MyOnlineStartup vs Wealthy Affiliate

When you are brand new to the affiliate marketing world, it can be daunting (and even possibly not required) spending $100, $500 or even $1500+ on programs and courses. There are a number of free, structured courses that can give you enough knowledge and information to get you started. In this 'MyOnlineStartup vs Wealthy Affiliate' article, we will see which of these two courses can provide what you need. 

Both of these training programs have paid for versions, but they both start as free and this will be the main area we look into, though I will also dive into the premium offerings as well. 

MyOnlineStartup Overview

A fairly in-depth free training program, that covers a variety of different affiliate marketing styles, My Online Startup has a 'freemium' style program that let's its members pay to get additional training and add their links to the different programs, tools and products found inside of the training. 

I wouldn't say that MOS if that well known, possibly because it has taken a number of different names and has had it's fair share of criticisms and anger towards it. With only around 50 - 100 searches per month, it's still early doors for this 2 or so year old training platform. 

Wealthy Affiliate Overview

I would say one of the most well known Affiliate Marketing training programs, possibly down to the somewhat controversial marketing and affiliate methods that are taught, or because they have been around for quite a while. 

WA focuses heavily on blogging and SEO techniques, at least within the main training, and then branches out into other forms with the community training sections, though these still kind of focus on blogging. 

As with MOS, Wealthy Affiliate have a 'freemium' model, which offers people the ability to go through the free training, and then have the ability to upgrade later if they so wish. 

Training Content

Of course the major part of these two platforms has to be the training, it is the bread and butter and the reason why people sign up and become associated with both of these companies. 

Primarily it will focus on the free training, as both sites offer free training, but I will also dive into the paid for options, especially for WA who does focus a bit more on that. 

MyOnlineStartup

The big selling point of My Online Startup is the free 40 - 50 step training program that cover a wide variety of topics and styles of affiliate marketing. 

The core training covers 5 different forms of marketing, this covers everything from

• Lead Generation - Mainly covering funnels and emails
• Authority Platform - Focuses on building your blog (and actually suggests WA)
• YouTube Marketing - All about getting your new YouTube channel up and running
• Forum Marketing - A slight variation on social media marketing 
• Targeted Solos - Does what it says on the tin, using Udimi & Funnels 

MOS also covers a section on building your game plan out, essentially telling you to focus on a method and decide on what works for you, which then walks into the mindset training. For me, SAI provides a better take on mindset and sorting out your gameplay, but for a free course, this is a pretty good start. 

There is a decent amount of content, with video lengths ranging from 4 or 5 minutes, up to 20 - 30 minutes. With each topic getting a fairly broad overview, with enough information to get you started and I would say probably even get you on the road to success. There is also a section below the videos that then provide the tools or additional information. These links can be swapped out to include your own, which I will explain more about in a second.

For those who then want to take the next step, there is the option of becoming a Partner, this essentially turns MOS training, into your own. Letting you swap out around 50 or so links with your own affiliate ID's. 

So you can earn on ClickFunnels, Wealthy Affiliate, Thrive and a variety of other platforms and products, each giving you different degrees of commission. 

MyOnlineStartup can then be used as your own lead generation tool, or simply be given away to allow you to earn a passive income through the links and training inside. 

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Wealthy Affiliate

Having been around for years, Wealthy Affiliates training is probably one of the most well known, affiliate marketing courses, with thousands of students and affiliates who have gone through their training and moved on to become affiliates. 

The free base training covers 10 lessons, this can be found within the Level 1, getting started module.

There are 27 tasks that take you through;

• Understanding why you must buy Premium
• Choosing a niche, 
• Setting up your website (Free members get a free site much like blogger or Wix)
• Sorting plugins out, and the basic of SEO
• Understanding WA's tools (such as their spell checking tool)
• Creating custom menus
• Keyword research and more content writing 

As you can see, the majority of the content and the focus is around creating a blog, much like my own 5 day blog builder bootcamp. The WA training utilises their own tools, free website builder and of course reminds you a few times on needing to upgrade to keep going through the lessons. 

You can of course, promote Wealthy Affiliate, by simply being a free member, you don't earn as much and what you can earn commission on is also limited, but you can do it. 

The second part of the training are the 10 lessons focusing on how to utilise Wealthy Affiliates program, this is very similar to the getting started training that was mentioned above. This time it focuses a little more on utilising the WA affiliate program and using it to bolster content and your overall keyword net. 

Now if you do decide to go premium, you open up a range of new content and I guess new opportunities to earn money and commissions. Unlike the MyOnlineStartup, you can't insert your links into different aspects of training, but you can after a while create your own training which is houses inside the Community Training Section. 

Inside premium, you get access too; 

• 50 Lessons instead of the 10 mentioned earlier that focus o building your site, your authority and how to scale your site up
• 70 Lessons instead of the 10 mentioned earlier that focus on the Affiliate bootcamp (this focuses on the make money niche)
• 1000+ training modules from the community 
• Weekly live classes, and access to the back catalogue 
• 12 Additional classrooms that cover other aspects of Affiliate Marketing & Make Money Online (eCom, Paid Ads, Lead Gen etc)

As you can see, you do get access to a whole host of additional benefits, and it's fair to say that Wealthy Affiliates focus is on converting people from the free starter training, onto the paid for monthly membership. 

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Additional Features

It's quite obvious that both of these platforms don't just offer the training, they also offer an opportunity to potential make money with their programs, and of course provide additional features or tools to help you along the way.

I would say it's fair to say that MOS does focus more on the training and content within their free training, and utilise other websites or platforms to help with that, whereas WA has built up their own inhouse tools or features to keep people within the WA bubble. 

MyOnlineStartup

Beyond the training, there are a number of additional features that are provided. These are available for those who have upgrade to the partnership program. 

The MOS partnership comes with lead generation system and a lead generation follow up sequences that are designed to help you convert free members into paid members, or leads into free members. 

Of course the other part is the 50 income streams that partners can utilise to earn a variety of commissions from these, ranging from $1 or $5 for some of the books, up to $100+ recurring if you promote the things like ClickFunnels. 

You can also earn commissions from MOS itself, by partnering and earning money from those who decide to upgrade themselves. A very similar option that WA provides. 

MyOnlineStartup also offer support and additional partnership training, as well as offering a revenue split, which provides affiliates an additional way to earn money. Any lead inside of MOS that buys a product from an email sent by MOS or Chuck, will provide you with a 50/50 split. 

Wealthy Affiliate

Probably no surprise that Wealthy Affiliate has got additional content and features for you to take advantage of, they are an ecosystem, in which they do try and keep people inside, as the longer they stay, the more money WA makes. 

As well as their training, you also get; 

• SiteRubix (WA's website building platform) 1  - 10 (10 if you are premium). This uses WordPress as it's baseline
• Premium WordPress Hosting
• SiteContent (WA's writing platform)
• Jaaxy (WA's Keyword Research Tool) 30 - Unlimited Searches (Unlimited if you are Premium). 
• Access to WA's growing community and forum 
• Affiliate Program Commission Boosts + Additional Income Opportunities 

If you are someone who hosts or needs to host a number of websites, the premium option actually becomes something of a money saver, and you can of course save money using Jaaxy and the SiteRubix builder, especially if you are not comfortable going through your own hosting provider or using tools such as Thrive Architect and SERanking to create your sites or do keyword research. 

Pricing & Costs

This is another point whereby the differences start to appear more noticeable, there is quite a big different in the crowd or the overall aim of these platforms. In the near future, MOS will soon transition over to same model that Wealthy Affiliate has, and I am expecting some big changes. 

MyOnlineStartup 

MyOnlineStartup has a fairly simple pricing structure, at least within itself. There are tools, products, platforms and resources that someone can use to take action within the different modules, each costing their own price, but for MOS itself, there are 3 pricing tiers (for now)

Free

This is the starter point for every member within My Online Startup, this is the entry level and one that anyone can stay at. It gives you access to the 50 or so different training modules and videos and provides you with everything you need to get started with. 

You cannot earn commissions from others or give the training away yourself, but you can learn the tips and tricks to get started with YouTube, PPC, Solos Ads or Blogging. 

Partner ($197)

The main paid for offering within MyOnlineStartup is the partnership program. This paid for tier costs $197 as a one time fee, this then gives you the options to add your own affiliate link to promote MOS, you can also add affiliate links within the course itself, so if someone else goes through the training, they will use your affiliate links to sign up to other programs or tools. 

It essentially becomes a giant multi stream funnel that you can use to make sales across a wide variety of links. You also get access to follow up sequences, a 50/50 split on additional sales Chuck with his marketing efforts and additional partnership training.

Legendary Partner ($997)

I'm unsure if this is still an option, but I believe it is, so I will include it anyway, the Legendary Partnership program is for those who want to also include secondary commissions (you earn on members bought in by your Partners, in a 2nd tier kind of way) and there is additional mastermind and coaching training. And of course, the ability to earn commissions on those who also upgrade to Legendary. 

Future Changes

At the time of writing, the latest update to this has been there will be a monthly, yearly and lifetime partnership option available for those who want to purchase and upgrade to the Partner programs. 

This means that the MyOnlineStartup Partner program will go from $197 one off, to being $47 (I think) per month, or $497 per year. There will then be an optional upgrade of $1997 to get lifetime access. 

Now, with most marketing platforms, these numbers could be complete crap, but only time will tell. The road map that has been shared, with new changes to the program, the updates to the partnership training and all the other updates, could make this worth $47 per month, we will see.  

Wealthy Affiliate

In late 2020, Wealthy Affiliate actually changed their pricing structure, which is something I was quite amazed about, especially as it has been a fixed price for so long. 

With those changes also came changes to the free membership, including removing some of the added benefits I used to tell people to take advantage of (maybe that's why!)

Free

The free, no thrills membership is perfectly fine for those who want to learn the basic of SEO & Content marketing to start their journey with affiliate marketing. Though you could learn more with my own 5 day blog builder bootcamp. The 10 or so lessons are fine, and give you a good foundation, but that's about it. 

Access to the keyword research tool again, is fine, 30 searches or 30 keywords a month isn't a lot especially if you are trying to find the right one, especially when tools such as SERanking costs about $10 or so a month. 

You no longer get access to the 2 free real hosting accounts (it used to let you use your domain).

Premium ($49 per month)

This is Wealthy Affiliate's bread and butter, this is what makes the platform run, and brings in a lot of the revenue, I would say it is also the primary income source for many of their affiliates. 

This monthly premium plan gives you access to more hosting slots (now only 10), additional training (Granted there is a lot) and boosted commission rates on any referrals you bring in). You do need to stay a premium member once you have become one. You cannot go back to being a free member (unless you sign up again). 

So if you have a number of paid for referrals, it makes sense paying the monthly fee (as you essentially get double the commission). 

Premium Plus ($99 per month)

This is the new offering, which WA recently released and actually moves some of the old benefits into this higher range.  For example you will need this version to get access to all 50 hosting slots, the higher end of the Jaaxy monthly searches and keyword generation ideas and availability searches. 

This is a change from before, whereby all of this was offered on the standard Premium package. 

My Online Startup Vs Wealthy Affiliate - Which Is Best For Beginners?

If you are someone who is brand new to affiliate marketing, you haven't decided on the route, or the niche you want to focus on and just want some fairly decent starter training, then the MyOnlineStartup program is a great place to start. 

It will give you at least a flavour of the different styles, as well as the potential to promote it yourself if you decide to go down that route. 

If you have already taken a course such as the 5DBB and you know that SEO or blog building is the way you want to go, and you know that hosting 10 sites will probably costs you around $50 - $60 per month anyway, then the Premium offering from Wealthy Affiliate may be the right calling for you. 

Either way, I would check out both of their free offerings to see how the training, platform and overall delivery work for you and see if they resonate. Because there is nothing worse than buying some training and realising you hate how the person speaks or delivers it.