How to use this appendix
The book keeps the numbers out of the running text on purpose, because numbers change and the craft doesn't. Everything the book promises you can look up lives here: the ranks, the bonuses, the compression, the placement tools and the sources. Read it the way you read the book: not to remember everything, but to know where to find it on the day you need it.
Keep learning, one step further every month
A book gets finished; the craft doesn't. Once a month I send the builders who want it one thing that didn't fit in the book: something about ranks or structure, how you help someone reach Elite, or a question that came up in my own team. Small enough to read over a cup of tea, concrete enough to use straight away.
1. The rank overview
Every rank has two kinds of requirements: volume (how much moves through your organisation in a month) and structure (how many legs at which level). On top of that, every rank asks for your own monthly order of at least 100 PV through the loyalty programme.
The first ranks (volume ranks):
| Rank | Organisation volume (OV) per month |
|---|---|
| Manager | 500 |
| Director | 1,000 |
| Executive | 2,000 |
| Elite | 3,000 |
| Premier | 5,000 |
The leadership ranks (structure ranks):
| Rank | Organisation volume (OV) per month | Structure requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Premier | 5,000 | 2 legs, each with an Executive |
| Silver | 9,000 | 3 legs, each with an Elite |
| Gold | 15,000 | 3 legs, each with a Premier |
| Platinum | 27,000 | 3 legs, each with a Silver |
| Diamond | 36,000 | 4 legs, each with a Silver |
| Blue Diamond | 75,000 | 5 legs, each with a Gold |
| Presidential Diamond | 162,000 | 6 legs, each with a Platinum |
For Elite up to and including Gold there is an additional TGV threshold (Team Growth Volume) that unlocks the two deepest payout levels of the monthly commission:
| Rank | TGV per month | Counts within (sponsor tree) |
|---|---|---|
| Elite | 300 (of which 100 personally enrolled) | 3 levels |
| Premier | 400 | 4 levels |
| Silver | 500 | 5 levels |
| Gold | 600 | 6 levels |
TGV is all volume in the current month from team members who were enrolled or reactivated in the past twelve months, within the stated number of levels of your sponsor tree. Volume from the month of enrolment or reactivation itself doesn't count.
A rank is easier to see than to read. This poster shows one rank in full: you in the middle, your six Platinum legs around you, and below them the Silvers and the Elites everything rests on. Print it, put your name or photo in the middle and write in the names of your builders.
2. The focus map: structure and placing
This is how you build with structure and placing, in two maps. In the middle: you. Around you your three builders, under each of them three people, and those nine you build towards Premier: each with two legs of their own, the turquoise circles. Those two they enrol themselves, because a rank asks for personal enrolments. And the ring around every circle has the colour of the enroller: your builders wear your dark blue, their people wear gold.
The stars are your placement points: every new customer and every new enrolment of yours goes under your leaders' people, one layer deeper than their own legs. Their volume drifts upward through the whole leg, and under every star the same pattern begins again. The dotted third branch you leave to your leader; that keeps their own Power of 3 honest. The whole story, with Tom, Max and the grooming salon, is in the appendix of the book; the official rules of placing are in block 7.
Hang up your own focus map. Print the worksheet, write your name in the middle and fill in who is already there. Before every placement, take a look at where the open places are, and only then choose.
3. Power of 3 and pods
The Power of 3 is the team bonus that rewards what the book teaches you to build: small, complete units (pods) in which everyone orders monthly. It starts with you and three people building with you; help them to their own three, and the structure opens further outward.
The bonus is paid monthly in three tiers; each month you receive the highest tier you qualify for. This is what each tier asks of you:
| Tier | What you do for it |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100+ PV yourself through the loyalty programme, and 500+ LRP volume on your front line (of which at least 100 from personally enrolled people) |
| 2 | Qualify for tier 1, and help three people on your front line to their own tier 1 |
| 3 | Qualify for tier 2, and help three people on your front line to their own tier 2 |
On top of that there is the Power of 3 Boost: reach enough Personal Growth Volume in a month (LRP volume from people you personally enrolled in the past twelve months, ordered after their enrolment month) and a boost comes on top of the bonus.
The exact bonus amounts and boost amounts are in the company's official compensation plan: see the flyer (PDF). They are always current there.
Why this matters is in the book at Your Team and Premier: the Power of 3 is the yardstick for a healthy base structure.
4. The six bonus pools
From the leadership ranks onward you share in bonus pools: each pool is a percentage of the company's worldwide commissionable volume (CV), divided into shares among everyone who qualifies that month. The more shares you have, the bigger your part. These are the six pools:
Empowerment Pool (1.50% of CV). For Premier, Silver and Gold. You earn one share in every month in which you personally enrol a new wellness advocate or wholesale customer with a 100 PV order. A Gold can earn two shares (the second with two or more qualifying enrolments that month). This is the "learning money" extra the book talks about.
Leadership Pool (2% of CV). Every Silver earns one share, every Gold five, every Platinum ten. Extra shares: one per personally enrolled team member who reaches Elite for the first time.
Diamond Pool (1% of CV). For Diamonds: two shares on reaching the rank, four when also meeting the growth requirement (6,000 TGV). Extra shares: one per personally enrolled person who reaches Premier for the first time.
Blue Diamond Pool (1% of CV). For Blue Diamonds: two shares, four at the growth requirement of 12,000 TGV. Extra shares: one per first-time Premier among your personal enrolments.
Presidential Diamond Pool (1% of CV). For Presidential Diamonds: two shares, four at the growth requirement of 18,000 TGV. Extra shares: one per personally enrolled person who reaches Silver for the first time.
Performance Pool (1.50% of CV). For Platinum and up. Platinum: one share, three at 4,000 TGV. Diamond: three, four at 6,000. Blue Diamond: three, six at 12,000. Presidential Diamond: three, eight at 18,000. Extra shares: two per first-time Premier among your personal enrolments.
The growth requirements are calculated monthly on Team Growth Volume, and there is no maximum on the number of extra shares. You earn shares per month, for as long as the qualification stands.
5. Dynamic compression
This is the explanation the book points to at Silver.
The plan pays your monthly commission up to seven levels deep. A level is not the same as a spot in the chart: for calculating your commission, the plan only counts people who actually order that month. If someone orders nothing for a month, everyone below them moves up one level for that calculation. The plan looks, as it were, straight through the standstill to the people who are moving. That is why a quiet spot in your organisation doesn't block your monthly commission.
There is one important nuance, and the book says it the same way: compression repairs your commission, not your structure. For a structure bonus or a rank requirement, the spot in the chart does count. If someone goes quiet on a spot that counts for a bonus you are in or a rank you are building towards, you simply feel it. That is why the book teaches you to look at movement, not just at positions.
For completeness, the monthly commission per level, because that is what compression works on:
| Level | Commission |
|---|---|
| 1 | rewarded through the Power of 3 (from your front-line volume) |
| 2 | 3% |
| 3 | 5% |
| 4 | 5% |
| 5 | 6% |
| 6 | 6% |
| 7 | 7% |
The deepest level pays the most; that is why you only really feel the plan working once your organisation gains depth. Which levels open up for you depends on your rank (and for Elite up to Gold on the TGV threshold from block 1).
6. The rewards on your own enrolments
The fixed reward is called Fast Start and is paid weekly: you earn 20% on the product orders of every new person you personally enrol, during the first 60 days after their start. The chain continues upward: the enroller's enroller receives 10%, and the layer above that 5%. This reward exists at every rank and never disappears.
On top of that there is the extra the book calls "learning money": the Empowerment Pool, and it applies only to the ranks Premier, Silver and Gold. The ranks before it don't share in it, and from Platinum onward it stops again. You earn one share in every month in which you personally enrol someone with a 100 PV order (a Gold can earn two); the pool is 1.50% of the worldwide commissionable volume. It sits exactly in the phase where you are building the habit of enrolling monthly, see also block 4.
7. The official placement tools
The plan has seven official tools for placing or moving people in your structure. Use them the way the book teaches: as tools for a healthy structure, never as a trick. In short:
- New member move. Every new person starts on the enroller's front line. As long as that person has no downline of their own, the enroller may choose a different sponsor once; once there is a downline, this is still possible until the 10th of the following month.
- Upgrade move. A wholesale customer who becomes a wellness advocate and enrols someone with 100+ PV may be placed again; to be requested until the 10th of the month after the first downline appeared.
- 3-month Elite move. Whoever reaches Elite within three months of enrolling can be moved with their downline. Conditions include: the enroller is Platinum or higher, the new Elite has at least 1,500 PV of own enrolments that month and at least five people in the downline, and the form is submitted within two weeks of the first Elite payout.
- Reactivation. Whoever hasn't ordered for twelve months or longer and received no commissions can reactivate the account; the same time limits as for a new member then apply to the sponsor choice.
- Enroller change. Enrollership can be changed once (and once back to the original enroller), if the new enroller is in the upline and the change helps the upline in rank.
- Account transfer. An account with a downline can be transferred to someone else, under strict conditions and with a signed form.
- Swap. A direct upline and downline can swap places once, with a form signed by both and by the enroller.
This is a summary; additional conditions apply per tool. The official sources are leading:
- Flyer Placements Simplified (Global)
- Placement exceptions
- Policy manual, line switching and cross recruiting
8. The strengths test behind the strengths map
The strengths map from the Blue Diamond chapter is based on CliftonStrengths by Gallup, a test that maps your personal order of talents. The test is available through Gallup's official site. You don't need the test to make the strengths map; looking and naming what you see in your people works too. The test does make the conversation easier, because everyone gets the same language.
CliftonStrengths is a trademark of Gallup, Inc. This site is not affiliated with Gallup.
9. The blend recipes (downloads)
The eight cards from the book, each at its own rank, here as downloads in their current version. The recipes may grow with you: smell, try, adjust.
These rollers are recipes of their own, built from single oils. They promise nothing: the scent doesn't do the work, you do the work, the scent remembers it for you.
Want a note when the recipes or the numbers are updated, and a small deep-dive every month? That runs through the same sign-up at the top.
10. Frequently asked critical questions
The honest answers to the questions everyone asks (why the products cost what they cost, whether this is a pyramid scheme, whether you have to become a salesperson) get their own page: the critical questions.
11. Sources and reading list per chapter
The books the book points to per chapter and per rank, in reading order:
- How this book works: Go Pro, Eric Worre
- The craft: How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
- Who you are becoming: Atomic Habits, James Clear
- Premier: The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy
- Silver: Developing the Leaders Around You, John Maxwell
- Gold: The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer
- Platinum: Buy Back Your Time, Dan Martell
- Diamond: The Multiply Method, Sarah Robbins
- Blue Diamond: Mastering Network Marketing, Rob Sperry
- Presidential Diamond: Good to Great, Jim Collins
Sources of the numbers on this page: dōTERRA Europe Compensation Plan (euro version, 2025) and Placements Simplified Global (v2, 2026). When in doubt, always check the current version on doterra.com.
Important to know (please read this)
This appendix is written to help you understand how the compensation plan works. It is an explanation, not an official plan document, and no rights can be derived from it.
The official documents are always leading. The compensation plan, the bonuses and the requirements are set by the company and can change at any time. If anything on this page no longer matches the current official documents, the official documents apply. I update this page with care and regularity (the date at the top says when), but I cannot guarantee that everything is complete and current at every moment.
I make no promises about income. What someone earns in this work depends on effort, skill, time and circumstances, and differs from person to person. Nothing in the book or on this site is a commitment about results or income, and nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice. Decisions you make based on this information are your own responsibility; for the current conditions you always go to the official source, and when in doubt you check with your own adviser or with the company itself.
This website is an independent publication and not a publication of the company whose compensation plan is explained here. Named brands are the property of their respective owners.