Jan Barley

Products with Master Resell Rights (MRR) Can be a Cash Cow. However, They’re Not All Created Equal

Master resell rights might seem like the answer to your dreams, but are they?

There’s a buzz on social media right now, with everyone, their mother, the postman, and his dog promoting MRR products.

So, what’s it all about?

MRR is an abbreviation for master resell rights, and it’s a simple enough model to understand. A master resell rights product is typically a digital product you purchase and can then sell for 100% profit. After that, the person who purchased the MRR product from you can also resell the product commercially for 100% profit.

Some sceptical people say that MRR is a scam or a Ponzi MLM. Well, it’s not MLM. There is no upline or downline, and you do not benefit from anyone else selling the products after they purchased from you.

As anyone can start an MRR business, it’s advisable to be cautious and avoid scams. Only buy from an established company with a good reputation.

Why Are People Buying Master Resell Products?

With the world’s economy in such a mess and people struggling to pay the bills, many are scrambling to buy MRR products to solve their financial problems. However, not all MRR products are created equal.

It’s not only about buying the course. You also need to know how to market it and whether you get training and support if you encounter issues.

The problem occurs when people selling their MRR courses lack marketing experience. They cannot tell you how to drive free organic traffic, master the TikTok algorithm, where to find sites to place free ads, or the best social media channels for promoting your product.

What tends to happen is people don’t get results within the first few months, and they give up. They get stuck in the “less than 300 views” cycle on TikTok and cannot get enough followers or conversions to generate a passive income.

Most MRR courses cost $400+, so when people give up, they feel bitterly disappointed at wasting their money and not improving their finances. Sadly, some take to voicing their bitterness online that MRR is a scam and it doesn’t work.

It didn’t work for them, and there are good reasons for that.

Proven MRR courses work, but there are a few moving parts to consider.

There’s another problem, too,

Let’s Talk About Passive Income

My assessment of passive income is to create content or a course once and put it on autopilot. However, in ‘real life,’ passive income does not exist until you have hundreds of thousands of followers or email subscribers. Even then, you still need to turn up occasionally and produce content to keep your audience engaged, or your system will grind to a halt.

The MRR I bought says you can do it in 2 hours daily. Perhaps, further down the line when you have experience. But, in the early stages, it’s bloody hard work and time consuming.

Anticipate spending 10+ hours a week creating content, analysing, and adjusting your strategy according to results. Treat your digital marketing journey as a business because, ultimately, one day, it could produce a full-time, six-figure income.

I bulk-create content, spending around one day a week creating TikTok videos, Pinterest pins and Instagram posts. Each week, I spend one or two days creating and scheduling content, ideally a week ahead.

What To Look For When Purchasing an MRR Course

There are so many things to consider before spending your hard earned cash. In the next section, I will discuss what I have learned and how I have found one of the best programs to help me succeed with digital marketing. I love Inner Bloom especially because it is created by women for women. You can choose to sell the low cost Inner Bloom MRR or buy the course for business growth and personal development.

Is It A Course or A Program?

Fact: Only 10% of people ever complete a course. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Buying a course does not guarantee success because you will lose motivation when there’s nobody to spur you on.

Do You Get Acess To Marketing Tools?

It’s essential to have access to a free marketing platform to sell the course directly without additional cost and with an automated system.

I’ve used the free marketing platform for around eight months and upgraded a couple of months ago to a paid plan ($27 a month). I can now host 5 courses, have 10 sales pages, up to 5k subscribers and other benefits.

There’s also a free sales funnel building course I completed in July 2024 and am now building sales pages.

The paid plans are incredible value compared to others.

Some course hosting platforms, like Kajabi, Thinkific, and Skool, charge a monthly $99+ fee, which is prohibitive when you don’t know how quickly you will get sales.

When you’re getting started, having access to a free marketing platform is fantastic because:

• Create a free blog
• Import a custom domain
• Build an email campaign
• Create (or add) one course
• Create up to three sales funnels
• Have up to 2,000 subscribers for free
• You can save money whilst you build your finances
• Connect PayPal or Stripe, and the system takes the payment when you sell your course.
• Access the marketplace to sell other people’s courses for a commission (great if you’re just getting started)

Does the Program Teach You How to Get Traffic?

Without understanding how to drive free organic traffic, your sales will be dismal, and you will lose hope.

You need a system that ticks all the boxes because if one corner of your education is lacking, it becomes more challenging to make a good income without feeling like you have to be tied to your laptop every day, banging out content nobody wants to engage with.

Do You Have A Mentor With A Proven Track Record?

Most of the programs I researched had a basic Facebook group but didn’t have access to a 7-figure mentor, someone who has a track record of success with the program and a person committed to helping others succeed. Doing it alone is tough and it’s easy to lose motivation when results are a bit slow coming.

Is The Program Automated?

100% automation is essential. Many people starting an online business still work full time, so any fiddly manual bits become impossible when you have limited hours. The MRR program I joined is automated, but there is a setup process, and that can be tricky for someone who has challenges with tech. That’s one of the reasons, I switched to a Done For You  (DFU) Product. There is literally nothing to do and it’s almost 50% of the price I paid for the MRR.

Do You Have to SetUp Payment Processors?

There’s a good reason for this question. This year (2024) Stripe, a popular payment processor used worldwide, started clamping down on digital products. It classes some of them as “predatory.”

Here’s the thing. You set up your payment processor and start making sales. Whoop! Then – BANG – Stripe suspends your account and refuses your appeal. Suddenly, all your marketing is up the wall. That caused me significant stress. Not only for me, but for my customers. I don’t want anyone who bius from me to have to deal with stuff like that.

I suspect, as the MRR space has so many products, that this situation will worsen.

That, my friend, is why I switched the the DFU business. The company deals with all these fiddly bits. You get a Shopify store with over 200 products and the company pays you 70% commission when you sell the business. I like that we don’t have to worry about payment processors shutting us down. Plus, it’s so much more hands off.

Does The Program Have Proven Success?

Please don’t buy an MRR course that cannot provide significant proof of success.

It’s essential to know there’s a hungry market for your product. Don’t be tempted to buy a cheap offer just because it’s low cost. Remember, you only need to sell once to get your money back, and then everything is pure profit.

My ethos for selling anything online is only to promote products and courses I feel proud to stand behind.

Integrity is everything.

Moreover, you will lose consistency if you don’t feel 100% happy about any aspect of an MRR course.

Note: Just because someone else has made a lot of money, it doesn’t mean you will. That was a steep learning curve for me!

Does The Program Have A Community?

Being around a community of like-minded people genuinely helps to keep you plugged in to the system. You need people to talk to, ask questions, uplift you when you’re feeling deflated and people you can share your wins with. The Inner Bloom community is one of a kind.

It really helps to read about other peoples success and often someone asks a question you were thinking about. Having a community has kept me on track.

Does The Program Have Ongoing Training?

The digital marketing and social media space changes in a heartbeat. It’s essential that the program updates training weekly. Most don’t. They produce the course and leave people to get on with it.

The DFU business has an entire bank of in-depth training. It covers subjects like mindset, tech, branding, marketing, faceless marketing, social media tips and much more. You also learn all the facts about setting up a business and paying taxes.

Are There Monthly Costs?

Avoid an MRR that insists on monthly fees. DFU business has zero costs after you have purchased. Never get sucked into a monthly subscription.

Does The Program Have Tech Support?

I bought an MRR course last year where the tech support was non-existant. They ignored emails and everyone was unhappy because there were significant tech problems that we had no way of solving. The DFU business has a dedicated tech support team.

Conclusion

Suppose you’re genuinely looking for an opportunity to create additional income or start a full-time career as a digital marketer. In that case, Master Resell Rights courses are a great place to start.

In addition, the skills you learn from a course should give you real-world, transferable skills. For instance, you can get paid to help business owners market their small businesses through social media. Many companies are clueless about social media marketing, and some get it badly wrong.

You could promote your digital marketing services on Fiverr or other platforms or start an agency. You could:

• Build a community
• Launch a YouTube channel
• Launch a TikTok channel
• Run training webinars
• Create digital products of your own
• Help small businesses with their digital marketing
• Teach others to become successful digital marketers
• Promote your services on platforms such as Fiverr

So many exciting avenues are available once you have acquired digital marketing skills.

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links on this page. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.

How to Create Digital Products. It’s Worthwhile But Can Be A Learning Curve

For many years, I put off creating digital products. I thought I’d have to create an ebook or course from scratch, and I couldn’t face it. I knew it would be time-consuming, and I was busy with client work.

I bought my first digital product with master resell rights at the end of November 2023. It cost $600! However, I quickly realised there were too many customer friction points for me to feel happy about selling it. For instance, it isn’t fully automated, there were problems with the payment processor and it was just a biy icky.

The Disadvantages of Most Master Resell Rights (MRR) Products

I wasn’t comfortable with people paying me directly and I decided I didn’t like the master resell rights business model. Buying a product to sell a product shouldn’t be the goal. For me, it’s about learning high-income skills and I’ve learned more from YouTube tutorials than with that course.

I wish I had started with a reputable MRR such as Lepo Max, The Roadmap or Inner Bloom.

I see many people struggling with the tech setup and they aren’t allowed to be vulnerable if they aren’t getting sales. The entire business seems to be about broadcasting how much money some people are making.

Alternatives to MRR Products

I decided to let that business go. Thankfully,  I found a done-for-you business that (imo) is more sustainable, ethical and less focused on the rah rah rah of making a lot of money. It has 750+ products that I can promote and make affiliate commissions, saving me weeksof trying to create digital products of my own.

I also joined Catalyst Collective. Is Catalyst Collective good? Yes, it has helped me get clearer about the direction of my business and given me actionable steps.

The Process I Followed to Make Digital Products

I will bullet point my process because I’m sure you don’t want to read reams of pages.

1. I bought low-cost PLR (private label rights) products with resell rights
2. I bought from people I knew in digital marketing groups, Facebook ads and platforms that sell PLR, such as Etsy
3. These products were Canva templates so that I can edit and personalise/improve
4. I reorganised the content, adding elements, changing fonts, images, and colours and creating new covers
5. I opened a free account with Gumroad
6. I created mock-ups on Canva for images for my shop listings
7. I began promoting on Pinterest

Gumroad was my first shop, but I didn’t realise they don’t allow PLR or MRR products. It took them five months to actually tell me, after I had published fourteen products! So, don’t publish on Gumroad!

I also plan to put more digital products on Systeme. I may use a few as lead magnets and sell the rest cheaply so others can make money by reselling them. For now, I’m busy with my DFY store becuase that’s done all the work for me.

Was it Easy?

Yes and no. I have undiagnosed ADHD with some elements of ASD, so my natural inclination is to simplify, problem-solve and improve. That meant it took me a long time to edit the courses. It didn’t help that I manually changed fonts and colours on every page for three courses before realising that Canva has a “change all” option.

<<<Slaps forehead>>>

What I Would Do Differently if I Created Digital Products

I wouldn’t buy other people’s low-ticket PLRs. Instead, I would create my own from scratch. Though that is the longer route, there’s no guessing about the quality and you can create something unique and personalised. I would start a YouTube channel and commit to marketing rather than relying on a marketplace like Etsy. They are notorious for randomly closing people’s accounts and it’s happening more lately.

I would consider creating a video course and becoming a specialist in one subject. I’m leaning towards Pinterest because that platform generates results. Instagram is dead in the water for many and TikTok is just plain weird.

So, I’m studying pin design and may later focus on helping businesses get traction on Pinterest. I may create pins to sell on Creative Fabrica, which imo is better than Etsy.

Claude AI As Your Digital Product Creator

I’ve rececently started using Claude AI. It is much better for creating content than ChatGPT.

There are limitations on the free plan but it’s quite generous. I use it every day now for content outlines keyword semantics, content ideas and more.

I plan to use it for copywriting sales pages, email campaigns and ebooks.

What’s Next?

I am focused on getting to know the DFY business. I’m leaning into affiliate marketing because MRR is NOT passive. It’s a lot of grunt work that never ends. Affiliate marketing is a better option if you want passive income. For esample, the DFY business has three tiers of commissions:-

1. 80%
2. 10%
3. 5%

A year down the line, you’ll be receiving regular passive income from the second and third tier, and that can add up. My focus in on Pinterest marketing. I promote articles on this website, affiliate products I use and, each week, share some of the products from the DFU store. Pinterest is one of the best platforms for marketing your business. I’ll be sharing more content here and on YouTube when I have time, so I can show others what I am learning.

If you’re thinking about starting a digital products business, I recommend building one product. Decide which social media channels to use for marketing and practice until you have mastered the process.

Having trouble selling your digital product? If that’s the case read Digital product not selling: 10 reasons why & how to fix it.

Conclusion

I’m not saying don’t create digital products. Still, it’s essential to establish what you want from a product. If you just want to make money, you’d be better off buying a product you can market. Learn as much as you can about digital marketing, and focus on building high-income skills.

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links on this page. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.