You probably came to this page because you wonder if Unicity is a scam, pyramid scheme, or a legit opportunity.
No need to worry you’re in the right place.
Over the last few years, I’ve been busy creating reviews about all kinds of online products.
Some turned out to be fake others were legit ways to make money online but in the process, I learned how to spot scams.
In this post, I’m going to look at Unicity’s history, income statements, and compensation plan to find out if Unicity is legit or a scam.
I’ll also recommend an alternative at the end of my post for people who are interested in earning money in a different way.
Is Unicity A Pyramid Scheme or Scam?
Name: unicity
Website:
unicity.com
Founded by: Enrich International and Rexall
Product Type: MLM Program
Earning Potential: Low
Risk: High
Price: $40 + Monthly Quota
Summary:
Unicity is a health and wellness company that manufactures and distributes nutritional supplements and herbal medicines.
Unicity as a separate entity has been around since the year 2000. Unicity can be considered a legitimate MLM company but like a lot of MLM’s doesn’t have a high earning potential.
According to their numbers, it’s safe to assume that the majority of members last year lost money. Unicity hasn’t published enough to confirm if this is because they quit before it became profitable or if they had to deal with the most occurring MLM pitfalls.
Similar to:
Shaklee, Lifevantage, Young Living, Thrivent, Avon
Recommended: No
Interested in learning how to earn +$100/Day (Without paying or recruiting)?
Take a look at my alternative.
What is Unicity?
Unicity is a company that distributes health and wellness products.
Unicity began its journey with Bios Life (later named “Balance”). Bios Life was meant to support healthy cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
Before Unicity was Unicty it was part of Rexall.
Rexall was a chain of American drugstores and the name of their store-branded products.
The stores have been around since 1903. Rexall had more than 12,000 drug stores across the United States from 1920 to 1977.
Sundown, a maker of sunscreens, acquired the Rexall trademark in 1985, in a hostile takeover, and continued to produce nutritional supplements and remedies under the new name Rexall-Sundown which Unicity was a part of.
In 1991, Unicity started using a new distribution model after franchising stopped being effective because of discount chains, such as Thrifty Drug and Eckerd, and later in the 1960s, CVS Pharmacy.
They started getting into network marketing, which eliminates the majority of advertising costs and made it easier to explain the function of the supplements to the end-user.
In the year 2000, the Unicity Network division was to be sold to Activated Holdings a privately held company.
The deal fell through, and Unicity Network was sold to its management and merged with enrich international becoming the Unicity you know today.
Unicity is active in countries such as Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Greater China, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Germany, Venezuela, Sweden, Columbia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Korea, the United States, and others.
Steward Hughes is the current CEO and has held this title since 2001 when the merger took place.
Unicity Controversy & Lawsuits
False claims from members
Unicity Salesforce members were found spreading false claims on social media in 23 Facebook posts.
Here’s a post of with some of the claims that were spread about Unicity products.
None of the claims made in the social media posts was backed up by science.
There were also some earnings claims made such as:
“How to Earn Extra Income With Unicity;” “That’s what Unicity is all about…an opportunity to make anything from extra money …make life-changing income…travel the world or be stay-at-home parent.”
MLM programs rarely provide you with life-changing income and it also doesn’t come close to what members supposedly are earning according to the income disclaimer they published.
Unicity didn’t substantiate claims but started removing most of the posts.
Not all posts could be removed because most of them were posted on accounts outside of the US of which the owners didn’t respond when they tried to contact them.
Source: BBB Programs
2014 Unicity lead incident
In 2014, Unicity was accused of failing to share with its users and in its marketing that some of the products might contain lead. By not sharing this, Unicity was in violation of California law in the County of Alameda.
Here’s a full list with all the products that contained lead.
Unicity International Inc. Bios Life BM&C Plus
Unicity International Inc. Unicity Balance
Unicity International Inc. Bios Life Bios Life2 Original
Unicity International Inc. Soy Protein
Unicity International Inc. Bios Life Slim
Unicity International Inc. SIG
Unicity International Inc. Unicity Paraway Plus
Unicity International Inc. Cardio-Essentials
Unicity International Inc. ChloroPlasma Plus
Unicity International Inc. Enzygen Plus
Unicity International Inc. Red Clover Plus
Unicity International Inc. Bios Life Vascular Complete
Source: State of California website
How does Unicity work?
Unicity is a company that distributes health and wellness products. Instead of directly selling it to consumers they have chosen to use the MLM model which gives you the choice to earn money by:
- Selling the products for a commission
- Recruiting people to earn bonuses.
What is MLM?
MLM (a.k.a network marketing or direct selling) stands for multi-level marketing.
According to Wikipedia, multi-level marketing is a marketing strategy for selling products or services where the revenue is derived from a non-salaried workforce.
As a part of this workforce, you sell the products from the company, and/or recruit people to do the same thing. This group of people you recruit will work under you and is referred to as your downline.
The bigger your downline is the more money you can earn passively (technically speaking) because you’re getting paid a percentage based on the performance of your downline.
This also means the person that recruited you which is called your upline is making money based on your performance.
The act of recruiting turns an MLM company into a pyramid-shaped organization where the first people to join make the most and are on the top of the pyramid and those last to join are at the bottom.
Source: Wikipedia
MLMs have been around for a long time. There are Multi-level marketing companies active today that were founded in the 1950s. MLM has a lot in common with pyramid schemes, so scammers often use MLM to disguise their pyramid schemes.
Is it necessary to recruit people? No.
You can also stick to just selling products you can order at wholesale price (most of the time this is a 10% – 25% discount) and re-sell to make a profit.
This is easier said than done for multiple reasons which is why most members try to recruit others so they can earn more money.
How to join Unicity
Most people get referred to Unicity but you can also sign-up through their website dependent on where you’re located.
You can join Unicity either as a member or as an independent distributor
What is a Unicity Member?
Someone that loves Unicity products and gets perks when they personally purchase products.
Some of these perks are:
- Free Membership
- Discount Product Pricing
- Earn Product Credits
- Free Shipping on all Subscriptions
You can sign up as a Member by creating a Unicity account by visiting membership.unicity.com.
If you were referred by a Member or Distributor, you can enter the referral code during signup to get even more perks.
What is a Unicity distributor?
A membership that gives you the capability to hold stock and recruit others with the goal of earning cash and lifestyle bonuses.
A distributor is provided with benefits such as:
- Wholesale Product Pricing
- Earn Commissions on Product Sales
- Build Your Business Your Way
- Growth Incentives (Trips & Rewards)
- Training and Education
- Business Building Tools
- Networking Opportunities
- Be Part of a Community
To become an independent distributor you need to follow 3 steps:
Step 1: Pay the starters fee
Step 2: Sign the agreement
Step 3: Recieve training & Start sharing
Step 1: Pay the starters fee
Once you're ready to pay the starters fee, Unicity will present you with 2 choices for your starters pack.
1. The Basic Distributor Only kit
The distributor only kit comes with a getting started guide and no additional support and resources.
2. The Business Builder kit
The business builder kit is supposedly for people that want to hit the ground running and start earning as soon as possible. Here’s a list of the resources the Business Builder Kit contains.
- The $40 enrollment fee will be waived
- 10 ready-for-resale Feel Great packs including shipper box and diamond bottles
- $250 off all future Feel Great 10-Pack purchases
- Access to digital business-building tools + a printed copy of our Distributor onboarding guide
- One FREE session with a Unicity Business Coach
- 10 points towards Centurion (an elite level bonus!)
- 3 active legs away from Manager rank in your first month
Step 2: Sign the agreement
You’ll have to sign an agreement containing the terms and conditions you have to uphold as an independent distributor.
Step 3: Recieve training & Start sharing
You go through the training and you can start selling products and recruiting people to earn bonuses.
Unicity Compensation Plan
Unicity is very similar to a traditional MLM compensation plan.
How much money you’ll earn is heavily based on your ranks which you receive by meeting Unicity’s compensation plan qualifications.
There are three factors to meeting qualifications:
- Personally purchase (or resell) enough product volume to qualify
- Recruiting enough customers (who become your downline) to qualify at your desired level.
- Your downline purchasing (or reselling) enough products.
You’ll receive different types of points (personal volume, team volume, etc.) for doing these actions. What type of points you get can differ.
As I said in the beginning, as a distributor you’re not a part of Unicity which they make very clear in their agreement.
This means you won’t be earning a salary. You’ll earn money based on commission and bonuses that come in 8 forms.
1. Retail Profit
Purchase products at wholesale prices and resale them at retail prices and keep the profit.
2. Personal Rebate
Receive a refund of 10% from Unicity on every product you’ve sold.
3. Fast Start Bonus
A bonus that gets paid out when you or someone in your downline enroll a new distributor.
To be eligible for this bonus your need to have at least 1000 PV in a New Distributor’s First Volume Month.
The enroller is paid 10% and the sponsor of the enroller also gets a percentage dependent on their rank.
4. Director Lifestyle Bonus
These are cash bonuses awarded every time you reach a new rank up to 6 times. Distributors can earn up to $1000 on a monthly basis.
5. President’s Club Bonus
A bonus is awarded when you hold a rank for 3 consecutive months starting at the presidential director rank. You’ll receive a bonus ranging from $10.000 up to $120.000 dependent on the rank.
6. Additional Franchise Positions
When you achieve the Rank of Presidential Diamond for three consecutive months, you are then
eligible to start an Additional Franchise Position(AFP). You can double your volume output from this point on.
7. Chairman’s Club Bonus
Receive lifestyle bonuses as you achieve the Ranks of Double Diamond, Triple Diamond, and Crown Diamond for three
consecutive months and become a member of the Chairman’s Club.
8. Founder’s Club
The Founder’s Club bonus is available to distributors who reach the Global Ambassador level. They’ll receive a 6-figure cash bonus each time they provide a Unicity-approved monthly training
How much does it cost to become a Unicity independent distributor?
How much you’ll have to pay to become an independent distributor depends on where you’re located.
The start-up fee that provides you with the business kit is different in a lot of countries for example in the US the start-up fee is $40, while in the UK it’s UK £20,00, and in the Netherlands, it’s €25.86.
Apparently, it’s not as simple as converting it into a different voluta, and that is the price in different countries.
You’ll also have to pay applicable taxes and shipping/handling which in the US comes out at $5.
After paying the fee, you can purchase optional packages starting at $177 or individual products from the shop and resell those.
Something you might’ve suspected when you read through the list of bonuses is me using the words “active” and “eligible” which implies a minimum quota must be fulfilled to be able to earn bonuses.
In a year depending on rank, you’ll have to reach at least 1200 PV in sales in a year (100PV every month).
1 PV isn’t equal to a specific dollar amount unfortunately so it’s hard to make an educated guess at the total minimum costs.
One thing I can say looking at Unicity products PV is that 1PV is worth at least more than a dollar.
So the bare minimum you’ll spend in a year as an active independent distributor is roughly $1200
this doesn’t take into account additional costs such as:
- advertising or promotional expenses
- product samples
- training
- rent (for conferences)
- travel (for conferences)
- telephone and internet costs
- other miscellaneous expenses.
How much can you earn with Unicity?
According to Unicity’s most recent income disclosure statement, Around 42% of Unicity Distributors in the U.S. earned these commissions in 2022.
Here’s a breakdown of their average earnings for the year.
• The average earnings for Distributors was $4,626.
• Half made more than $130.
• 10% made more than $3,800.
• 1% made more than $92,700
Looking at these numbers at least 50% have lost money because these numbers only represent their income. The costs we’ve mentioned before have to be subtracted from these numbers.
That 40% in between the first group and the second nothing is known about so I can’t say anything about their profit.
Unfortunately, the income disclosure statement doesn’t showcase the average number of months they have been active but I’d suspect at least 50% are all first-year members.
This makes sense because the MLM model requires some frontloading before it becomes profitable.
That being said, the beginning stages as an independent distributor will definitely be rough.
Why aren’t people earning decent money with MLM companies like Unicity?
I have summed up the reasons why it’s hard to make money with Unicity and MLM companies in general into 3 points. As a Unicity independent distributor, you’ll have to deal with the first 2 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 invest a lot of money to earn commissions consistently
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 breaking 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
Unicity Products
Unicity sells a lot of different supplements and to give a better overview they split it up in different categories dependent on the needs of their users.
- Accessories
- Cleanse
- Matcha
- Unimate
- Anti-Aging
- Bone & Joint Health
- Digestive Health
- Fitnes Products
- Heart health
- Personal Care
- Weight Management
- Women’s Health
There are too many to name but if you want to get the full list with all their ingredients and benefits you can find them by clicking here.
Unicity Product Reviews
Unicity sells a lot of different products but their flagship product seems to be Unicity Balnace which is a pack containing multiple products that comes in different versions.
According to product reviews, people for the most part seem to be satisfied with the flagship product. Here are some of the product reviews.
There are also some negative reviews that can be found depending on the rating website you visit. On Amazon they’re mostly positive while other websites do have some negative reviews.
There don’t seem to be a lot of negative reviews which is a good thing because people are more inclined to leave a review when a product is bad than when it works.
My Personal Take
After going through the compensation plan, the income disclosure statement, and getting the opinion from present and ex-members I have made a list of what I like and don’t like about Unicity.
Let’s break it down.
What I like about Unicity
1. High commission rates
The commission rates are some of the highest I have seen in my 5 years of researching MLM companies.
The chances of actually getting to the point of earning these commissions might be extremely low but if through some miracle you fulfil the conditions there’s a lot of money to be made.
2. The majority of product reviews are positive
The majority of people seem to be satisfied with the products that Unicity offers.
This can help a lot with selling the products as a Brand Partner because now you can refer to internet ratings and testimonials every time you try to sell the products.
What I don’t like about Unicity
1. Complicated compensation plan
The more complicated the compensation plan is, the less likely it is that you’ll earn a lot of money.
These types of compensation plans always have minor conditions that prevent people from earning money for their hard work.
It’s also hard to come up with counterarguments for not getting paid because the compensation plan is hard to understand.
2. Historical low chances of success
It seems the bottom 50% is almost guaranteed to lose money based on the income numbers of the previous year. This also seemed to have occurred in the years before that when you google older income disclosure statements.
This is not uncommon with MLM companies. Most studies show that roughly 99% of members of MLM programs lose money.
3. Saturated market
The nutritional supplement niche is not in a great place right now. There are just too many MLM companies that offer the same type of products.
This means you won’t only be competing with Unicity Brand Partners but also distributors from other companies and even non-MLM companies that offer similar products.
4. You have to pay to play
I’m not really a fan of “pay-to-play” opportunities. I don’t mind having to invest money into a business opportunity but in exchange, I’d want to get maybe a course, resources, etc.
MLM companies like Unicity require you to pay money to be able to purchase their products so you can resell them. No matter how you slice it that doesn’t sound right in my ears.
5. The business model has a bad reputation
A lot of pyramid schemes pretend to be MLM companies to trick people.
Most people are aware of that so the moment they hear you make money through recruiting they hesitate to give you a chance.
This makes it harder to earn the higher tier bonuses.
6. Unicity has dealt with Controversy
Salesforce members of Unicity have spread false claims in the past about their products and the earning potential of the MLM program.
Most of the cases concerning this have been solved but the fact that it happened can still be found on the internet.
Controversies like this can ruin the credibility of a company making it even harder for brand partners to earn money.
7. Latecomers will never catch up
The MLM business model is designed in such as way that the people at the top earn the majority of the money since they’re the highest upline.
This means if you come in later there’s a zero percent chance you’ll catch up to the people at the top of the pyramid no matter how ambitious you are.
Is Unicity 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.
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, Unicity can’t be classified as a pyramid scheme (from a legal perspective). According to the law, a pyramid scheme only relies on recruiting and doesn’t sell products.
Unicity products have given people a method to make money without recruiting people.
That being said, times are changing.
There are pyramid schemes that disguise themselves as MLM companies because MLMs also use a pyramid structure but sell products and services.
John M Taylor. a prominent figure in the research of MLM’s and Pyramid schemes calls these product-based pyramid schemes.
He came to the conclusion that this variant is a lot more dangerous than its predecessor.
A few examples of these can be found on the FTC website, such as Vemma an “MLM/Direct-selling company” that supposedly was selling liquid nutrition products but turned out to be a pyramid scheme.
Ultimately they settled and had to pay a fine of $238 million and were suspended from partaking in recruiting practices to distribute their products.
These pyramid schemes offer products that are almost impossible to sell and mainly focus on pushing you to recruit people because you supposedly can get higher commissions.
These pyramid schemes bring in money by the members paying for a membership and them purchasing products thinking they’ll earn money in the long run.
In an investigation by the FTC regarding Amway, a precedent was set called the 70 percent rule.
They were accused of being a pyramid scheme.
The 70 percent rule states that every distributor must sell at wholesale and/or retail at least 70% of the total amount of products he bought during a given month in order to receive the Performance Bonus due on all products bought.
This was set in order to prevent distributors from purchasing their way to the top or placing orders themselves to stay eligible for commissions.
Pyramid Schemes earn money this way at the expense of the distributor.
This is of course hard to prove so most of the time to spot a pyramid scheme people look for red flags.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself when dealing with possible pyramid schemes so you can spot the red flags.
1. Is there an endless chain of recruiters recruiting other recruiters?
A lot of bonuses are based on recruiting others but it’s mostly to get them to sell more products.
There are some bonuses that reward you for getting them to ranks that require they have recruits but it isn’t the majority of them.
2. Do you have to “pay to play”?
Yes.
It is literally impossible to start a coach without investing in a business kit of $40.
After that, you also have minimum quotas every single month that require you to financially invest in their products.
3. Does the company pay commissions and/or bonuses to more than five levels of “distributors?
Yes, the company pays commissions to 9 levels according to their compensation plan. According to articles on the FTC website, it’s hard to sustain an MLM with a compensation plan like that.
4. Are most people losing money?
When you take a deep dive into the compensation plan and the income disclosure, you’ll notice that most members lose money, especially in the first year.
It does have a lot of red flags (like most MLM companies) but because most bonuses are geared towards personal and team sales I’m reluctant to call it a pyramid scheme in disguise.
I do think this isn’t a great opportunity for earning money.
Is Unicity A Scam?
No. Unicity isn’t a scam.
They're not going to scam you out of your money and disappear with the wind.
Unicity is a legitimate MLM but it has dealt with some controversy.
There have been some instances where false claims were made by their salesforce members in other countries on social media.
Unicity did take precautions like asking that these claims would be removed as they were put online by a group that works semi-independent from the main company.
I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because on their official websites there are no untruthful claims similar to these.
They also mention in their terms of service and their training guides that they end the memberships of people that make similar false statements.
I don't know how effective these procautions will be. I read a story on the r/scams subreddit about someone claiming you can make 15K a month by working 4 hours a week.
I don't know if there ever is going to be a good solution for the independent distributors doing this.
However, I think the salesforce members situation was a case of negligence when it came to brieving the people hired to do the marketing.
Unicity also doesn’t seem to focus on pushing people to recruit other recruiters instead of selling products.
That being said, I wouldn’t recommend the Unicity opportunity if you want to earn money.
I say this because there seems to be an imbalance between what you need to invest and what you get out of it.
When you invest more than a $1200 in a year and its likely you'll just to earn a few hundred dollars it might not be the best option to earn money.
Unicity FAQ
Is Unicity FDA Approved?
The FDA states on its website, that the organization generally does not approve dietary supplement claims or other labeling before use.
Are Unicity products expensive?
Yes. When you compare the supplements Unicity sells with its non-MLM product counterparts you’ll notice a significant discrepancy in the price.
Can you refund the Unicity Starter kit?
Yes. Unicity offers a full refund of the cost of the Starter Kit if you change your mind within 30 days. You can also get a 90% refund (full price less the 10% restocking fee) on unopened products.
Unicity Alternative: No quotas or Recruiting
Unicity isn’t a scam but it’s clear some frontloading will have to take place before you can start making a profit.
I realize not everyone is willing to pay such a huge amount of money while doing the work upfront this is why I want to provide you with an alternative.
It’s my main income stream.
Just like with Unicity, you’ll have to do some work upfront but you don’t have to deal with minimum quotas, recruiting, or selling products.
In other words, there is significantly less financial risk and the earning potential is a lot higher.
It’s also beginners-friendly.
Interested in learning how I created an income stream that brings in +100/day(for free!)?
