Home Business Academy Reviews (2024 Update): Should You Start An Affiliate Marketing Business?

Mike Hobbs and Paul Hutchings founded the Home Business Academy. This course teaches you how to start an online business.

They also provide funnel builder, premium coaching, and do-it-yourself email swipes.

Is it a scam, though?

It’s a good thing that the platform isn’t full of hype. Instead, they give step-by-step guides based on tried-and-true processes.

They also feature a funnel builder (tool) and community access.

The Home Business Academy is not a fraud; it’s a good way to establish an affiliate marketing business online.

However, $125 per month may be too much for newbies.

In this Home Business Academy review, I will dive deep into the upsides and downsides of the program.

But before I can say Home Business Academy is good, I have to ask a very important question: is affiliate marketing even worth it?

Like other affiliate programs, we get pitched an ultimate dream…

Run an amazingly profitable business where you don’t have to worry about anything – no products, no inventory, no shipping, no customer service.

The only thing you need to worry about is putting this product in front of someone that wants to buy it, and the rest is money in the bank.

The best part?

“You can do it from anywhere in the world!”

Sounds pretty great… but is it?

It is 100% possible to make money with affiliate marketing – the real question is: is Home Business Academy the best affiliate marketing program out there?

Well, the most difficult (and therefore most valuable) skill in the internet business is driving traffic AKA getting people to visit a website.

Later on, I’ll talk about why it’s so difficult to drive quality traffic.

But for now, let’s just say it isn’t exactly an easy process (unless you have a proven traffic source for the exact product you’re trying to sell).

If you really break it down, is affiliate marketing much different than a 9-5 job? You work for someone else, sell their stuff, and they can fire you at any time.

You don’t really control anything, despite doing the most important part – driving traffic.

To be 100% clear, I’m not saying affiliate marketing won’t work. If you’ve followed my blog for long, you’ll know that I’ve made money myself as an affiliate marketer (selling women’s health products).

I have several friends that make over $20,000/mo as affiliate marketers.

What you don’t hear about is the $200,000 they had to invest UP-FRONT to start making that money.

But let’s suppose that you REALLY want to work that laptop-entrepreneur lifestyle.

What if there was a way you could build a legitimate recurring income stream?

Recurring income that doesn’t require:

• Tens of thousands of dollars and months of time before seeing $1
• Doing the heavy lifting, but only getting a small % of the sale
• Living at the whim of another person that could take it all away if they feel like it

Something that could net you anywhere from a few thousand, to over $10,000 every single month, practically on auto-pilot.

A recurring income stream that you could build in a few hours per day, grow as big (or small) as you want, and doesn’t leave you at the mercy of another person?

If that sounds interesting, the Digital Rental Method might be for you.

It kind of takes the nice parts of affiliate marketing but transfers the control back to YOU.

All that being said, let’s continue to the Home Business Academy review.

TLDR – What’s The Verdict

If you’re the skimming type and simply want to know if the Home Business Academy program is something you should invest in, here’s my scoop.

Should you invest in Home Business Academy?

My answer is NO.

Now, before you jump to any conclusions, I’m not saying NO because I think you can’t make money with affiliate marketing; you can. In fact, I’ve also tried a few affiliate marketing programs myself.

But from my own experience, this isn’t a viable recurring passive income business. While numerous reviews show that Home Business Academy is a decent program, it’s still an affiliate marketing program.

If it walks like a duck sounds like a duck, it might just be a duck. The same goes for this program. Let me explain this a little further.

Home Business Academy teaches you how to make money via affiliate marketing. You get to leverage the over $1.4 billion dollar industry. While this stat goes to show that there’s money in affiliate marketing, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still oversaturated.

The fact that you thought of it means hundreds or even thousands of people thought of it as well. Try to think of affiliate marketing today, like going to a water park on a hot summer day. At first, the thought of being in the water is exciting.

But as you get closer to the park, you notice that you aren’t the only one with a similar idea. With the long line ahead, you’ve got to wait your turn. Your excitement slowly starts to fade, and reality hits you hard, and you slowly start to realize it might take ages to get a turn on the water slide.

Sadly, that’s the reality of plenty of affiliate marketing owners. According to the latest stats, at least 95% of affiliate marketers end up failing within the first few months of starting their business.

Apart from oversaturation, there’s also the aspect of you not owning the business. As an affiliate marketer, your main role is to drive traffic to generate sales. This means the business, products, and services aren’t yours. You’re simply acting as a middleman.

Now that I’ve tackled the business model, which is similar to this Zack Crowfard review, let’s look at the Home Business Academy program. One huge drawback the Home Business Academy has is that you’re basically being taught to market the program itself.

While there are some strategies in the program you can use outside HBA (Home Business Academy), much of it centers on marketing the course. Rather than helping you focus on growing as an affiliate marketer, you’ll simply be adding more money into Home Business Academy pockets.

Now, if you really break down everything about this program and business model, it does feel like a regular 9 to 5 job.

Like a regular job, you don’t own the business, products, or services. You also have said “responsibilities” you need to fulfill to make money. You’re also dependent on someone else for you to get income.

What if there’s a better way to make money without having to settle for selling beauty products, kitchen appliances, or a course? What if there’s a program that enables you to become the business owner you so desire?

My preferred program is Digital Rental Method. Why?

• You get full control of your business.
• You can operate everything from the comfort of your home without constantly having to fight for traffic to the products and services you sell.
• You don’t have to live off the whim of someone else
• You can receive a recurring passive income

Rather than always trying so hard to convince your friends and family to buy your products, why not try a program like Digital Rental Method?

Curious? Click here to find out more!

If you’re still hungry for more of the Home Business Academy review, keep reading.

Who Benefits From This Program

As I’ve said in my blogs, I’m all for finding a recurring passive income. But, the business model you choose should be one that makes achieving this dream much easier.

That being said, who is the Home Business Academy program for, and who is it not for?

If you fit this criteria, I think this program might be a good fit for:

• Anyone looking to learn how to build a sales funnel page that can generate traffic without having to hire a coder, expensive designers, or not knowing the tech operations behind those pages.
• Anyone looking to get started on affiliate marketing but doesn’t know how to go about it.
• If you’ve tens of thousands of dollars to spend in establishing an online business and OKAY losing a little amount every time to find the right business model.

Who is this program not for?

• A beginner looking for a great way to start an online business. The lack of balanced reviews makes it difficult to trust this program, and that’s something this Reddit thread points out.
• Anyone looking for an affiliate marketing program that doesn’t insist on people selling the program itself? According to the reviews I’ve read, Home Business Academy does encourage students to promote their program for a commission.
• If you’re looking for a program that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get started. Compared to other affiliate marketing courses, Home Business Academy is by far more expensive.

Now that you know if this program is for you or not for you, let’s take a deep dive into learning more about Home Business Academy.

The Home Business Academy Affiliate Marketing Program- 1,000 FT View of This Online Business Opportunity

You’ve finally made it this far into the Home Business Academy review. Congrats!

In this section, I’ll give you a 360-degree bird’s eye view of this program and what it’s really about.

Let’s start with the basics.

Business Model

From the outside looking in, it’s quite easy to mistake Home Business Academy for an MLM or pyramid scheme. The good news is while it does have some MLM traits, the Home Business Academy isn’t a pyramid scheme.

So, how exactly does the Home Business Academy affiliate program work?

Like any other course, the Home Business Academy has a series of tutorials that teach students how to practice affiliate marketing like this Misha Wilson program. Their approach, however, takes the traffic and conversions route.

With their tutorials, they teach students how to create sales funnels via their sales funnel builder tool. This, in turn, helps you generate traffic to your websites using SEO, blogging, Facebook, and YouTube. The more traffic and conversions you have, the easier it is to monetize your website using affiliate marketing.

The downside of this business model is that it looks easy in theory, but it’s difficult in practice. You’ll need a little bit of marketing training to pull off a sales funnel, and that’s tough to do for all sales funnel stages.

Now, to answer the one question you’ve been wondering about. How is Home Business Academy similar to an MLM? First, let me establish that Home Business Academy isn’t an MLM; it’s a single-tier affiliate program.

But one of its characteristics does make it similar to an MLM. That’s the fact that it encourages its students to promote Home Business Academy for a commission. While you can use what you learn in Home Business Academy outside the program, promoting the course itself isn’t a great idea.

One huge reason why it isn’t a great idea despite earning a commission is that it can result in people not earning much from affiliate marketing. You’ll end up pushing a program that’s meant to help you make money, and the cycle continues, kinda like an MLM.

You also wouldn’t want your friends and loved ones avoiding you out of fear of trying to push Home Business Academy down their throats.

Also, having students promote the program simply ends up benefiting the teacher.

Now that you know what the Home Business Academy looks like, let’s find out a little about the founders of this program.

About The Guru’s

Mike Hobbs and Paul Hutchings founded the Home Business Academy. Let’s find out a little about this gurus.

Mike Hobbs

He is a social media marketer, affiliate marketer, digital marketer, and proud founder of Home Business Academy. After graduating from Dixie State University in 2007, he briefly worked as a loan officer for a Mortgage company. It wasn’t long before he hated his job and desired to do something else.

He took the chance, quit his job, and started his own online business. Unlike most digital marketer stories of success, Mike Hobbs’s story wasn’t one of a get-rich-quick scheme. He worked hard and made it up to six figures.

From this achievement, he was able to quit the military early after 13 years of service. He later teamed up with Paul Hutchings to start Home Business Academy in 2016.

Paul Hutchings

He is a digital marketer and an expert in network marketing. His first job before dipping his toes in the online business sector was as a sales manager. He worked for another company before deciding to start Hutchings Marketing.

It’s important to note that before starting Home Business Academy, Paul was a producer and recruiter for his nutritional marketing company, which was a form of MLM. While that statement on their sales page was meant to show his effectiveness as a marketer, it does cast doubt on the structure of the entire Home Business Academy program.

Overall, Paul and Mike wish to help people, and the Home Business Academy is how they do so.

Main Promises and Claims of The Home Business Academy Program

The big promise the Home Business Academy makes is that it helps people learn how to create and manage their own businesses. The course provides all the resources, tools, training, and support required to get started.

You’ll also receive career development resources and tools designed to help you with your entrepreneurship journey. These tools are great for anyone looking to start an affiliate marketing business or an affiliate marketing owner looking to take their business to the next level.

The Home Business Academy also teaches how to generate traffic using sales funnels. While funnels are a great way to generate leads, they aren’t easy to do, even with a done-for-you template.

For you to successfully make use of a sales funnel, you’ll need to put in a lot of strategy, analysis, and thought you use for your approach. Also, every stage of the sales funnel is different; what works for one may not work for the other.

You also can’t simply generate more content with a sales funnel strategy. You’ll need quality for a high conversation rate, which is something this program fails to teach.

Rather than always have to test out one sales funnel strategy and adopt another after a day, why not try a different approach? The Digital Rental Method will help you learn simple and effective ways to generate leads.

Click here to learn more.

Let’s take a look at the cost of this program.

How Much Does the Home Business Academy Affiliate Program Cost?

Home Business Academy costs $25 per month. For $25, you get access to live group coaching, funnel builder access, community, training, and support.

You also have the option of paying $125 per month to access the Premium Traffic and Conversions Vault program. If you do have doubts about paying all that money, there’s a 14-day free trial option, where you get to test out the products this package has to offer.

The program also has upsells of $500 for its Money Management and Financial Literacy Academy courses. This will include access to group coaching and training. Other costs you may have to incur include:

• A domain ($10 per year)
• An autoresponder ($20 per month)

If you plan to be part of the Home Business Academy affiliate program, you’ll also need to buy an upsell to get access to the commission of that particular course.

Does Home Business Academy Offer Refunds?

Yes, there’s a three-day money-back guarantee. But this has to be three days from the date and time of initial purchase.

Is Home Business Academy Legit?

Time for the 1 billion dollar question: is Home Business Academy legit? Yes, it is.

First, it’s important to acknowledge that the fact that you get what you pay for is a good sign that the program is legit.

But just because you get what you pay for doesn’t mean the program is right for you. Affiliate marketing has undeniably been at the forefront of online business ideas since 2005. While its popularity has grown, 95% of businesses still end up failing.

So, why do affiliate marketing businesses fail? My top two reasons are not providing enough value and not being transparent enough.

People pay for value. For you to get your target audience to buy products or services through your affiliate links, you’ll need to incentivize them. While Home Business Academy does show you how the practical execution of their sales funnel makes it challenging.

There’s a lot more to providing value than creating blog posts or landing pages. It’s about turning those clicks into actual customers, and there’s a program that can show you how to do that.

That’s the Digital Rental Method.

Second, it doesn’t matter how well you hide it; people can still spot an affiliate link a mile away. The fact that you’re basically marketing Home Business Academy but aren’t transparent about it might make people fail to click those links.

But if that hasn’t convinced you enough, you can sign up for the course, but try to take what they say with a pinch of salt.

Differences From Other Programs

One major difference Home Business Academy has from other affiliate programs is that it’s pretty expensive. Compared to other programs, HBA has an expensive opt-in fee. The upsells also cost an arm and a leg.

The second difference is that HBA mainly teaches funnel building and affiliate marketing. You not only get to learn how to be an affiliate marketer but also how to convert sales.

Lastly, students get the opportunity to become program affiliates and earn up to 80% commission. The only catch is that you need to subscribe to one upsell program.

My Personal Opinion on HomeBusinessAcademy

It’s finally time to round up this Home Business Academy review by giving my own opinion based on my experience with affiliate marketing.

Making money online with an affiliate business is possible, but it isn’t sustainable. So, do I think homebusinessacademy is a scam? To answer this question, you’ll need to take a few steps back from the program.

When you decide to buy an online affiliate marketing course, there several things I’d look at

1. Reviews: What type of reviews does the program have? Do the positive reviews look forced, or are they completely unbiased?
2. Guru’s reputation: What reputation does the guru have in the industry? Did they have any prior reputation scandals before they started the program?
3. Support and community: Does the program offer students the support and community they need to get through the program?
4. Curriculum quality: Are the programs they are advertising in-depth?
5. Cost: Is the program too expensive? Does it have too many upsells?

My Recommendation for This Home Business Academy Review

With the criteria for how to choose an affiliate program, let’s apply that to Mike Hobbs and Paul Hutching’s course.

Let’s start with the positives.

If you put your head down, put the work in, and stay the course, making money online with affiliate marketing is possible. I’m sure you’d actually reach success, like the 5% affiliate business owners who have made it so far.

HBA makes it easy for you to drive traffic to your site, thanks to the Sales Funnels program. With this unique element from this course, I’d gladly recommend HBA, as tackling every stage of the sales funnel is a skill anyone making money online must have.

Now, on to the negatives:

1. For a course that claims to be offering a way to make money online, there are certainly very few reviews available that give honest feedback on the program. While having a ton of positive reviews is no crime, it’s certainly expected to have a few negative reviews you can read. This is something one Reddit user clearly points out.
2. Mike Hobbs and Paul Hutchings do have a good reputation. But they have been involved in different MLM programs in the past. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it certainly does speak volumes about how their commission-based affiliate program came about. It also makes it even more difficult to make money if you’re only selling the program you claim has helped you make money. Only for those you recruit to do the same.
3. Funnel marketing is a great way to increase traffic to your site. While the concepts work, executing them can be challenging, especially for a new affiliate marketer. Funnels are highly technical, and you’ll need to understand the marketing touchpoints and processes to make them work.

With my opinion out of the way, let’s take a look at what Home Business Academy has to offer.

What’s Inside Home Business Academy

At the time of writing this Home Business Academy review, this course offers the following product categories.

HBA Funnel Builder

The HBA funnel builder program teaches both new and experienced digital marketers how to set up sales pages, membership sites, checkout pages, thank you pages, and capture leads. Students also get to learn about the different digital products they can use to explore different ways to make money online.

By subscribing to the HBA funnel builder, you get access to the Funnel Builder Academy, a course that helps you learn how to generate leads using sales funnels.

What does the HBA Funnel Builder offer?

• Step-by-step instructions you can use to create successful sales funnels
• Easy to load and edit pages
• Done for you templates, you can edit
• Learn how to create link pages, thank you pages, and product pages, among others.

HBA Premium (Traffic & Conversion Academy)

This program is designed for small business owners. It teaches them how to generate traffic and leads online, gather customers, and convert those leads into sales. You’ll also get daily and weekly coaching with Paul, Mike, and other experts.

What does the conversion academy offer?

• Lead magnet and target marketing
• Getting free target
• Membership Recruitment
• Conversion secrets

The Financial Literacy Program

The last Home Business Academy product is the financial literacy program. What does this course cover?

• Retirement strategies
• The truth about money. You get to learn the importance of money, unpack the half-truths of money, and financial freedom.
• Illusions of wealth
• Words from the wise
• Why do the rich get richer?

If this program isn’t what you’re looking for, why not try out lead generation?

Conclusion – To Buy or Not To Buy

It’s finally time to round up this review.

With all the get-rich-quick scams we’ve seen over the years, it’s refreshing to find a course that’s educational. You also get to learn a skill that’s useful in digital marketing.

But if you’re looking for a program that does more than just bring traffic but teaches you different techniques to convert it, why not check out my #1 way to make money?

What Is My #1 Way To Make Money Online In 2024?

I’ve personally tried all of the major online business models:

• I’ve sold women’s health supplements via Clickbank affiliate marketing
• I’ve sold fidget spinners through Amazon FBA
• I’ve drop-shipped a toilet bowl putting green on Shopify

And I made money with all of them, so trust me when I say there is no “perfect” business model.

That being said, my #1 recommendation for making real money online is, hands-down: the Digital Rental Method.

Whether you’re a complete newbie or you’ve been around the block before but have never had that “big win” to propel you forward, using the Digital Rental Method is for you.

Why?

1)Time commitment: If you have an hour or two per day, you can do this. Even if you want to drop everything and commit fully, that works, too.

You don’t have to be constantly working to make money, which is completely opposite to Home Business Academy, where you’ll have to put in hours convincing people to buy your products. Also, the income you generate isn’t recurring. One month, you’ll make great sales; the next month, that isn’t a guarantee.

With the Digital Rental Method, you get to make your time matter. Imagine taking off for a month to places like Hawaii, Paris, National Parks, & other spots people only dream about – all while collecting dozens of little $500-$2,000 checks. It’s like a dream come true.

But it’s only possible to do it when you’ve separated your income from your time.

2)You Own & Control EVERYTHING: With affiliate marketing, you don’t really own a single thing – not even the customers you worked so hard to “acquire.” With programs like Home Business Academy, you may have to push people into buying the program itself, which isn’t a great way to make money online.

Don’t believe me? Go read the terms of service for any major affiliate program – they can fire you or change your compensation at the drop of a dime.

With the Digital Rental Method, you own everything, so you have ultimate control.

3)It’s Effectively Copy-Paste: Here’s my favorite part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up, you can literally copy-paste another version of it and find another willing “renter” in a few days. DOUBLING your income doesn’t get much easier than that…

If you wanted to double your income as an affiliate, you would need to sell twice as much inventory or double your profit margins. And I can guarantee you (from my days selling women’s health products as an affiliate) that’s a lot harder than a few clicks & a phone call.

4)Great Margins: Margins on affiliate products can be pretty low unless you’re selling high-ticket products. When you sell high-ticket stuff, you typically have a lot of competition, and so driving traffic is expensive.

using the Digital Rental Method, your profit margin is nearly 100%. Watch here to learn how.

Just a reminder: these Digital Rental Properties are worth (at a minimum) $500/mo in semi-passive income. And each time you create another one, your income increases, and the effort put into creating the next property decreases.

Best case scenario, you have properties bringing in over $3,000+/mo on auto-pilot.

5)You’re Helping REAL People: My biggest gripe with affiliate marketing is that you’re selling products that will bring you the biggest commission, not the products that will help people the most.

It’s cool in the short term to make a quick buck, but in the long-term, it eats away at your soul.

But With the Digital Rental Method, you’re helping solve REAL problems that people are ASKING for help with:

Small local businesses around the world need one thing: customers. Without them, their business would fall apart. If we can provide those customers, they’re going to be really happy – and they’re going to pay you for it.

You’re helping a struggling mother or father put FOOD on the table for their families, put their kids through college, or simply live life a little bit more comfortably.

Having this type of impact on the world is what will help you sleep soundly at night.

So, the rest is up to you. You could keep looking at other affiliate programs like Home Business Academy, which might make you money 12 months from now.

You could keep researching and researching for the next few months (or few years), never making a concrete decision.

OR, you can look deep inside, think about those dreams, hopes, & desires, and make the decision to ACTUALLY make it happen, just like it has for thousands of other students before you.

Making a fortune while actually helping real people that need it.

If this sounds like you, click here to see how it all works.