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If you’ve tried to join Wealthy Affiliate as a Nigerian, you’ve probably encountered some problems while signing up.
There is a reason for this that you may not be aware of and I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Note that this only applies to Nigerians living in Nigeria and not other countries. If you’re a Nigerian living in Canada for example, then this isn’t a problem since you can just select Canada from the list of countries and sign up.
For Nigerians looking to sign up to Wealthy Affiliate as a free starter member, you simply can’t as you’ll find your country name omitted from the list. Nigerians cannot even join directly as premium members.
So what is the reason for this? Why can’t Nigerians join Wealthy Affiliate as free or premium members?
A Case of “Paul Paying for All“
Wealthy Affiliate teaches interested persons how to make money online with affiliate marketing. They provide a premium service but to convince people that the service is worth it, they allow everyone to sign up for free, even without entering their credit card info, so that they can access everything provided.
Unfortunately, not everyone who joins Wealthy Affiliate has good intentions or is even serious about learning affiliate marketing. There have been problems in the past with people spamming members and even trying to run scams. These situations are more prevalent with persons who sign up from certain countries.
While there are persons in Nigeria who are undoubtedly serious about pursuing affiliate marketing, these people are made to pay for some of the illicit activities that originate from the country. It’s a situation of Paul paying for all.
Wealthy Affiliate isn’t the only website that has placed such limitations on Nigerians. Clickbank, a popular affiliate network, also doesn’t allow Nigerians to open accounts and PayPal doesn’t allow you to receive money if you have an account.
Nigeria isn’t the only country that has these limitations from Wealthy Affiliate. As of this writing, there are 9 other countries whose residents cannot create a free starter account and they are:
While the countries on this blocked list can sign up directly for a premium account, Nigeria as it seems is the only country where persons can neither create a free starter account nor sign up for a premium account.
Official Explanation from Carson
One of Wealthy Affiliate’s owners, Carson, has officially addressed this issue.
For the other countries on the list, he had this to say:
These are countries where fraud is high, but in most cases can make payment. People from these countries must go Premium and cannot have a Starter account.
So, these are the countries where people cannot join as Free Starter Member, but they can join directly as Premium Member.
Are There Ways For Nigerians to Join Wealthy Affiliate?
This is a question that I get all the time and from doing research, it looks like interested persons are wondering the same thing.
Remember that this doesn’t apply to Nigerians living overseas but to Nigerians living in Nigeria. So if you’re in a country like say Canada or even neighboring Cameroon then you would be OK.
Here’s a screen capture of some of the questions being asked about this issue on the Wealthy Affiliate site itself.
Persons are trying to join as premium members but they are receiving an error doing so. Trying a credit card returns the message ‘this credit card was issued from an unsupported country’.
One member with such an issue eventually went did get to upgrade to premium although it’s unclear how the user got a free starter account in the first place.
He asked this question in the Wealthy Affiliate community:
Please how do I upgrade my membership to PREMIUM with my credit card from Nigeria? I have filled out my card details but when I click to make payment, it says ‘this credit card was issued from an unsupported country’. I have been using my credit card for other online transactions. Please I need help as I have only 1 day : 22 hrs to upgrade to premium @ a discount
His question was met with a reply from the co-owner of Wealthy Affiliate, Kyle, who assisted him in upgrading to a premium account.
So as you can see, there are Nigerians at Wealthy Affiliate who have somehow managed to sign up and become premium members so that they can learn how to make money as affiliate marketers online.
One suggestion that I’ve seen come up often is that you can use a VPN to get your computer to show as if you’re using a computer in another country.
A VPN service allows you to change your IP address to a secure server, making you anonymous online, and can make your laptop or mobile device appear to be in another location. This way, if you use a VPN from Nigeria, you can appear to be in the United States or Canada, or any supported country, and there would be no problems with signing up for a Wealthy Affiliate account.
Some of the best VPN services according to TechRadar are ExpressVPN and NordVPN.
I’m not sure if these will work but if you really want to get a free account at Wealthy Affiliate then this might be the only way. Then you could eventually sign up for a premium account if Wealthy Affiliate is right for you.
How Much Does Wealthy Affiliate Cost for Nigerians?
Usually, there is a discounted price for the first month of premium at Wealthy Affiliate at $19 but this isn’t available to unsupported countries who can upgrade to premium.
Instead, persons have to pay the full price. There are two options.
All prices are quoted in US dollars.
If you’d like to check out what Wealthy Affiliate offers, you can read my full review here and decide how you want to proceed.
If you’re reading this as a Nigerian living in Nigeria and trying to sign up for Wealthy Affiliate, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue. Have you found a way to sign up successfully that works? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.