What is Young Living and how does it work?

In 2026, Young Living is one of the largest and most recognized MLM companies in the world – and also one of the most polarizing. The company was founded in 1993 in Riverton, Utah by D. Gary Young, who became interested in essential oils after studying distillation practices in Europe.

Young officially established Young Living in 1993 with a focus on producing and distributing pure essential oils, and built the company around what he called the “Seed to Seal” commitment – a promise that Young Living controls every stage of its oils, from the farms where plants are grown through to the sealed bottle.

Gary Young died in 2018; co-founder Mary Young has served as CEO since. The company is now headquartered in Lehi, Utah.

Young Living operates through a network of independent contractors called Brand Partners, who buy products at a wholesale price and sell them at retail, earning the markup as commission. Brand Partners can also recruit others to become Brand Partners and earn bonuses on their team’s sales volume.

The company’s product catalog spans hundreds of SKUs – single essential oils, proprietary blends (most famously Thieves, Lavender, and Frankincense), supplements, personal care products, home cleaning products, and CBD items. In 2021, the company reportedly had more than six million members worldwide; by 2024, U.S.-based Brand Partners alone numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

To become a Brand Partner, you purchase a starter kit, which gives you access to the compensation plan and wholesale pricing. Brand Partners who want to remain active – and qualify for commissions – are typically expected to maintain a monthly Personal Volume (PV) of purchases, usually around 50 or 100 PV depending on the rank they are targeting.

This auto-ship model, in which a monthly product order processes automatically, is one of the more commonly cited sources of customer and Brand Partner complaints.

Is Young Living legitimate? What the evidence shows

At the scale of $1.8 billion in annual revenue, operating continuously since 1993, and with farms and distilleries across multiple continents, Young Living is unambiguously a real company. The products are real, the compensation is paid, and the essential oils themselves have a genuine and loyal customer base among people who use them for fragrance, aromatherapy, and household purposes.

The Seed to Seal commitment – which positions Young Living as a vertically integrated producer that controls farming, distillation, and testing – is more substantive than typical MLM product positioning and gives the brand a credible quality story.

Where legitimacy becomes more complicated is in the regulatory and legal record. Young Living has received two FDA warning letters – in 2014 and 2022 – both citing unauthorized drug claims made by the company’s websites and distributors.

It settled a $5 million class-action lawsuit in 2024 over its use of the term “therapeutic-grade” in product marketing, agreeing to remove the term entirely as a condition of settlement. And its own published income data for 2023 shows a median Brand Partner income of zero dollars for the full year.

These are not the markers of a scam, but they are meaningful caveats for anyone buying the products based on specific health claims or considering the business opportunity based on income expectations set by a recruiting pitch.

Common concerns and the “therapeutic-grade” question

The most widely shared concern about Young Living – beyond the income question – is whether its product health claims hold up to scrutiny. This matters for buyers who are spending $30–80 per bottle of oil partly because of what they have been told those oils can do.

The FDA warning letters. Young Living has received two formal warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – one in September 2014 and one in June 2022.

Both letters cited the company and its distributors for making unauthorized drug claims: promoting essential oils as effective treatments for specific medical conditions including Ebola (cited in 2014), kidney stones, urinary tract infections, and various other conditions (cited in 2022). The 2022 letter was addressed directly to Mary Young, the CEO, and covered both essential oil products and the company’s CBD line.

In response, Young Living stated it had adhered to all FDA corrective actions and terminated accounts of Brand Partners who continued making prohibited claims. Both warning letters are publicly available on the FDA website.

The auto-ship subscription concern. To remain an active Brand Partner and qualify for the full commission structure, Young Living requires a monthly Personal Volume purchase – typically a minimum monthly auto-ship order processed through the Essential Rewards program.

Brand Partners who are not generating enough retail sales to cover that monthly cost out of commissions effectively pay out-of-pocket each month to maintain their Brand Partner status. The 2023 IDS median income of $0 for all Brand Partners means the typical Brand Partner’s monthly PV purchase represents a net cost, not a business investment with a return.

Customer reviews on the BBB – where Young Living holds 1.94 out of 5 stars – frequently cite difficulty canceling Essential Rewards auto-ship orders and unexpected charges.

What does the income data actually show?

The 2024 Young Living U.S. Income Disclosure Statement – covering calendar year 2023 – is one of the more detailed published by any MLM in the essential oils category. It shows rank-by-rank income data that paints a clear and specific picture of what Brand Partners at different activity levels actually earn.

The data above is drawn directly from the Young Living 2024 U.S. Income Disclosure Statement covering 2023 earnings. Several points stand out. The overall average of $747 per year is heavily distorted by top-rank earners: the median across all Brand Partners is $0, meaning more than half earned nothing at all.

At the Star rank – where 19.1% of Brand Partners sit – the average was $286 for the year, which is less than a typical monthly auto-ship order costs. Reaching the Silver rank, where average earnings first cross $20,000, requires achieving and maintaining a rank that only 0.7% of all Brand Partners reach. These figures are gross income before any business expenses.

What do real users say about Young Living?

Young Living’s user experiences split clearly between product fans and business-opportunity participants. Long-term customers who use the oils for aromatherapy, household cleaning with Thieves products, and personal care often report genuine loyalty and satisfaction with the quality of specific blends.

Brand Partners who joined primarily for income, or customers who were pitched on health benefits that the 2024 settlement found to be unsupported, tend to describe their experience in much more critical terms.

Is Young Living worth it – honest verdict

As a product, Young Living sells genuine essential oils with a meaningful quality commitment in the Seed to Seal program. The products are real, the manufacturing infrastructure is substantial, and a loyal customer base spanning decades is not built on nothing.

If you are interested in essential oils for fragrance, aromatherapy, or household cleaning purposes – and you approach the products with expectations calibrated to those uses rather than to health treatment claims – Young Living products can deliver real value. The Thieves line in particular has a strong following for household cleaning.

As a business opportunity, Young Living is harder to recommend than the company’s marketing implies. The 2023 income data is stark: 72.1% of Brand Partners averaged $24 for the year with a median of $0, while a monthly auto-ship requirement typically costs $50 or more.

The $5 million class-action settlement over “therapeutic-grade” marketing, combined with two FDA warning letters and a BBB customer rating of 1.94 out of 5, places Young Living’s regulatory and complaint record significantly below that of most peer MLM companies reviewed here. That is not a case against the products – but it is a meaningful case for approaching the income opportunity with clear-eyed skepticism.