difference between the three price-points is increased quotas within the marketing suite.

The Entrepreneur tier, for example, can only run three “AI marketing campaigns”. The Small Business tier can run five and the Marketing Agency tier ten.

Royaltie also sells advertising impressions:

  • $30 for 5000 impressions
  • $50 for 10,000 impressions (restricted to Small Business and Marketing Agency only)
  • $112.50 per 25,000 impressions (restricted to Marketing Agency)
  • $200 per $50,000 impressions (restricted to Marketing Agency)

Royaltie’s Compensation Plan

Royaltie fail to provide a copy of their current compensation plan on their website.

The following is analysis of what is believed to be official Royaltie compensation documentation, dated late 2019.

Royaltie Affiliate Ranks

There are ten affiliate ranks within Royaltie’s compensation plan.

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

  • Bronze – generate $250 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Silver – generate $1000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Gold – generate $2500 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Platinum – generate $5000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Jade – generate $75000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Pearl – generate $10,000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Sapphire – generate $15,000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Ruby – generate $25,000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Diamond – generate $40,000 in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2
  • Black Diamond – generate $60,000+ in monthly sales volume across levels 1 and 2

Levels 1 and 2 refers to levels 1 and 2 of a Royaltie affiliate’s unilevel team (see “residual commissions” below).

Commission Qualification

As stated in Royaltie’s compensation documentation;

You must have three active Level 1s and an active Affiliate account (Royaltie subscription & commission portal access) to earn commissions.

As I understand it an “active” Royaltie affiliate account is one that has purchased a monthly marketing suite subscription.

In summary, to qualify for commissions a Royaltie affiliate must

  1. purchase a marketing suite subscription; and
  2. recruit and maintain three affiliates who do the same.

Residual Commissions

Royaltie pays residual commissions via 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 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.

Royaltie caps payable unilevel commissions at eight.

A flat commission is paid based on rank for sales volume generated across levels 1 and 2.

Residual commissions across levels 3 to 8 are paid out as a percentage of generated sales volume.

  • Bronze ranked affiliates earn $100 on levels 1 and 2
  • Silver ranked affiliates earn $365 on levels 1 and 2 and 3% on level 3
  • Gold ranked affiliates earn $1000 on levels 1 and 2, 5% on level 3 and 3% on level 4
  • Platinum ranked affiliates earn $2000 on levels 1 and 2, 5% on levels 3 and 4 and 3% on level 5
  • Jade ranked affiliates earn $3000 on levels 1 and 2, 5% on levels 3 to 5 and 3% on level 6
  • Pearl ranked affiliates earn $4000 on levels 1 and 2, 5% on levels 3 to 6 and 3% on level 7
  • Sapphire ranked affiliates earn $6000 on levels 1 and 2 and 5% on levels 3 to 7
  • Ruby ranked affiliates earn $6000 on levels 1 and 2, 5% on levels 3 to 7 and 3% on level 8
  • Diamond and Black Diamond ranked affiliates earn $15,000 on levels 1 and 2 and 5% on levels 3 to 8

Leadership Bonus

The Leadership Bonus is paid out on personally recruited affiliates:

  • Bronze ranked affiliates are paid a $50 Leadership Bonus
  • Silver ranked affiliates are paid a $75 Leadership Bonus
  • Gold ranked affiliates are paid a $100 Leadership Bonus
  • Platinum ranked affiliates are paid a $150 Leadership Bonus
  • Jade ranked affiliates are paid a $200 Leadership Bonus
  • Pearl ranked affiliates are paid a $250 Leadership Bonus
  • Sapphire ranked affiliates are paid a $300 Leadership Bonus
  • Ruby ranked affiliates are paid a $400 Leadership Bonus
  • Diamond ranked affiliates are paid a $500 Leadership Bonus
  • Black Diamond ranked affiliates are paid a $600 Leadership Bonus

Unfortunately Royaltie’s compensation plan fails to clarify what the Leadership Bonus is paid out on.

To receive a Leadership Bonus, your rank must be the same or greater than the Level 1 Affiliate from whom the bonus is earned.

As above the Leadership Bonus is tied to personally recruited affiliates and rank. Beyond that no information is provided.

Joining Royaltie

Royaltie affiliate costs, if any, are not disclosed on the company’s website.

As per commission qualification criteria in Royaltie’s compensation plan, each affiliate is required to purchase a marketing suite subscription.

This pegs monthly Royaltie affiliate costs, at a minimum, at $87 for Entrepreneur, $167 for Small Business and $327 a month.

Which subscription tier a Royaltie affiliate chooses does not impact their income potential.

Conclusion

In our initial Royaltie review we saw their gems as gimmicky at best and flat-out annoying to the public at their worst.

Nobody likes spam and we’re glad to see them go.

The irony of Royaltie now pitching themselves as a marketing focused company, is that they do a terrible job of marketing themselves.

Any MLM company should be providing the public with executive and compensation information on their website. Both should be easy to find and easy to understand.

Royaltie fails on both counts.

There is a copy of their compensation plan tacked onto the very end of the company’s provided nine-page long Affiliate Agreement, however there’s no explanations.

Also the provided compensation plan, when compared to terminology used on Royaltie’s website, appears out of date.

Royaltie do a pretty decent job of explaining the marketing suite, although it’s pretty obvious Justin Belobaba didn’t code everything himself.

Who’s behind Royaltie’s marketing suite is also not disclosed.

This is important given Royaltie’s marketing claims.

Online marketing is a pretty competitive niche, and I’m pretty sure Royaltie isn’t the first company to incorporate AI into their suite offering.

Punch “AI marketing suite” into Google and you currently get 85.7 million results.

So anyway, how exactly does Royaltie use AI?

What is Artifical Intelligence and how does Royaltie use it?

Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a computer program to think and learn.

Our AI engine learns from marketing data about your business and your online audience.

The more data the AI engine receives, the more it learns.

The more it learns, the more it can improve your online marketing presence – from your website to your email to your social media posts.

Oh, it’s just data analysis. Y’know, same as every other automated online marketing suite out there.

Without digging to much deeper into Royaltie’s suite, the company offers a website building service.

Royaltie’s own website is built on WordPress, specifically the free JointsWP theme.

That’s not to rubbish WordPress (BehindMLM runs on WordPress) or suggest custom coding went into Royaltie’s website, it’s just not what I’d expect from a digital marketing company.

From the surface, it seems much of what’s available through Royaltie is template driven. Again, nothing wrong with that – but that’s not what Royaltie are pitching.

I’ll leave it there. If I’m missing something value-wise in Royaltie’s digital marketing offering though, let me know below.

On the MLM side of things, Royaltie forces their affiliates to purchase a subscription – which lays the foundation of how compensation is paid out.

I believe the ambiguity between Royaltie retail customers (if they exist) and affiliates is intentional, owing to the majority of subscriptions being held by affiliates.

I can’t say for sure – just a hunch based on how secretive Royaltie are about their compensation plan and affiliate sign up process.

I noted the same page is presented whether you’re interested in signing up as a Royaltie customer or affiliate, so there doesn’t appear to be any differentiation.

By forcing affiliates to purchase the service to qualify for commissions, Royaltie sets itself up to operate as a pyramid scheme.

There are no retail sales requirements, meaning it’s highly likely Royaltie affiliates are signing up, buying the service and then recruiting others who do the same.

Not a problem if there’s matching retail, but I’m doubtful that’s taking place (reasons above).

If the majority of marketing suite subscriptions are held by Royaltie affiliates, that means the majority of company-wide sales revenue is from affiliates.

According to the FTC, that’d make Royaltie a pyramid scheme.

One final note, if you’re going to drop a product – drop it.

Royaltie have repurposed the term “gem” from their spam beacons to… whatever this is:

How the GEM Program Works

We believe in the power of entrepreneurs to improve their lives and make the world a better place. But not everyone has the resources to get started. We want to help fix that. No strings attached.

The GEM Program is open to aspiring entrepreneurs of all ages, anywhere in the world.

We are looking for candidates who are passionate about starting a business, but who also do not have the resources to do it without our help.

We do not provide loans. We do not make investments.

Our goal is purely to help those less fortunate start a business.

Mmmhmm. Comes across as a shallow SEO attempt to recapture “gem” related searches from people wondering what happened to the spam beacons.

In summary the “pay to play” aspect of Royaltie’s compensation plan is a roadblock.

There’s no need for it, other than to artificially generate sales revenue via mandatory affiliate purchases.

That lends itself to Royaltie’s marketing suite being used to promote Royaltie, which in turn lends itself to Royaltie operating as a closed-loop pyramid scheme.

Under the gem spam beacon model, Royaltie did have a retail offering. So sadly it appears things have gone downhill since 2017.

Approach with caution.

 

Update 16th January 2020 – In response to our concerns about Royaltie’s retail viability, Justin Belobaba claims

As of today, we have approximately 18,000 customers and 2,000 affiliates. 90% of our revenue comes from retail customers.

Belobaba has also clarified that, despite the compensation plan wording, retail sales count towards Royaltie commission qualification.

These two points alleviate much of the pyramid scheme concerns brought up in our review as initially published.

Belobaba’s claim can be seen in the comments below this review (#8 and #21).

 

Update 4th September 2021 – In mid 2020 Royaltie’s marketing suite opportunity was rebranded as Nowsite.