Is Pruvit A Scam? Opportunity or Pyramid Scheme

Welcome to my Pruvit MLM review.

You probably came to this page because you wonder if the Pruvit MLM program is legit or a scam.

No need to worry you’re in the right place.

Over the last years, I’ve been busy creating reviews about all kinds of online products.

Some turned out to be fake other were legit ways to make money online but in the process I learned how to spot scams. 

In this post, I’ll show you absolutely everything you need to know about the Pruvit MLM program and after reading it you’ll know exactly if you should give it a chance.

What Is Pruvit?

Pruvit is a company founded by Brian Underwood on February 13th, 2015.

According to the website, their mission is to make people better. 

They want to achieve that by selling products that improve health, performance, and mental clarity.

The product they are selling is a ketone supplement drink.

They market this product by using MLM which is a form of marketing where promoter recruits people in their team and together they try to sell the product.

Promoters will be paid and receive bonuses based on sales and the performance of the team.

A lot of people say that Pruvit is nothing more than a pyramid scheme but is it?

Find out by reading this Pruvit MLM review.

How does Prufit work

After researching the Pruvit promoters program I found out that it’s actually a very complicated program. They have manuals that in total have 33 pages that explain how it works.

Since I value your time I’m going to simplify it.

In its essence, the Pruvit is an MLM-company.

For those that don’t know what that is, it’s a company that uses independent distributors to sell their products.

These distributors purchase products from the company (often at a discount) and resell them to others for a profit.

These distributors also get the opportunity to earn money by recruiting others to become distributors for the company and earn a commission based on their sales and of their recruits.

These recruits will be called your downline, while you'll be named their upline. Through recruiting a pyramid like structure is formed with multiple levels.

As a result, you earn commissions based on the recruits on multiple levels hence the name multi-level marketing.

Is Pruvit a Pyramid Scheme?

To answer this question we need to know what a pyramid scheme is.

What is a pyramid scheme?

A pyramid scheme is a type of scam where people are promised money for joining the scheme and recruiting other people instead of selling products and services. 

No selling of a product or service is involved whatsoever.

So you might be wondering where the money comes from.

The people that join are expected to pay a one-time or a monthly fee and in exchange for that, they get a percentage of the fee of everyone they recruit after.

The remaining money goes to the creators at the top of the pyramid.

The problem with this model is from a mathematical standpoint it’s impossible for everyone to make money because you simply run out of people.

Take a look at this picture below showing how it’s impossible for everyone to earn money.

Source: Wikipedia

As you can see, in this pyramid model it’s required to recruit 6 people. You’ll notice from the 12th level and further, it’s not possible anymore for everyone to earn money.

The 2.2 Billion people on the 12th level need 13.1 billion recruits in total for them all to make money which is more people than there are currently on Earth.

At the point that people can't be recruited anymore, the pyramid collapses because not enough money is coming in to pay members and sustain the pyramid.

Looking at the description of what a pyramid scheme is, Pruvit can’t be classified as a pyramid scheme from a legal perspective. Pruvit products have given people a method to make money without recruiting people.

That being said, there are pyramid schemes that disguise themselves as MLM companies because MLMs also use a pyramid structure but they sell products and services. 

These pyramid schemes offer products that are almost impossible to sell with the goal of pushing you to recruit people because you supposedly can get higher commissions.

Red Flags of a pyramid scheme in disguise

Often arguments to counter pyramid scheme claims is the sustainability of a company and selling products.

Unfortunately, these aren’t a good arguments because there are a lot of companies that have been running pyramid schemes for over a decade and have been closed down just recently.

These pyramid schemes get an influx of new money by expanding to new countries or introducing new products that are geared to different audiences and turning them into recruiters. 

The influx of new money makes it possible for the pyramid scheme to sustain itself much longer.

The only thing that really indicates that a business is running an illegal pyramid scheme is if the majority of the customers are the business its representatives.

This is why it’s better to look at the following red flags.

1. There is an endless chain in which recruiters are encouraged to recruit other recruiters.
2. Advancement in ranks is based on recruiting rather than sales
3. The compensation plan pays out on 6 levels or more
4. Upline earns more than the person makes the sale
5. You have to pay-to-play

Pruvit seems to posses multiple of these red flags but the balance between recruitment and sales doesn't seem to be at a point that sales is an afterthought. 

Although I don't like them still offering bonuses while the company isn't making a profit on a year to year basis I can't consider it a pyramid scheme because there's indeed a focus on sales.

That being said, it is a bad business opportunity in my opinion.

How to get started with Prufit

1. Sign-up for promoters program
You can sign-up on the Pruvit website.

2. Buy and Resell Pruvit products
The moment you join you’ll have to buy a product and resell them.

3. Recruit people to sell for you
To start making more money and get more bonuses you are going to recruit people and have them selling Pruvit products.

4. Earn rewards and commission
Earn money based on your endeavors through the previous 3 steps.

Interested in making money with Pruvit?

Take these things into account before signing up.

• You have to 18+
• You have to live in a location where Pruvit is allowed to operate ( Some countries have problems with MLM-companies)
• You need a tax identification number (which is a pain in the butt to get when you don’t live in the US)
• You’ll have to pay somewhere around the $500 – $1300 for product to sell just to start.

Who can benefit from Prufit

Who would benefit from joining Pruvit Promoters program:

• People that are good at recruiting and team management

Who shouldn’t join Pruvit Promoters Program:

• People that don’t want to invest money beforehand.
• People that aren’t into recruiting people
• People that want security when it comes to making an income online

Pros and Cons

Prufit Products

If you are thinking about joining the promoter program it’s important to know what exactly you’re promoting and if it really works. Here’s what I found out about the product you can promote.

KETO//OS NAT
It’s a blend that releases ketones in your body. Ketones are basically chemicals that give you energy, repairs DNA, boost immune system and more.

Watch this video for a detailed explanation.

Do Pruvit Products work?

That is hard to say. 

According to the Pruvit website, the products: 

• Elevates mental clarity & focus
• Increases & sustains energy
• Balances digestion, hormones, & Metabolism
• Boosts the body’s natural ketone production
• Supports fat loss

There are studies that show there might be some benefits to having more ketones in your body but that doesn’t say anything about this particular supplement and its effectiveness.

Most customers seem to be very pleased with the effectiveness of the product but there are multiple factors at play that can’t just be ignored. 

One example is the amount of caffeine that is in the supplements. 

There are multiple reviews online that talk about them suspecting that the supplement contains a larger dose of caffeine than some representatives claim.

The burst of energy can also simply be a result of the caffeine. 

The FDA doesn’t evaluate dietary supplements so it’s no use going of their evaluations. 

Thanks to disclaimers on the website we only know what it doesn’t do: 

This product is not a medical treatment, medicine, or weight loss supplement. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

There’s no way to confirm without clinical testing if Pruvit actually works in the way the company says it does. 

That being said, most reviews purely focusing on effectiveness seem to be positive.

Pruvit Compensation Plan

Ways to get paid (Prufit Rewards) 

Pruvit is very similar to a traditional MLM when looking at its compensation plan. 

How much money you’ll earn is heavily based on your rank which you receive by purchasing/selling products and recruiting others to do the same. 

Through these efforts you’ll get: 

• Personal Qualifying Volume (PQV)
  This based on your personal orders and sales

• Team Volume (TV)
  This based on the performance of your recruits

• Group volume (GV)
  Based on how many recruits you have and their performance.

These 3 things are needed to rise the ranks.

Here’s a list of all available ranks and what you need to qualify for it:

Every promoter goes through a circuit set up by Pruvit and depending on at which stage you’re at, how many people you have recruited and how your recruits are performing you get paid.

You have 4 types of rewards that you can get.

• Kickoff Rewards
• Gameplay Rewards
• Residual Awards
• Leadership Rewards
• Partner Rewards

Below I have a picture explaining what you need to do to earn this reward and a picture explaining the basic terminology they use.

How Much Does It Cost To Become A Pruvit Promotor?

It took some digging and math to get a clear understanding of the minimum costs for becoming a Pruvit Promotor. 

Let’s start at the beginning with the starting fee. 

This is an annual fee of $49 for a promotor membership

This membership includes your website, business tools, necessary documents, etc. 

They have a link that you can click to enroll by just paying the membership fee. The only problem is you’ll get a notification that there are some limits to your membership. 

The biggest one (which is the only reason people sign-up in the first place) is that you aren’t eligible for commissions. 

To become eligible for commissions you have 3 options.

No volume will be applied to your account therefore you will not be qualified to earn rewards until you either place an order or register a Customer who places an order.

You need at least 50BV to be eligible for commissions.

This means you have 3 options: 

1. place an order for an enrollment pack 
2. Autoship
3. Enroll a customer 

Option 1: Register & Purchase an enrollment pack

Option 2: Register & Apply for Smart ship

You could also go for smart shipping. 

As soon as you choose this option all of a sudden you have access to single product options and you’ll get a discount on all purchases following the first. 

The cheapest product is named KETO//KICK Lemon Drop (6 servings) and initially costs $42. The following months with the discount it costs $32,76. 

For the remaining 11 months of the year, you’ll at least be spending $360 on Smart Ship for this product. 

So the minimum total expenses for that year to expect is $49 + $42 + $360 = $451. 

This is only the case if 1 order of KETO//KICK Lemon Drop is valued at 50BV which I suspect it’s not judging from how they value the 60 servings of the promotor pack in option 1.

You’ll likely have to double that smart shipping order to get enough BV which results in investing $811.

Option 3: Enroll a customer

This would mean paying the initial $49 to get access to your back office and other business tools. 

After that, you’d have to share products with a potential customer (without having any samples at this point) to become eligible for earning commissions. 

What’s important to know is that just enrolling 1 customer won’t get you any commissions. 

After this point, you’d still need to get to 50BV per month for the remaining 11 months (which will probably be around $1100).

Important* You need to at least enroll 3 customers to get your first commission through the retailer bonus. The commission rate for this bonus is 20%.

The income disclaimer also states that additional expenses are also made as Pruvit promotors such as: 

• advertising
• promotional expenses
• product samples
• training
• travel
• telephone and Internet costs
• business equipment
•  miscellaneous expenses. 

Overall, you’ll be spending either hundreds or thousands of dollars in your initial year as a Pruvit Promotor

Prufit Earning Potential

In theory, the sky is the limit but in reality, we know because of factors such as your ability to recruit, your competition, and the performance of your downlines there’s is often a limit.

You can read everything you need to about these bonuses in the compensation plan but I’m more interested in real numbers. Luckily, Pruvit has published an income disclosure.

There’s a lot of information in this document so I have decided to share with you my findings in quick bullet points of how much money members are making per year.

• Promoter (unranked)
  In 2022, 44.15% (11,149) are unranked Promoters. The average annual income of these Promoters, for 2022, was $10.48
• Rank 1 (R1) Promoter
  In 2022, 16.26% (4,106) are R1 Promoters. The average annual income of these R1 Promoters, for 2022, was $304.18.
• Rank 2 (R2) Promoter
  In 2022, 5.43% (1,371) are R2 Promoters. The average annual
  income of these R2 Promoters, for 2022, was $1,537.98, with a high of $159,999.23
  and a low of $0. 
• Rank 3 (R3) Promoter
  In 2022, .98% (247) are R3 Promoters. The average annual income of these R3 Promoters, for 2022, was $4,993.08, 
• Rank 4 (R4) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.40% (101) are R4 Promoters. The average annual income of these R4 Promoters, for 2022, was $8,639.14.
• Rank 5 (R5) Promoter
  In 2022, 31.44% (7,939) are R5 Promoters. The average annual income of these R5 Promoters, for 2022, was $1,139.73.
• Rank 6 (R6) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.76% (191) are R6 Promoters. The average annual income of these R6 Promoters, for 2022, was $46,017.26.
• Rank 7 (R7) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.35% (88) are R7 Promoters. The average annual income of these R7 Promoters, for 2022, was $82,997.96.
• Rank 8 (R8) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.14% (35) are R8 Promoters. The average annual income of these R8 Promoters, for 2022, was $245,365.4.
• Rank 9 (R9) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.03% (7) are R9 Promoters. The average annual income of these R9 Promoters, for 2022, was $319,661.75.
• Rank 10 (R10) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.04% (10) are R10 Promoters. The average annual income of these R10 Promoters, for 2022, was $728,877.40.
• Rank 11 (R11) Promoter
  In 2022, 0.03% (7) are R11 Promoters. The average annual income of these R11 Promoters, for 2022, was $1,527,993.15.

Key take aways from the Pruvit income disclaimer

There are a few things I find a bit strange about the income disclaimer they’ve published. According to the disclaimer 

The majority of Pruvit Promotors make somewhere along $10,59 annually.
When you look at the numbers per promotor the average annual income per rank doesn’t look horrible.

The problem with averages is that they can rise up drastically if a small minority of the groups earns extremely much.

This is why it’s important to know the median annual because it tells you what most people in that group are earning.

In the most recent income disclosure, they state that the median income is $10,59.

Taking into account the costs that I shared with you earlier, this means that most promotors have lost hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.

44.15% are making an average income of $10,48 a year
Most people aren’t even able to qualify for the first rank.

A big group that earns money is stuck in the middle (and not making money)
There’s a weird spike of people that have qualified to become R5 promotors but every rank lower and higher has considerably fewer people aside from those that are unranked.

What also didn’t make sense is that the annual income for some R5 promotors is $0 while the lowest R4 Promotors had an annual income of $633,42

Apparently, 2 years ago, there was this temporary offer that gave new promotors immediately the rank R5 promotor and their commission rates for your sales and recruits. 

The problem is that doesn’t automatically mean you earn more money.

What I suspect is that the majority of people listed as R5 promotors joined through the offer but only a small minority of them is earning all the money bumping up the average income.

I’m willing to bet the median income for R5 Promotors is a lot lower.

This also explains why R4 promotors are such a small percentage and took 45 months to get to that rank point while R5 promotors are a bigger group and on average took 16 months.

The expenses can easily put you into a loss
There's a disclaimer for the statement that says that the numbers reflect the gross income of the promotors. This means they take a lot less money home after earning these initial numbers.

Almost nobody is earning a full-time income

99,42% is making less than US Full-time income while being with Pruvit for 46 months.

It’s safe to say looking at the numbers that most people are not earning any money and are possibly also losing money.

Why aren’t people earning decent money with MLM companies like Pruvit?

I have summed up the reasons why it’s hard to make money with Pruvit and MLM companies in general into 3 points. As a Pruvit promotor, you’ll have to deal with the 3 points mentioned below.

1. MLM companies are often associated with pyramid schemes
MLMs have a pyramid recruiting structure that you often have to join to be able to make decent money or at the very least not lose money.

The problem is a lot of pyramid schemes disguise themselves as MLM programs making it difficult to differentiate the two.

This is the biggest problem why most distributors have a difficult time recruiting people. The moment people hear about how you can make money by recruiting people red flags appear in most people’s minds.

This isn’t good for your sales.

2. You have to consistently invest your money to earn commissions
You’re only eligible for bonuses and commissions if you buy their products. The bigger the bonuses, the more product you have to buy.

You do get discounts but if you can’t sell the products I can see you easily fall into a financial deficit (which happens to the majority of distributors of MLM companies).

3. The price of the product often isn’t aligned with the market

It’s hard for a multi-level marketer to sell products because most MLM products tend to be a lot more expensive than similar products sold by non-MLM companies.

This means even if you’re really good at recruiting your downline still needs to sell those same expensive products for you to make decent money.

You can see that translated in these statistics I found about Multi-level Marketing.

• Nearly half (47%) of MLM participants reported that they lost money.
• One in four (27%) MLM participants reported that they broke even (made no money).
• MLM participants are 7% more likely to declare bankruptcy during their lifetime.
• Direct sales have risen 79% in the last decade, but MLM participants continue to lose money.
• 90 – 99% of distributors in multilevel marketing only receive a couple of hundred dollars in commission per year.
• Out of the 33,000 interviewed, 90 people made enough money to cover the costs of building their businesses.
• 50% of the people who start a network marketing enterprise abandoned it in the first year.

Sources:
FTC
AARP
Jobsinmarketing.io

Pruvit Reviews, Opinions, and Ratings

Opinions about Pruvit as a MLM program

To add some more objectivity, I looked at what a lot of other people said about Pruvit as an MLM-company. I started with the normal review websites that can be found on Google.

Overall Opinion: Pruvit is not a scam and the product seems to work but it’s not a good method for making money online.

The earning potential is extremely low, you have to invest too much money upfront, and too many people are losing money in MLM in general.

Most of these websites gave Pruvit as an MLM company either a 1 or 2-start rating when it comes to making money with it.

Pruvit Product Reviews 

There are a lot of mixed reviews about the products among users. The majority of customer reviews revolve around 2 things when it comes to Pruvit products.

• Effectiveness
• Taste

Here are a few Pruvit reviews from customers about what they did and did not like after trying out Pruvit products. 

As you can see, most bad product reviews revolve around the taste of the products rather than whether they really worked. 

The positive product reviews for the majority revolve around the product's effectiveness. 

It seems from a pure effectiveness perspective the product works but if taste is a big thing for you it might not be the perfect product to use to stay in ketosis to lose weight.

Additional complaints mentioned by users: 

• Too much caffeine
• Products are too expensive
• Hard on the stomach

My Personal Take: Is Pruvit A Scam?

As I have said at the beginning of this post, Pruvit is not a pyramid scheme or any other type of scam but I don’t consider it a good business opportunity either. 

To be honest, I wouldn't even call this an opportunity.

The product that is being sold seems to be working but the MLM side of the company seems to lacking.

I don’t want to be too harsh but according to the statistics I found, MLM, in general, is a terrible method for making money online.

Most people that get into it either lose money or make no money at all and the people that do make money often make somewhere between the $5 and $12 a year.

They also quit before they become profitable on a monthly basis.

I have no problem with fronloading to earn money with a business but to do that for years seems a bit unreasonable.

After doing a deep dive into the costs of joining and the income numbers I conclude that my time is worth more than what Pruvit offers and I think yours is too.

That is why in 2018, I learned how to create my own website and bring in +$100 a day.

If you’ve decided that you deserve more than the small chance to earn a few bucks

Take a look at my free affiliate marketing course containing a task-based lesson that’ll teach you the basics of affiliate marketing and help you set up a website like mine.

Verdict

That’s all for today.

If you have any questions or you just want to show some love
don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

See you at my next post