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Full editorial research report
Affiliate Marketing / Marketing · Beginner to intermediate — SPI badges it "Level 1" but assumes you already have at least a small audience · English
1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing is not in any doubt as a product. It is live on Smart Passive Income's own site, taught by a named instructor who has run the same business publicly since 2008 under a named US company, and its two dated independent reviews — eBizFacts at 3.3/5 (published May 2021, last modified January 2025) and Drew Mann at 3/5 in April 2026 — disagree about almost nothing except emphasis. Both say the teaching is honest and the marketing is clean. What has changed, and what most write-ups of this course still get wrong, is how you buy it. There is no standalone price any more: the old Teachable listing at courses.smartpassiveincome.com now 302-redirects to the school root, its last archived state (7 July 2026) already said "Join the SPI Community to access this course", and the only buttons on the sales page go to the SPI Community checkout at $99/month or $990/year. That membership also unlocks twelve other premium SPI courses, Pat Flynn's and Liz Wilcox's office hours, monthly live workshops and the forum — so the honest way to judge the price is against all of that, not against this one course, and SPI publishes a standing coupon, SPI50, that halves the entry cost. The reason this lands at 3.8 rather than higher comes down to two things a buyer should weigh before paying. The first is scope, and the seller is upfront about it: the course teaches you to monetise an audience, not to build one. SPI files it as "Ideal for those who already have at least a small online presence", and Drew Mann's sharpest line is that "The biggest gap is the absence of any traffic or audience-building training. Pat's own income is built primarily on organic search, yet SEO is completely absent from the course." If you have no audience, this is the wrong purchase in the wrong order. The second is evidence, and it is thin rather than absent. This sweep found no learner testimonial for this course on any SPI page — the two named ones SPI publishes are about a different accelerator and a different cohort launch. Off-site, eBizFacts' review page carries three "Verified Student" star ratings of this course averaging about 4.3/5, including one concrete outcome its body attributes to Susan Ray: "I now have a list of over 55K and I'm making money from that list because of this course." But that is the entire learner record found here — three self-submitted ratings on one site, the newest dated 18 January 2023 and excluded by eBizFacts itself from the course's rating on a disclosed conflict — and the same review's Cons row still reads "Lack of significant success stories from students". The genuinely good news is the term that used to be the worst thing here: the refund position has reversed. What eBizFacts still quotes as "non-refundable and non-transferable" is now, on SPI's own membership page, a "7-Day Money-Back Guarantee" with "no questions asked". Take the coupon, take the month, and use the seven days to decide.
Last checked · Evidence is labeled by source type and freshness.
Legitimate without qualification on the identity questions: a live course from a decade-old named business, SPI Media, LLC, with a published address and support email, open pricing, a stated money-back guarantee, and a sole instructor whose track record has been public since 2008. The limits are scope and staleness, not honesty. It covers monetising an existing audience and deliberately not building one; SPI publishes no lesson list, runtime or revision date for it, and the standalone listing has been retired into a subscription.
Quick verdict
1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing is Pat Flynn's course on earning affiliate income from an audience you already have, taught in three published steps: the rules of ethical affiliate marketing, choosing which products to recommend, then active and passive promotion. It is live as of 2026-08-13 but no longer sold on its own — the standalone Teachable listing now redirects away, and access comes with an SPI Community membership at $99/month or $990/year (a 50%-off coupon, SPI50, is printed on the page), which also unlocks twelve other SPI courses, Pat Flynn's and Liz Wilcox's office hours, monthly workshops and the forum. The membership page states a 7-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. The two things to know before buying: the course teaches monetisation and not traffic — SPI itself says it suits people who already have "at least a small online presence" — and the seller publishes no testimonial for it, so the only learner ratings this research found are three "Verified Student" reviews on eBizFacts, the newest dated 18 January 2023.
Rating methodology
The commercial facts are solid — price, plan structure, coupon, inclusions, the closure of the standalone route and the refund wording were all read off the seller's own live pages on 2026-08-13, and the price is independently corroborated by a dated April 2026 review. What is not established is the inside of the product and what students get out of it. SPI publishes no lesson list, no runtime and no revision date for this course, so the only module and lesson counts on this page come from two reviewers who give different numbers (five modules per Drew Mann, "6 modules ... 38 lessons" per eBizFacts); this research did not buy the membership and did not watch the videos. On outcomes, the seller publishes nothing for this title and the only learner ratings found anywhere in this sweep are three "Verified Student" reviews hosted by eBizFacts, all dated between November 2021 and January 2023. Confidence is therefore moderate: nothing found looks wrong, but the two questions a buyer most wants answered — what exactly is in it now, and whether it works for people like them — rest on two independent reviews and a handful of years-old self-submitted ratings rather than on anything the seller publishes.
Weighted total: 3.780, rounded to one decimal as 3.8/5. Read the rating methodology.
Course record
A self-paced video course on generating affiliate income from an existing audience, taught entirely by Pat Flynn and badged "Level 1" in SPI's catalog. SPI publishes the spine of it as three steps — a Foundation section on "The rules of affiliate marketing", Step 1 "Choose your product(s)", and Steps 2 & 3 on "Active and passive promotional strategies" — and frames the ethical position up front: "it's easy to do affiliate marketing the wrong way—by putting money before your audience's needs and trust". Two independent reviewers size the material and disagree: Drew Mann's April 2026 review describes "The five modules" plus an "Affiliate Marketing Recipe Book" of promotion templates, while eBizFacts says "The core training is broken up into 6 modules and has a total of 38 lessons." SPI itself publishes no lesson list, no runtime and no revision date. The course cannot be bought alone. It unlocks with an SPI Community membership, which the seller's plan block prices at "$99 /month" or "$990 /year" and describes as covering the "Superfans Five-Level Framework", the "Entire SPI Course Library", "Pat Flynn's Office Hours", "Liz Wilcox's Office Hours", "Monthly Live Workshops" and a "Private Community Forum". The library it sits in held thirteen premium courses and four free ones on 2026-08-13.
Founder of Smart Passive Income; sole instructor on this course
Source: aff-official-course, aff-ebizfacts, aff-courses-catalogPublished outline
SPI publishes a three-part outline on the free sales page and nothing more granular — no lesson list, no runtime, no revision date. This is that outline, read on 2026-08-13, in the seller's own words. The fourth row below is not SPI's: it records the module and lesson count reported by the one independent reviewer who gives figures, clearly separated so a reader can see which is which.
Fit
Bloggers, podcasters, newsletter writers and YouTubers who already have a modest audience and have never monetised it — SPI's own catalog line is "Ideal for those who already have at least a small online presence."
People who want the ethical framing as much as the tactics: the course's first section is about not damaging audience trust, and both independent reviews single that out as its real differentiator.
Anyone who was already considering the SPI Community for the wider library, office hours and workshops — the membership is the actual purchase and this course is one of thirteen premium titles inside it.
Not for people with no audience yet. The course deliberately does not teach traffic or audience-building, and Drew Mann's April 2026 review calls the absence of SEO its biggest gap. Start with an audience-building course instead.
Not for experienced affiliate marketers. Both dated independent reviews place it as a competent primer, and eBizFacts' Verdict row reads "Pales in comparison to some similarly-priced affiliate marketing courses."
Taught by a named instructor with a public track record since 2008, running the same revenue line he teaches — his own page states "Since 2010, when I started affiliate marketing, I've generated over $3.5 million from affiliate revenue alone."
The membership page states a "7-Day Money-Back Guarantee" with "no questions asked" — a reversal of the "non-refundable and non-transferable" All-Access Pass terms eBizFacts still quotes from the old checkout.
Pricing is published openly on two pages with no email opt-in, application call or hidden checkout: $99/month or $990/year.
SPI prints a 50%-off coupon in the open — "GET 50% OFF WITH COUPON SPI50" — rather than hiding it behind an exit popup.
The same subscription unlocks twelve other premium SPI courses, Pat Flynn's and Liz Wilcox's office hours, monthly live workshops and a private forum.
The seller is candid about who the course does not suit, filing it as "Ideal for those who already have at least a small online presence" rather than promising results from zero.
Both independent reviews found in this sweep praise the marketing honesty — eBizFacts lists "No overhyped promises or shady marketing." among its Green Lights.
Learner ratings, where they exist, are positive: the three "Verified Student" reviews on eBizFacts' review page score the course 5.0/5, 4.0/5 and 4.0/5, one of them reporting earnings "more than expected".
The ethical framing is the course's opening section, not an afterthought.
No standalone purchase. The old Teachable listing at courses.smartpassiveincome.com/p/123-affiliate-marketing returned HTTP 302 to the school root on 2026-08-13; the only way in is a recurring $99/month or $990/year membership.
No traffic or audience-building training, and both independent reviews say so. Drew Mann's April 2026 review: "The biggest gap is the absence of any traffic or audience-building training. Pat's own income is built primarily on organic search, yet SEO is completely absent from the course." eBizFacts lists "No training on building an audience / generating traffic." among its Red Flags, and one of its student reviewers writes "Does not cover SEO: backlinking, internal linking, posting velocity, topic clusters, SEO tools."
SPI publishes no lesson list, runtime, module count or last-updated date for this course — the only figures found in this research come from reviewers, not the seller, and they do not agree (five modules per Drew Mann, "6 modules ... 38 lessons" per eBizFacts).
No testimonial for this course appears on any SPI page. A rendered-text pass of the sales page on 2026-08-13 returned zero occurrences of "testimonial", and the two named testimonials on the membership page are about other SPI programs.
The learner record is thin and old. The only star ratings of this course found in this sweep are three self-submitted "Verified Student" reviews on eBizFacts, dated 16 November 2021, 7 August 2022 and 18 January 2023 — and eBizFacts excludes the newest from the course's rating, disclosing that the reviewer "has a business relationship with the course creator or a competitor".
eBizFacts' Cons row still opens with "Lack of significant success stories from students", and its editorial line is that "nearly all the 123 Affiliate Marketing success stories that I've seen offer generic praise rather than speak to the results achieved from following the training".
eBizFacts also flags "Core training is rarely updated." among its Red Flags — a criticism this sweep could not check against any dated revision, because SPI publishes none.
The annual plan's own arithmetic does not check out: $990 against twelve months at $99 is a 16.67% saving but not "two months free", which would be $825, and "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT" rounds $82.50 down.
The 7-day guarantee is written against the membership as a whole and does not state on its face whether it covers the $990 annual plan or a purchase made with the SPI50 coupon.
The refund terms are not on the course sales page at all — a rendered-text pass on 2026-08-13 found zero hits for "refund", "guarantee" or "money-back" there; you have to reach the membership page to find them.
eBizFacts' Verdict row is that the course "Pales in comparison to some similarly-priced affiliate marketing courses."
Running the strategies properly needs tools the membership does not cover — an email platform above all.
Risk review
A named US legal entity behind the sale: SPI Media, LLC, 21 Walter Martin Rd #4143, Fort Walton Beach, FL 32549, with a published support address of help@teamspi.com.
The instructor is a single named person with a continuously public business since 2008, not a pseudonym or a faceless brand.
Both plan prices, the annual saving and the discount coupon are printed on the public pages before any email is collected.
The refund position has moved in the buyer's favour over time, from the "non-refundable and non-transferable" All-Access Pass terms eBizFacts quotes — in a review published 10 May 2021 and last modified 29 January 2025, which does not say when it read those terms — to a stated 7-day no-questions-asked guarantee today.
The sales page makes no income guarantee and no earnings claim about students; the only revenue figure on it is the instructor's own.
SPI states plainly on the course page that the purchase is a membership — "Both give you full access to everything inside The SPI Community from day one" — rather than implying a one-off course sale.
The site publishes an affiliate disclaimer, an earnings disclaimer, terms of use, a DMCA policy and a privacy policy as standing footer links.
The single biggest one is how little there is to check on outcomes. No SPI page carries a testimonial for this course, and the only learner ratings found in this sweep are three self-submitted "Verified Student" reviews on one independent site, the newest dated 18 January 2023.
Buying a course that no longer has a price of its own means the cost is open-ended. Stop paying and you stop having it; there is no route to owning the material.
The course cannot be dated from any public page. Nothing on SPI's site records when it was made or last revised, which matters more than usual in a field where platform rules and affiliate programs change yearly.
The 50%-off coupon is a standing offer with no published expiry, which makes it hard to read the $99 headline as the price a new buyer is actually meant to pay — and leaves what happens at renewal unstated.
The 7-day window is short for a library this large. Seven days is enough to judge this course; it is not enough to judge twelve others, the office hours and the workshops the price is really for.
SPI's "Our courses have helped over 50,000 students" is a catalog-wide, decade-wide seller claim and is not broken down by course anywhere public.
Two named testimonials on the membership page — including "I grossed $165k in sales for my first cohort!" — describe outcomes from other SPI programs. They are quoted on this page because they are the seller's own published social proof, but they say nothing about affiliate marketing results.
Terms
Every tier, discount and plan the seller publishes, in one place. The analysis underneath is ours.
Checked on · prices in USD
| Tier | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SPI Community — monthly | $99/month | unlocks the entire SPI course library, including this course |
| SPI Community — annual | $990/year | shown by the seller as "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT" |
| This course on its own | Not sold separately | the standalone Teachable listing returned HTTP 302 to the school root on 2026-08-13 |
The number that matters is the membership number, because the course no longer has one of its own. SPI's sales page and its dedicated pricing page both show the same block on 2026-08-13 — "Monthly Membership $99 /month" and "ANNUAL Membership $990 /year" with "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT" — and Drew Mann's April 2026 review reports the same two figures independently, so the headline is corroborated outside the seller. Three things are worth doing arithmetic on. First, the annual saving: SPI states "16% discount for paying annually (that's two months free!)". The percentage is right — $990 against $1,188 is a 16.67% saving — but two months free would be $825, so the parenthetical overstates the deal by $165. "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT" is also $82.50 rounded down. Small, and in the seller's favour, which is why they are noted rather than waved through. Second, the coupon. "GET 50% OFF WITH COUPON SPI50" is printed on the sales page, the pricing page and the membership page, with no expiry anywhere, which makes a first month roughly $49.50 rather than $99 and makes $99 a headline few buyers are expected to pay. What the seller does not publish is whether the discount survives renewal, so budget for the undiscounted rate from the second period on. Third, and most important, the denominator. Judged as the cost of this one three-step affiliate primer, $990 a year is a bad trade and both independent reviews score it accordingly. Judged as what the money actually buys — thirteen premium courses, Pat Flynn's and Liz Wilcox's office hours, monthly live workshops and the forum — it is a different product entirely, and a better-value one than the $660/year All-Access Pass it replaced. This page reviews the course; the invoice covers the membership, and a buyer who only wants the course is paying for twelve others.
Three prices appear in the record found here. Drew Mann's April 2026 review states the course "is no longer sold as a standalone $699 course" — a one-time price this research found nowhere on SPI's live pages, so it is his figure for the retired standalone product. eBizFacts, in a review published 10 May 2021 and last modified 29 January 2025, records access via the SPI All-Access Pass at "$199/quarter or $660/year"; it does not say on which date that price was read. Wayback captures of this same course page on 8 December 2024 and 20 September 2025 show a four-tier membership instead — "Explore — Curious Creators — Free", "Start — $49 / month — Billed quarterly for $147 — $41 / month — Billed annually for $490", "Accelerate — $99 / month — Billed quarterly for $297 — $83 / month — Billed annually for $990" and "Thrive — $149 / month — Billed quarterly for $447 — $125 / month — Billed annually for $1490" — with the course described as "Part of the All-Access Pass course library". On 2026-08-13 those four tiers have collapsed into a single membership at $99/month or $990/year, which is the old Accelerate tier's price carried forward as the only option. The exact date of that change is not established here: no capture between 20 September 2025 and 12 July 2026 was inspected.
Both price pages and the membership page carrying the guarantee were fetched on 2026-08-13, and the price was cross-checked against an independent review updated April 2026.
Homepage testimonials
These are seller-selected user posts and screenshots, not a representative sample. We preserve the visible wording and label what was and was not independently verified.
“We wouldn't have a community if we hadn't been introduced to Pat Flynn and the SPI Community. We took the Community Business Blueprint accelerator, and it literally has changed our lives. Today, we celebrate hitting our member milestone on schedule and we've had 100 new members join in the last two weeks. The Passionistas Project is thriving and true connections are being made.”
Read verbatim on the seller's own membership page on 2026-08-13, attributed there to "Amy and Nancy" with the label "Coaches". It is NOT a testimonial for this course — it credits the Community Business Blueprint accelerator, a different SPI program. Shown here because it is one of only two named testimonials SPI publishes anywhere in this sweep, and a reader deciding on the $99/month membership should see what the seller's social proof actually covers. No surname, date, link or independent verification is offered by SPI.
View source ↗“I had a head start with YouTube but never created a course, marketed it via email, or knew anything about webinars. SPI helped me set up the offer, and structure the program with pricing. The results? I grossed $165k in sales for my first cohort!”
Read verbatim on the seller's own membership page on 2026-08-13, attributed there to "Steve Huynh" with the label "Creator". It is NOT a testimonial for this course and describes no affiliate income — the outcome claimed is a cohort course launch. The $165k figure is the member's own unaudited claim as published by SPI, with no date, link or corroboration. Shown here for the same reason as the one above: it is what the seller offers as proof, and a buyer should see that none of it is about affiliate marketing.
View source ↗Evidence
Facts, claims, reports, analysis, and unknowns are deliberately kept separate.
Read on the seller's own live pages on 2026-08-13: the course is live, badged "Level 1", with a published three-step outline ("Foundation — The rules of affiliate marketing", "Step 1 — Choose your product(s)", "Step 2 & 3 — Active and passive promotional strategies") and no standalone price. Its only purchase route is the SPI Community membership, shown on both the sales page and the dedicated pricing page as "Monthly Membership $99 /month" and "ANNUAL Membership $990 /year" / "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT", with "16% discount for paying annually (that's two months free!)" and "GET 50% OFF WITH COUPON SPI50". Both plans list identical inclusions: Superfans Five-Level Framework, Entire SPI Course Library, Pat Flynn's Office Hours, Liz Wilcox's Office Hours, Monthly Live Workshops, Private Community Forum.
Sources: Smart Passive Income — 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing (course sales page) · 1 further source recorded in the research fileThe refund terms, quoted from the SPI Community membership page on 2026-08-13: "zero risk 7-Day Money-Back Guarantee We're confident this system works. If you're not satisfied within 7 days, just let us know and we'll refund you completely, no questions asked." Scope of the check: a rendered-text pass of the course sales page on the same date returned 0 occurrences of "refund", "guarantee" and "money-back"; SPI's Terms of Use at smartpassiveincome.com/terms-use/ and the linked iubenda terms were both fetched on 2026-08-13 and contain no refund, cancellation or auto-renewal clause. The membership page is therefore the only place in this sweep where SPI publishes a refund term.
Sources: Smart Passive Income — 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing (course sales page) · 1 further source recorded in the research fileThe standalone purchase route is closed. A request to https://courses.smartpassiveincome.com/p/123-affiliate-marketing on 2026-08-13 returned "HTTP/2 302" with "location: https://courses.smartpassiveincome.com/". The Wayback capture of that page on 7 July 2026 (HTTP 200) shows its last state carrying no price and the line "Join the SPI Community to access this course ⤵".
Sources: 1 further source recorded in the research fileStated by SPI on its own pages and not independently audited here: Pat Flynn's "Since 2010, when I started affiliate marketing, I've generated over $3.5 million from affiliate revenue alone" (course page); "Our courses have helped over 50,000 students" (catalog page, covering the whole catalog over roughly a decade); "join 1000+ creators" (membership page); and the membership FAQ's answer to "What do I get for $99/month?" — "instant access to our entire course library, monthly live workshops, community forum, weekly accountability calls, office hours with founder Pat Flynn and Director of Community Liz Wilcox, and direct support from Team SPI."
Sources: Smart Passive Income — 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing (course sales page) · 2 further sources recorded in the research fileTwo named independent reviews were found and they agree on the shape of the product. eBizFacts (Niall Doherty; the article's own JSON-LD gives datePublished 2021-05-10 and dateModified 2025-01-29) scores it 3.3/5. Its Key Points Pros row reads "Pat Flynn is the real deal, no overhyped promises, concise training.", its Cons row "Lack of significant success stories from students, narrow focus, expensive for what you get, rarely updated." and its Verdict row "Pales in comparison to some similarly-priced affiliate marketing courses."; its Green Lights are "Pat Flynn walks his talk.", "No overhyped promises or shady marketing." and "The training is concise.", and its Red Flags include "No training on building an audience / generating traffic." and "Core training is rarely updated." It records the price then as $199/quarter or $660/year, sizes the training at "6 modules and ... a total of 38 lessons", and quotes SPI's terms of the time as "The All-Access Pass is non-refundable and non-transferable. Likewise, we are unable to pause membership access." That same page also hosts the only learner star ratings found in this sweep — three "Verified Student" reviews, 5.0/5, 4.0/5 and 4.0/5, dated between November 2021 and January 2023. Drew's Review (Drew Mann, updated April 2026) scores it 3/5, reports the current $99/month or $990/year correctly, describes "The five modules" plus the "Affiliate Marketing Recipe Book" and the retired standalone price ("no longer sold as a standalone $699 course"), praises that "The Passive Promotional Strategies module and the Recipe Book are both practically useful, not just conceptually interesting", and criticises that "The biggest gap is the absence of any traffic or audience-building training. Pat's own income is built primarily on organic search, yet SEO is completely absent from the course." Limits: both are single-author review sites in a niche that commonly earns affiliate commission on the alternatives it recommends; neither reviewer's own write-up is a first-hand student income report, and eBizFacts' three student ratings are self-submitted to its widget rather than independently audited.
Sources: eBizFacts — "123 Affiliate Marketing Review: 12 Things To Know (Pat Flynn)", Niall Doherty · Drew's Review — "123 Affiliate Marketing Review: Pat Flynn Course Worth Getting?", Drew MannLearner star ratings for this course exist in one place found by this research: the "Student Reviews of 123 Affiliate Marketing" section on eBizFacts' review page, re-read on 2026-08-13. It carries three badged "Verified Student" reviews — 5.0/5 dated 7 August 2022 with Earnings "more than expected" and sub-ratings of 5.0/5 for Presentation, Usefulness, Community, Support and Value For Money; 4.0/5 dated 16 November 2021 with Earnings "none, still new to the course"; and 4.0/5 dated 18 January 2023, which eBizFacts marks "Not included in overall ratings" because the reviewer "has a business relationship with the course creator or a competitor". Susan Ray and Felipe Vernaza are the two reviewers named on the page, and eBizFacts' own body attributes to Susan Ray the line "The course made me realize how important email marketing was and got me started collecting emails. I now have a list of over 55K and I'm making money from that list because of this course." The reviews are self-submitted to eBizFacts' widget, not independently audited, and none is newer than January 2023.
Sources: eBizFacts — "123 Affiliate Marketing Review: 12 Things To Know (Pat Flynn)", Niall DohertyThe seller's own published social proof does not cover this course. The two named testimonials found on any SPI property in this sweep are both on the membership page and both concern other programs: "Amy and Nancy" ("Coaches") credit the Community Business Blueprint accelerator, and "Steve Huynh" ("Creator") describes a cohort course launch — "I grossed $165k in sales for my first cohort!". Neither mentions affiliate marketing, neither carries a date or link, and the $165k figure is the member's unaudited claim as published by SPI.
Sources: 1 further source recorded in the research filePrice history from Wayback captures of this same course URL, read on 2026-08-13. On 8 December 2024 and again on 20 September 2025 the page described the course as "Part of the All-Access Pass course library" and showed four membership tiers — "Explore — Curious Creators — Free"; "Start — $49 / month — Billed quarterly for $147 — $41 / month — Billed annually for $490"; "Accelerate — $99 / month — Billed quarterly for $297 — $83 / month — Billed annually for $990"; "Thrive — $149 / month — Billed quarterly for $447 — $125 / month — Billed annually for $1490" — alongside "All premium courses ($5,500+ value)". Today's single $99/month, $990/year membership is the old Accelerate tier carried forward as the only option. Earlier still, eBizFacts (published 10 May 2021, last modified 29 January 2025) records $199/quarter or $660/year, and Drew Mann's April 2026 review states the course "is no longer sold as a standalone $699 course".
Sources: Wayback Machine — SPI's 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing page under the four-tier All-Access Pass (8 December 2024 and 20 September 2025 captures) · eBizFacts — "123 Affiliate Marketing Review: 12 Things To Know (Pat Flynn)", Niall DohertyThe arithmetic on the seller's own annual pitch does not fully check out. "16% discount for paying annually (that's two months free!)": $990 against twelve months at $99 ($1,188) is a saving of $198, or 16.67% — the percentage is right, but two months free would be $825, so the parenthetical overstates the deal by $165. "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT" is $82.50 rounded down — and SPI's own membership page states the unrounded "$82.50/month equivalent", so the two pages differ. The same two pages also count the library differently: the membership page's plan block says "All 10+ courses (across all Levels)" where the catalog enumerated thirteen premium titles on 2026-08-13. All three discrepancies are small and none changes what is charged, which is why they are recorded rather than treated as deception.
Sources: Smart Passive Income — 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing (course sales page) · 1 further source recorded in the research fileWhat students of this specific course achieve in 2026 is not established. Searches run on 2026-08-13 — "1-2-3 Affiliate Marketing Pat Flynn course review", "123 Affiliate Marketing Pat Flynn reddit worth it review refund", "SPI Community 1-2-3 Affiliate Marketing price $99 month 2026 refund", "smartpassiveincome.com SPI Community membership cancel refund policy" — surfaced two named editorial reviews of the material and, on one of them, three self-submitted "Verified Student" ratings dated November 2021 to January 2023. That is the whole first-hand learner record found; nothing more recent surfaced, and the seller's sales page, rendered to text on the same date, returned zero occurrences of "testimonial" while the two named testimonials on the membership page concern other SPI programs. Also unestablished: the module and lesson count as the seller would state it (SPI publishes none, and the two reviewers who do count disagree), when the course was last revised (no date or changelog on any SPI page reached), whether the SPI50 coupon survives renewal, whether the 7-day guarantee covers the annual plan and coupon purchases on the same terms, and what the checkout screen shows — community.smartpassiveincome.com/checkout/spi-community returned a Cloudflare "Verifying you are a human" interstitial rather than the payment form to this fetcher on 2026-08-13, so no claim is made here about order bumps or upsells in either direction.
Sources: Smart Passive Income — 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing (course sales page) · Drew's Review — "123 Affiliate Marketing Review: Pat Flynn Course Worth Getting?", Drew Mann · eBizFacts — "123 Affiliate Marketing Review: 12 Things To Know (Pat Flynn)", Niall Doherty · 1 further source recorded in the research fileUnresolved
What students of this specific course achieve today. No learner testimonial or star rating for 1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing was found on any SPI property. Off the seller's pages, this sweep found exactly one source carrying learner ratings — eBizFacts' review page, whose "Student Reviews of 123 Affiliate Marketing" section holds three self-submitted "Verified Student" ratings (5.0/5 on 7 August 2022, 4.0/5 on 16 November 2021, 4.0/5 on 18 January 2023, the last excluded by eBizFacts from the course's rating on a disclosed business-relationship conflict). Three ratings, all more than three years old, is not enough to establish what a 2026 buyer should expect, and no other first-hand outcome report surfaced in this sweep. Searches run on 2026-08-13 included "1-2-3 Affiliate Marketing Pat Flynn course review", "123 Affiliate Marketing Pat Flynn reddit worth it review refund", "SPI Community 1-2-3 Affiliate Marketing price $99 month 2026 refund" and "smartpassiveincome.com SPI Community membership cancel refund policy". The seller's own sales page was fetched and rendered to text on the same date: zero occurrences of "testimonial". The two named testimonials SPI publishes on its membership page — "Amy and Nancy" and "Steve Huynh" — are about the Community Business Blueprint accelerator and a cohort course launch respectively, and are shown on this page labelled as such rather than passed off as evidence for this course.
How large the course actually is, and when it was last revised. SPI publishes no module count, lesson count, runtime, release date or changelog for it on any page reached in this research. The two reviewers who do size it disagree — Drew Mann's April 2026 review describes "The five modules", eBizFacts says "6 modules and ... a total of 38 lessons" — and each figure is attributed to its source wherever it appears on this page.
Whether the SPI50 coupon applies to renewals or only to the first period, and whether it has an expiry — no SPI page found in this sweep states either.
Whether the 7-day money-back guarantee covers the $990 annual plan and coupon-discounted purchases on the same terms as a monthly one. The wording does not say, and this research did not buy the membership to test it.
What the checkout at community.smartpassiveincome.com/checkout/spi-community shows after the coupon is applied, including any order bumps or upsells. The checkout is behind a Cloudflare "Verifying you are a human" interstitial that returned the challenge page rather than the form to this fetcher on 2026-08-13, so the final payment screen was not observed and no upsell claim is made here in either direction.
The exact date SPI collapsed its four membership tiers into one. The 20 September 2025 capture still shows four tiers and the live page shows two; captures between that date and 12 July 2026 were not inspected.
Whether people who bought the course standalone in earlier years still have access now that the Teachable listing redirects away. Nothing on any SPI page found in this sweep addresses it.
The contents of the videos behind the published three-step outline — this research did not buy the membership.
Next options
These alternatives are descriptive only. We have not researched or rated them here.
The Smart Passive Income podcast, blog and free courses cover a lot of the same ethical-affiliate ground at no cost. If you are unsure whether the approach suits you, this is the cheapest way to find out before committing to a subscription.
View current company site ↗If you do not yet have traffic or a list, this course is the wrong order of operations — it teaches monetisation and explicitly not acquisition. Buy the audience-building step first; the affiliate layer is worthless without it.
If the membership is the real purchase, judge it on the twelve other premium courses, the office hours and the workshops rather than on this title. Use the 7-day guarantee to look at all of them, not just this one.
View current company site ↗The structural drawback here is that you rent this course rather than own it. If you want the material to stay yours after you stop paying, that rules this out regardless of quality — check the ownership terms before the syllabus.
13 · Buyer checklist
Questions
The course has no standalone price. Access comes with an SPI Community membership, which the seller's own pages price on 2026-08-13 as "Monthly Membership $99 /month" and "ANNUAL Membership $990 /year" (shown as "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT", with "16% discount for paying annually"). SPI also prints a standing coupon line, "GET 50% OFF WITH COUPON SPI50", which would put a first month around $49.50. Drew Mann's April 2026 review reports the same $99/$990 figures independently.
No. The standalone Teachable listing at courses.smartpassiveincome.com/p/123-affiliate-marketing returned HTTP 302 to the school root when checked on 2026-08-13, and its last archived state — a Wayback capture of 7 July 2026 — already showed no price and the line "Join the SPI Community to access this course". Every purchase button on the current sales page goes to the SPI Community checkout.
Yes, within seven days. SPI's membership page states: "zero risk 7-Day Money-Back Guarantee We're confident this system works. If you're not satisfied within 7 days, just let us know and we'll refund you completely, no questions asked." Two caveats: it is written against the membership rather than this course and does not say on its face whether it covers the annual plan or a coupon purchase on the same terms, and it is not repeated on the course sales page. This is a change of position — eBizFacts' review (published 10 May 2021, last modified 29 January 2025) records the then-current All-Access Pass as "non-refundable and non-transferable".
Not if "beginner" means no audience. SPI's own catalog files it as "Ideal for those who already have at least a small online presence", and Drew Mann's April 2026 review is blunt about the gap: "The biggest gap is the absence of any traffic or audience-building training. Pat's own income is built primarily on organic search, yet SEO is completely absent from the course." It is a Level 1 course in affiliate marketing terms, not in online-business terms.
SPI publishes three steps and nothing more granular: a Foundation section on "The rules of affiliate marketing", Step 1 "Choose your product(s)" — including "what to do if the products you want to recommend don't have an affiliate program" — and Steps 2 & 3 on "Active and passive promotional strategies" with "clear examples and repeatable recipes". No lesson list, runtime or revision date is published. Two independent reviewers size it and disagree: Drew Mann's April 2026 review describes "The five modules" — a three-item orientation, then sections of three, nine, eight and eleven lessons — plus the "Affiliate Marketing Recipe Book", while eBizFacts writes "The core training is broken up into 6 modules and has a total of 38 lessons." Both are reviewers' figures, not the seller's, and eBizFacts' describes the older All-Access Pass version.
A few, all on one independent site and all years old. SPI itself publishes none: a rendered-text pass of its sales page on 2026-08-13 returned zero occurrences of "testimonial", and the two named testimonials on its membership page are about other programs — "Amy and Nancy" on the Community Business Blueprint accelerator and "Steve Huynh" on a cohort course launch. The one source found with learner ratings for this course is eBizFacts, whose review page carries three badged "Verified Student" reviews: 5.0/5 on 7 August 2022, reporting earnings "more than expected" — eBizFacts' own body attributes to Susan Ray the line "I now have a list of over 55K and I'm making money from that list because of this course"; 4.0/5 on 16 November 2021, reporting earnings "none, still new to the course" and titled "Good course overall but lacks some concepts"; and 4.0/5 on 18 January 2023, whose reviewer writes "I applied the skills taught to me but have not seen much activity/growth/$ from it" and which eBizFacts excludes from the course's overall rating because the reviewer "has a business relationship with the course creator or a competitor". Treat that as a signal, not a track record: three self-submitted ratings, none newer than January 2023, and eBizFacts' own Cons row still reads "Lack of significant success stories from students".
Yes, and unusually checkable for this category. He has run Smart Passive Income publicly since 2008 under a named US company, SPI Media, LLC, published monthly income reports for the first decade of it, and states on the course page: "Since 2010, when I started affiliate marketing, I've generated over $3.5 million from affiliate revenue alone." That figure is his own, published on his own site — but the independent review most critical of the course still opens its pros with "Pat Flynn walks his talk" and "No overhyped promises or shady marketing".
SPI's plan block lists the same inclusions for both plans: the "Superfans Five-Level Framework", the "Entire SPI Course Library", "Pat Flynn's Office Hours", "Liz Wilcox's Office Hours", "Monthly Live Workshops" and a "Private Community Forum". On 2026-08-13 that library held thirteen premium courses — among them A to Z Webinars, Email Marketing Magic, Power-Up Podcasting®, Short-Form Formula and Smart From Scratch® — plus four free ones. The membership FAQ adds "weekly accountability calls" and "direct support from Team SPI".
Source registry
aff-official-courseSupports: The seller's live sales page, fetched HTTP 200 on 2026-08-13. It badges the course "Superfans System Level 1" (rendered screenshot, 2026-08-13; SPI's catalog page badges the same course "Level 1"), gives the tagline "Learn to authentically generate more income with affiliate marketing.", and publishes a three-part outline under "1•2•3 Affiliate Marketing Course Outline": "Foundation — The rules of affiliate marketing", "Step 1 — Choose your product(s)", "Step 2 & 3 — Active and passive promotional strategies". Pat Flynn's first-person instructor block on the same page states: "Since 2010, when I started affiliate marketing, I've generated over $3.5 million from affiliate revenue alone." The page carries no standalone price. Its only purchase surface is the shared plan block — "CHOOSE YOUR PLAN", "Pick the membership subscription that works best for you. Both give you full access to everything inside The SPI Community from day one.", "GET 50% OFF WITH COUPON SPI50", "Monthly Membership $99 /month" and "ANNUAL Membership $990 /year" with "$82/MONTH EQUIVALENT" and "16% discount for paying annually (that's two months free!)". Both plan buttons link to https://community.smartpassiveincome.com/checkout/spi-community. Footer reads "© Copyright 2026 Superfans System by SPI Media, LLC".
Limitations: Seller-controlled, and the outline is three headline steps rather than a lesson list — the page does not publish module or lesson counts, a runtime, or a last-updated date. A rendered-text extraction of the page on 2026-08-13 returned 0 occurrences of "refund", "guarantee", "money-back" or "testimonial", so neither the refund terms nor any learner review is stated on this page; both had to be found elsewhere on the seller's own site.
aff-ebizfactsSupports: A long-form independent review by a named reviewer, Niall Doherty, scoring the course 3.3 out of 5. Its own JSON-LD, read from the live HTML on 2026-08-13, carries "datePublished":"2021-05-10T08:38:29+01:00" and "dateModified":"2025-01-29T08:48:45+00:00". Its Key Points table reads: Pros "Pat Flynn is the real deal, no overhyped promises, concise training."; Cons "Lack of significant success stories from students, narrow focus, expensive for what you get, rarely updated."; Verdict "Pales in comparison to some similarly-priced affiliate marketing courses." Its Green Lights are "Pat Flynn walks his talk.", "No overhyped promises or shady marketing." and "The training is concise."; its Red Flags include "No training on building an audience / generating traffic." and "Core training is rarely updated." It sizes the material from inside the product — "The core training is broken up into 6 modules and has a total of 38 lessons." — records the price then in force as "$199/quarter or $660/year", and quotes SPI's refund position at the time: "The All-Access Pass is non-refundable and non-transferable. Likewise, we are unable to pause membership access." Its editorial line on outcomes is "nearly all the 123 Affiliate Marketing success stories that I've seen offer generic praise rather than speak to the results achieved from following the training". Crucially, the same page hosts a "Student Reviews of 123 Affiliate Marketing" section carrying three badged "Verified Student" star ratings of this exact course: 4.0/5 dated 18 January 2023, 5.0/5 dated 7 August 2022 (Earnings: "more than expected") and 4.0/5 dated 16 November 2021 (Earnings: "none, still new to the course"). Two reviewers are named on the page, Susan Ray and Felipe Vernaza.
Limitations: Its price and refund quote describe the retired All-Access Pass, not the 2026 membership: the body still says the course "is only available through the Smart Passive Income All-Access Pass", and nothing in it was refreshed after the 29 January 2025 modification date. eBizFacts publishes affiliate-adjacent course reviews and links to competing products; treat its comparative ranking as editorial opinion. Its three student reviews are self-submitted to eBizFacts' own ratings widget rather than independently audited, they are few and old (newest 18 January 2023), and eBizFacts itself excludes that newest one from the course's overall rating, disclosing that the reviewer "has a business relationship with the course creator or a competitor".
aff-legacy-archiveSupports: Price history, read directly from two archived captures of this same URL on 2026-08-13. Both the 8 December 2024 and the 20 September 2025 captures describe the course as "Part of the All-Access Pass course library" and show a four-tier plan table rather than today's two: "Explore — Curious Creators — Free"; "Start — Do It Yourself — $49 / month — Billed quarterly for $147 — $41 / month — Billed annually for $490"; "Accelerate — Do It Together — $99 / month — Billed quarterly for $297 — $83 / month — Billed annually for $990"; "Thrive — $149 / month — Billed quarterly for $447 — $125 / month — Billed annually for $1490". Both captures also carry the line "All premium courses ($5,500+ value)" and "Save 16% with annual billing". The Wayback CDX index for this URL returns HTTP 200 captures on 2024-12-08, 2025-02-15, 2025-04-30, 2025-05-18, 2025-06-19, 2025-07-16, 2025-09-20 and 2026-07-12.
Limitations: Archive captures of a JS-rendered marketing page: the extracted text is thinner than the live DOM and some blocks may not have been captured. The captures establish what the tier table said on those dates; they do not show what anyone was actually charged, and no capture between 20 September 2025 and 12 July 2026 was inspected, so the exact date the four tiers collapsed into two is not established here.
aff-drews-reviewSupports: The most recent dated independent review found in this sweep, by a named reviewer, Drew Mann, updated April 2026 and scoring the course 3 out of 5. It sizes the curriculum at "The five modules" — a three-item orientation, a "three-lesson section", a "nine-lesson module", "Eight lessons" and "Eleven lessons" — plus the "Affiliate Marketing Recipe Book"; eBizFacts, writing from inside the older All-Access Pass version, counts it differently at "6 modules and ... a total of 38 lessons". It also records the retired standalone price: "123 Affiliate Marketing is no longer sold as a standalone $699 course". It reports the current price correctly as $99/month or $990/year via the SPI Community membership — independent corroboration of the figures read off the seller's pages. Favourable: "The Passive Promotional Strategies module and the Recipe Book are both practically useful, not just conceptually interesting." Critical: "The biggest gap is the absence of any traffic or audience-building training. Pat's own income is built primarily on organic search, yet SEO is completely absent from the course."
Limitations: A single-author review site in the make-money-online niche, a category that routinely earns affiliate commission on the alternatives it recommends; its module and lesson counts are its own, are not published by SPI anywhere this research could reach, and do not agree with eBizFacts' count, so they are reported as its claim rather than verified. It is a review of the material, not a first-hand student income outcome.