The doTERRA Essential Oil Business Opportunity(2024 Review)

Essential oils have always fascinated me, especially as I am a qualified massage therapist. These days I am more interested in business opportunities and whether they are legit or not. dōTERRA Essential Oil Business opportunity looks interesting. Is it a sustainable and lucrative way to generate an income though? Stay with me as we explore the dōTERRA Essential Oil Business Opportunity and see whether we can give it a great big yea or solid nay.

Table of Contents

dōTERRA Essential Oil Business Opportunity Review

Whilst we will have a look at the reputation and quality of the essential oil products available under the dōTERRA brand, this review will be more focused on the business opportunity.

If that is of interest to you, I look forward to sharing my findings with you.

Before we get started, here is a little free gift for you – it’s from dōTERRA and if you have an interest in essential oils, this is something you will really appreciate (it’s a very cool free eBook):

dōTERRA Essential Oils At A Glance

Name: dōTERRA

Website: doterra.com

Price: US$35 To Sign Up As A Wellness Advocate + US$25 Per Annum

Founders: David Stirling, Gregory Cook, Robert Young, Mark Wolfert, David Hill and Emily Wright

Founded: 2008

Product Rank: 7/10

Business Opportunity Rank: 3 out of 10

dōTERRA Essential Oils Business Opportunity Review

At a glance, this business opportunity strongly resembles the MLM (multi-level-marketing) business model. We will get into more of that in a little while.

Suffice to say though, I do not believe that MLM is the way to go if you are looking to create a sustainable and profitable business. This belief is based on a few things:

My own personal experience of MLM opportunities (yes, I have tried more than one)
The fact that the opportunity to generate an income is dependent on your downlines (you need to recruit and train up downlines in order to really gain traction)
The gray area between MLM and pyramid schemes
Research has shown that only 1% of people who join MLM companies turn a profit

dōTERRA Essential Oils the Good & the Bad

The Good:

PRO #1 The dōTERRA brand has a good reputation and is easily recognized

PRO #2 dōTERRA offers an Essential Oils Training Certification (for $97)

PRO #3 Certified Pure Tested Grade Protocol is adhered to in all the dōTERRA oils (CPTG) It is worth noting, however, that the CPTG protocol is a dōTERRA protocol, not an industry standard.

The Bad:

CON #1 dōTERRA products are not inexpensive, this means your competitor products are an easier sell price-wise

CON #2 Customers can purchase dōTERRA products online (direct from the company and also on Amazon)

CON #3 As recently as 2019 and 2020 dōTERRA have been held accountable for misrepresentation according to NAD, TINA.org and the FTC

dōTERRA Reputation

dōTERRA was started up by ex Young Living employees, this put them under the spotlight for litigation, as you will see with this article from PR Newswire, all charges were dismissed.

Better Business Bureau also gave dōTERRA the all clear.

In 2014 dōoTERRA received an FDA warning (Food & Drug Administration) because claims had been made that their products could be beneficial in the treatment of flu and autism, there were also misrepresentations that their products were possible cures for cancer. There was no scientific evidence to support these claims.

This means that dōTERRA has had their skirmishes and for the most part, come out clean.

Who is dōTERRA For?

From a product perspective, dōTERRA Essential Oils are targeted at people across all demographics. The essential oils can be used on young and old alike, across genders and race groups.

An understanding of which oils are safe for pregnant women or people with pre-existing conditions would be important of course.

As a Wellness Advocate, you would need to understand your target audience, for example, the parents would purchase this product for their kids. I doubt there would be much pull-through from children, other than teenagers and young adults possibly.

From a business opportunity perspective, dōTERRA would be targeted at individuals who would like to generate an income from health-related products. Again, the demographics of the Wellness Advocate would be broad and would include:

all genders
all races
stay home parents
grandparents
students (over 18)
and so on

There are no guarantees for how much income can be generated of course.

There are two different opportunities ways to sign up with dōTERRA:

1. As a Wellness Advocate – in this role you would be selling the products to your friends and family (and anyone else who may be a good customer). If you are a massage therapist of an aromatherapist, I am sure this would be a great side hustle for you.

Advantages of being a Wellness Advocate:

Discount of 25% off on Products
You earn Loyal Reward Program Points
You Earn shipping rewards points
Qualify for Free Product of the Month
Receive a free bottle of Peppermint Essential Oil on Membership Renewal
Can earn bonuses and an income
Personal dōTERRA Website

2. As a Wholesale Customer – when you sign up for this membership you have the opportunity to purchase products at a wholesale price and you can join the Loyalty Rewards program.

Advantages of being a Wholesale Customer:

Discount of 25% off retail prices
Loyalty Reward Points (10-30% of orders back in points which can be redeemed in exchange for free products)
Shipping Rewards – you have the option to receive the cost of your shipping back in points which can also be redeemed for free product
A monthly order of over 125 PB enjoys the benefit of receiving the free product of the month
There is an annual renewal fee as a wholesale member ($25.00) and this comes with a free bottle of Peppermint, (retail value $27.33)

Come to think of it, either of the above two options would work well for someone in the wellness industry: massage therapists, aromatherapists, personal trainers, physical therapists etc.,

dōTERRA Tools & Training

dōTERRA offer some great resources for their Wellness Advocates. Some of these are as follows:

eBooks
Certifications
- Essential Oils Certification
- doTERRA Sales Pro Certification
- doTERRA Business Pro Certification
Literature
Podcast
Promotions
Loads of Online Business Resources
- a Tools Library
- PowerPoint Presentations
- Social media course

The training provided is in the way of Monthly Training, Community and at Events. dōTERRA offers what they call “Steps to Success and these include how to properly use and share the oils; participation in their events; learn the basics of the business building; launch your business and then how to go for the next rank.

Training is one of the things that MLM companies generally do very very well. It is a way of keeping up the momentum and interest of their distributors. dōTERRA is no different in this.

They even have the training to show their Wellness Advocates who to level up to Silver, Gold, Diamond level.

Call me a cynic but I see these as carrots. The reality I have seen with my own eyes and research has shown is that it is a very small percentage of people who attain those levels. Remember the 1%?

dōTERRA Support

As discussed above, there are loads of resources available online and there are training sessions that take place regularly.

I expect that your upline should be showing interest in supporting you and growing your business, after all, that is how they earn too.

Between you and me though, I made contact with dōTERRA through one of their Facebook ads, and after attending an online presentation I received no follow-up with the people assigned to me.

A couple of weeks later I was contacted by another dōTERRA member to attend a business opportunity workshop with them. That has still not materialized.

For any business you really do need to be self-motivated, if you are hoping that someone else will guide you every step of the way, I am here to tell you that it is not likely to happen.

dōTERRA Pricing

To sign up with dōTERRA the fee is US$35.00. The annual renewal is US$25.00 and you get a bottle of Peppermint Oil on renewal, the retail value of that is US$27.00.

So, it’s really not expensive to sign up and the free bottle of Peppermint Oil is worth re-signing up for. I would do this if my own health and lifestyle were focused on essential oils.

As a Wellness Advocate, it is important to know the pricing of the products you are recommending and selling. The dōTERRA products are priced higher than their competitors. Any price resistance could be overcome with an explanation of the dōTERRA CPTG process.

dōTERRA Compensation Plan

As you already know, I am a cynic when it comes to making money through MLM, but, I always want to be fair to you (you are researching after all) and to dōTERRA too.

In addition to already being somewhat cynical, the compensation plans of MLM’s are always complex. So complex that you need to be an actuary to understand them.

For those reasons, allow me to share the dōTERRA video on how the compensation plan works; this way you are getting it “straight from the horses mouth”:

dōTERRA Essential Oil Products

This company manufacturers a wide range of products which are not only essential oils. Their products are all focused on essential oils of course. Here is a quick list of what you could expect within the range:

Essential Oils – sold by the bottle and also in cleverly designed packs called Kits and Collections
Supplements
Skin Care Range
Rubs
Weight Management Products
Diffusers
Amber roller bottles
Sprayer bottles
Child-resistant caps
Cap Stickers
Pump Bottle
Pipettes
Fine Mist Sprayer Bottles