I briefly joined Six Figure Mentors and after going through one of their memberships decided that it wasn’t for me. Read this SFM review to find out what happened and if it’s a scam.
So let me spoil why I left Six Figure Mentors. It was because:
1) I personally felt the value I got out of the free membership was not enough to justify buying further into the program (it was VERY little).
2) If you decide to join, perhaps you will feel differently but I’m going to share my opinion in this review.
3) Buying further into the program meant I’d have to invest at least a few $100 and possibly $1,000’s or far more. My experience in this overall money making business is that you can get started making money for way less and I’ll show you alternatives in this review.
4) There IS legit training in SFM and I do not think the program is a scam. In fact, I liked what their upgraded membership called Digital Experts Academy showed, but that would cost me a lot money to truly see and fully experience.
5) I do believe you can make money with SFM, but in my opinion, the REAL value & opportunity is in the pricey upgrades SFM has to offer and while those areas based on my opinion are legit, I believe that…
This is the most important thing:
6) The alternative, far less pricey program called Wealthy Affiliate is a better investment in my opinion because of it’s value offered as well as my results with it.
Whether its Wealthy Affiliate or SFM, I’m going to be objective and let you personally decide which is more suitable for you, but if you’re tight on money, you can join either program for free, but do know that both programs have upgrades, and while SFM’s is pretty expensive, WA’s is in my opinion more affordable and their free membership in my personal opinion has a lot more value to provide.
You can get results from both places.
Quick Report on Six Figure Mentors:
Price: There are 3 memberships:
- Student Access: $25/month.
- Essential: $297 one time fee + $97/month.
- Elite: $2,500 BUT you need to be an Essential member first.
Note: When I tried them, they had a 4th membership which was called Affiliate Access: It was free for 30 days. As of 2020, I do not see this membership available anymore.
Either way, if you join SFM, later on they also pitch you an even higher tier program called Digital Experts Academy and I’ll also explain it in this review. And that upgrade has value based on the first impressions I got when I saw it.
But again, that huge pricing is a big deal breaker for me personally. I didn’t buy further into SFM, nor Digital Experts, so I am being transparent here.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 10 stars.
Based on what I saw inside the free members area, this program starts for free, and then tries to get you to upgrade and high tier memberships. That does offer opportunity and like I said before, there is value, but that price also has it’s own risk as I’ll explain.
Overall, I wasn’t impressed very impressed with the free training I got from SFM (and I will explain what the free training provided shortly) and while I totally get that free programs give you a glimpse of what they offer to get you to upgrade (even my #1 recommendation does this), the value of that free training has to justify me upgrading.
In SFM’s case, I personally didn’t feel I wanted to do that because the value of the free membership didn’t justify it. But you can judge this by joining SFM here and finding out if you want to go further.
In the case of Wealthy Affiliate, the program I personally think is better, I really believe the value they offer in THEIR free membership is far higher and the upgrade afterwards is very low cost. You can check out more info on Wealthy Affiliate here, join them and also see if you wish to go further.
Let me just say this:
I’m glad I got to experience SFM for free and regardless of my review, I do recommend seeing which of these programs in your mind offers more REAL value (don’t let hype be mistaken for value, just my recommendation) and then going with one.
Do I recommend SFM?Â
I want to, but I can’t.
I don’t like recommending very expensive programs personally. But overall, I still stick to recommending the following alternative for this major reason:
Note: I have 2020 and 2021 income reports on the page showing the alternative program.
Six Figure Mentors review (SFM explained):
When I first tried it, it was a high ticket program with 4 membership levels. Then it switched to 3 membership levels that teaches people to make money through creating an online business of their own via list building mainly.Â
However based on the training I personally went through (on their lowest membership level which WAS free) felt more like they were just trying to sell me their upper level memberships, all while offering me very little in terms of ACTUAL training and I did not like that.
Again, there’s contrary examples of programs that offer great value in their free membership and Wealthy Affiliate is the best example of this.
But in any case, you have a choice to either create your own online business through their training and/or promote the SFM program itself as one of their affiliates, which I must say, I personally felt they really did push a lot on me as I progressed through their training modules.
Today (as of 2021, last I looked basically), there is a free membership known as:
The Extraordinary Online Business Startup Bundle:
I haven’t tried this current one yet and I honestly plan to. It probably leads into a more expensive funnel anyway. But here’s what I want to talk about now:
Pros of Six Figure Mentors:
1) Very organized site.
2) It feels like there is a professionalism to the program as you go through it. The video “training” is very high quality.
3) I will assume the training is pretty good in this program, but I have to say, you will have to buy the upper level memberships to get anywhere.
4) As far as I have seen, SFM has been around as early as 2013.
Cons:
1) I personally don’t like that there are 3 level memberships (when I first checked it out).
The problem with that is that each membership of Six Figure Mentors has it’s own restrictions on what you can see inside the overall site, and if you want to see it all, you need to buy their most expensive package ($2,500 on TOP of the existing $97 a month membership):
2) Very expensive as you go further.
The membership prices speak for themselves, but paying $100’s and $1,000’s for training is not acceptable, especially after the disappointing training I went through.Â
3) Further upsells beyond SFM itself exist.
They also later on attempt to try an pitch an even more expensive system known as Digital Experts Academy, which I assume they are partnered with, and the prices of that system dwarf SFM’s prices.
Now I have reviewed Digital Experts Academy and have to give them credit based on what I saw which was transparency on what they teach, which is basically online business encapsulated in the sense that they provide training and courses on various different make money online models.
The issue I have though is that this too is expensive, very expensive…
The most important points I have to say about SFM:
I personally believe I’ve become pretty good at rating the value level a program provides.
When there was a free membership at SFM, I did like that and was happy to join that to estimate it’s value and while of course, most if not all free to join programs have upgrades, including Wealthy Affiliate, the justification to actually upgrade has to only come IF 2 things are present in my opinion:
First: The free membership has to provide a lot of valuable training and content. And like I said before, it’s VERY important to separate hype and TRUE value and because I am experienced, I can do this.Â
Second: With upgrades, I will only recommend it and actually do it if the first thing is present, but also if the PRICE of the upgrade is in my opinion WITHIN means.
So if I join for free and see value, but then notice to upgrade that I would have to pay $1,000’s, it’s a no go for me. But if I see that there is value in the free membership and the upgrade is of a reasonable price range to upgrade to, I will recommend it.
Now for me personally, this was not the case with SFM’s free membership (and again, it’s no longer available). I saw a lot of what I believe to be hype, and not much in terms of what I consider real training and the upgrade pricing was very high.Â
And again, I don’t deny that SFM’s upgraded memberships are legit and have value. If they were cheaper, I might have even recommended them.
But it’s just that after experiencing legit programs like Wealthy Affiliate, which meet those 2 criteria s I listed above (and exceed them frankly), I just find that as a reviewer, it is better to recommend it than SFM. In fact, here is a preview of the free training in Wealthy Affiliate (which is still available by the way):
Unfortunately in Six Figure Mentor’s case, the opposite was true in my personal experience when I joined. The free membership of SFM (which isn’t around anymore as of 2020) was in my honest opinion a big sales pitch to upgrade your membership.
Many of the “training” videos inside the free membership, which are called modules are honestly just general talks about list building, internet marketing, mindsets and rarely is there actual training offered.
- There were no tools provided.
- You got no free sites.
- There’s were a lot testimonials from existing Six Figure Mentor members talking about how awesome the site is and to join them.
- I went in there to get training, but in hindsight, after being there, what I mainly got was one giant sales pitch after another in each module.
Because I knew where this was going (and yes it proved to be true after I finished the free training inside Six Figure Mentors), lo and behold, they pitch their upgrade page and to become an affiliate for them to make high commissions.
That’s when I knew I had to leave because the training centered around promoting them, not so much making your own online business and that is always a major red flag…
And so I left Six Figure Mentors and decided to stick to Wealthy Affiliate instead:
And I see a lot of high ticket programs doing similar things nowadays and I very much dislike it. Now again, I’m not saying SFM is a scam, but those 2 criteria I listed are the most important for me when reviewing ANY program.
More reviews from other SFM members further adding to my points…
Today someone joined Wealthy Affiliate and wrote this comparison about it and SFM:
Now of course this review was one example and I’m sure you can find just as many positive/neutral and negative reviews, so that is something I have done:
Here are some mixed reviews on Six Figure Mentors (SFM):
I want to honestly provide you with different viewpoints on SFM besides my own, so here are links to both positive reviews of SFM and ones that are a bit neutral and contrary to that:
- First, here’s a positive one.
- Second, here is a more neutral one, sort of like my review.
- Third, here’s a review that explains, why the person left.Â
- Fourth, here is a more objective review where there are NO side promotions going on, which is why I say it is objective.
- And here is a fifth one where the review isn’t very positive, but Ethan (owner of the site), tends to be very harsh on the reviews he does, so you decide.
My final Rating for Six Figure Mentors:
Yellow Flag (Caution).
3 out of 10 stars. This program may indeed still be good, but it costs too much to find out and the way they pitch their other memberships inside their free one is really what drove me away from them.Â
My final thoughts: Six Figure Mentors vs Wealthy Affiliate (WA). Why the latter is worth joining:
I’ve been a member of WA for years and with all the high quality stuff they offer (I’ll explain it a moment), it has become the gold standard for what to expect in a good company that teaches people to make money online.Â
And there is no training program that has come close to it since I started. Believe me, I am open minded in looking at other programs, but because they set the standard so high, nothing comes close to this day. Let’s talk specifics though:
5 reasons I picked Wealthy Affiliate over Six Figure Mentors:
There are actually more, but let’s keep to the main reasons:
1) Wealthy Affiliate’s free membership. A clear advantage.
SFM used to have one, but even if it still did, Wealthy Affiliate’s is in my opinion levels above SFM’s because it offer REAL value. SFM’s free training like I said before felt like a lot of hype, and not much training.
2) WA’s simple membership levels (there’s only 2).
WA only has 2 memberships, the free one and the premium one. The premium one is $49/month and everything is included, and I mean everything.
With SFM, the opposite is true. There are 4 membership levels and each has it’s own restrictions, with the exception of the last which is $2,500 + other money. Then there’s also Digital Altitude which has it’s own levels too, and even though they have good training, it’s still a lot of levels to pay A LOT to enter…
And like I said before, I believe in there being good value in SFM, but the price to get it, is not one I liked…
3) The free membership in Wealthy Affiliate gives you:
Free websites, 100’s of lessons in making money online, including a main blueprint for it, free support, live chat and more.
Value: 10 out of 10 stars.
With Six Figure Mentors’s free membership, for me, it was a small sample tutorials on list building and general things about internet marketing.
Value: 3 out of 10 stars.
You’re looking at books of value in WA, even in it’s free training.
When you get so much for nothing out of one program it’s easy to see why I pick WA.
4) You do NOT need to spend gigantic money to make good money online.
WA shows you this and I am someone who (no pun intended) HAS made six figures through their training, as have many others who have done it.
See Wealthy Affiliate success stories and many more of my personal income reports.
The training in WA is beyond high quality, it is the best there is, without question and anyone who has been a member of both these programs will quickly tell you the same thing I am now.Â
5) Wealthy Affiliate exceeds my standards.
As I said before, because I have 2 main criteria by which I determine a program’s value and if it’s worth joining, in WA’s case, both were met and exceeded.
Overall, let me say one last time, that I do believe SFM’s later memberships, training and value are probably huge, but likely come when you upgrade and the gap between the free membership, and it’s value I got, to the pricing I’d have to pay to see if this was true was not a risk I wanted to take.
With Wealthy Affiliate, the opposite is true and I personally think it’s a great program with lots of free value and a more than reasonable upgrade price that offers even more. You can see this for yourself (or join SFM for free) and determine which is better for you.
I am still in this SFM community for more than a year and I am still not making money. The community’s webinars are very useless and expensive.
Everything they explain you in the webinars are also information you can find anywhere. When I needed help on the Facebook group, the responding time was very slow and the information is very useless. I hate it when you receive the call from one of the mentors that they promise you that you will become rich if you follow their course. If that was the case anyone would be rich. Complete scam!
Hi Diego, you’re not the first person I’ve seen share that kind of experience and I’m sorry to hear about that. If you are interested, I can recommend you try the Wealthy Affiliate program and while I can’t speak for SFM, I can speak for Wealthy Affiliate having amazing support and you will get amazing help in building your business. It’s something you can check out on your own for free if you’d like to see that and make your own decision.
I have tried e-commerce on IX from SFM for a year and I spent over 3600$ and I have not learned anything useful.
This community is a complete scam that just wants you to keep paying to get useless information that you can find for free on the internet. I am managing my e-commerce business good due to my own hard work and other resources. You should not be in a community to become successful. You won’t get richer, you will just make the community richer. Just ask yourself why somebody wants to make you rich in the first place?
Hi Mendo, for certain points I agree with you, and I’m sorry to hear about your Six Figure Mentor experiences. The prices are one of the reasons I am not a fan of that place, but your experience really adds to that.
One area I disagree with you on is about the mention of a community. Depending on the type of community you have can really change things, and of course, if a community is nothing more than hype and unhelpful people everywhere, sure that is bad, but on the other hand, if a community truly has awesome help and guidance, it can really make a huge difference.
I’m saying this because I personally know from experience that the Wealthy Affiliate community is such a place (and has awesome training).
In terms of your eCommerce business doing well now due to your hard work, that’s awesome and I hope it keeps growing man! But I can also say that WA does have good training on building eCommerce websites up too, so if you are open to the idea of trying a really awesome program that doesn’t cost a lot, I would recommend Wealthy Affiliate.
Appreciate the heads up on this program. This is just another one of those money programs which just keeps upselling you and expects you to do the same to others.
It is one thing learning how to market correctly online, and it is quite another to use that knowledge to take advantage of others’ inexperience.
Many of these programs have some value but their sales pages greatly over exaggerate the potential and how the program really works. I agree with you that Wealthy Affiliate is heads and shoulders above this program.
The thing is, I’ve seen affiliates for SFM promote their system on places like YouTube and across many blogs, so being that I ran into them means SFM is teaching the right marketing methods, but I have heard from one member who signed up for their upper tier membership that it is only at the much higher levels where the real training is provided.
And while one may argue that this may justify spending so much on SFM, I argue that with Wealthy Affiliate, you can get that value without investing as much as SFM would make you spend.
I once was a free member of the SFM program, but I found the Wealthy Affiliate and continue to stay with this program. I agree with you there is a big difference between SFM’s free program and WA’s free program.
With WA, you get the real lessons and tools to create your online business. The big one is 2 free websites. With SFM, you basically get nothing with the free account.
The strategy of offering a free account, then hit you with different level of membership seem to be a cash cow for SFM. They use the live local event to persuade people to upgrade their membership level. To me, these events are just a big sale event and you learn nothing from them.
I agree with you, avoid SFM and try the free WA to see the (better) differences.
TQ thanks so much for mentioning your SFM experience and also mentioning the live local events, as I have heard of these things and I suspected that those types of events are also great places for them to bring in more members, possibly through the same funnel.
Glad to hear you enjoy WA more.
You are not the only one who got involved with Six Figure Mentors. My friend, Dave, broke his accumulated savings from Wealthy Affiliate to purchase the Elite membership of $2,500 even though I advised him against doing such.
The tools they provided for him together with the lessons at this top class were just too professional and cumbersome to handle by him. Now he regrets not sticking solely with Wealthy Affiliate.
Is Dave still with SFM Darrick?
I have been reading about two other similar programs:
Empower Network and MOBE.
And now the latest addition here comes from Stuart Ross and Jay with Six Figure Mentors (SFM). Do people really fall for this?
I read your review with interest and searched the net for what other people have to say about this program. At first glance, the free membership seems to be a great gesture by the owners.
In reality, however it’s just “clever baiting” to have you subscribe to their email list. The value of the videos is minimal and half the time its all about bragging about their riches. If you push aside the ridiculous price of this program, the training offered by SFM isn’t half bad and you may benefit from some of the course modules.
The courses cover many topics from the marketing and technical aspects that can help you grow an internet marketing business. However because their training is all about promoting the overpriced SFM affiliate program, I agree with you in calling it a scam. I also agree with your affordable alternative, Wealthy Affiliate.
Enrique hi, it just happens to be that both Empower Network and MOBE are both gone and ran their own schemes in the MLM and high ticket department that caused them to get a lot of complaints and eventually get the attention of places like the FTC.
In any case, regarding SFM, they have their own individual business model, and I personally don’t like how they operate. I agree they offer value, but the cost to reach that value, is not one I’d recommend to beginners, especially beginners that can’t invest this type of money.
I’ve been working with Wealthy Affiliate for years and consistently see the same kind of training taught across other, more expensive programs. Why wouldn’t I suggest people try the cheaper one? I’m glad we agree!
Thank you for this great and helpful review. I sense that your review was unbiased and honest. I am always skeptical about platforms of this type. I don’t think any legit platform will charge as much as $2,500 to access all its features. The 4 membership level is a bit shady and I don’t think I can venture into this.
Well it’s $2,500 a year Clement, and if you end up upgrading further, into the Digital Expert Academy program, you are looking at spending even more.
However, let me say that paying this much isn’t a sign of a scam, and there are LEGIT programs out there which cost this much and more (Experts Academy is a good example), but the issue I have isn’t the price, it’s the sales funnel and how I learned very little if nothing about making money online from the trial SFM offered me.
It literally just hyped me into buying their upgraded membership WITHOUT teaching me much about the business, and that is why I look at the higher membership levels with MASSIVE skepticism.
Programs like Wealthy Affiliate give SO much free value (check out the details here), before asking you to upgrade, and that itself is SO much cheaper than SFM…
Hi Vitaliy, first let me congratulate you on this in depth review of six figure mentors. This really got my attention because 15 months ago, I went looking on the internet to make money out of desperation.
I searched and kind of got hooked by SFM and their other members promoting it. The problem was the lack of evidence and the fees they were asking as I didn’t have either of the above. I watched all the email marketing stuff but I wasn’t quite clued up in the online world. Anyway long story short, I skipped it when I found Wealthy Affiliate and the free, no credit card trial.
Looking back now, I am glad that I did 🙂
Hi Billy, I can relate to that same experience with SFM too and am also glad I was already part of Wealthy Affiliate when I found SFM, it better helped me compare both programs and see why there’s such a stark difference between what both programs offer in terms of price and FREE value, where WA is the clear winner.
Hi there. I just finished reading through your review of SFM and thought I would share my thoughts. I actually joined this program quite a while ago and was of the same opinion.
I can understand some people falling for this and paying for the higher priced memberships, but the poor training in the beginning was enough to put me off (thankfully).
I got very little out of the so called free membership, which very quickly turned into a sales pitch for moving up to the next level. Everything seems like its designed to keep the sales rolling in for the creators of this system rather than giving the student enough information to make a real online business.
I definitely won’t be going back to this one!
We both have the same critical thinking going on and noticed the sales funnel going on Andrew.
Hi Vitaliy, Thanks for this review. I think it is a fair opinion to draw on Six Figure Mentors for the free membership level.
I am not currently promoting Six Figure Mentors but I am a member of the Digital Experts Academy and I can recommend the Brand Incubator program you get at the higher membership level for people who want to build a personal brand. I agree that Wealthy Affiliate is a fantastic program and I highly recommend this as well.
It is true that Six Figure Mentors programs are pricey but the main difference I think between the two programs is that Six Figure Mentors has live events in various locations that members can attend. If someone finds it hard to motivate themselves to build an online business or benefits from having accountability partner within the same membership program, Six Figure Mentors does that very well as their support network is very good. Sometimes meeting members and mentors in person can boost that motivation. But in terms of the free training program itself, Wealthy Affiliate is an overall excellent choice. I think your article explains the difference between the free memberships well.
Yumi hi, thanks so much for sharing how you’re doing. I actually did review Digital Experts Academy, and aside from their prices, I like what they have to teach.
I’m glad that SFM offers good support, but I have to say, in regards to support and the prices, Wealthy Affiliate is just as good (on a digital level) and the prices are also awesome. They DO teach you to build your own brand, but for way less and because I’ve been doing this in my online business for years, I know it works.
You really seem like an ethical person, have you considered joining Wealthy Affiliate and promoting it too? Or even checking out their training to create a business in another field that promotes something else? They teach both options very well.
Thanks for the article, a lot of good information. I had not heard of the six figure mentors program before, but I have seen similar programs. They all seem to have one thing in common and that is you have to pay an exorbitant fee to start making “real money”. And on top of that, they encourage you to promote their own product, so that you are paying them to send them more business.
Hi David, I believe what you’ve experienced is other high ticket programs in the MMO world. This is the newest trend and it’s been that way since high ticket MLM programs received a bad rep.
Six Figure Mentors sounds like it is simply a classic pyramid scheme: Sell memberships to two or more people, and then they sell to two or more people, then the next batch of suckers sells to two or more people, and before you know it, the whole world consists of members of Six Figure Mentors.
Thank you for the warning I will avoid this outfit. I like Wealthy Affiliate because there is no pressure from the WA side to choose to sell WA memberships. I chose to sell WA memberships as a default. But there are literally thousands of different niches that I could have chosen, and someday I probably will choose a different niche. I get the strong impression that I would not have had that option in the Six Figure Mentors platform. Best wishes.
Hi Paul, so I need to clarify 2 things:
1) Six Figure Mentors is not a pyramid scheme. There is no MLM structure in their compensation. You only make direct sales and whatever sales your referrals make do not impact you.Â
2) From what I saw, the training in Six Figure Mentors does show you how to run your own business outside of promoting them, but the training I went through in the free membership heavily pushed me in the direction of promoting SFM, and I know from high ticket programs I’ve reviewed in the past, they do this same thing where the majority of the training is centered around promoting them or at least that’s the impression their members have. When the training is talking about making money, then cites their own program as a way to do it, over and over, it gives people the impression that this is the way to go.Â
I never consider a product like Six Figure Mentors a good deal. Reason being that there are too many levels, so I stay away from them. To me the disparity is always too wide and doesn’t give the lower level great financial success. I got into a few of those so-called programs and had little or no success.
A year ago, I found Wealthy Affiliate and I am still with them today. Their training is definitely top of the pack, so I look no further, because I am satisfied and feel comfortable with where I am going with them. I am really glad I found Wealthy Affiliate.
Great point about disparity in memberships Carol. I also found this to be a huge con, even though I didn’t really think of the same word. Having such a huge difference in membership benefits and that many memberships overall can leave the user confused while in a tight spot when they don’t know if they want to spend more on the higher levels, which are essentially the last 2 where you spend $100’s and $1,000’s.Â
Like I said, in WA, there’s only 2 and the latter, paid membership is all access to everything in WA, which I would say provides overwhelming value for an extremely low price tag.
Hi Vitaliy, thanks for your informative post about Six Figure Mentors. To be honest, any program that costs $2,500 per year seems dubious. Most importantly, if their courses don’t provide any solid information and you don’t gain anything, then spending your money on it would just be madness. At least I now don’t have to waste my time checking it out. Thanks.
Hi Anita, let me be clear in saying that it was the first level of their membership where I felt I was provided no real value and the $2,500 offer they have for their “best” membership provides the most value, but again, it’s not JUS $2,500. You already have to be paying $97 a month to be eligible + there’s a $297 initial fee for that $97 a month.