Is Tori Belle a pyramid scheme? Right off the bat, I’ll tell you the answer to that is no. But it is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company because you can build a team and earn money from multiple levels. Be aware, some people are very skeptical of MLMs and will automatically place them into the category of a pyramid scheme.
Read this full article to see the pros and cons of this company, and if it’s worth it to join the business opportunity. Because the company is so new, you may hear people saying it’s a good time to get in on the “ground floor” before there’s a lot of competition.
You may feel compelled to join just to get in early. But be sure to consider everything before joining.
Let’s dive in!
Summary: Tori Belle is a cosmetics company started in 2019 by Laura Hunter. The company’s main products are magnetic lashes and eyeliner. They also have a couple of eye shadow palettes, brow and liner kits, a primer and a makeup remover. Tori Belle is a direct sales company, but since you can get paid on multiple levels of sales, it is also considered a multi-level marketing (MLM) company. It’s not technically a pyramid scheme, although it has been called that from skeptics.
Recommended? While the Tori Belle products look good, and since it’s brand new, there’s not a ton of competition from other independent consultants (they call them Authentic Influencers) yet, I still would not recommend joining this opportunity. That’s because most people lose money in an MLM. And the ones that do make money make very little (especially after expenses). The ones that make a lot only make it because people at the bottom are losing money.
What is Tori Belle Cosmetics?
Tori Belle Cosmetics was started in June 2019, so it’s a brand new company with about 4,000 Independent Consultants at the time of this writing. Here is the owner, Laura Hunter, talking about the company and why she chose direct sales as the way to promote her products:
Laura says her business is different because:
- She creates unique products you can’t get anywhere else
- Her compensation plan isn’t confusing
- She allows Authentic Influencers to be an affiliate (independent consultant) not just for her company, but for any company you truly love
- They have training certificates and don’t just tell you to get on Facebook or Instagram
So far, there are only 22 products for sale on their site. This will likely change as the business grows.
How Does Tori Belle Work?
There are a few basic steps to being a Tori Belle Authentic Influencer.
- You sign up for s Starter Kit (price breakdown below)
- You get your own website, and you send people to it to make sales
- You earn a commission on those sales (see below how much you can earn)
- You build a team by recruiting others to sell Tori Belle
- You earn commissions on their sales too
Tori Belle is set up like any other MLM / network marketing company. You have to “pay to play” by buying a starter kit and then you earn commissions when you sell the product.
How Much Does Tori Belle Cost to Join?
There are two Starter Kits that you can choose from when you join:
9-5 Affiliate Kit ($129)
- 9-5 Magnetic lashes
- Magnetic eyeliner
- Makeup remover
- Brow & liner kit
- 3 months free website hosting
Ladies Night Affiliate Kit ($129)
- Magnetic eyeliner
- Ladies Night magnetic lashes
- Primer
- Brow & liner kit
- 3 months free website hosting
Note: As long you keep the magnets clean, the lashes should last for 20-30 uses.
Once your 3 months free web hosting is up, you will pay $9 / month.
Here’s a starter kit unboxing video for your pleasure:
How Much Money Can You Make with Tori Belle?
How much money you can make with Tori Belle depends on many factors. But please note that almost everyone loses money when they’re in an MLM. Not only that, but about 90% of people leave an MLM within 5 years. It’s just the nature of the business.
This is a great article from The Finance Guy to explain why it’s so hard to make money in an MLM.
This study on the FTC’s website says that 99% of people lose money in an MLM.
And, to give you a little more proof, my friend Mike conducted his own study, looking at 167 MLMs and he discovered that 92.3% of distributors lose money.
While Tori Belle doesn’t have an income disclosure yet since it’s such a new company, we can venture a guess what the results will be. No matter how great a product is, the structure of an MLM is set up for failure for the majority of participants.
I can’t stress that enough.
Tori Belle Compensation Plan
There are a couple of ways you can earn with Tori Belle.
- Retail Sales
- Build a Team
1. Retail Sales
You earn a base 25% of retail sales. You can earn 40% by selling $3,000 or more in a month.
You can also earn product credits starting at $600 in sales. You can use the product credits to buy products for yourself, use them for giveaways, or sell them retail.
You can also earn Quick Start bonuses by hitting certain requirements within your first 2 months. You can also earn bonuses by getting promotions within your first 6 months.
2. Build a Team
Here are the different ranks within Tori Belle and the qualifying monthly sales amount needed to stay active at that rank:
- Affiliate = $200 personal sales, no team sales required
- Advanced Affiliate = $200 personal sales, $600 team sales
- Leading Affiliate = $300 personal sales, $1000 team sales
- Senior Affiliate = $400 personal sales, $1500 team sales
- Nano Influencer = $500 personal sales, $2500 team sales
- Micro Influencer = $600 personal sales, $4000 team sales
- Influencer = $600 personal sales, $7000 team sales
- Leading Influencer = $600 personal sales, $12,500 team sales
- Senior Influencer = $600 personal sales, $25,000 team sales
- Director of Influencer = $600 personal sales, $50,000 team sales
You also get a percentage of your downline’s payment at each level. Once you get to Nano Influencer, you will need to have Builder Legs, which are legs with at least $1000 or more in team sales. Click here to see the full compensation plan.
You can also watch this video:
When looking at a compensation plan, it always looks as though there’s a ton of opportunity to make money as you move up the ranks.
The issue that many direct salespeople fall into is staying active. If they can’t sell enough to product themselves to stay active, they end up buying the products themselves.
This causes them to spend more money than they make – and have an overstock of products. (Been there, done that myself!)
Tori Belle Complaints & Positive Reviews
Since the company is still pretty new, there aren’t a ton of reviews and complaints, but the BBB does have some, so let’s take a look and see what people have to say.
The positive reviewers said things like:
- I absolutely love these lashes and this company
- I get many compliments on the magnetic lashes
- Thanks to Tori Belle, I am now a lash girl
- They run the company with people in mind – customers and affiliates
The Tori Belle complaints are:
- Poor quality product and the return policy is only 3 days
- Customer service is terrible because I never got my package and they won’t replace it
- I wore the lashes twice and after removing them a second time, a clump of lashes fell out
Here’s an exchange I thought was worth posting:
The Tori Belle customer service representative sounds like he or she could be my mildly-combative 15-year old kid.
This is one of the issues with start-up MLMs from what I’ve seen. They struggle with two main things:
- Keeping products in stock
- Customer service
I also want to make a note about the positive reviews. If I were a betting person (and I am), I would put my money on the fact those positive reviews came from current distributors. Of course, if you’re a distributor, you want to be positive about the company you’re working for.
However, that also means those reviews are not unbiased.
It’s just something to keep in the back of your mind.
Is Tori Belle a Scam?
I wouldn’t call Tori Belle a scam. There are products and at least some people are happy with them. I would also like to point out that Tori Belle is not technically a pyramid scheme because they do have a product that affiliates can sell retail to customers.
The issue is that recruiting is generally where people in MLMs make their money (IF they make any money at all), and if it turns out that recruiting becomes more important than sales, then this could very well turn pyramid scheme-ish.
Pros
- They offer free shipping
- They pay up to 40% on retail sales
- No monthly quotas
- They dropship all products, which means you don’t need to keep inventory
- You’re allowed to promote other brands
- Unique product
Cons
- Fairly expensive products (the lashes and liner are $55 for a bundle, and a little more when bought separately)
- New company. This could be good if it takes off, but like any business, not every MLM will make it.
- Most people lose money in an MLM. (More than 99% according to this report on the FTC website)
- Even people high up make very little money after expenses
- Due to the nature of an MLM, if you’re making money it’s because people below you are losing money
- Being in an MLM is hard, many people are skeptical of them and their products
- Because of the constant turnover rate (88% is what I’ve read), you have to consistently be finding new leads, recruiting them and training them
I think if Tori Belle would have stayed with an online store and JUST had their affiliate program, I would have given this a thumbs up (depending on how many more negative reviews they get) because there are quite a few pros here.
However, after looking into different MLM opportunities, I just can’t get behind them because I feel MLMs do more damage than good for most people who are in them.
Related Articles:
- Why I Quit Young Living [And Why I’m Now Anti-MLM]
- MLM vs Affiliate Marketing [Why Affiliate Marketing Beats Any MLM Opportunity]
Tori Belle Alternative
If you love the idea of working for yourself from home but are having trouble getting behind and MLM, then you may want to consider affiliate marketing.
To put it simply, affiliate marketing is when you promote someone else’s product and you earn a commission.
For instance:
If you love cosmetics, instead of promoting Tori Belle and hustling and grinding and recruiting, you could create articles and videos about different cosmetics that you like and you could promote them either via a blog and/or YouTube.
You can sign up for affiliate programs from the makeup companies that you like (and / or Amazon) and you would get a special link to add to your reviews.
When someone clicks on that link and buys something, that sale is tracked and you earn a commission.
In my opinion, it’s a much easier way to turn a passion into profit because you’re not dependent on any upline or downline. You also don’t have to worry about selling a certain amount each month to stay active.
Not only that, but you can also continuously increase the amount of income that you make because the content that you work on now can continue to bring you income well into the future. (Passive income.)
I’d love to show you more about how affiliate marketing works. Check out my free guide, How To: Affiliate Marketing for Beginners.
Conclusion
Tori Belle is not a pyramid scheme because there are retail products that Authentic Influencers can sell to people. However, because recruiting usually becomes more important than retail sales, MLMs generally can become very borderline pyramid scheme-y. But I’ll leave that up to the FTC to decide about Tori Belle. For now, it seems to be in the clear.
Is it worth it to join Tori Belle? In my personal opinion, it’s not because there is a very good chance that you will end up losing money instead of making money. Even top people in MLMs don’t make as much money as you think because of the expenses they incur. (Unless they’re at the VERY top couple of levels.)
If you like the idea of promoting beauty products for a commission, why not try out affiliate marketing? I’ve done both MLM sales and affiliate marketing, and I would choose affiliate marketing every time. There’s no recruiting, uplines, downlines, cold messaging, or even warm messaging. Learn how to create your own affiliate marketing site, step by step.
Other related articles:
- Best Programs to Make Money Online
- Ultimate Wealthy Affiliate Review
- MLM vs Affiliate Marketing [Why Affiliate Marketing Beats Any MLM Opportunity]
“If your making money that means someone below you is losing money” ? sounds like a pyramid scheme to me. Adding products to the mix is the only way to legitimize it, but when your only customers are your “recruits” it’s a pyramid. People need to stop lying about these mom’s and stop taking advantage of people at a very sensitive time where people may have lost their jobs and our struggling. Luckily I’m not one of those people but it really angers me to see these companies to this to vulnerable people. It’s evil.
MLMs are basically product-based pyramid schemes. You sign up to make money, but you end up being the customer and spending your money. It’s not a good way to do business, especially if you’re desperate for money.