Commission Academy Review

The Best Affiliate Marketing Course?

We’re on a mission to find the best affiliate marketing course, based on feedback from real students combined with our own extensive research.

Unfortunately, Commission Academy doesn’t make the top of our list…

How does Commission Academy help you make money?

As stated on the sales page for Commission Academy…

Our step-by-step platform guides you through the process of launching your very own thriving online business & provides you with the resources to begin earning affiliate commissions in the shortest time possible, even if you’re just a beginner.

Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products or services, and collect a commission for every successful referral.

Commission Academy aims to teach you how to do this with your own website. They provide some training of their own, but mainly refer you to a training platform called Wealthy Affiliate and encourage you to sign up for a premium account there.

From Lesson 4 of the Commission Academy training…

the first thing you need to do is simply go ahead & create your free Wealthy Affiliate account. It only takes a minute. 

[…] we’d highly recommend that you take a moment to check out the Wealthy Affiliate Premium offer. If you’re serious about building an income then that’ll provide you with access to additional resources to help speed the process up.

Wealthy Affiliate proposes to teach you the same thing Commission Academy does: to create a website, drive traffic to that website, and monetize mainly with affiliate marketing.

If you ask me, Commission Academy really just adds their own layer of training on top of Wealthy Affiliate, in an effort to get you signing up to WA via their affiliate link so they can earn a commission.

This is fine as the CA training does add some value to Wealthy Affiliate and it doesn’t cost you anything extra. 

Unfortunately, Wealthy Affiliate itself is quite controversial, with many students criticizing it for being outdated and ineffective.

• Learn more about affiliate marketing

Who is Commission Academy for?

Commission Academy states multiple times that it’s suited for people new to affiliate marketing.

For example…

As an affiliate you’ll be provided with the opportunity to earn commissions from the sales of over 598,500,000 products without having to deal with shipping, support, refunds or the pains of handling inventory. That makes it the absolute perfect choice for beginners who are looking to start generating revenue online in the shortest time possible without having to take risks or make any kinds of heavy upfront investments.

I disagree that affiliate marketing is a good way for people to start making money online. As I wrote in my Affiliate Marketing Starter Guide, it is a great business model in many ways, but it usually takes a ton of time and effort before you can earn a living from it.

That said, if you are a newbie to affiliate marketing, you will learn a thing or two from Commission Academy.

But if you have some experience with affiliate marketing, or if you already signed up to Wealthy Affiliate in the past, I doubt you’ll find much value inside CA.

• 70+ ways how to make money online (including easy options)

Do Dale & Simon have a good reputation?

It’s complicated.

The official Commission Academy website states that Dale and Simon have collectively earned over $1 million from affiliate marketing. I haven’t found much proof to back that up but I’m inclined to take their word for it.

However, it looks like both Dale and Simon are closely tied to Wealthy Affiliate, another affiliate marketing course which has not scored well on our rating system.

It seems both of them have been to the Wealthy Affiliate conference in Las Vegas, which apparently you only get an invite to if you’ve sent WA at least “300 premium upgrades in a calendar year.”

That means both Dale and Simon refer almost 1 new premium member to Wealthy Affiliate every day.

Given that, I’m inclined to think that much of their success as affiliates has come from promoting this one program. And when you consider that half of the WA training teaches students how to recruit other students… well, it all feels way too MLM-y for my liking.

Also, Commission Academy itself is little more than a layer on top of Wealthy Affiliate, though that doesn’t become apparent until you’ve signed up for an account.

Which makes the following post on the Commission Academy website all the more weird…

In the first lesson of Commission Academy, Dale mentions one of his interviews as proof of his reputation, but even that interviewer is a well-known affiliate for WA…

Ultimately, I had a hard time finding anyone outside of the Wealthy Affiliate ecosystem who vouches for Dale and/or Simon. And that isn’t a great sign 😕

Last thing here: Simon’s full name is Simon Crowe and it’s not hard to find that out online. But I haven’t been able to discover Dale’s last name.

Sure, people are entitled to their privacy online, but I’m always a bit more suspicious of course creators who don’t disclose their full names.

Are Commission Academy students getting results?

It’s easy enough to find people praising Commission Academy, but I didn’t find a single student reporting that they’d achieved significant results from following the training.

Knowing the nature of Wealthy Affiliate, I’d say most of the positive “reviews” were written by people who are actively trying to recruit more students and earn commissions for those referrals.

Also, the Commission Academy training seems to barely touch upon most of the subjects it covers. The fact that it’s very basic leads me to believe that the vast majority of people who sign up for the training don’t achieve any significant results 🙁

How much does Commission Academy cost?

Commission Academy is a free training that only requires your email to get started.

However, in order to make more money and access the bonuses, the training strongly recommends that you upgrade to a Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership, which will end up costing you at least $495 per year.

(More info about Wealthy Affiliate’s pricing and refund policy.)

Additionally, you may want to put out some extra money on software for growing your email lists (Commission Academy requires Aweber and Poptin, both of which have free plans as well).

How is Commission Academy structured?

Here’s what the training looks like once you log in and open one of the lessons…

The training has two modules with a total of 28 video lessons. Most of them are less than 10 minutes long. Some even have English subtitles, while the rest have automatic captions.

IMO, Commission Academy is rather short, but that’s what I’d expect from a free course. 

The big issue with the training is that it’s essentially a funnel to get you signed up to Wealthy Affiliate.

For starters, you’ll need to sign up for a free WA account to create your own website and host it. Then you are strongly encouraged to upgrade to a premium WA account.

Dale and Simon’s training may cover many important affiliate marketing topics, but I wouldn’t say it covers anything in significant detail. Again, the main purpose of the whole thing seems to be to offer a little value and then get you signed up as a paying customer of Wealthy Affiliate, via Dale and Simon’s affiliate link.

Unfortunately, the CA training isn’t very easy to navigate, either. There isn’t a search function inside, there aren’t any video segments, and no list of videos once you open one of the lessons.

Commission Academy doesn’t have its own private community. My guess is that Dale and Simon hope you’ll join WA to get access to the community and all the other bonuses on offer there.

One value-add that you do get from CA are weekly live hangouts with Dale and Simon.

Green Lights 🟢 

A few things to like about Commission Academy…

• Free-yet-decent training on affiliate marketing fundamentals.
• Lessons are short and simple, easily digestible.
• Weekly live hangouts.

Red Flags 🚩 

A few things to be wary of regarding Commission Academy…

• The training seems like one big sales funnel for Wealthy Affiliate.
• Hard to find students reporting significant positive results from following the training.
• No advanced info.
• No search functionality; hard to find specific lessons.
• No private community.

Other things you should know

• Again, I get the strong impression that Commission Academy was solely made to promote Wealthy Affiliate. Which wouldn’t bother me so much if they admitted it up front. Instead, they make it sound like a standalone training program, only to reveal – after you sign up – that you need to become a member of WA (ideally via their affiliate link).

Should you join Commission Academy?

I would only recommend this to someone who really likes the sound of Wealthy Affiliate and hopes to get a little extra help from two WA veterans: Dale and Simon.

Because Commission Academy has little to offer on its own; it’s mainly just a funnel for Wealthy Affiliate.

Unfortunately, Wealthy Affiliate does not score well on our rating system, and has always felt a little too MLM-y for my liking.

All that said, Commission Academy itself is free and they don’t force you to sign up for a Premium Wealthy Affiliate account. So you can go through and get some decent value from the whole thing without spending a dime.

• Learn more about affiliate marketing

Commission Academy Alternatives

Here are the top affiliate marketing programs we’ve reviewed…

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