How Amway Works

Amway business owners can earn income and other incentives in a variety of ways. They fall under the categories of Retail Markup, Volume Rebates, Leadership Bonuses and Higher Awards and Incentives.

Retail Markup

The simplest method of generating an income is to buy products from Amway at their base wholesale price, add a markup, and sell them directly to a consumer. In general, Amway Business Owners (ABO) have the right to sell Amway-sourced products at whichever price they choose. The recommended markup on Amway manufactured products varies from 20-35%. In many markets Amway also makes available products from third-party manufacturers. The potential retail markup on these "catalogue" products is usually limited however, and they are generally made available for the personal convenience of Amway business owners rather than for resale. There are a number of exceptions to this, including XS Energy drinks and Emma Page Jewellery.

Volume rebates

In most product based businesses, the more volume you buy from your supplier, the cheaper per-unit price you receive. This means when you resell the product your potential markup (and thus profit) is higher. The same applies for Amway, however it occurs in a slightly different manner. In traditional distribution you would be required to purchase large inventories up-front and you would receive an upfront discount on the purchase price. With Amway, all authorised representatives make their initial purchase at the same price, no matter the volume. At the end of the month the total volume of products purchased through that ABO is added up, and the volume discount paid as a rebate, typically on or about the 13th of the following month. In addition, the volume is based on all products purchased, so you don't need to buy large inventory of one product to receive a discount, as is often the case in traditional distribution.

Because of the international nature of the business, the wide variety of products available, and the differing amounts of markup available to be shared on Amway manufactured products compared to third-party manufactured products, volume is calculated using a points system rather than per unit or purchasing cost. The scales varies slightly between different markets (see below). Every product is allocated a Point Value (PV) and a Business Volume (BV). The PV is used to calculate the rebate percentage earned. For most core line products (ie those manufactured by Amway), the BV is usually close to the wholesale price of the product less any sales tax. The rebate paid is calculated by multiplying the PV rebate percentage by the total BV.

Increasing Sales Volume

An ABO's sales volume consists of three components - products purchased for personal use, products sold at retail to personal clients, and products sold at wholesale to other ABOs whom they introduce to the business ("sponsor"). Increasing any of these three areas increases an ABOs total sales volume. Products sold through sponsored ABOs result in smaller profit margins than products sold directly to consumers, however the increased sales volume would normally make up for the smaller margins. This is analagous to a retail store situation where the store owner may employee additional sales people (an expense) in the hope that the increase in sales volume will offset this and lead to overall greater profits. An ABO will invest time in finding and training new ABOs as well as retail clients because the new ABOs will eventually be able to create sales volume without their sponsor's input.

The Distribution Chain

Prior to the introduction of direct fulfillment, where every ABO deals directly with the company, ABOs would purchase their products from their sponsor, who would purchase them from their sponsor and so on up until the first Direct Distributor, who would deal directly with Amway. The Direct would receive the total volume rebate back from Amway corporation and would then be responsible for distributing the volume rebates earned to their frontline distributors who would do the same for their frontline and so on. Today, most ABOs let Amway handle these logistics, ordering products directly from Amway and Amway calculating and distributing the rebates as necessary. In the FTC's investigation of Amway in the 1970's, it was reported that about half of all distributors were within 3 "levels" of Amway, more than 70% where within 4 levels and 99% within 8 levels, which is comparable to traditional distribution chains.

Performance Bonus schedules

Amway calls this the Performance Bonus; older material calls it the rebate scale. These are the schedules Amway lists for each market (checked November 2026). The Performance Bonus is paid monthly on the sales group's Bonus Volume (BV). The percentage depends on the group's total Point Value (PV) that month. PV and BV are Amway's own volume measures and are not the same as money; some markets use much larger point values, so their figures look very different.

North America United States, Canada, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico
Monthly PV	Bonus
7,500	25%
6,000	23%
4,000	21%
2,500	18%
1,500	15%
1,000	12%
600	9%
300	6%
100	3%

Europe, India, South Africa, Philippines, Vietnam, Kazakhstan
Monthly PV	Bonus
10,000	21%
7,000	18%
4,000	15%
2,400	12%
1,200	9%
600	6%
200	3%

Monthly PV	China	Taiwan	Hong Kong, Macau	Mexico	Latin America
10,000	21%	21%	21%	21%	21%
7,000	18%	18%	18%	18%	18%
4,000	15%	15%	15%	15%	15%
2,400				12%
2,000	12%	12%	12%
1,800					12%
1,200
1,000	9%	9%	9%	9%
600	6%				9%
500		6%
200	3%

Blank cells: no level at that PV. For Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Mexico and Latin America, Amway's country pages list only the levels shown.

Bonus	Australia, New Zealand	Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei	Japan	Korea	Indonesia	Thailand
21%	7,500	12,500	1,500,000	10,000,000	16,000,000	150,000
18%	5,000	7,500	1,000,000	6,800,000	11,000,000	90,000
15%	3,250	4,500	600,000	4,000,000	6,500,000	55,000
12%	2,000	3,000	360,000	2,400,000	4,000,000	30,000
9%	1,000	1,750	180,000	1,200,000	2,000,000	15,000
6%	400	900	90,000	600,000	1,000,000	5,000
3%	100	250	30,000	200,000	350,000

Figures are monthly PV needed for each level. In Thailand the bonus is called a trade discount.

The pin levels these schedules lead to are described on Pin Levels.

Leadership bonuses

Leadership bonus

In traditional distribution there can come a point where one of your wholesale customers is purchasing so much volume than they'd be better of dealing directly with the wholesaler or manufacturer themselves. At this point you would generally lose them as a customer, and thus lose the associated profit. By contrast, Amway incentivises people help their downline reach this point. Historically, when a downline reached the top of the volume rebate scale, they would "break away" from their sponsoring distributor and begin dealing directly with Amway - become a "direct distributor". Rather than the sponsoring IBO losing income however, Amway would continue to pay them a leadership bonus on the volume of sales generated by the "break-away" group. Even though today all IBOs may deal directly with Amway, the same principle applies. To qualify for the full bonus, an upline IBO needs to have a certain amount of volume outside of the breakaway leg (typically set around the 12%-15% volume level) or at least 2 breakaway legs. If an IBO does not have this qualifying volume than some or all of the bonus will be passed upline to the first IBO who qualifies.

The Leadership Bonus is currently 6% of the group's BV in North America, Europe and Taiwan. In Europe there are three rates: 6% Leadership, 4% Foster Leadership and 2% International Leadership. In North America, one way to qualify is to sponsor a group at Silver Producer (25%) level and have at least 2,500 PV outside that group in the same month. Previously the rate was 4%.

Ruby bonus

An extra 2% on Ruby BV in any month with at least 15,000 Ruby PV, for IBOs who are also Platinum (North America). Europe and Taiwan use 20,000 Ruby PV.

Depth bonus

A monthly bonus of 1% in Europe and Taiwan.

Emerald bonus

An annual bonus shared among qualified Emeralds. In Taiwan it is 0.25% of annual total BV, shared among qualifiers. See Pin Levels for how to qualify.

Diamond bonus

An annual bonus shared among qualified Diamonds. In Taiwan it is 0.25% of annual total BV, shared among qualifiers.

Diamond Plus bonus

An annual bonus for Diamonds with more qualified groups: in North America, seven or more North American groups at 25%; in Taiwan, seven or more groups at 21% (0.25%).

FAA points

FAA points were used in older versions of the plan to qualify for Executive Diamond and above. They have been replaced by Qualification Credits under Global Award Recognition.

Higher Awards and Incentives

From Executive Diamond upwards, pin levels are awarded under Amway's Global Award Recognition table, with one-time and two-time cash awards for each new level. See Pin Levels.