Thirty-One Gifts was founded in 2003 out of Tennessee. They tell us that their primary goal is ‘to help women by giving them the opportunity to run their own successful business’.

They have decided to sell their range of Thirty-One Gift Products through a network of consultants. We’re not sure how using an MLM system will help women ‘run their own successful business’. But we’ll carry on with our review of Thirty-One Gifts. We want to know if this is a real opportunity, or just another MLM money pit.

What Is The Thirty-One Opportunity

We looked at the official Thirty-One Gifts opportunity page. Here we learn that you can ‘be your own boss’, and earn 25% - 35% in commission.

They are currently running their ‘best offer ever’, which is that you get to join for only $99. This will include your ‘Sunny Days Social Kit’. It’s all you need to host a party and start selling Thirty-One Gifts.

Based on their opportunity page, it looks like Thirty-One Gift parties can be hosted through social media. If you happen to host one and make $500 worth of sales, your rewards will be something like this:

First off, by ordering $500 in Personal Value (PV) for the month, you would trigger the 35% commission (rather than 25%). Then you also get some discounts to putt toward future purchases from Thirty-One Gifts.

Of course the earnings don’t end there. You can can also make even more money if you recruit others to become Thirty-One Gift Consultants.

In true MLM tradition, you can earn a commission on anything your recruits sell, as well as from people they recruit and so on in your MLM downline.

The amount you can earn from your downline will depend on your rank with Thirty-One Gifts. It’s all explained in the Thirty-One Gifts Career Path Brochure.

The short version is that you can earn more commission if you keep recruiting and growing your downline, and make sure that everyone spends lots of money on Thirty-One Gifts.

How Much Are Thirty-One Gift Consultants Earning

Thirty-One Gifts has been surprisingly helpful. Near the bottom of their opportunity page, there is a copy of their current income disclosure statement. The earnings are summarized in the table shown below:

After a little addition, we see that 98.9% of consultants earned less than $10,000 in 2019 from this opportunity to ‘run their own successful business’. In true MLM fashion, less than 1% earn more than minimum wage with Thirty-One Gifts

It’s important to remember that income is not profit. The income disclosure does not include all the time and money spent by consultants while they were trying to build their ‘side hustle’. If we were to include all expenses, we’d expect to find that most Thirty-One Gifts consultants are losing money.

Why Is It Difficult To Make Money With Thirty-One Gifts

We believe that the problem is not unique to Thirty-One Gifts. The problem is with the business model. In his book, Multi-level Marketing Unmasked, Jon Taylor found that 99.7% of people who join any MLM end up losing money. Despite what you hear in the sales pitches, it is highly unlikely that you will make money from any of these ‘business opportunities’.

The reason is because MLM is a system designed to sell products to customers. When you sign up as a Consultant, you are in fact a customer buying from Thirty-One Gifts. They have no intention of making you a business partner. The goal is to make profit when you buy from them

Is Thirty-One Gifts An Illegal Pyramid Scam

Even though MLMs closely resemble pyramids, they are not illegal. The technicalities date back to a 1979 Amway ruling. To the best of our understanding, Amway managed to word their documentation in a way that bypassed the pyramid scheme laws. This opened the doors for other MLMs to do the same.

While the paperwork may make them legal, that doesn’t mean that Thirty-One Gifts and other MLMs are ethical. If you join any MLM, you have to realize that the only way to make money is if people below you are losing money

We looked at the 2018 FTC Business Guidance for MLMs. This explains when MLM participants are acting in a way that is misleading or unlawful. Examples of breaches include pressuring downlines to purchase products, and making unsubstantiated claims about earnings potential.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think in the comments section below, especially if you an share your experiences with Thirty-One Gifts

Are you wondering if you can make money in an MLM? Check our our list of mlm reviews before you join. If you find one that’s not on the list, let us know and we’ll do our best to write a review