Can you REALLY make money from Tropic Skincare? Here’s the truth about how much sellers are paid… as the cult brand’s glamorous Dragons’ Den owner takes £2m in dividends

Chloe Goodfellow knows everything there is to know about Tropic Skincare beauty products.

As a brand ‘ambassador’, she waxes lyrical about the beautifully packaged products in videos on her social media accounts.

She proudly tells of the exclusive discounts on offer for ambassadors, the high volume of sales she made at her peak and the ‘community’ she has found in fellow salespeople.

Chloe is one of more than 20,000 commission-based sellers pushing Tropic Skincare creams and sprays in Britain, as the company has become hugely popular among women who want to make extra money.

At her peak, Chloe sold £3,000 worth of products in one month. But the reality is that even this ardent fan now makes just £150 a month selling Tropic Skincare.

Money Mail’s investigation has found that four in ten earn less than the national living wage for the hours they put in, taking home just £155 a month for an estimated three hours of work every week.

Chloe, a social worker from Burton-on-Trent, says she knows she could not make enough money to work full-time as a Tropic ambassador.

She says: ‘For me, I wouldn’t make enough from it. I’m trying to save for a house. If I don’t get a “proper job”, I wouldn’t be buying a house any time soon.’

On the company’s website, the scheme is sold as ‘flexible’ work, which can make you ‘extra income’ around your busy life.

But in a candid interview with Money Mail, Susie Ma, the company’s glamorous multi-millionaire founder, herself admits that the ambassador programme is not an income driver.

She says: ‘This is not a get rich quick scheme. We don’t openly say that this is an income opportunity. We never want to paint a false picture of what being an ambassador is like.’

She instead describes it as a way of ‘sharing’ the products you like with others.

Tropic – which sells natural products like its signature body scrub or face mist – has won hosts of industry accolades since starting in 2004.

Ma, who is set to become a permanent fixture on Dragons’ Den next year, first made it onto our screens in 2011 on The Apprentice.

Despite failing to win the television show, Lord Sugar offered her £200,000 for a 50 per cent stake in the business.

The investment was a prudent one. The company – which began with Susie flogging her grandmother’s homemade scrub at Greenwich Market – now turns over £76.7million.

And Lord Sugar sold his stake back to Susie in 2023 for an undisclosed sum.

Ma now makes her fortunes via an army of ‘ambassadors’ from ordinary households across the country, mostly women, who sell the expensive moisturisers and toners in exchange for a chunk of commission.

Tropic is not stocked at retailers. Instead, its ambassadors sell directly to customers. And they employ a string of tactics to secure sales, including messaging friends and family, posting on social media and hosting glitzy pamper parties.

Sounds familiar? That’s because it’s akin to a model that’s been used by a handful of skincare and household companies over the years.

Similar schemes like Tupperware and Avon may have fallen out of the public imagination – but mid-life and younger women are now flocking to this venture.

So how exactly does Tropic work – and can you really make any money flogging its pricey products? Money Mail investigates…

Critics have slated the firm for its business model, labelling it a so-called ‘multi-level marketing’ (MLM) scheme.

This is type of business that encourages independent sales reps to sell company products to friends and family and recruit others to join. MLMs provide the products for recruits to sell.

Some companies pressure new recruits to spend hundreds of pounds on products to sign up.

Very few reps are able to turn a decent profit.

Sceptics have slammed such firms for advertising an unattainable dream – often to vulnerable women who need flexible work.

Unsurprisingly, Ma, who started off selling those homemade body scrubs at Greenwich Market, is keen to distance her company from this.

When asked if Tropic is an MLM, Ma says: ‘We call ourselves “community commerce” – we sell our products through our community. We use a multi-level marketing payment structure.’

When Ma joined forces with Lord Sugar, she worked to create a compensation structure ‘without the nastiness of MLMs’.

MLM expert Hannah Martin of online magazine the Talented Ladies Club, who probed Tropic in 2021, says: ‘Of all the MLMs I know, Ma is most keen to build a genuine direct sales company with a recruitment element to it.’

But its structure remains one of commission-based ambassadors selling products to customers on behalf of the company, and recruiting others for more income.

Ma says that unlike other MLMs, Tropic doesn’t push recruitment on ambassadors – and just 3.5 per cent of ambassadors choose to grow a team.

However, there is still a commission bonus for those who bring others onboard.

This extra commission doesn’t come out of the earnings of those beneath them, unlike with other MLMs. Instead, it is paid directly by Tropic on top of the standard commission.

Several other features also make it different from predatory MLMs, fans and experts say. There is no monthly sales target to meet if you want to continue selling Tropic products, for example. Similarly, ambassadors do not hold stock, which prevents women shelling out hundreds of pounds for products they then can’t shift.

There’s no ongoing monthly fees either and ambassadors do receive training.

Ambassadors just need to make an order of at least £1 every six months to keep their account active.

Glitzy starter kits

There is no doubt the business model has performed extraordinarily well. Not only does Susie Ma have gaggles of women obsessed with the skincare range, she also took a £2million dividend from the company in the year to April 2025.

But what of the women who sell the products on her behalf?

Like other MLMs, women signing up to sell Tropic products must pay to join, this time in the form of a ‘starter kit’ for £198. It’s filled with more than £600 worth of the most popular products, including its Smoothing Cleanser and Morning Mist.

Ambassadors would need to make £794 in sales – or sell 28 of the flagship £28 Body Smooth Scrub – just to break even on the starter kit, according to our calculations. This assumes the ambassador makes the starting 25 per cent commission.

That’s without paying themselves a wage for the hours it takes to host parties or message their friends.

However, Ma says ambassadors can return the starter kit if it doesn’t work out for them.

Ambassadors may also fork out for more products to host parties or lend to women wanting to try before they buy, although they can buy these with a ’gift allowance’ they are given when they order products.

One Daily Mail reader, who didn’t want to be named, says: ‘The ambassadors I know start off being enthusiastic, then tail off because they make little money.’

How much sellers really earn

Official figures from Tropic tell a similar story. Some 85 per cent of ambassadors have other jobs.

At the bottom of the ladder are those who have simply signed up for the cut-price starter kit and 25 per cent off products – they make up 26 per cent of ambassadors.

Another 31 per cent are personal shoppers who also share their discount with friends and family. Average earnings are just £477 a year – or around £40 a month – which they receive as discounts on the products.

Even ambassadors who are actively selling to customers make little. Hourly pay for four in ten ambassadors works out at around £12.

Ma concedes: ‘The vast majority of our ambassadors aren’t really here to earn money. They’re here just to get a discount.

‘I want our ambassadors to earn what they want to. It’s whatever hours they want to put in and it’s directly related to effort and talent, just like any other business.’

Not everyone is left with little for their efforts.

Leaders – who need to have recruited five other ambassadors – earn an average of £879 a month in exchange for around seven hours a week, according to Tropic’s latest data from April. That’s around £30 an hour. But these make up 2.52 per cent of all ambassadors and it takes around one year and eight months of selling to get there.

Towards the top of the ladder is the ‘platinum executive’ rung, which has several leaders underneath them in their team. These make an astonishing £5,535 in commission and bonuses every month for around 30 hours of work every week.

But just 0.16 per cent of ambassadors have reached this level – and it takes them an average of four years and four months to get there.

Diamond leaders at the very top of the ladder make £13,676 a month – but they work an estimated 50 hours a week.

Hannah Martin says: ‘You may do very well if you’re a stay-at-home mum with children at private school – and your friends are happy to spend a significant amount of money on skincare.’

Ma says this is fair, but says she has seen ambassadors from all demographics thrive. And she defends the high price points – a standard moisturiser is £30 (a far cry from a £3 pot of Nivea) while the most expensive serum is an astonishing £98 for just 30ml.

Chole Goodfellow, who sells under the name Glow with Chlo, says she sold £2,000 worth of the products within just 30 days of joining.

Her customers were friends, family and her mother’s friends to begin with.

But now she makes sales by posting on social media, hosting pamper parties (she’s held three) and stalls at Christmas fairs.

At one party, Chloe says she made £500 worth of sales. An ambassador earning this and nothing else would pocket £132.50.

After finishing her studies at Derby University in March, Chloe ‘worked her socks off’ and sold £3,000 worth of products in one month, making around £1,000.

She estimates she spent around two hours a day on her work for Tropic. But since starting as a social worker in the summer, she can only dedicate around six hours a month.

Chloe says: ‘I haven’t been able to put all my eggs in the Tropic basket. I average £500 in sales a month now.

She has put the money she made towards a new car and now saves for holidays too.

Pushy sales tactics

Those flogging the products have no bad words to say about Tropic. But the recipients of their sales pitches often tell a different story.

Droves of readers have told the Daily Mail they find the techniques to be ‘pushy’ and ‘annoying’.

One reader says they know an ambassador who ‘bombarded people with the Tropic sales technique’ and lost friends.

And the glamorous pamper parties that are the envy of social media users have a rather different side to them.

Another reader says: ‘I no longer go to the parties because you get made to feel as if you should buy something. It’s just awkward.’

Ma says: ‘I hate that. No one likes to be pushed in terms of sales. We really train our ambassadors to not be pushy because our products should be able to sell themselves.

‘You will have some that unfortunately aren’t as great at selling and can be a little bit pushy.’

And some ambassadors have taken their sales tactics to the extreme in a bid to get a chunk of commission.

One recently advertised the skincare products on a cancer support website, spouting that they were ‘free from harmful chemicals’ and to contact them for a consultation.

Sly tactics like this are not something Ma encourages, however. She calls the move ‘crass’ and adds that it’s not something Tropic allows.

But Martin warns: ‘That’s the problem with this kind of business – you can’t avoid people going rogue.

‘I know Susie wants to build an ethical business, but the reality is she doesn’t have an awful lot of control over what people selling her products go and say.’

An obsessive fan base

THE infatuation with Tropic and Susie herself is hard to ignore. When researching the brand, I’m hard pressed to find an ambassador that doesn’t rave about their ‘Tropic family’ or the ‘community’ they’ve found through the business.

In gushing videos, the army of Tropic sellers regularly speak of the company founder as if they know her personally.

Many appear to idolise Ma and her products, made in the company’s Surrey-based ‘beauty kitchen’.

When asked how she views the besotted ambassadors, she says: ‘I see it as a friendship and a partnership. And I think our ambassadors feel the way they feel about me because they know how I feel about them.’

Ma sends leaders flowers on their birthday and rewards the cream of the crop with exclusive treats.

Successful sellers are invited to luxurious destinations (Greece was last year’s prize) or ‘development retreats’, while others are couriered bottles of bubbly when they reach a milestone.

Top sellers and rising stars are paraded on stage on a catwalk at the annual Glammies – a stage show and evening dinner celebration where that year’s advent calendar is revealed.

This year’s theme was ‘pure imagination’, inspired by Willy Wonka.

Social media was flooded with videos of women showing off their ‘glam bags’ (gift bags with branded items and skincare).

This community seems like the real draw for the thousands of women who act as sellers on Ma’s behalf.

Money, for lots of these ambassadors, seems an afterthought.

When I ask Chloe for her favourite thing about Tropic, she says: ‘Friendship and community – they are always there’.