Chances are, you have been approached by someone to join a business opportunity called Juice Plus.
It’s not unusual for Juice Plus distributors to recruit friends and families into their network, after all.
So, is Juice Plus a scam? In this review, we will explore Juice Plus as a business opportunity, and find out why most people don’t make a sustainable income selling these products.
Name: Juice Plus+
Website: juiceplus.com
Founder: Jay Martin
Price: $50 to join + min. $17/month
Type: Network Marketing / MLM
Recommended? ONLY IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH MLMs AND RECRUITING MEMBERS
Table of Contents:
Is Juice Plus a Scam?
Now, a recurring question when it comes to joining Juice Plus as a distributor comes down to whether the company is a scam.
It is a valid and common concern before you sign up to any business opportunities.
The simple answer is NO – Juice Plus is not a scam. Nor is Juice Plus a pyramid scheme, because it is an actual supplement product line that makes money for the company.
Juice Plus sells their products via network marketing / multi-level-marketing channel, which is a totally legitimate business model.
However, the way some Juice Plus distributors recruit and push for sales may turn people off, especially if they use false claims and fake promises.
This is a common problem for most MLM companies, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that Juice Plus is a scam as a business opportunity.
With that said, if you are not comfortable with the MLM business model, or if you’re not interested in selling dietary supplements, that’s totally fine.
There are ways to make decent income from home without recruiting members or selling products face-to-face.
Don’t Like Recruiting People?
Recruiting and training new members are essential to your success with MLMs.
If you don’t like it, learn how make a consistent monthly income online instead – without recruiting anyone.
With that said, if you have the confidence to make it big in MLMs, let’s dive in and understand Juice Plus as a whole.
What is Juice Plus?
Juice Plus is a branded line of dietary supplements containing concentrated fruit and vegetable extracts. It is further fortified with added vitamins and nutrients.
Contrary to popular belief, Juice Plus is not a company of its own. It is just a product line started by a company called National Safety Associates (NSA) back in 1993.
The company used network marketing / MLM strategy to market Juice Plus, and it eventually grew big enough to become a brand of its own.
Focusing on health and wellness, Juice Plus offers a range of supplements in the form of capsules and chewables. This is similar to other popular health-related MLMs such as Kyani and Shaklee.
No one can explain the history of Juice Plus better than the brand itself, so here’s a 4-minute video if you’re interested.
In simple terms, this is how Juice Plus process their capsules:
- Extract juice from fruits and vegetables
- Dehydrate the juice into powder/extract
- Blend with vitamins, minerals and plant compounds
- Encapsulate and package
Juice Plus Products
Trio of Juice Plus powdered capsules
The main product line of Juice Plus consists of 3 powdered capsules supplements – Fruit (Orchard) Blend, Vegetable (Garden) Blend, and Berry (Vineyard) Blend.
Juice Plus describes these products as the next best thing to fruits and vegetables.
Each of the powdered capsules are supposed to give their consumers an easy way to bridge the gap between what they actually eat, and what they should be eating every day.
They are, to put it simply, fruits and vegetable supplements to help you add what’s missing in your diet.
Fruit Blend (Orchard Blend)
Juice Plus Fruit Blend is made from 11 fruits blended into powdered capsules and chewables.
Fruits contained in the Fruit Blend are as follow:
- Acerola Cherry
- Apple
- Beet
- Cranberry
- Date
- Lemon Peel
- Mango
- Orange
- Peach
- Pineapple
- Prune
The Juice Plus Fruit Blend is not sold individually, but bundled together with the Vegetable Blend for $44.50/month in the United States, with a minimum commitment of 4 months.
Vegetable Blend (Garden Blend)
Juice Plus Vegetable Blend is made of 11 vegetables blended into powdered capsules and chewables.
Vegetables contained in the blend are as follow:
- Beet
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Carrot
- Garlic
- Kale
- Lemon Peel
- Parsley
- Rice Bran
- Spinach
- Tomato
Similar to the Fruit Blend, Juice Plus Vegetable Blend is not sold individually.
It is bundled together with the Fruit Blend for $44.50/month in the United States, with a minimum commitment of 4 months.
Berry Blend (Vineyard Blend)
Juice Plus Berry Blend is made of 11 fruits and berries blended into capsules and chewables (it does seem like 11 is their magic number).
Berries included in the blend are as follow:
- Artichoke
- Bilberry
- Blackberry
- Black Currant
- Blueberry
- Cocoa
- Concord Grape
- Cranberry
- Elderberry
- Pomegranate
- Raspberry
Unlike Fruit Blend and Vegetable Blend, the Berry Blend can be sold individually.
It’s sold at $28.25/month on its own, or it can be bundled together with the other 2 products for $71.25/month.
Omega Blend
The Omega Blend is a plant-based combination of Omega 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9 fatty acids.
It contains DHA, EPA and ALA derived from fruits, algae and seed oils. This is quite different from normal Omegas capsules that derived their source from fish.
The Omega Blend Capsules is not sold in all markets, so far it seems like only select markets (including U.S) offer this product.
It’s sold at $33.25/month at the time of writing.
Juice Plus does offer other products, mainly consisting of chewables and capsules.
However, if you plan to become a Juice Plus distributor, you will most likely be promoting the products above.
How Effective are Juice Plus Supplements?
While there are Juice Plus advocates out there who claim their products to be substitutes to whole fruits, Juice Plus themselves have denied this.
It is commendable of the company to be truthful in what they sell, which definitely sets them up to be a trustworthy company.
In their actual words, this is how Juice Plus describe their products:
Juice Plus+ is not a substitute for eating fruits and vegetables. Juice Plus+ is not a medicine, treatment, or multivitamin. It helps support a healthy diet by offering a much wider variety of naturally occurring vitamins – along with other antioxidants and phytonutrients found in fruits and vegetables – than traditional vitamin supplements.
In essence, you should not substitute whole fruits and vegetable with just Juice Plus capsules.
Instead, take Juice Plus products for what they are – supplements to support a healthy diet, instead of treating it as cure-all capsules or real food substitutes.
There will be lots of contradicting reviews out there, with one side hailing it as the best supplements ever made, and the other side calling Juice Plus a scam.
Just take a look at some typical Juice Plus reviews below.
With high price points ranging from $28 to $71 per month, you should definitely think twice before buying or promoting any Juice Plus products.
You should also take some of the overly positive reviews with a grain of salt, as it’s almost impossible to filter out reviews by Juice Plus distributors.
Many reviewers who rate the products 5-stars are also Juice Plus distributors who are eager to send you to their personal websites for more information (and eventually make a sale).
Alternatives to Juice Plus Products?
Even though there are multiple clinical research that support the effectiveness of Juice Plus products, many of them have been widely criticized for being industry-sponsored and poorly designed.
While it’s common for companies to fund research of their own products, the results of these studies should be interpreted with care, especially when it comes to nutritional research (1, 2).
Apart from scientific validity, one of the most important considerations we have as end consumers is often the price points.
Admittedly, Juice Plus is considered exorbitantly expensive even within the supplements industry.
With a minimal commitment of 4-months period, we are looking at around $100 to $300 minimal commitment just to try it out.
This prompted a lot of users to look elsewhere – and one alternative stands out the most.
The JuiceFestiv fruits and vegetable capsules (available from Amazon) are much cheaper alternatives, at less than half of Juice Plus asking prices.
Judging from the user reviews, there are no lack of former Juice Plus converts who found similar benefits in this product.
It’s worth considering if you are planning to take up supplements like Juice Plus.
Juice Plus as a Business Opportunity
For those of you who are looking to make some money selling Juice Plus products, this section is for you.
In the rest of this article, we will go over Juice Plus compensation plan, the start-up costs involved, as well as the pros and cons of becoming a Juice Plus distributor.
Unfortunately, the compensation plan for most network marketing companies are almost always convoluted. There are just too many facets and bonuses involved.
The good news is, Juice Plus compensation plan is pretty straightforward compared to the rest of the industry.
In any case, I’ll try my best to explain it so you can follow along.
Start-up Costs of Juice Plus Distributors
If you decide to become a distributor, you will need to sign up via an existing Juice Plus distributor.
There should be no lack of Juice Plus distributors for you to register with.
Virtually every distributor will be happy to be your sponsor, since it will only increase their earning potential.
You will need to pay a one-time $50 registration fee to get started, which honestly is pretty minimal compared to the MLM industry standard.
The $50 is paid towards your distributor website (where your personal customers can buy products on that page), a virtual back office, and online training.
Apart from that, you will need to buy a Juice Plus product to get started. One of the cheapest products you can buy is Berry Blend chewables, which costs $17/month for a minimum of 4 months.
Up-front investment:
$50 registration fees + min. $17/month for 4 months
Juice Plus Compensation Plan Explained
Compensation plan of Juice Plus
There are 2 ways for a distributor to make money with Juice Plus:
- Sell products and make retail sales profits
- Recruit distributors under you and make a commission from their sales
This is universal to all network marketing companies. However, as you will find out soon, the real money lies in recruiting and training members.
Here’s a short video on how the compensation plan works.
Disclaimer: The video below is purely for informational purposes only. It is by no means an invitation to join Juice Plus.
As you can see, there are multiple ranks to achieve and ways to make money with Juice Plus.
However, is it as lucrative as it sounds? We’ll find out soon, but first let us understand how the ranks in Juice Plus works.
How to Rank Up in Juice Plus
As you add new customers and accumulate volume, you will rank up and qualify to earn commissions.
In Juice Plus, most teams encourage their distributors to achieve “Virtual Franchisee” (3rd level) as quickly as possible.
You will need to accumulate Purchase Volume Credit (PVC) to promote in ranks.
PVCs are awarded based on the product you sell. For example, the Fruits and Vegetable Blend package is worth 150.00 PVC.
Here’s the PVC requirement for the first few ranks:
Juice Plus does offer an incentive for their distributors to rank up quickly. If you manage to accumulate 500 PVC in your first 30 days, you will be upgraded to Direct Distributor (DD) instead of the normal 2000 PVC requirement. Likewise for Virtual Franchisee (VF) rank.
You can either fulfill the sales requirement yourself, or you can recruit new distributors to help you achieve your goals.
All the PVC earned by your recruits are counted towards your total PVC as well. Let’s say that you sold 300 PVC worth of products in a month, and your recruit sold 200 PVC.
Your total PVC for the month will be 500. If you achieve this within the first 30 days, you will be promoted to rank DD.
Any ranks beyond VF will require down-lines of your own (i.e. you will need to recruit at least 3 lines of Juice Plus distributors under your name).
Retail Sales Profit
This part is pretty straightforward, as you make the difference between retail price and distributor price.
For example, if you have a personal customer who purchases the Fruits and Vegetable Blend package (sold at $44.50/month for minimum commitment of 4 months), that’s $178 per customer.
Your distributor price for the same package is $135, which means you can make $43 per customer every 4 months selling that package.
Juice Plus offers an automatic reorder option called the Preferred Customer Program. These customers will receive a carton of Juice Plus products every 4 months until it is cancelled.
Every product comes with a different price point, and if your customer opts for automatic reorder, they can get a discounted retail price (also known as preferred customer price).
At the time of writing, the preferred customer price for Fruits and Vegetable Blend package is $156, leaving you a retail profit of $21 per customer every 4 months.
Earning potential (using Fruits and Vegetable Blend package as example):
Scenario 1: Without automatic reorder
Distributor price: $135 every 4 months
Retail price: $178 every 4 months
Distributor profits: $43 per customer every 4 months
Scenario 2: With automatic reorder
Distributor price: $135 every 4 months
Preferred customer price: $156 every 4 months
Distributor profits: $21 per customer every 4 months
Earning Potential (Without Recruiting)
As you can probably imagine, it’s not easy to make a sustainable income from Juice Plus by just selling the products alone.
The margin is razor-thin, since we are looking at ~$5/month profit per customer from the example above. It’s difficult to make a living income just by selling the products alone.
Let’s assume that you are an exceptional seller, and you focus on selling products without recruiting a single distributor.
We further assume that you climb your way up to Virtual Franchisee (3rd Level), which is the highest rank you can achieve without recruiting distributors.
At this level, you are entitled to 14% of commissions from your sales. A single order of Fruits and Vegetable Blend package will entitle you to:
Retail Sales Profit | Commissions at 14% | Total |
---|---|---|
$21 | 150PVC x 14% = $21 | $42 every 4 months |
To make a decent monthly income of $2,000 from the company, you will need to consistently sell 190 sets of Fruit and Vegetable Blend, and make sure that your customers continue to buy after the first 4 months.
To put it into perspective, you need to sell $30,000 worth of products every single month to make $2,000 retail sales profit (at Virtual Franchisee level). It will take much more if you are at lower ranks.
If you can generate that kind of sales volume, you will make much more viaaffiliate marketing, where the profit margin is usually much higher.
Earning Potential (With Recruiting)
As you recruit distributors into the company, you stand to make commissions from their sales.
In fact, recruiting more distributors under your name is the only way to make decent income from Juice Plus, or any network marketing company for that matter.
Commissions level at Direct Distributor is at 6%, Virtual Franchisee gets 14%, while Sales Coordinator and above get 22%.
This commissions apply not only to your own sales, but to the sales of your recruits as well (up to 5 levels deep).
At Virtual Franchisee level, 14% of your down-lines PVC will be counted towards your commission.
For example, if your direct recruit makes 500 PVC for the month, you are entitled to 14% of 500 PVC = $70 team commissions
According to Juice Plus’ 2010 statistics (no newer data is found at the time of writing), the average earnings of their distributors are as follow:
Name | Number of Qualifying Distributors | Monthly Average |
---|---|---|
- | 1 - 2 Recruits/Down-lines | $500 |
3 Club | 3 - 11 Recruits/Down-lines | $1,250 |
12 Club | 12 - 38 Recruits/Down-lines | $3,300 |
39 Club | 39 or more Recruits/Down-lines | $10,000 |
To put it simply, the game of MLM quickly comes down to how many people you can recruit and motivate.
A bigger team leads to higher sale volume, which translates to fatter paychecks for you.
Reality Check: How Much do Juice Plus Distributors Make?
No matter how attractive the compensation plan seems to be, we always have to do a reality check before joining a network marketing company.
Now, how much are Juice Plus distributors actually making?
Unlike some other MLM companies, Juice Plus doesn’t really release the income disclosure of their distributors, even after so many years in business.
However, based on the industry standard, more than 95% of network marketing distributors don’t even make back their initial investment.
This is most likely the case for Juice Plus as well. If most of their distributors are making decent income, why is there a need to hide the figures?
Be very careful if your Juice Plus sponsors tell you most distributors make good income.
According to Dr. Jon Taylor’s book “The Case (For And) Against MLMs”, 99.7% of distributors lose money after accounting for expenses.
There are no lack of MLM distributors who operate on the fake-it-till-you-make-it mantra, and they are not afraid to exaggerate their earnings just to recruit you under their team.
Are You Cut Out to be a Juice Plus Distributor?
Let’s face it, nobody joins a MLM company to make money for the company.
Everyone joined at some point with just a single goal – to make more money for themselves and to provide a better financial life for the family.
However, the odds are heavily stacked against you if you charge in without the correct expectations and mindset.
It’s not enough to just sell the products. As we’ve discussed above, you need to consistently make 5-figure monthly sales to earn a passable 4-figure monthly income.
The money lies in recruiting members, and to recruit a lot of members at that. It’s the reality of MLM – the big money resides in recruiting a large following of members and keep motivating them to make sales.
Let’s do a bit of self-reflection on whether you are cut out for the network marketing business model:
- Do you enjoy talking to people and introducing MLM opportunities to others? Can you take rejections with a smile and keep on pushing forward?
- Apart from your family and friends, do you have other ways of approaching new prospects? Don’t make the classic mistake of losing family and friends over a MLM company.
- Are you ready to attend weekly or monthly meetings with your team and sponsor? Joining a MLM team is a commitment. You are expected to recruit new members and make sales, or you are a liability.
If your answers to all three questions above is a unanimous “YES!”, then you most probably have what it takes to thrive in MLM companies.
I have been involved in MLMs before, and unfortunately these were the top 3 reasons why I quit and looked elsewhere.
I simply didn’t like the pressure and cult-like members who glamorize everything about the MLM companies (no offense, this was simply my personal experience).
This is probably what happened to Juice Plus as well, judging from an ex-distributor’s bad experience with the company.
According to her, the distributors were encouraged to message at least 10 people a day about the business.
Not only that, they were also encouraged to post fake order posts on Facebook to make it looks like they were getting a lot of orders (and making a lot of money).
Of course, this is unethical, but I can imagine it probably happens a lot with MLM distributors who are desperate to recruit members.
Most of the time, it’s not entirely the company’s fault. The fault lies in aggressive distributors who are willing to make false claims just to recruit a few more members or to make a few more sales.
How I Make a Sustainable Side Income
If your answer to any of the questions above is a definite NO, you are probably not cut out to be a network marketer.
Fortunately, there are other avenues to make sustainable side income at home. One such methods is called affiliate marketing.
In affiliate marketing, you make a commission when you introduce relevant products and services to people who need it.
Most importantly, there is no need to recruit members, join sales teams, or even do face-to-face selling.
I’ve been doing affiliate marketing in the past 2 years and I have never had to answer to anyone, or meet any customer for that matter.
If you want to know how I got started, read about my story and failures, as well as how I made my first income from the internet.
If you are interested to get your hands on the same opportunities, I have a great recommendation to get your started with affiliate marketing.
Check Out My Top Recommendation and My Results Here
Do note that the article above contains affiliate links, and I’ll make a commission (at no extra costs to you) if you find any of the products useful and buy them.
This is how I make money with affiliate marketing, after all – by introducing people in need (such as you) to relevant and value-adding services (training to make money from affiliate marketing).
I hope this in-depth Juice Plus review has been useful to you. Do leave a comment if you have any questions or MLM experience to share, I’d love to hear about it!
Matiss
Yeah, I’ve never really been comfortable with the MLM business model. I tried Amway, which is of the same nature, quite a while ago, and it felt so awkward. You are pretty much dependent of whether or not the next guy, who you have recruited, works and provides results. And your income is highly dependent on how much work they put in.
All in all this kind of stuff definitely is not for me.
I had no idea that Shaklee also is a MLM business model. They offer some pretty solid supplements, yet I do believe that they are highly overpriced. In my opinion, the absolute same goes for this one – the Juice Plus. I can’t, however, fault the blends – they look very nice. Overpriced nonetheless.
But I like that the brand pretty much states that this is no replacement of a healthy diet as there is no such substance in existence yet.
All in all a very thorough article, I really enjoyed the information discussed. 🙂
Thank you! Cheers and have a Great One!Matiss
Alona
Great review on Juice plus! I heard a lot of good reviews about this product and was thinking to buy it to try for my son because he is a super picky eater. Unfortunately, in my case it would be a substitution for fruits and vegetables, but it’s kinda pricey. Thank you for mentioning alternatives, I will definitely look into it.
Olonisakin Kehinde
Thank you a lot for the post. The issue if utmost concern about programmes online is if the programme is a scam or not. Of course, there are millions of scam affiliate programmes online and a lot people have lost mone into a lot of them. Finding a real programme that have products like juice plus is a big deal. But once you find the right one you need hardwork and dedication to make good success.
It is worthy of note that, in recruiting referrals, there should not be false claims and promises because if the newbies get to find out, it will definitely ruin the whole company and then it will be termed as scam.
On finding the right affiliate programme, you need to get equipped to be able to remain relevant in the niche you have chosen.
Tom
I have had some past experiences with MLM’s. I am not going to say they are good or bad for earning an income since I have made money from 2 different programs in the past. My best advice though is not to join a program based on the income potential alone.
Join a program only if you use the product already and swear by it. MLM’s are a lot of work and in my experience are never as easy as they seem on the surface.
Chris
I really feel sorry for the people that go into these sorts of opportunities…and end up with no way out other than losing money. The initial promise of starting your own business soon disappears when reality hits, and you end up with a garage full of products nobody really wants (or if they do want them – they won’t pay the inflated prices).
Do you know of any MLM setups out there that are actually worthwhile?
Edward
I think instead of categorizing them as worthwhile or not, it’d be better to reflect on our own personalities.
If you’re a social butterfly and have no problems with selling and recruiting strangers face-to-face, you can probably make a meaningful income in most MLMs.
I emphasized “strangers” because most people that go into MLMs only target the warm market – their immediate friends and families. That’s a big no-no and a surefire way to distance yourself from them.