The Freedom Era Review: Scam or Legit Kangen Water Marketing Scheme in 2022?

The Freedom Era Review

The overview and rankings

What to look for in a MLM:

What is The Freedom Era?

The Freedom Era is a multi-level marketing platform that offers its customers the opportunity to learn how to start an online business.

 According to the company, this training entails promoting the platform to others through paid advertisements, social media marketing, and organic marketing methods.

If you dig a little bit more into the whole thing, you'll find out that The Freedom Era is tied to a Japanese firm named Enagic, which produces water filtration units. If you do that, you'll learn that Enagic is behind the whole thing.

According to the available resources, the training section of the Enagic website needs to be updated. This is why some businesses are focused on training people on how to sell these products in the most effective way possible.

There are a lot of multi-level marketing companies that operate in a manner that is comparable to this one.

The Freedom Era is a training program to help promote the Enagic Multi-Level-Marketing company or other "high ticket products". 

They avoid that one basic truth by telling you that you will learn how to create your own "thriving online business". And there is some truth to that. They will teach you some important skills online businesses need...

But it won't be your online business you'll grow. 

Before we go any further I can hear the die hard Enagic members screaming...

But Enagic isn't an MLM, it's "direct selling" or "network marketing". 

So I'll let the FTC explain the difference between Direct selling and MLM's...

Enagic distributors are not employees. And they recruit additional sales people into the company to become part of their "downline". 

That is the exact definition of a MLM. 

Can we PLEASE get over this now? It doesn't really matter MLM, network marketing and direct selling is basically the same thing (and there is always a pyramid shape system involved). 

To learn a bit more about The Freedom Era, watch 5 minutes of the video below (it's 2 hours long and I would recommend watching all of this on x2 speed if you really want to figure out the full picture here. But I'll drip feed in important sections of this when relevant throughout The Freedom Era review). 

• 16:51 - Other Enagic Training Platforms

You might be wondering why this is a video for "The Breakaway Movement" and not The Freedom Era.

Well...

Here are just some of the other "education programs" that help people to recruit people into the Enagic MLM (basically the same thing):

• AWOL Academy - which became Fullstaq Marketer by Keala Kanae
  
• Build Your Empire
  
• Breakaway Movement
  
• Ace Initiative
  
• Digital Prosperity Movement
  
• Global Affiliate Zone
  
• Free Life Movement
  
• Conscious Creators Ohana
  
• Wake Water Co
  
• CEO Movement
  
• Digital Genius Lab

Honestly that isn't even all of them. But they all a variations of trainings to help people promote the Enagic MLM. 

There's no saying for certain why there are so many programs training people on how to make money with Enagic. It could be because each program eventually gets a bad name for itself, called a scam or the owners just want to start at the top of their own pyramid. 

Speaking of which...

Is The Freedom Era a pyramid scheme?

Technically no, The Freedom Era is not a pyramid scheme. 

It is an education program that teaches people how to sell high priced items (Enagic water machines) using social media, attraction marketing, funnels and paid ads. 

Enagic is technically not a pyramid scheme either, but both of these programs certainly do have signs of being a pyramid scheme in disguise. 

Let me explain what I mean by that...

What is a pyramid scheme?

A company that promises payment to members for recruiting more people into the company rather than selling a product or service. 

As you can see in the Wikipedia digram below, it is literally impossible for everyone to make money inside a pyramid scheme. They are illegal in most countries...

But Enagic does sell physical products (water machines and turmeric supplements). The Freedom Era sells education that you could use in other online business ventures to make money if you really want!

The reason they both have signs of being a pyramid scheme (remember they are not one... technically!) is that there is a strong focus on recruiting more people into them.

The Freedom Era pays 25% commissions if you recruit someone else into it. And Enagic will only pay you the big bucks once you recruit a "downline". 

Watch this short video to see what I mean...

Success is rare with The Freedom Era

Did you know that between 72.5% and 99.9% of all MLM representatives lose money?

This is a study that I did into 167 MLMs. I was honestly being generous in these findings too as it's pretty much impossible to say exactly how much people spend on their "online business" (aka commission based sales job).

But still, I know what you thinking...

Who cares, tell me more about The Freedom Era!

How does The Freedom Era Work?

The Freedom Era works in 4 simple steps:

1. Make your life look amazing on social media
2.  Attract people to message you about how you live this awesome life
3.  Say "I own my own online business and life live on my own terms, would you like to too?"
4.  Sell them $2k-$10k worth of water ionizer machines and a $99 a month fee to join The Freedom Era too!

If you've always wanted to be a water filter machine salesperson then you may have just found your dream job (...and yes it is a commission based job, you're not an "entrepreneur" once you join The Freedom Era.

You don't really own anything you can sell, such as a website or real estate, and you haven't created a service or product). 

If that isn't your dream job, then you may need to keep reading this "The Freedom Era" review. 

The Freedom Era products

There are "7 steps" inside The Freedom Era training:

1. Leveraging high ticket offers (water ionizer machines from Enagic MLM)
2. Skill set (get an overview about content creation for social media, attraction marketing, FB & Insta ads, lead generation)
3.  Automation (using funnels to help sell for you- i.e. email marketing, social media chatbots etc.)
4. Authentic personal brand (people buy from you first- so you need to learn how to create an inauthentic personal brand)
5. 80% of success (mindset stuff aka law of attraction)
6. Mentorship & proximity (possibly the biggest factor in your success in The Freedom Era will depend on the random luck you get from who your mentor is)
7. A high vibe community (what it says)

I mean, all of this sounds great. But it's only step 2 and 3 that you actually get any real "meat" of education. These are the skills that could actually help you create your own online business, but it is a tiny fraction of the training.

There are full FB ads courses, content creation courses or instagram ads courses that exist by themselves. Cramming all of this inside TFE means it is more of an insight into what you can do. You'll need to work out the nitty gritty parts yourself. 

But all of this is kind of irrelevant if you have no interest in selling water machines...

Enagic products

The Freedom Era helps you to promote is Enagics products. These consist of 8 water Ionizer machines and various Ukon (turmeric) supplements. 

The machines are not just overpriced water filters though. As the only thing they filter out is chlorine.

The main selling points of water Ionizers (other than changing the pH of water) is:

•  Electrolyzed reduced water (ERW): exposed to electric current separates charged particles
• Hydrogen rich water (HRW): hydrogen gas dissolved in water (acts as an antioxidant)
• Oxidation reduction potential (ORP): the lower the score the more antioxidants in the water (which is good)

Some of the "claimed" health benefits from distributors (who mostly know nothing about any of this science) include:

• Slows aging process
• Boost immune system
• More hydrating
• Boost metabolism
• Relieves heartburn
• Cures cancer, diabetes, measles
• and a ton of other stuff

However, a ton of this sounded quite wishy washy to me. So I dug into some studies and found that it's clear more research is needed to be sure about any of the health claims. 

I won't bore you with all of this right now (Anna's analysis has you covered there if you want it). But here's the summary from Healthline...

"However, more research is needed beyond these small studies. In particular, research is needed to answer other claims made by alkaline water supporters"

The Freedom Era flagship product

The K8 is the flagship product at Enagic. 

It can produce 7 different levels of pH water ranging from 2.5-11pH. Here's what it is promoted as being good for:

• Acidic 2.5ph: remove pesticide off food and a good disinfectant
• 6.0pH: "beauty water" for skin and hair
• Alkaline 11pH: best for drinking

If you want a deep dive into what these machines and products do (which you prob should if you plan on selling these to other people) you really should watch the next 5 minutes of this video...

• 6:40 - Enagic Machines, Prices, Uses

Can you make money with The Freedom Era?

Yep you have probably seen people happily publishing income screenshots from "high ticket" sales they have made!

It is possible to make money from The Freedom Era, let's stop beating around the bush here!

If you are a relatively attractive person that would love to be a "personal brand" or "influencer" on social media it can work.

If you also don't have morals about how much people spend on things they can get for less than half the price (and arguably better) that's a bonus.

But if you also don't mind selling hundreds (ideally thousands) of people the dream of "being their own boss" even when you know the vast majority won't make a penny, then this can really work. 

The people that make the most money know that they are a full time recruiter for The Freedom Era and Enagic.

If that sounds like a job that you'd like then you sure can make some serious dollar here*. 

*Just know that most people will lose money trying!

How to make money with The Freedom Era

There are three things you can do to make money from The Freedom Era training:

1. Sell The Freedom Era training to someone else for a commission
2. Sell water machines or turmeric supplements for a commission
3. Recruit people into the Enagic MLM and make commissions for all the sales they make

Now, I can almost hear your mind asking...

How much does it cost to join The Freedom Era?

It costs $99 per month or $897 per year to join The Freedom Era.

But the costs do not stop there!

The sole purpose of the training is to help you sell and recruit more for Enagic. To join Enagic you need to buy a water ionizer machine. That will set you back at least $1,980 and up to $10,000 for a package such as "The Trifecta".

The Freedom Era monthly cost

Those who do not have recommendations can sign up via their website. Before selling them to others as a distributor, you must first get one for yourself.

You will be forced to pay $897 per year or $99 per month for access to their training courses and resources.

You have the option of paying monthly or annually for the subscription. Please note that these costs do not include the cost of the water filtration units, which you will need to obtain from a different supplier initially.

But they do have a 30-day money-back guarantee. Indeed, this will be a lengthy process.

In addition, if you have already downloaded any proprietary content from within The Freedom Era, you will immediately forfeit your right to a refund. You may also be asked to pay an international credit card chargeback fee to receive your refund.

It will cost $99 a month to stay as a member of the Freedom Era. But there are some other hidden costs to set up your "automations", which you aren't told about anywhere on the sales page. Things such as:

• Email autoresponder ($15+ a month)
• Funnel builders ($25-$97 a month)
• Tracking software ($25+ a month)
• Paying for ads (at least $100 a month)

That adds up to around $270+ a month to use the training. 

However, there are technically no monthly costs to remain as a Enagic MLM member. Honestly, this is great compared to many other MLM programs out there that require an "autoship" or a minimum monthly sales quota.

But as soon as you have a 6A title or above, you need 10 machines to be sold in the qualifying month.

If you don't make a sale for 6 months you will start earning less money from indirect sales (people in your downline selling the machines). 

The "Trifecta" (which you are encouraged to buy) costs around $10,000 after tax. 

You'll get:

• A K8 machine for $4,980
• An Anespa DX machine for $2,890
• UKON Turmeric supplements for $760 (4 month supply)

The reason I'm mentioning this is because of the turmeric supplements...

They autoship 3 times a year!

So realistically you need to allow for:

• $2,280 (if you get the turmeric supplements)
• $3,240 for your "online business" expenses
• be prepared to buy extra machines to hit your 10 sales quota once you are past 6A ranking or above

So technically there are no monthly fees. 

But you should probably be prepared to spend $5,520 a year on supplements and your online software. After all, your upline will say "if you don't pay for these, how you can you expect to sell them to other people?"

The Freedom Era compensation plan

You can get a nice 25% commission if someone joins The Freedom Era through your link. But the real money is made inside Enagic...
There are 6 main "ranks" in Enagic:

• 1A (1-2 sales) - receive 1 point
• 2A (3-10 sales) - receive 2 points
• 3A (11-20 sales) - receive 3 points
• 4A (21-50 sales) - receive 4 points
• 5A (51-100 sales) - receive 5 points
• 6A (101+ sales) - receive 6 points

The 8 point system means how many points get handed out per sale. 

For example, if you sold your first K8 machine for $4,890 you would make $340 (you are 1A rank and get 1 point).

The other 7 points go to your "upline". If the person directly above you was a 6A rank they would get 6 points ($2,040), leaving only one point to person above them, no matter what rank they are. Anyone above them would receive diddly squat. 

I just want to point out this fact here...

You may have been trying to sell anything to anyone for months.

You finally sell a huge $4,980 product...

But you only receive $340.

Yet the people above you earn $2,380!

If that is not an incentive to recruit more people so you can get a bigger chunk of the earnings, then I'm not sure what is?!

Also, if you buy a K8 you'll need to sell 10 K8 machines just to break even!!

Watch the next 5 minutes of this video to get an insight into the true compensation plan for Enagic...

• 7:34 - Enagic’s Compensation Plan

Or you can find the full Enagic compensation plan here. 

Is The Freedom Era a scam?

The Freedom Era is not a scam.

It provides legit "attraction marketing" social media training to help you sell water filter machines and recruit people into the Enagic program.

The reason so many people call it a scam is because they are not told about what they are expected to do up front. 

I think it's the focus on recruiting people into the same scheme that makes this program a bit sketchy. 

Beginners that have no idea what they are doing are encouraged to make their life look amazing to attract other people to message them. This is why there is a ton of shady marketing techniques used by recruiters (because they don't know what they are doing!)

Just to be fully transparent with you, I am not a distributor myself and I do not endorse The Freedom Era in any way.

I have researched the website, testimonials and information on the Internet to get to the bottom of what this program genuinely does. This is because I have been burnt from programs just like this in the past and I want to prevent others from making the same mistakes. 

Common positive reviews

Here are some of the positive reviews about the job opportunity...

• "The social media marketing training can be useful to help with other opportunities that may come along. It is useful knowledge to have."

Common negative reviews

And here are the common negative reviews...

• "You absolutely cannot sell anything else. It is the program, the water machine and the Tumeric and that’s it. You are forbidden from anything else."
• "There have been many reports of ways this company tells you to recruit and fraud has been mentioned quite a few times."

What I like about The Freedom Era

There are two things that I like about The Freedom Era...

#1 If you promote Enagic MLM this will help you to recruit (morals aside)

There's no doubt about it. This attraction marketing stuff works!...

I was lured in by someone I thought was a "friend" a few years ago and it led me down this road of insane amount of research into MLMs. 

But when people look like they have their s*** together on the addictive FB/ Insta/ Tick Tocks it's hard to ignore what they are doing. 

If you want to make money by being a full time sales manager for expensive water machines, then The Freedom Era will help you do that. 

#2 Alkaline water trend

There is a growing trend on Google for the amount of people searching for alkaline water...

OK it kind of levels off from 2016 onwards, but it certainly is something more and more people are looking for. 
However, below is the exact same chart just compared to the trend for Bitcoin... 

As you can see everything is relative. And that chart is comparing alkaline water to something that around only 1% of the world owns. 

Perspective is a wonderful thing!

What I don't like about The Freedom Era

I could list a lot here. But here are the main hidden truths that I think everyone needs to know BEFORE joining The Freedom Era. 

If you still like the sound of it, then at least you have your eyes wide open...

#1 Expensive products... are they worth it?

Just look at the difference in price here...

So many distributors argue that the machines are superior for one reason or another.

But the fact is you can pick up water ionizers that can change the pH of the water from 2.5-11pH for a fraction of the cost ($4,980 Enagic machine is on the left)...

There is way too much for me to dig into every argument. But one of the big things Enagic hardcore fans argue is that Enagic has superior Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP aka more antioxidants, therefore it's better for you). 

Watch 2 minutes of this video to see if that's true... 

• 40:23 - ORP Comparison Graphics

If you continue watching that video you will find a ton more of the same, such as a study from Alkaline Water Plus...

Enagic water ionizers are nothing special compared to other models. 

It's just that every Enagic distributor hasn't done the proper research themselves or ever tested another ionizer brand themselves. They are very good at regurgitating the same things they see other distributors say though... 

#2 Not allowed to promote other products

You can read the full Enagic Policy and Procedures here. 

Once you join Enagic, you are penned into what products you can promote. In a business that you truly own you are free to promote anything you like and encouraged to create your own products or services that help people. 

#3 Is The Freedom Era a pyramid scheme in disguise?

I'm going to let this Reddit user from a thread about The Freedom Era have their say here (you really should read the whole thread if you plan on joining):

I cannot stand MLM being marketed as entrepreneurship, and I've actually studied marketing at a university. MLM schemes (yes they are schemes - someone sold on the idea of being at the top on the pyramid will call it a myriad of other words in order to try to frame it positively) are an insult to true entrepreneurs (people who actually invent and create new products/services/value). 

MLM is nothing but a pyramid scheme with products behind it - in fact, if not for the products being exchanged between buyers and sellers - such pyramid style frameworks are technically illegal. So yes, MLM is legal. But is it ethical?

I'll let you answer that question for yourself. 

#4 Shady tactics to keep people in

Ok, these are the last few minutes that you must watch from this video...

• 1:25:05 - 1) The Only Way You Can Fail Is If You Quit
• 1:25:36 - 2) Law of Attraction
• 1:28:46 - 3) Money Mindset
• 1:32:14 - 4) Echo Chamber
• 1:33:45 - 5) Cult-like Behavior 
• 1:42:44 - Pseudoscience Promoted in Community
• 1:45:42 - Conspiracy Theories Promoted in Community
• 1:50:10 - 6) $$$$$

But the shady tactics do not end there. 

What about how they actually find so many people that can afford a few thousand dollars to pay for a water filter machine?

These two minutes will just shock you...

• 44:00 - Can’t Afford to Join? Commit Fraud!

"Credit cards have no way of checking your income. So go ahead and manifest $90k coming your way and put this down as your salary."

So there are people outright encouraging other people to commit "loan application fraud". 

If you get caught doing this (prob not hard as people publish this on social media!), then you can face up to $1 million in fines and 30 years in jail. And yes, real people are getting caught doing this all the time!

#5 No real interest

The final nail in the coffin for me is found on Google Trends again...

If you absolutely must go down the MLM route, there are other MLMs that simply get more attention. And these are easier to recruit for because more and more people find out about them. 

My opinion - The Freedom Era

I have two words...

If you want to spend your time "faking it till you make it" on social media then it can work. But you need to be willing to sell $4k+ water filter machines to people that need to commit credit card fraud to buy them in the hopes to "be their own boss". 

It's really not my idea of an ethical business model. 

What if there was a way that you could provide real value to other people? What if you could learn online business skills whilst building an asset that you could sell and makes you income every month?

How I make passive income online

MLMs are not scams or illegal. However, I'm not a fan of them because of the restrictions to the expensive products you have to promote.

Once I learnt about affiliate marketing, I realised it's a far superior business model because:

• You can promote anything you want and truly own the business
• You never need to sell to friends and family
• It's completely free to start

In 2018 I had no idea what affiliate marketing was.