This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, visit the disclosure page.
Does Wealthy Affiliate offer a free trial?
It may seem as if this question can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” response. However, there are members who join Wealthy Affiliate, experience the first couple of days, and ask questions like:
- Do I have to pay money when my free trial is over?
- Can someone tell me what is included in the free trial?
- What happens when my free membership is up?
- What features can I use after the 7-day free trial?
Hmmm!? Something about a 7-day free trial? Where did that come from?
If you’ve been wondering whether Wealthy Affiliate has a free trial or not then all your questions will be answered here in this article.
Wealthy Affiliate Membership Types
Wealthy Affiliate has three types of memberships.
The first type is the Starter membership which is the free membership you experience when you first join the site and haven’t paid any fees to upgrade.
The second type is the Premium membership which is when you’ve upgraded by paying a monthly or annual fee to access everything on the site.
Finally, there is a Premium Plus membership which is a type of bundled membership where you get more websites, more training, free access to Jaaxy Enterprise for research, advanced web hosting benefits, and priority support.
The Starter membership is totally free but has some limitations as you would expect. This membership is free forever which means you can stay a free member for as long as you like. You won’t be charged at any time especially since Starter members aren’t required to add any payment details. When you join Wealthy Affiliate for free, you don’t even need to input any credit card information, just an email, username, and password.
Premium access frees you from all the limitations of the Starter membership and unlocks a number of resources and training. Once a premium member, you cannot go back to being a free member by downgrading. For some countries, like Nigeria, you can only join Wealthy Affiliate as a premium member as the free Starter membership isn’t available to them.
Free Trial?
The idea of a free trial comes from the fact that each Starter membership is less limited within the first 7 days of your membership. For the first 7 days, you have full access to all the “write” platforms on Wealthy Affiliate – you can blog, ask questions, participate in classroom discussions, and chat in the live panel. You cannot send private messages though (this protects paying members from spammers).
After 7 days, these “write” privileges are removed and you’re encouraged to go premium usually at a sweet discount so that you can experience the premium membership. But you’re still a free member with access to everything you had access to before. Besides the “write” access, nothing else is blocked and you can still continue learning and building your websites as before.
The way most free trials work is that you would usually have access to something for a period of time and when that time is up, you’d be charged the full amount of the product if you decide to continue or lose access if you decide not to.
At Wealthy Affiliate, even though you’re on a free plan, you have a 7-day free trial of the support channels. This is the only premium benefit that is free-trialed while you’re on the free plan. Your membership, if you’re a Starter member, is free forever.
Just to demonstrate, I’d like to answer the questions at the top of the page here.
You won’t have to pay money when your trial is over because you’re not required to enter payment information on signup, only when upgrading to premium which you don’t even have to do if you don’t want to. Your membership is free for as long as you like.
All Starter members have limited access to Wealthy Affiliate forever, or until they upgrade to premium access which unlocks a wealth of resources, training, and communication.
To be specific, Starter members get 1 free website while premium members can build up to 10. Starter members can’t use their own domain names, only sub-domains of SiteRubix.com. Starters get access to the Level 1 core training and Level 1 Bootcamp training but have to upgrade to access the full training courses.
In the grid below, you can compare what is available to free Starter members with what’s available to Premium members.
That won’t ever happen because the free membership lasts forever. If you never go premium and decide to leave the site for 5 years then come back, you’d still have access as a free Starter member. You’d still be able to continue building your free websites from where you left off.
The only thing that changes during your free membership is the loss of “write” access after the first 7 days. You only lose the live support and the one-on-one training but you’ll still have access to everything else that’s available to Starter members.
All the features that were available to Starter members would still be available for a long, long time. The only difference you’ll notice is that you won’t be able to write blogs, comments, discussions and chat live. These things fall under “live support” and are only available to premium members but are previewed for the first seven days of a Starter membership.
How To Make the Most Out of a Free Wealthy Affiliate Account
Is it worth it to be on a free Wealthy Affiliate Starter membership?
Years ago, the only way to join Wealthy Affiliate and build a business was to pay the premium membership fee to get access and there weren’t as many resources as available now or even such effective, step-by-step training like the one that exists today. I joined at that time, had much less, and had to pay just to see if it was worth it.
Now, you can sign up without even putting in your credit card information, build a website, and even access the training. What you get for free now, I had to pay for when I joined.
So it is definitely worth it to be a Starter member but the premium is even more valuable and you should try that too and get the free .com domain deal Wealthy Affiliate offers when you upgrade.
To make the most of the free Starter access though, I would suggest getting started on the training immediately. Fully set up your account by uploading a picture of yourself and filling out your profile description. This action alone will let you experience how willing the community is to help you whenever you need it and gives you visibility within the community – more people will know that you’re there.
Try to take action on the training and lessons you’re doing. Read to understand and view all the videos that accompany the training. Wherever you don’t understand, take the chance to flex your “write” access and ask questions within the training modules, in the classrooms, or in the live chat.
By asking questions and getting help, you’ll be able to get further ahead and learn faster. After 7 days on Wealthy Affiliate, you’ll be able to continue the training and understand what you’re doing without the need for much live support.
You can make money with a free website and as a Starter member as long as you understand the training. Once you’ve finished the training, I’d suggest doing it over again if you’re new to affiliate marketing. It doesn’t hurt to refresh your mind of the lessons you’ve learned especially since you won’t have access to any more training which is reserved for Premium members.
Finally, once you’re completed the Getting Started training, I would recommend upgrading to the premium membership because you can then continue the training and unlock access to more resources. You’ll be able to get a domain name for your website which increases its chances of reaching more people and you’ll be able to continue getting live support and interact with the helpful community.
It’s all worth it. Check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate from the perspective of a premium member, if you haven’t as yet.
