CBD is one of the biggest health crazes of the last 20 years. Because of this there's CBD MLM's popping up all over the place.

Touchstone Essentials is following this trend and if you're wondering if it's a scam or not, you've come to the right place.

Below you'll find everything you need to know about this company including background information, price to join, compensation plan breakdown, and product overview.

You'll be a Touchstone Essentials expert by the time you're done reading. 

Ready?

Is Touchstone Essentials A Pyramid Scheme? 

Pyramid schemes are illegal in basically all parts of the world. Some MLM's operate outright illegal pyramid schemes while others don't.

Touchstone Essentials in my opinion is the grew area of being a legitimate MLM and one that could run into problems down the road. 

To understand what I mean, look at the picture below:

An illegal pyramid schemes looks ENTIRELY like the picture above. There's a lot of ways for this to happen and the main way is when recruiting is the only way to make money (there's not a real product or the product is a scam).

Now you can make money recruiting with Touchstone like all MLM's and there is a real product. You can even real sell the product without recruiting and just make retail sales.

The problem here is they have monthly sales requirements of $100+. You can either hit this by selling $100+ worth of products to customers or buying them yourself.

If too much of a company's revenue comes from making their own affiliates buy products, you're in a product based pyramid scheme. 

Additionally, you have to pay an extra $695 if you want access to the full compensation plan. This is another grey area and many people consider it to be pay to play (you get rewarded not for sales activity but only how much you pay when you sign up).

So if you're being recruited to join this company ask the person who's recruiting you what percentage of their income comes from retail sales and recruiting. 

If recruiting is making up more than half of the income of the person recruiting you, that's a huge red flag and an indicator the company is a pyramid scheme. 

Success Will Be Rare Here

I rarely recommend that anyone join a MLM and there's one reason for this - barely anyone that joins one makes any money.

In fact, most studies show up to 99% of people that join a MLM end up losing money and the people that do make money tend to make only a few hundred a month.

The reason for this is MLM products are almost always overpriced and recruiting is extremely difficult.

You need thousands in your downline to be successful and most people just don't have access to this amount of people. 

Posting on your Facebook and bothering every friend and family member you have will not lead to success.

Even the best and most properly run MLM's on earth still have more people lose money than make money. 

It's just a bad and degrading way to try and make money money. This applies to Touchstone Essentials too.

Below is some even more eye opening MLM stats:

As you can see you definitely don't want to join any MLM including Touchstone.

Price To Join

There's various fees included if you want to join this company and the only mandatory fee is the $19.95 yearly fee.

But there's more fees to consider and a big one is one of the product packs. Here's the following packs you can buy when starting out:

As you can see the more you pay, the more benefits you get in the compensation plan. Instead of just getting a 25% referral bonus to just level one, you get a referral bonus to level 2 and 3 if you buy the $659 pack. 

Again, a lot of people do consider this pay to play. 

Another cost you'll have to consider is the monthly sales requirement to stay eligible which comes out to about $100.

It's going to be hard to make sales in the beginning and you will more than likely have to pay this fee right out of your own pocket.

This can add up quickly and cost you $1000 by the time the year ends. 

Add everything up (plus the cost of running a business) you can easily spend a couple thousand here to get properly set up. 

Touchstone Essentials Compensation Plan

Touchstone has a pretty standard compensation plan. The thing is most regular people couldn't look at a MLM compensation plan and understand what's going on.

You need to know the lingo and jargon and understand the charts to really grasp everything.

If you want to look at the entire thing for yourself, click here. 

I'm going to summarize the main parts for you now so you can understand what the plan means.

Affiliate Ranks:

At Touchstone there's 10 different affiliate ranks you can reach and you go from one rank to another by hitting certain goals. 

Your rank is mostly determined by the amount your downline sells.

This chart represents the different ranks you can achieve and what you'd have to do to rank up:

Personal Volume is the sales you make to customers and you only need to sell 100 PV. Total OV is the amount your downline sells and as you can see that's mainly what determines you rank.

Keep in mind most people don't make it past the first two ranks.

Residual Commissions:

Going up in rank is improtant because as you improve rank you start making more money. 

This is represented by the graph below:

So if you're the first rank all you earn is 5% on the sales of personally recruited affiliates.

If you get to the second rank you earn 5% on the sales of personally recruited affiliates as well 7% on the sales of your recruit's recruits. 

This goes on until you hit the National executive rank.

Retail Sales:

You can make money here without recruiting and this is the retail sales. You either buy products at wholesale price and sell it for the price you want or refer people to the Touchstone website and you will be paid a bonus. 

Referral Bonus:

Referral Bonus is the commissions you make when someone you recruit buys a product pack. You earn 25% on whatever product pack they buy when they sign up.

However, like I pointed out in the last section if you buy the $659 product pack when you sign up you earn commissions on two extra levels (10% on second level and 5% on third level).

Rank Advancement Bonus

If you can obtain a new rank in two consecutive months when you first start out you get different bonuses. Below is how much you can make for getting to a certain rank:

Team Builder Bonus

You also get rewarded when people you recruit rank up.

Below is how much you can make depending on what rank your affiliates reach:

Star Bonus Program

As you continue to rank up in Touchstone you can earn even bigger bonuses ranging from a couple hundred dollars to $75,000 to a new Tesla. 

Below is the bonuses you get for reaching some of the higher ranks at Touchstone:

Touchstone Essentials Products

Touchstone has various health products and offer products in the following categories:

• Hemp oil/CBD oil
• Detoxes
• Greens
• Energy
• Heart
• Joints
• Metabolism
• Protein USDA ORganic
• Vegan 
• Vitamin D
• Zeolite

The main product at the moment is their hemp oil/CBD. I've seen a lot of these companies pop up in the last couple of years and I've seen a lot of MLM's switch focus to CBD oil.

The reason is this product is really, really hot. CBD is growing in popularity and I see these products advertised everywhere. 

I have no clue what type of quality this CBD oil and the price seems on the higher end (but not more expensive than other quality CBD products.

The biggest problem you'll have is the market is absolutely saturated with CBD. There's thousands of companies right now selling CBD.

Again, though, this product is hot and there's probably a lot of people out there that have heard of CBD but haven't bought any yet.

What I Like About Touchstone

What I Don't Like About Touchstone

There's more here not to like than to dislike and the main things I dislike are:

• Very low success rate: MLM's are a terrible way to make money and almost everyone that joins one loses money. There's nothing special about Touchstone that would change that fact. 
• High costs to join: Technically all you have to pay is $19.95 a year to join. However, you need to buy a $659 product pack to have access to the full compensation plan and you need to sell $100 per month to be commission eligible. A lot of affiliates will pay that out of pocket. 
• Pay to play: Again, you have to pay $659 extra if you want to have access to the full compensation plan. You should be rewarded for effort and results, not how much you pay.
• Bothering friends and family: Do you have thousands of people to sell to or to recruit? Probably not. This means you'll more than likely have to bother friends and family to make sales and recruit. This can ruin close relationships. 

Is Touchstone Essentials A Scam?

Alright time to answer the question - is Touchstone Essentials a scam? I won't go as far as to call this company a scam even though there's things I don't like here.

However, there's a real product and a compensation plan that tells you how to make money. 

Will you make money? Maybe. Most people won't and the people that do make money tend to make a couple hundred a month.

Making a full time income here will be very, very hard (and if that's not what you're shooting for why bother?).

So while it's probably not a scam it DEFINITELY is a bad business opportunity. The odds of success is just too low.

Here's A Better Opportunity