Digital Worth Academy Review: Affiliate Marketing Hurdles, Benefits, & Alternatives

Digital Worth Academy is an online affiliate marketing program that teaches you how to create (and possibly sell) high-content, income-producing authority websites. Created by Sara Young and Andrew Hansen, the course offers a step-by-step process for earning money online for only a few hours a day.
The program features a proven system of over 12 years that addresses 3 affiliate marketing hurdles many beginner entrepreneurs face. These are the competitiveness of the market, an abundance of fraud or scam courses, and the scalability of the business model.
In my opinion, making money online from affiliate marketing, as what Digital Worth Academy teaches, is like building sandcastles at Clearwater Beach during high tide. You spend hours crafting offers and campaigns, but every algorithm change sweeps them away. You have to keep finding new products and angles just to stay afloat. One bad month or algorithm update and your commissions tank. There’s no recurring base income unless you get very lucky with a subscription offer. You have zero say in product quality or refund policies, yet your reputation takes the hit when customers complain. With affiliate marketing, you’re building someone else’s business, not your own. Plus, if the brand you promote goes bankrupt, rebrands, or simply decides to pause its affiliate program, your income dies instantly like being a gardener on borrowed land.
This Digital Worth Academy review dives into the course’s strategies, pros, and cons. We uncover who Sara Young and Andrew Hansen are and the Digital Worth company. Towards the end, we compare the long-term recurring income offered by affiliate marketing vs local lead generation.
What are Digital Worth Academy Pros & Cons?
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Proven system & reliable results | Expensive |
| Comprehensive digital course academy training program | There are hidden expenses that are not included in the enrollment fee |
| Money-back guarantee | Lack of recent student success stories |
| Lifetime access to useful proprietary software tools | Too much focus on the Amazon Affiliate program |
| Long wait for profit |
| Price: | $797 (plus taxes) |
|---|---|
| Refund policy: | 100% money-back guarantee within the first 30 days |
| Origin: | 2018 |
| Reputation: | Excellent reviews |
How Much Does Digital Worth Academy Cost?
Digital Worth Academy costs $797 (plus taxes) for the initial enrollment fee. There are hidden expenses that you will have to pay once you’re in this program. These include:
- $11 for a domain name
- $5/ month for web hosting
- $37/month (minimum 1 month) for the research tool that Sara Young and Andrew Hansen recommend.
This means that you could potentially be spending an additional $1,000just to have everything up and runnng. This doesn’t include the maintenance fees that you would have to pay.
There is also the possibility that you may be “heavily encouraged” to pay for the tools that Andrew and Sara use themselves.
Once you enroll, you will also have immediate and lifetime access to these tools:
- Commission Wizard - This is a tool that helps you find the most profitable Amazon product that you can promote as an affiliate.
- Profit Calculator - This tool gives a rough calculation of how much you could potentially earn per keyword you rank for.
- Diamond Keyword Miner - This tool determines which keywords are the most converting, based on recent data.
You are also encouraged to add premiums to your training:
Niche Opportunity Packs - $299
This includes DFY niche keyword research.
Pre-Built Affiliate Sites - $1599+
These are pre-built sites with minimal content that you can shift around to suit your specific keyword and/or product.
This makes Digital Worth Academy an expensive program, and there are many other courses that are cheaper and of the same, if not better, quality.
Does Digital Worth Academy Offer a Discount?
Yes, Digital Worth Academy offers a $200 discount. The program’s original price is $997, which comes down to $797 after the discount.
What is Digital Worth Academy?
The Digital Worth Academy is a training course, make money online blueprint, software suite and coaching program, all in one. It has been designed for those that want to get into affiliate marketing, and eventually become a wealthy affiliate after a few months.
Most other affiliate marketing courses I have stumbled across have you making website after website without any real long-term plan in mind.
How Does Digital Worth Academy Work?
Digital Worth Academy works by teaching students how to build, rank, and monetize authority websites that generate passive income. It provides step-by-step training on niche selection, keyword research, SEO, content creation, and link building, guiding users to grow traffic and earn revenue through affiliate marketing and display ads.
What Does Digital Worth Academy Teach?
1. Digital Worth Academy Addresses Competitiveness
The biggest hurdle affiliate marketers face is competition. In this business model, you earn money by making a commission on selected products. When a person clicks on a link using your affiliate link and buys the said item, a portion of the proceeds goes to you. Think of it as if you were the middleman between a search and a purchase. Your goal is to drive traffic to a specific link.
Sounds simple, right? However, the devil is in the details, and for you to be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to choose the right market and product and know how to market yourself so that people click on your link.
Digital Worth Academy simplifies this entire process for you so that you always choose the right market and product and know exactly where to find traffic for a successful online business.
2. Digital Worth Academy Addresses Fraud or Scam Courses
No Digital Worth Academy review is worth its salt if it didn’t address the elephant in the room: “Is this program a scam?”
Definitely not. The course is a great course for those who want to learn the basics of affiliate marketing. Digital Worth Academy offers many valuable tools and allows anyone seriously engaged in this business model to make money online and quit their day job.
It can be used by a newbie or an affiliate marketer with some experience. The only requirement is that you are willing to spend at least an hour a day until your business is well-established. After that, you can work less and enjoy the passive income from your business.
DWA is not a make-money-quick course or program. It teaches you how to start and run a successful business online, and then if you want to, how to sell your business for a big profit. According to Sarah Young and Andrew Hansen, the main advantage of DWA over many other courses is the lack of uncertainty.
Also, as stated in the introduction, the program features a proven system that has been helping people earn money for more than 12 years.
3. Digital Worth Academy Addresses Scalability
One of the biggest differences this program offers is “website flipping”. This is where students of the program create a high-profile authority site and sell it for profit. For example, an affiliate marketing site that generates around $2,000 of income per month can be sold for $56,000.

Sara Young and Andrew Hansen claim that multiple DWA members have sold their websites for more than $50,000 on average.
What’s Inside Digital Worth Academy?
Digital Worth Academy Course
The course comprises 6 sections, over 30 modules, and 150 “over the shoulder” videos. This truly comprehensive program explains how to start a website from scratch and build it into a successful business.
SOMETHING TO NOTE:
Sara Young and Andrew Hansen say that The Digital Asset Blueprint (the primary training program) is constantly updated to include new strategies as they are created. However, both creators do not have a big social media presence, and the latest reviews were all in 2018. Keep this in mind, as it’s not clear whether the techniques you will be learning in this affiliate marketing course are still appropriate for 2025.
Digital Course Academy Training Program
Once you enroll, you have the chance to speak with Sara and Andrew personally. You will also be invited to a private group where you can speak with former students. This allows you to learn different perspectives and figure out your own unique way of doing things.
Digital Worth Academy Tools
- The Commission Wizard V. 2.0 - This tells you the most converting products on Amazon.
- Diamond Keyword Miner (DKM) - The DKM helps you find your target market easily.
- Profit Calculator - Learn how much you could be making each month.

Each of these tools will help your internet marketing campaign in different ways.
Digital Worth Academy Community
Once you enroll in this online course, you have immediate access to the DWA community through their private Facebook group. Here, you can speak to other coaches and students and share insights on your own struggles and triumphs as well.
How Long Does It Take To Start Earning Money With Digital Worth Academy?
It takes around 6 to 12 months to start earning money with Digital Worth Academy. The course is not meant for those looking for a quick buck within a few weeks. As stated on their FAQs page, “like any business, results depend on how much time, effort, and money you have to invest.”
How Does Digital Worth Academy Make You More Competitive?
It helps you select profitable niches.
Unlike other affiliate marketing programs, Digital Worth Academy has already selected eight niches for you to choose from. This prevents “analysis paralysis” and answers one of the biggest problems most entrepreneurs face.
To niche or not to niche?
Most affiliate marketers start with a small niche, to avoid big competition. When the niche makes money and they see that it’s getting hard to make more money in that sector, some marketers start another website in another niche.
According to DWA creators, both of the techniques above have shortcomings, especially the first one. Every time you start a new website, you start from scratch. In a small niche, there’s less opportunity to make a lot of money, too.
There’s no problem with being limited, but DWA way makes sense. They don’t choose niches, but a big market instead. They recommend choosing one of the eight big markets, which are:
- Technology
- Health/Beauty
- Finance
- Relationship
- Food/Drink
- Automotive
- Home/Garden
- Hobbies
When you go big, you have a higher potential to earn money. Think wide, not deep: Every big market has small corners, so with their software, you can find those small corners. If there’s one corner where it’s easy to make money, then there are always more such corners.
This way, you don’t worry about the competition. You know which products to promote that will make you money.
After choosing your niche, Digital Worth Academy will help you create a simple but powerful WordPress website, including choosing the best plug-ins to install, setting up proper tracking, and other tools for on-site optimization.
Correcting keyword research
This is where the program shines. Once you enroll, you will gain immediate access to its proprietary tools that allow you to hunt for key phrases with precision and inspect regular monthly profit potential before getting into a brand-new market. This helps you create an effective SEO strategy to rank at the top of search results.
Although both Sara and Andrew admit that ranking in Google isn’t easy, they claim that they and their students have an unfair advantage over many other marketers due to their software.
Making Money with Content
In any Digital Worth Academy review, you will always hear about how well Sara Young and Andrew Hansen discuss SEO writing and writing converting copy. After all, it doesn’t matter how well you rank or even if you have the best product if people don’t read what you have to say.
A lot of the modules focus on writing great content that converts into sales. In one example, Sara Young showed how much one of her Amazon affiliate accounts makes, where each row is one article and the monthly earnings of that content.

You will see that a well-written article has the potential to earn between $76 to $444 per month.
It’s great to see that Sara Young and Andrew Hansen pay a lot of attention to SEO writing, as most affiliate marketing courses do not.
Are Digital Worth Academy Students Getting Results?
Yes, Digital Worth Academy students are getting results, according to their landing page. If you check out their sales page, you’d see a lot of successful graduates - from 2018 or 2019 (if you’re lucky). You’d be hard-pressed to find any recent reviews.
This may imply that the system is working and Sara Young and Andrew Hansen do not feel the need to promote themselves further, or it could mean that the program is not as updated as it claims to be.
Digital Worth Academy Review: Positive & Negative Feedback by Real Users
| Negative Feedback | Positive Feedback |
|---|---|
| Expensive course | Easy-to-follow course structure |
| The system is slow, and may not be for everyone. | Comprehensive modules |
| Option for one-on-one coaching | |
| Access to simple and powerful tools |
Does Digital Worth Academy Have a Good Reputation?
Digital Worth Academy has a good reputation, according to online reviews. However, Andrew and Sara don’t have much of a social media presence. Still, the DWA social media channels appear to have been neglected for years now, so no one is really sure if the course is updated or not.
Another thing to note is that the training supposedly focuses quite heavily on Amazon affiliate offers, which is becoming increasingly difficult to succeed in, especially with Amazon continuously slashing their commission rates.
I’d also like to point out that that Digital Worth Academy, to date, makes most of its money from selling its courses - not from what they actually do.
Who Created Digital Worth Academy?
Sara Young and Andrew Hansen created Digital Worth Academy. Both Sara and Andrew are experienced affiliate marketers who believe that anyone with enough patience and diligence can earn decent passive income. They have been putting out various digital products for years and have combined decades of knowledge into this online business program. This is the first time that the two of them have partnered up.

What are the Alternatives to Digital Worth Academy?
Freedom Breakthrough by Jonathan Montoya is a comprehensive affiliate marketing program that teaches how to build a long-term online business through YouTube automation, email marketing, and high-ticket affiliate strategies, with a strong focus on organic traffic and sales funnels.
Affiliate Marketing Mastery by Ivan Mana is a beginner-friendly course that focuses on building a sustainable affiliate business using free and paid traffic methods, emphasizing SEO, YouTube content creation, and practical funnel-building steps without heavy reliance on ads.
Pathway to Passive by Mark Ling is a well-structured training that combines affiliate marketing and niche website creation, showing how to generate recurring passive income by building authority sites and leveraging organic traffic for long-term scalability.
Final Verdict: Is Digital Worth Academy Worth It?
Digital Worth Academy is worth it for people who prefer a structured, step-by-step approach to affiliate marketing, especially if they are new to the space and want a mix of content creation, SEO, and potential website flipping. The 12-year track record, proprietary keyword tools, and niche research packs can speed up early-stage decision-making.
If you’re ready to invest $1,000–$2,000 upfront, willing to work for 6–12 months before seeing consistent income, and enjoy writing content and doing SEO research, then yes, it may be a fit. However, for solo entrepreneurs looking for predictable, recurring income or more control over their digital assets, the reliance on Amazon commissions and fluctuating affiliate programs makes it fragile and prone to volatility.
If you’re a beginner, or if you’re looking for a lower-risk model that can compound over time without constant spending, consider models like local lead generation, where assets rank organically and produce leads on autopilot.
Does Local Lead Generation Offer Better Recurring Income Than Affiliate Marketing?
In my 10 years of experience, local lead generation offers better recurring income than affiliate marketing because you’re not at the mercy of another company’s terms like being a reseller of Kirkland food products and supplements. You own the digital assets (websites and leads). You decide the pricing and client agreements. No one can slash your income or shut down your operation overnight. With local lead gen, you’re building a long-term, controllable business instead of promoting someone else’s. Instead of fighting global affiliates for clicks, you dominate small local markets with low competition. Once your site ranks, leads flow in passively for months or years. You don’t rely on paid ads or trend chasing, just consistent organic visibility.
In local lead gen, every lead you generate goes straight to you. There’s no middleman software or cookie window that can steal credit. You control call tracking, form fills, and data flow. You can verify each lead and invoice your client directly. It’s transparent, predictable, and immune to affiliate tracking errors.

Why Go With the Local Lead Generation Business Model
Go with the local lead generation business model because it provides long-term, high-margin income by building and controlling real local assets and client relationships, rather than relying on external offers and fluctuating commissions. My local lead gen site, Madison Elite Commercial Flat Roofing 1210 Fourier Drive Madison, Wisconsin 53717 608-766-8399 https://www.madisoncommercialroofs.com/ generated 16 leads worth $63,360 in additional revenue to my client’s business. Since I get a 5% commission for the leads I forward, I earned $3,168 even without constantly doing online promotions.
The local lead generation business model stands out as a sustainable, high-profit path to financial freedom. By creating digital assets that serve real local businesses, you gain consistent, passive income and control over your growth unlike volatile affiliate programs. Build once, rank locally, and enjoy long-term recurring revenue.

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