Your upline showed you the top rank. Eight checks find the number that describes you, using real 2025 statements.
This in-depth guide covers everything you need to know about read an mlm income disclosure statement. Based on verified income data and real-world case studies from our database of 138 side hustle tactics.
An MLM income disclosure statement is the company's own record of what its participants were paid in a year. To read one, check who is counted, whether the figures come before expenses, what the median is and what share of people earned nothing. In the 2025 US statements of six large companies, Young Living's median across all Brand Partners was $0 and about 58% of doTERRA's active US Wellness Advocates earned no commissions. Then subtract your own costs with the MLM profit calculator to get the number that applies to you.
The slide your upline showed you
You are at a kitchen table, or on a video call, and someone you like is showing you a slide. A rank name you have never heard of. A number with a lot of zeros. Maybe a car, maybe a beach. They tell you this is possible if you put in the work, and that they believe in you.
They probably mean it. Most people who share an opportunity are repeating what was shown to them, and they want it to work for both of you.
Somewhere on the company's website there is a document that tells you how likely that slide is. Most people never open it. In the AARP's 2018 survey of 601 people who had joined an MLM, only 40% said they received a copy of the company's income disclosure statement.
You want your own income. That is a good thing to want. This page shows you how to read the one document that tells you whether this route is likely to get you there, using the real 2025 statements from six large US companies. It takes about 15 minutes.
Question to sit with: before you open the document, write down what you expect the typical person in the company earned last year. Then compare your guess with what the company itself reports.
Where to find the statement
Look in the website footer for "income disclosure", "earnings statement" or "statement of typical earnings". If you cannot find one, you are not alone: when FTC staff checked the websites of the more than 600 MLMs they knew of, only 79 had made an income disclosure statement public.
If there is no public statement, ask your sponsor for it in writing. The FTC's staff guidance says that if an MLM does not have evidence of the typical earnings of its participants, including their costs, "it should refrain from making any earnings claims". That includes the slide.
Eight checks, in order
1. Who is counted
Start here, because everything else depends on it. A statement that leaves out the people who earned nothing will look better than one that counts everyone.
The FTC staff report on 70 income disclosure statements, published in September 2024, found that only 11 clearly included all participants. Twenty-nine left out everyone who earned no commissions, and 24 more left out participants the company called "inactive".
The 2025 US statements show how differently companies draw the line:
- Herbalife, "U.S. Statement of Typical Distributor Earnings 2025", counts only the "about 107,769 U.S. Distributors" who "ordered products for resale". Its earnings figures cover only the "about 47,000" who earned money in a typical month. It says "the majority of Distributors in 2025 joined only to receive a discount" but does not give a total, so you cannot work out what share of all distributors earned anything.
- doTERRA, "2026 doTERRA Opportunity and Earnings Disclosure Summary" (2025 data), counts "active" Wellness Advocates, which includes anyone who simply bought product during the year.
- Arbonne, "Independent Consultant Earnings Statement" (2025 data), counts only consultants "engaged in business building activity". Buying a sales aid or business tool counts as that activity.
- Young Living, "Young Living 2026 U.S. Income Disclosure Statement" (2025 data), counts "all U.S. Brand Partners who had a Brand Partner account for any part of Calendar Year 2025". A footnote says Brand Partners who earn no commissions for 12 months are converted into Customer accounts.
- MONAT, "MONAT USA 2025 Income Disclosure Statement", counts all US Market Partners "which includes Active and Inactive Market Partners".
- Amway, "2025 U.S. Income Disclosure", counts all IBOs at Founders Platinum and below, "including those who earned $0, were inactive, did not buy or sell products, or joined mid-year". Levels above Founders Platinum are not shown.
FTC staff guidance is direct about this: "It is misleading for an MLM to exclude from its IDS information about participants who lost money or earned no money".
2. Gross or net
Gross is what the company paid out. Net is what was left after the participant's own costs. Your rent is paid from net.
The FTC staff report found that none of the 70 statements gave income figures that took account of all expenses, and 20 had no statement at all about whether expenses were included. Only four flagged the missing expenses as prominently as the dollar figures.
Five of the six 2025 statements above report gross figures. Young Living calls its figures "potential gross income". MONAT says its figures "DO NOT take into consideration any expenses". Amway is a partial exception: its "Adjusted Income" subtracts renewal fees and reported training costs from approved providers, but "samples, inventory, shipping, taxes, and travel" are not deducted. The same document puts the average annual expense for IBOs registered with an approved training provider at $651.
The average adds everyone's pay together and divides by the number of people. One person earning seven figures pulls it up for everyone. The median is the person in the middle of the line. Half earned more, half earned less. For deciding whether to join, the median is the closer guide to your likely result.
Young Living's 2025 range runs from $0 to $1,972,417. Its average across all Brand Partners was $778. Its median was $0.
MONAT gives an overall average of $665 and no overall median. For the 91.69% of Market Partners at its entry rank, the median was $8 for the year and the average $81.
At Amway, the 98.33% of IBOs at Entry Level had a gross median of $40 and an average of $454.
This is a common pattern. FTC staff found that 59 of the 70 statements they reviewed reported averages for groups rather than medians.
4. The share who earned nothing
Find this number and write it down. It is the closest thing to your odds of getting paid at all.
- doTERRA, 2025: "approximately 58% of U.S. active Wellness Advocates did not earn any commissions". Its earnings tables cover only the other 42%.
- MONAT, 2025: "Forty-four percent of U.S. Market Partners were not Active in 2025 and therefore did not earn any commissions."
- Amway, 2025: 52.3% of IBOs at Founders Platinum and below had $0 in adjusted income.
- Arbonne, 2025: "13.5% of the Consultants represented above had no gross earnings in 2025". Remember that its table counts only consultants engaged in business building.
Across the FTC staff sample, 27 statements gave the zero-income share or allowed it to be calculated. In 17 of those 27, more than half of participants had no income.
5. Monthly or yearly
Herbalife's 2025 statement reports what people earned "in a typical month before expenses". Among about 41,000 distributors past their first year who earned in a typical month, "50% earned more than" $320 a month. The same document says about half of that group earned in seven months or more in 2025, and about half of first-year earners earned in two months or more. You cannot multiply a monthly figure by 12 when many people were paid in only some months.
6. How rank is assigned
Some statements place each person at the highest rank they reached during the year. Young Living uses each person's "highest achieved rank" and notes the income "may contain income earned at a lower rank". MONAT uses the highest title held for at least three months. Neither is wrong, but a rank row can include people who held that rank for only part of the year.
7. What is left out by design
Read the footnotes for exclusions. Amway's gross figures "exclude retail profits from direct sales to customers". Arbonne leaves out "cash sales or e-transfers made directly between Arbonne Independent Consultants and their customers". MONAT leaves out "profits or losses when products are resold".
This cuts both ways. If you sell product at a markup to real customers, your income could be higher than the table shows. The FTC staff report makes the same point: its analysis did not include profits from retail sales where statements left them out. Retail profit is also the part of the business you control most directly, which is why selling to people outside the company matters so much.
8. How long the ranks take
Young Living publishes the median time to reach each rank. In its 2025 statement, the median was 25 months to reach Silver, 35 to Gold, 47 to Diamond and 144 to Royal Crown Diamond. Silver Brand Partners were 0.7% of the total and averaged $19,520 gross for the year.
Ask your sponsor how long the person showing you the top-rank number took to get there, and how many people started in the same month and are still in.
The six 2025 statements side by side
All figures are annual and US unless marked, taken from each company's own document. "Not given" means the document does not report that figure.
These documents count different groups in different ways, so do not rank the companies against each other from this table. Use it to see the questions each one answers and the ones it leaves open.
Turn the statement into your own number
The statement tells you what the company paid. Your result is that minus everything you pay to take part. Here is how to make it personal:
- Pick the row you can realistically reach in your first year. For most people, that is the entry rank.
- Take the median for that row. If there is no median, use the average and assume your result will be lower.
- Subtract the costs the company states. Some 2025 examples: Amway charges $0 in the first year, then a $55 renewal plus an optional $16 IBOAI renewal. Arbonne charges a $65 registration fee and a $65 annual renewal, with $11.95 flat-rate shipping on most orders. MONAT's starter kit is $99. Herbalife's business pack is $54.95.
- Subtract what you would buy each month to stay active or reach a bonus level, beyond what you would have bought anyway.
- Add samples, shipping, events and travel. Arbonne reports that 5,141 consultants registered for its 2025 Global Training Conference, at $299 in person or $99 virtual, before travel.
Put those figures into the MLM profit calculator. It shows what you keep each month and what that pays per hour of your time.
One comparison from the documents themselves: in 2025 the median MONAT Market Partner at the entry rank was paid $8 for the year. The starter kit costs $99. FTC staff found a similar pattern elsewhere: one statement showed that as many as 78.69% of participants made no money in commissions or bonuses while the company charged a $19.95 monthly fee.
Question to sit with: if you ended the year at the median for the entry rank, would you have earned back what you spent to start?
What the disclaimers do and do not tell you
Almost every statement carries a line saying results are not typical. FTC staff found such a disclaimer in at least 63 of the 70 statements, and in most it was less prominent than the dollar table.
The industry's own code asks for this. The US Direct Selling Association's Code of Ethics requires earnings representations to state that "Not everyone will achieve the represented level of income" and that "Such amounts are before expenses, if any". The FTC's staff guidance sets a higher bar: "A 'results not typical,' 'results are not guaranteed,' or similar disclosure is not enough". It says any earnings claim "should reflect what the typical person to whom the representation is directed is likely to achieve".
Why the numbers may not change how you feel
If you read all of this and still feel drawn in, that is normal, and researchers have measured it. In a lab study published in Economic Inquiry in 2020, Stacie Bosley and colleagues found that an income disclosure "does not significantly alter interest in the business opportunity but does reduce expectations". A follow-up in the Journal of Consumer Affairs in 2023 found the same thing, and that some people raised their earnings estimate after seeing the disclosure, depending on their numeracy and whether they saw themselves as better than average.
A 2026 study in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing reviewed over 2,000 MLM marketing materials and found that firms "overwhelmingly use no disclaimers or vague, nonprominent disclaimers", and that the disclaimers actually used had no measurable effect on readers.
Hope is human. You can hold onto the hope and still decide with the median in front of you.
Bring these to the next conversation. A sponsor who believes in the business should be glad to answer them.
- What was the median income for all participants last year, including people who earned nothing?
- How many people joined in your team last year, and how many are still active?
- How much do you spend each month on product, fees, events and travel, and what is left after that?
- How much of your income comes from selling to customers who are not in the company?
- Can I see the buyback policy in writing?
If the answers are vague, read the red flags to watch for and use the checklist for evaluating a company before you join.
Where to go from here
If the numbers point away from joining, your wish for your own income does not have to go anywhere. The alternatives with better odds include selling products you choose yourself through live selling or Etsy digital products, and service work like pet sitting that can pay from the first booking.
If you are already in and the numbers do not add up, read how to leave an MLM and recover money. For the wider picture, start with the honest guide to MLM and direct sales or the short version: is MLM worth it?