Is Neora a Scam? – Full Review

Neora Overview

Neora (aka Neora International) is what they call a "relationship marketing" company that started in 2011 and is headquartered in Addison, Texas.

It actually didn't start out as "Neora" (got the new name in 2019), but instead was called "Nerium International". The name change supposedly was due to the company changing the ingredients used in their products. They used to include an ingredient called nerium oleandrin extract in some of their main products (where their name came from in the first place), but have since done away with this. There is also some wonder if it could have potentially been the result of controversy that resulted in lawsuits against Nerium International by both Nerium and Nerium Skincare (Nerium Internation is the parent company of Nerium Skincare--it gets pretty confusing).

They offer an array of different anti-aging skin and overall wellness products--but what might even be more heavily promoted is their business opportunity, which they claim can help people live their dream lives.

The term "relationship marketing" is just something they made up to try to avoid the negative talk surrounding "network marketing" and "multi-level marketing", which is what they really are.

In a nutshell, with the business opportunity that Neora offers anyone can join and start making money selling Neora products as well as building a team of other distributors via recruitment. They don't sell products in stores, instead relying on an independent sales force of distributors (called Brand Partners) to do the selling and recruiting. They sell directly which is why this is called direct selling (and yes, they are part of the Direct Selling Association). But we'll dive into all of this in detail in a minute.

Let's first go over the products being sold here...

The Product Lineup

Their products fall into 2 main categories, skincare and wellness. The skincare products consist of topical lotions, cleansers, moisturizers and so on... while the products that fall into the "wellness" category consist mostly of supplements, vitamins, etc.

Below is the current list of products in each category along with the price, which is the "monthly autoship" price (the one-time order price is even higher!).

Skincare

• Age IQ® Night & Day Combo - $140
• Prolistic™ Lotion & Probiotic Powder Combo Pack - $90
• Acne and Cleanser Combo - $74
• Prolistic™ Skin-Balancing Lotion with Probiotic Technology - $45
• Complexion Clearing Salicylic Acid Acne Treatment Pads - $44
• Age IQ® Invisi-Bloc™ Sunscreen Gel Broad Spectrum SPF 40 - $44
• Age IQ® Night Cream - $90
• Age IQ® Day Cream - $75
• Age IQ® Double-Cleansing Face Wash - $30
• Age IQ® Eye Serum - $60
• Eye-V™ Moisture Boost Hydrogel Patches - $40
• IllumaBoost® Brightening & Shield - $60
• Night, Day, Cleanser Combo - $170
• Eye Serum & Eye Patch Combo Pack - $100
• Firm Body Contour Cream - $80

Here we have acne treatment lotions and pads with salicylic acid (ingredient in just about every acne product), sun block that is more than just sunblock (healthy too), probiotic and "prebiotic" lotion to keep your skin bacteria balanced and healthy, and so on.

Wellness

• Prolistic™ Pre & Probiotic Plus Vitamins - $45
• EHT® Brain Formula - $60
• Youth Factor® Complete Vitality Complex - $45
• Youth Factor® Superfood & Antioxidant* Boost Powder - $45
• Wellness Chews Energy Formula - $40
• Wellness Chews Sleep Formula - $40

And here we have products for improving gut health, cognitive function, repair and rejuvenation on a cellular level, chewables to help balance the body's circadian rhythm and more.

One thing about their product lineup is for certain--they have quite the extensive product selection when it comes to anti-aging, in particular when dealing with skin health. And they also certainly don't skimp out on the ingredients--pretty much all their products have a long list of ingredients, which appears on the label as one massive paragraph that you aren't going to want to read.

Product Sets

In addition to the individual products and combo packs, you can also buy (or sell if you join the business opportunity) product sets which contain a bunch of products and are pretty darn pricey...

They have a challenge called the 90 day challenge where they give out prizes to people who show the best results after using their products for 90 days. Below is the most recent first place winner of $3k (as of writing this)...

Pretty drastic improvement, right?

But how much can you really trust before and after photos like this?... especially when they are taken in different lighting and such--and taken by the users.

The Business Opportunity

With the business opportunity you can supposedly live life on your own terms, take control of your time and success, and enjoy a compensation plan with "significant income potential".

But of course they always make things sound more awesome than they really are--after all this is marketing.

Neora's "Business in a Box"

When joining Neora's business opportunity you are first going to have to purchase a starter kit/pack, which they call a "business in a box".

What this includes is a personalized website, brochures, planners, applications and other marketing materials, online training and more. The cheapest option is the Basic Kit, but you also have more expensive options available, going up to $1k.

• Basic Kit - $49.95
• Starter Pack - $500
• Builder Pack - $750
• Premier Builder Pack - $1,000

The Basic Kit only contains the marketing and training material--no products. The other kits all contain the same marketing and training material but include increasing amounts of products, which can be very important to have since you are going to be trying to sell them.

Compensation Plan

Once you have your Starter Pack/Kit and meet the following requirements, you are able to take part in the compensation.

The requirements to "stay active" that you must meet are...

• 120-400 PQV each month from personal sales or
• 80-150 PQV each month from Auto-delivery

*PQV stands for Personal Qualifying Volume and this includes the sales that you make to customers as well as the items you order yourself for personal use.

After joining there are 3 focuses that they push you to do right away, which will help you earn some quick bonuses as well as get your business up off the ground. These include...

Focus #1 - Fast Start Bonus - This is a bonus you only have available within the first month after joining. You can earn $150 here and what you have to do is recruit in 3 other Brand Partners beneath you.

Focus #2 - Qualify for 3UR Free - This bonus is available when you have at least 3 preferred customers who are enrolled in Auto-delivery each month--and the total QV (qualifying volume, which is basically the amount of products sold) of 210 each month--AND you have Auto-delivery yourself with at least 80 QV each month. If you meet the requirements you receive monthly products for free.

So the first focus (Fast Start Bonus) is incentive to get you to go out and recruit in other Brand Partners and this second focus is incentive to get you to enroll preferred customers.

Focus #3 - Start Using Edge - This focus is to start using their Edge subscription package, which is basically a bunch of leadership development and business building tools to help you build your Neora business.

2 Main Ways to Earn as a Brand Partner

As a Brand Partner there are 13 ways to earn, but these all fall into 2 main categories, which I'll be grouping everything into so that it is easier to understand.

These 2 main categories are:

1. Earning Money Selling Products and
2. Earning Money Recruiting In Other Brand Partners

1. Earning Money Selling Products

Retail Sales - You will be able to sell products through your personalized Neora website, which you get with the Starter Pack/Kit that you have to purchase at the beginning.

The amount you earn here is the difference between the normal customer price and the price that Brand Partners pay for a one-time order (which is like the wholesale price).

Example: If the retail price is $100 and the Brand Partner discount price is $75, then you can make $25 selling this product.

Besides selling online you are also able to sell directly in person. What you would do here is personally order extra products and then sell them directly to customers at the appropriate markup price.

Personal Sales Commissions - In addition to the Retail Commissions you also get Personal Sales Commissions, which are based on the amount of purchases made by your customers during any given month. The minimum sales volume you need to start earning this is $300 in a month and you start out at 5% commissions.

• $300 - $1,499 in sales = 5% commissions
• $1,500 - $2,999 in sales = 10% commissions
• $3,000+ in sales = 15% commissions

PC First Order Bonus (FOB) - When you enroll a new Preferred Customer you will be paid this bonus based on the order volume of their first order. The bonus is a 20% commission of the order price--pretty nice.

Personal PC Bonus - This is a bonus paid for maintaining a customer base. What you have to do to earn this bonus is have a certain number of Preferred Customers purchasing at least a certain amount of products each month.

• $50 bonus if you have at least 6 Preferred Customers purchasing at least 55 QV (Qualifying Volume) each for a total of 500 PQV (Personal Qualifying Volume)
• $150 bonus if you have at least 9 Preferred Customers purchasing at least 55 QV for a total of 800 PQV

2. Earning Money Recruiting In Other Brand Partners

Most of the ways to earn through Neora's comp plan come from recruitment of other Brand Partners. But before I get into all of this, it's important to discuss the different ranks within the comp plan.

Neora's Ranks & Qualifications:

Basically how it works is there are 18 ranks and as you climb up the ranks you unlock more and more ways to earn within the comp plan.

1. Active Brand Partner
2. Brand Partner Plus
3. Senior Brand Partner
4. Elite Brand Partner
5. Premier Brand Partner
6. Director
7. Team Director
8. Elite Director
9. Premier Director
10. Area Marketing Director
11. Regional Marketing Director
12. National Marketing Director
13. Silver National Marketing Director
14. Gold National Marketing Director
15. Platinum National Marketing Director
16. International Marketing Director
17. Silver International Marketing Director
18. Gold International Marketing Director

Moving up the ranks depends on 4 key elements...

• Your personal activity - You need to have a certain amount of PQV (Personal Qualifying Volume) or ADV (Auto-Delivery Volume)
• Group Qualifying Volume (GQV) - This is the total of everyone's PQV within your "team"--based on the placement tree
• Leadership Qualifying Volume (LQV) - The total PQV from all Brand Partners in your enrollment tree
• Team Structure

Mostly what it comes down to in order to move up the ranks is recruitment. The amount of products you either need to sell or buy yourself does increase, but not that significantly. The most emphasis by far is placed on recruitment.

But anyways... now that we've gone over the different ranks, let's move on to the different ways to earn via recruitment...

Team PC Bonus - This bonus has 4 different levels and rewards you for recruiting in other Brand Partners and helping them move their way up the compensation plan too.

• Level 1 - $200 bonus if you recruit in 3 other BPs and each become 3UR qualified (they become qualified after enrolling 3 Preferred Customers--I talked about this in "Focus #2")
  • Personal qualification of at least 6 Preferred Customers
• Level 2 - $500 bonus if 3 BPs you recruited in earn the PPC Bonus 
  • Personal qualification of at least 9 Preferred Customers
• Level 3 - $1,000 bonus if 3 BPs you recruited in reach Level 1 of this Team PC Bonus that we are going over now
  • Personal qualification of at least 9 Preferred Customers
• Level 4 - $2,000 bonus if 3 BPs you recruited in reach Level 3 of this bonus
  • Personal qualification of at least 9 Preferred Customers

So basically what this will look like if you move up the levels is like this...

You will be required to build your team and help the Brand Partners in your team build their teams, which leads to more recruitment and more customer sales--and more earnings besides just this bonus.

BP First Order Bonus (FOB) - Here is another FOB but instead of this one being given when you enroll new Preferred Customers (like that already mentioned) this bonus is given when you recruit in new BPs and they purchase a 500 QV or more enrollment pack.

You will earn 20% commissions on these first orders and your upline enroller will earn 10%--unless you are a National Marketing Director or higher, where you earn the whole 30%.

Director Bonus - You can get this bonus if you are able to move up the ranks to that of Director within your first 3 months as a Brand Partner. If you are able to achieve Director status in 1-2 months you get a $200 bonus whereas if it takes you 3 months you get a $100 bonus.

Power-5 Bonus - This is another bonus that pays you based on enrollment orders of newly recruited BPs. The way it works is that you get a 5% commission from the total sales volume of the enrollment orders once there is a set of 5 orders (only the 500, 750, or 1,000 QV orders count).

Team Commissions - This is easily one of the main parts of the compensation plan. Here you earn commissions down to 8 generations deep at most. You will start out earning from just the first 2 generations but as you move up the ranks you will be able to earn down further.

How it works is like this: There is a unilevel recruitment structure (pictured below) where you recruit people in, they recruit people in, those people recruit people in and so on. It's a pyramid shape that can grow infinitely wide and deep...

Senior Brand Partners and higher are what form "generations". How I like to think of it is that when someone moves high enough up the ranks (to that of Senior BP in this case) they form their own team and this is called a generation. Then if a generation forms within that generation, or team, that is a 2nd generation. This continues down and you can earn down 8 generations.

Hopefully that makes sense--I know it can get confusing.

Momentum Bonus - This is a 3% bonus that is paid on top of the Team Commissions that you get for the first 3 months after you advance in rank--it starts when you reach the Elite Brand Partner rank.

This extra 3% is paid on top of the commissions you earn at each level in the Team Commission chart above, no matter your rank.

Lifestyle Bonus - The Lifestyle Bonus is only paid when you achieve the ranks of Premier Director and higher. It starts out at $150 and goes up to a whopping $100k if you were somehow able to make it the whole way to Gold International Marketing Director.

This bonus is paid on a monthly basis.

Luxury Car Bonus - You can start receiving this bonus once you reach the rank of Elite Director. It is a monthly bonus to pay for a luxury car--or you have the option of receiving cash payments each month instead.

Check Match - You can start earning this when you reach Elite Director rank. It is called a "check match" because you earn a certain percentage of what Team Directors or higher in your enrollment tree earn on Team Commissions.

You will earn this down to 6 generations deep--each Team Director or higher making their own generation...

Infinity Bonus - This bonus pays up to a 1% commission of the CV for your entire organization. You have to be at the rank of Silver National Marketing Director or higher to earn this.

• Silver National Marketing Director - 0.5%
• Gold National Marketing Director - 0.75%
• Platinum National Marketing Director and higher - 1%

*No more than 60% of this bonus can come from a single leg of your downline placement tree.

NMD Generation Bonus - This bonus becomes available when your reach the rank of Platinum National Marketing Director. It pays a percentage commissions from the CV of National Marketing Director generations, down to 3 generations deep.

*Note: The compensation plan differs slightly from country to country. This is the USA comp plan.

Pyramid Scheme Allegations - Are They True?

In September of 2018 Nerium was hit with a lawsuit claiming that it was a pyramid scheme. Now I know that Neora is not Nerium anymore, but it is still very similar and the compensation plan still has the same basic structure.

So is Neora a pyramid scheme? It obviously has a pyramid recruitment structure and focuses largely on getting Brand Partners to recruit in more Brand Partners, which then recruit more and more--and the cycle continues.

That said, the big difference between a pyramid scheme and a legitimate MLM is the sale of products--but not just the sale of products--the sale of products to real customers. 

A lot of pyramid schemes force new participants to purchase products--so while money is being made from product sales, it could still be considered a pyramid scheme.

Neora does somewhat of a good job (at least they attempt) at getting Brand Partners to enroll customers and sell products rather than just recruit other BPs. They offer bonuses for doing such instead of only giving out retail commissions.

While I don't have all the inside information, I wouldn't call Neora a pyramid scheme based on what I see here. If you were to call it one then you would also have to call Mary Kay, Avon, Herbalife, Shaklee, etc. pyramid schemes as well.

In my opinion there are many other MLM's that lean much more closely to the pyramid scheme side of things (that operate legally as MLM's) than Neora--mostly because of how Neora makes an effort to reward Brand Partners for maintaining a good customer base.

What do you think?

One of the big problems I see is that BPs don't necessarily have to sell products--they can simply advance up ranks by fulfilling the auto-ship requirement instead--and of course recruiting in other BPs. This should be done away with so that BPs are forced more to actually sell products.

Earnings Disclosure

The opportunity is said to be a way to achieve financial freedom and "live the life of your dreams", but unfortunately it seems like every MLM opportunity says something along these lines and usually the opposite is true.

Usually what happens is a very small percentage of distributors who have managed to climb to the top ranks make large amounts of money while the overwhelming majority of people at the bottom make very little and even lose money.

This is how it pretty much always is because of the pyramid structure, which takes potential commissions away from those at the bottom and funnels them up to those at the top--and due to the structure there are always going to be many more people at the bottom.

How much are Neora Brand Partners actually making?

Unfortunately they don't disclose any income amounts so I can only assume that they aren't very pretty, as they usually aren't.

Note: According to a study of 350 MLM's published on the FTC's website 99% of people who get involved lose money!

Conclusion - Scam or Great Business Opportunity?

So is Neora a scam opportunity? No, it does not appear so. There are lots of downsides to it, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it a scam.

The product lineup is actually pretty impressive. They have quite the concoctions of ingredients and products attacking signs of aging from multiple angles--and all in all the products seem to be good quality.

The opportunity is an entirely different story however. It can be very enticing with the opportunity to build your own team and profit from their efforts, but of course it is often misrepresented as being a greater opportunity than it really is. Will you really be able to live your dream life without financial worries? Well, ya--if you are able to advance up the ranks high enough, which very few people are able to do.

The cold hard reality is that the MLM business world is one heck of a struggle, which is the reason I'm not too much of a fan--although I hope this review was as unbiased as possible.

So just know what you are getting yourself into if you do decide to join. Of course the Brand Partner trying to recruit you in is going to make it sound amazing--because they are going to make money off of you.

Personally I'm more of a fan of affiliate marketing, which has nothing to do with recruitment. If interested you can check out this program that took me from $0 to over $6,000 a month working online this way.

Alternatively you also might want to check out our top work at home ideas since it appears you are interested in making a flexible income from home.

I hope you enjoyed this review 🙂 Leave any comments or questions below.