Mary Kay Income Disclosures
Written by Frosty Rose
Multi-level marketing companies are known for providing as little information as possible about the real numbers. Mary Kay is no exception. The company used to publish sales figures and number of consultants in the U.S. But as the number of consultants in the U.S. started dropping dramatically, they even stopped giving out this information.
In Canada, things are different and certain disclosures are required. So each year we get the “earnings representation” that Mary Kay publishes for Canadian consultants and directors.
The hard numbers… the ones that are hard to argue away…. show abysmal earnings year after year. Again, these numbers are from Canada, but the market is similar to the U.S., where the DSA has successfully lobbied for years against requiring these kinds of disclosures by MLM companies.
The picture from 2024 is grim. If possible, it’s even grimmer than the 2023 numbers. Let’s do a side-by-side, shall we?
In 2023, the average income for a Canadian nsd was $149,440. In 2024, that number had dropped to just $122,000. That’s less than $88,000 USD. The number of nsds stayed consistent at .04% of the sales force.
Sales directors likewise saw their average income drop from $21,050 to just $19,658 (just over $14,000 USD). The percentage of directors went from 1.5% of the total sales force to 1.6%.
For the independent beauty consultants, only 11.7% of are eligible for commissions, and they’re making a paltry $211 (just over $150 USD).
Lest we forget, those numbers are for a whole year. We must also keep in mind that these earnings are the average for their respective levels. That means that half of nsds, directors, and consultants are making less than this amount.
$122,000 CAD per year, the indisputable earnings for the tippy top of the Mary Kay pyramid, is not executive income. Directors and above are not working part-time hours. Heck, most consultants are working more than part-time hours. This is yet more proof that recruiters are lying, and that in Mary Kay, the money is as fake as the diamonds.
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This is incorrect: “these earnings are the average for their respective levels. That means that half of NSDs, directors, and consultants are making less than this amount.” If they reported the MEDIAN, you would be correct that half are making less. But the average is computed by dividing the sum of a set of terms by the number of terms (total salary of all NSDs by the number of NSDs).
Pity they don’t report the median and mode.
“For the independent beauty consultants, only 11.7% of are eligible for commissions, and they’re making a paltry $211 (just over $150 USD).”
That $150 is average commission. It costs the IBC nearly 1000 USD/year to remain active and eligible for commissions. The average IBC (of those eligible for commissions), therefore, is actually losing close to 850 USD per year.
Net vs. gross is a real bitch in MLMs like Mary Kay. But oh how they love to conflate the two!
And don’t forget, even for NSDs, that 88K US (about $7333 per month) is just commissions. How much of that then goes to “production”, trinkets for the downline, income taxes including taxes on trips and prizes, travel expenses, dry cleaning for the ugly suit, and lord knows what else.
I’d guess that the average is skewed by a handful of high earning outliers in the small data pool and that most NSDs aren’t making anything close to that.
No wonder you get the Mia Mason Porters lying on their bankruptcy paperwork and Monique Anthonys screwing banks and other companies out of money.
Don’t let anyone sway you that you make 50%profit on top of that. These SDs and NSDs order because they have to top off production, not because of organic sales. Chelsea is a prime example of an SD holding constant sales and BOGOs, training her customers to never pay full price, so that she has a reason to order more wholesale for her unit production.
So….it’s $88K USD/yr, GROSS, which equates to roughly $58K USD/yr, NET. This is around $4.8K/montly for NSDs! Again, as was pointed out, SANS “business” expenses…
Executive pay, eh?
The average sales director can make more working at Fat Ron’s (McDonald’s) than with this “business.”
I make more money selling digital items in an online game (Second Life) than the Canadian IBCs make in real life,