How much can you make with MLM Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs?

Business

Over the past few months we’ve looked at the earning potential (or more accurately, the likely lack of!) with several MLMs. Now we’re turning our attention to Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs.

So how does Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs work? In this article we’ll explore the business opportunity offered by Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs, and find out if the company is lying about its cruelty-free status.

In our initial investigation into the company (as you can read below, this is an update), we praised them for their simple compensation plan and apparent lack quotas to remain active. However as you’ll discover, this appears to have changed dramatically since.

The one remaining positive with Urban Retreat by Acti-labs is their use of actual currency in their plan, rather than all that PV, GV nonsense. So you can actually clearly see how much you have to sell, and what you will get. (Which as you can see, isn’t much for your effort, in our opinion.)

Update! Acti-labs becomes Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs

Before we get into our investigation, we just need to clarify something. When we initially published this article in May 2018, the company was called Acti-Labs. However, it has now rebranded as Urban Retreats by Acti-Labs with the following message:

So we’re now updating this article to reflect the new look and company name, and see if the business opportunity has changed at all.

What does the Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs compensation plan look like?

So what does the Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs compensation plan look like? Here it is:

As you can see, there is a sales requirement for each Leader Level. This isn’t explained fully, but in every MLM that has this requirement it means that, in order to qualify for your commissions and bonuses, keep your rank and even stay in the company, you need to hit this sales target in a month. Or sometimes within a rolling three-month period.

With Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs you can see the lowest sales requirement for Lead Consultants is £175, rising to £490 once you pass Manager rank.

Every former MLM rep we have interviewed has told us that they had to personally purchase to meet these requirements in their company. And for many it is this kind of sales requirement that led them into debt. So the fact that Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs have this requirement in their plan is a big red flag for us.

How much commission do you earn with Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs?

According to Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs:

“You get paid a 20% commission on every sale you make, from the moment you sign up. Payments are made directly into your bank account every Thursday.”

So, presumably if you meet your sales requirement, you’ll earn 20% commission on your own sales. And if you sell more than your sales requirement, you can earn even higher commissions:

“If you sell over £350/$500/$675CAD in any calendar month, we will send you an extra 5% commission payment, effectively bumping you up to 25% commissions on all personal sales you made that month. These payments are paid directly into your bank account on the 7th day after month-end.

If you sell over £700/$1000/$1350CAD in any calendar month, we send you an extra 10% instead, bumping you up to 30% commission!”

And, as we believe the and only way to earn money in an MLM is to recruit and build a team, you also earn commission on your team sales:

You can earn a rank bonus if you achieve Senior Manager or above for three consecutive months, too. Much like the car plan, we know from speaking to people in other MLMs, like this former IT Works rep that it’s bonuses like these that put pressure on reps to encourage their team below to personally spend to help them make or keep their rank:

So how much can you actually earn with Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs?

To find out how much you could make with Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs, we did some sums based on their compensation plan.

To be really generous, let’s look at what you can make at the top level of Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs. This is Diamond Executive, and for the sake of the calculations here, we’ll assume you met all your targets and achieved the top level of commission for personal sales of over £700 in one month, plus achieved precisely all your team commissions.

Here are your earnings as far as we can see:

  • Personal commission of 30% on £700 = £210
  • Gen 1 team sales commission of 10% on £21,000 = £2,100
  • Gen 2 team sales commission of 4% on £85,000 = £3,400
  • Gen 3 team sales commission of 10% on £329,000 = £32,900

Total = £38,610

So, not a bad monthly income at all! BUT, the team commission sales above are actually only 80% of their actual sales (as Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs has already paid 20% commission on the sales).

And, in order to earn that sum, it looks like you and your downline collectively need to sell £435,700 of products in ONE month.

If you reach the rank of Executive, here’s what you’ll seemingly earn:

  • Personal commission of 25% on £490 = £122.50
  • Gen 1 team sales commission of 10% on £7,000 = £700
  • Gen 2 team sales commission of 4% on £10,500 = £420
  • Gen 3 team sales commission of 4% on £30,100 = £1,204

Total = £2,466.50 (You and your downline will have to sell £48,090 of products a month for you to earn this.)

These earnings are all before expenses. We haven’t seen an income disclosure statement for Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs, so have no way of knowing how many reps reach (or maintain) Diamond Executive – or any of the levels in the company.

But we do know from interviewing this former Younique Black Presenter that it’s common for people who reach a rank in title not to actually qualify for that rank every month. In fact, the Younique presenter told us that in 18 months, she only actually got paid at her Black rank four times.

And given the enormous targets set by Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs, we wouldn’t be surprised if it was rare for anyone to hit these incomes, even if they have a rank in name.

What can you make at lower levels of Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs?

There are 10 rank levels at Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs. Let’s look at a couple more to get an idea of how much you can make. If you’re a Senior Manager, your earnings look like this:

  • Personal commission of 25% on £490 = £122.50
  • Gen 1 team sales commission of 10% on £3,500 = £350
  • Gen 2 team sales commission of 4% on £3,500 = £140
  • Gen 3 team sales commission of 2% on £2,450 = £49

Total = £661.50 (You and your downline will have to sell £9,940 of products a month for you to earn this.)

And if you’re at the bottom leader rank, a Lead Consultant, your earnings look like this:

  • Personal commission of 20% on £175 = £35
  • Gen 1 team sales commission of 5%* on £280 = £14

Total = £49 (You and your downline will have to sell £455 of products a month for you to earn this.)

Again, all these earnings are before expenses.

* Your Gen 1 sales commission at this rank is not paid out in cash but given as credit towards products (US Spend).

Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs has an MLM car plan

Disappointingly, Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs also has a car plan:

You can find out here why we believe that MLM car plans, like this one, are just a cynical way to keep the pressure up on managers and force them to encourage their downline to remain with the company and keep selling (or buying).

What are your expenses with Acti-Labs?

So what expenses might you incur with Acti-Labs? As with most MLMs, we’d imagine your expenses will include any advertising and promotion costs, the cost of travel and parties (if you host them to sell), order forms and packaging, samples, and shipping.

How much does shipping cost with Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs? Shipping in the UK is £4.70 for 24 hours tracked. If your delivery is unsuccessful and returned to Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs, they refund the purchase price less administration fee equivalent to delivery and return charges imposed by the carrier.

Why would you buy from Acti-Labs?

Urban Retreat by Acti-Lab’s products also seem very expensive for what they are. Take their eye shadow blender brush for £8 (plus shipping). Its description just says: “New Shadow Blender Brush. Vegan Friendly, cruelty free synthetic hair.”

To compare, the range of eye shadow blender brushes at Superdrug cost from £1.99-£7.99.

Why would you buy from Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs when you can buy comparable products for less from the high street? And, as we’ll see, despite its claims, it doesn’t even appear to be a cruelty free brand.

Is Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs lying about being cruelty free?

As new discovered in our investigation into Avon, MLM companies aren’t averse to being deceptive (in our opinion) about their ethics. And Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs seems no different. Like Avon it makes bold claims about its cruelty-free status:

However, just like Avon, Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs doesn’t actually appear on PETA’s list of companies who do not test on animals. Here’s where the company SHOULD appear if it was when you search for the company:

In fact we can’t find any mention of Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs on PETA’s site at all. Also, like Avon, we couldn’t find any mention of them on the Leaping Bunny Compassionate Shopping Guide for cruelty-free products. Nor the Ethical Elephant Cruelty-Free Brand Directory. Indeed, we couldn’t find Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs listed on a single cruelty-free list.

In fact, when Googling ‘”Urban Retreat” cruelty free’, the only mentions that appeared in search results were their own website and their reps’ social media profiles:

Update: We have found a listing for Acti Labs on the PETA site:

However, there is still no listing for Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs, and Acti Labs does not appear on any other cruelty free list. As some products on the Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs website don’t appear to be by Acti Labs, we can’t be confident that Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs is a cruelty-free brand, and it is still incorrect to make the claim that the brand is “recorded on the PETA list”.

(We will happily update this section when Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs is listed on third party websites as a cruelty-free brand.)

Why we wouldn’t join Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs

To date there’s nothing we have seen in Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs that marks them out as a better income opportunity than any other MLM. As you can see from our sums above, you need to build a substantial downline to earn money, and even then, the profits don’t seem comparable, to us, for the effort you’ll have to expend to get there (nor the expenses).

For example, to earn a monthly income of just £2,466.50, you and your downline would need to sell an incredible £48,090 of products. Annually that means, based on our calculations you and your downline would need to sell an incredible £577,080 of products to earn just £29,598.

As with all MLMs, we don’t recommend you join Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs. Thorough research shows that, on average, 99.6% of participants in an MLM lose money. And without an income disclosure statement proving otherwise, there’s nothing to indicate that Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs offers any greater opportunity than other MLMs.

Certainly their car plan, complex compensation plan with sales requirements, and dubious cruelty-free status (as mentioned already, we’ll happily update this statement once Urban Retreat by Acti-Labs are published on cruelty-free lists) are huge red flags for us.

Read more about MLMs

Over the past few months we’ve been researching a number of MLMs. Here are some of our income investigations:

And more income investigations:

And finally, here some of our articles looking at the MLM business model:

Photo by Eye for Ebony

We take every care to ensure our articles are as accurate as possible. If you work for Acti-Labs and spot any factual inaccuracies in this article please contact us and we will amend. Equally, if you wish to share an official income disclosure statement with us, we would be delighted to see it and adjust this article accordingly.