Is John Crestani The Real Deal? My Review (It’s a Mixed Bag)

I’ve followed John Crestani for a few years. Obviously he’s very successful as an affiliate marketer and online businessman, but he’s also someone who is pretty controversial (depending on who you ask). In this post, I want to give you my objective review and opinion on the guy.

The first thing I’d like to say is that as a whole, I think he’s legit, but I am also not someone who promotes his program or work and on the question of if John Crestani is a scammer, fake guru or the real deal, it’s a mixed bag thing to me. Why?

Because John Crestani has several layers to his online business, and here is how I see it (there’s 5 layers):

1. First you have John himself (I give him a 2.5 out of 5 stars here).
2. Then you have his YouTube channel where he gives free advice (1.5 out of 5 stars).
3. Then you have his Internet Jetset program (3.5 out of 5 stars).
4. Then you have his main program called Super Affiliate System (2.5 out of 5 stars).
5. And finally you have his affiliates and followers (no rating here, but it’s an important layer to consider).

And when you break up each layer and analyze it carefully, you will get what is in my opinion a very mixed bag and that’s because there is in my opinion a lot of inconsistency with each layer.

In fact, I added a 1-5 star rating review for the above layers to give you a preview of what I think of each one, and I’ll be explaining why I gave such a rating below.

Overall: Yes he can help you succeed online, but to really learn his best strategies and work, you have to buy his most expensive program (Super Affiliate System) and if you read my review of that, you know I do think it’s legit, but don’t recommend it for the price (and other reasons) and that I think you can learn affiliate marketing from better sources out there (but more on that later).

1) Let’s start with layer 1 (John Crestani himself):

Why did I rate him as a 2.5 out of 5 stars here?

Well because I’ve been following and studying his work for years and very often, at least in my opinion, there are different sides of him that I see.

This includes his ads, his free content, his character and more. Let me explain:

Pros:

1) John doesn’t bad mouth any marketers. In fact, everything I’ve heard him say about others (some I would consider controversial) is positive. This shows good character from his end if you ask me.

2) John has done good work in his Internet Jetset program (which I did try). This shows he has experience, good teaching abilities and that he shows what works (more on Internet Jetset later since it is another layer).

3) John sticks up for his beliefs. He did an interview with Coffeezilla and defended his positions. While I don’t agree with his marketing methods, I can’t deny that I respect him for coming onto a show where he knew he would be challenged on his ideas (again, this shows strong character in my opinion).

4) Yes his success is real and the money/success is too, but a large portion of it comes from other people promoting his program/s.

Cons:

1) I seriously dislike all the money waving he does in his videos and ads. I think it’s over the top and there’s too much shiny object marketing going on in my opinion.

2) Some of his YouTube content, I disagree with entirely (more on that when I talk about the other layer).

3) I think there’s more flashiness than substance in a lot of his content that I see (that’s just my opinion).

So when I balance out these pros and cons and their weight, I give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars, even though there are more pros than cons (the weight of the cons balances this out).

2) Now let’s go over Layer 2, aka John Crestani’s YouTube channel:

Why did I rate this as a 1.5 out of 5 stars here?

Because I have seen a number of videos from John where the advice he gives is not something I would ever do or recommend as an affiliate myself and the problem is that I’ve often run across videos like that from him.

Obviously I have not looked through ALL of his videos and there absolutely could be great content, however:

1) Let me give you a few examples: here is one of my videos on Super Affiliate System where I break down not only my views on his program, but also one of his videos where I completely disagree with how he’s teaching people to promote products.

Long story short, I don’t believe this strategy works well. Now taking that particular example into consideration, I have run into multiple examples of this in other videos where:

2) Some of the other advice he gives people on making money online is just not something I’d ever agree with or do, like this one where he shows how to access tons of emails from and then send them promotions to buy stuff. I see this as the kind of marketing that if someone were doing it to me, I’d mark them as spammers.

3) There’s also clickbait titles I’m personally not a fan of like using the old “quick trick, fast something, copy/paste, ect…”. It’s often NOT that simple if you do affiliate marketing.

4) Other times I’ll see his streams or other videos where he gives very vague advice in my opinion about the opportunity of using affiliate programs or making money in the business without getting into specific case studies. It’s more of a “look what is possible” vs “look at how I personally made this strategy work”. Now without like a hypocrite, I sometimes do this too, but my theory videos/posts can be backed up by case studies if need be. In some of John’s cases that I listed, I just can’t imagine being able to make these strategies work.

5) Here’s at least one person who debunks one of John’s strategies (something that is really not hard to do if you understand affiliate marketing and the details involved and how it’s not often as simple as it sounds), but he does a great job showing the reality of how it works.

6) Here’s another good one where Coffeezilla in my opinion has a good take on one of John’s videos and debunking stuff.

There’s other examples, but the point here is that when I see multiple examples of this type of stuff, it makes me question the guy.

Feel free to correct me below or suggest one of his videos where he shows good stuff that works and I’d be happy to update this section of the review (and improve the rating).

3) Moving onto layer 3, John’s Internet Jetset program:

Why did I rate this as a 3.5 out of 5 stars here?

First, this might be the only layer of the bunch I rate the highest. In fact, my first run in with John Crestani’s work came after learning about this specific program and frankly, it left a very good impression on me.

I was a brief member of this program (Internet Jetset) where you learn about affiliate marketing from very beginner friendly strategies that involve blogging, YouTube, product launch jacking and more.

I managed to get in for a $1 trial but was highly impressed by the value. This might be one of the only layers of John’s business that I like enough to keep saying that John is a legit marketer.

Internet Jetset is $47/month, but despite being good, there are better programs covering similar/more topics on affiliate marketing where I argue you’d get MORE value out of it, and Wealthy Affiliate is that choice.

Note: Internet Jetset is also a podcast John runs, which from my understand is separate from the program. My experiences here reflect the program, not podcast.

4) Layer 4, Super Affiliate System:

Why did I rate this as a 2.5 out of 5 stars here?

Super Affiliate System is an affiliate training program but on paid ads and it is also the top program in John’s lineup. It is the most promoted out of everything else out there. I did a separate review of Super Affiliate System here to point out my pros, cons and views and as a summary, here’s what I thought:

I didn’t buy the program but saw enough insider stuff from existing members to know it’s decent. There is paid ad training for the most part and you can succeed with it, but the cons outweigh things in my opinion, why? Here’s the most important issues I find:

• The program is $997.
• Paid ads are another MAJOR expense on top of the program to consider.
• Paid ads are themselves not something I’d recommend to beginner affiliates and especially anyone who is tight on money (it’s SUPER risky even if you have good training).

Overall, I did not recommend Super Affiliate System and instead felt Wealthy Affiliate was (and still is) the top alternative choice for this.

5) Layer 5, let’s talk about John’s affiliate and followers:

There is no rating here, but it’s still just as important for this post. Why?

Because I very often run into 3 categories of people when analyzing John Crestani’s stuff:

1) First there are people who promote his program and tell me amazing things about it. Yet their reviews of the program are rarely that good and I know that if they make a sale for it, that they’ll earn a high ticket affiliate commission. So it’s often tough to distinguish the accurate reviews from the biased ones. Not to mention that so many people promote his program and that makes a chunk of John Crestani’s money too. It’s a smart business plan don’t get me wrong and I’d do the same thing if I owned my own product, but you have to be able to distinguish the differences.

2) Second, we have the many fans John has. Good on him for making a popular YouTube channel and all, but when I analyze his videos, specifically the ones where the strategies he teaches people that I think are nowhere near as good as he makes it out to be, but I see the comments section and people praising these strategies as “great content” or “amazing stuff”, in my opinion, the people saying that have very little if any clue how affiliate marketing works.

Too often people just accept whatever they are told with this business without critiquing it carefully and as long as the person talking about the strategy is confident in the pitch of it, they’ll just think it’s good and works without actually trying it. Be careful with this!

2) The third category is the rare people like myself and others who call it like they see it and debunk some of the stuff that isn’t as hyped as it’s made out to be. These are the people I would recommend listening to most.

Further questions about John Crestani:

How much is John Crestani program?

John Crestani’s main training program is $997.

How does Crestani make money?

John Crestani makes money multiple ways including through affiliate marketing, YouTube display ads, and through his top program that teaches people how to also be an affiliate.

Now do you understand why I say John Crestani to me is a mixed bag?

I hope I made all my points very clear in this review. Again, I think when you balance everything out, the most important thing to take away from all this is that when it comes to showing you the actions you need to take to succeed online, John’s programs in general are good for that.

But at the same time, the content he has on YouTube and the way he markets it all is in my experience not that good. Not to mention the price of the said programs (Super Affiliate System in this case).

In my opinion, there are better sources/people to learn affiliate marketing from:

Despite all the flashiness (and reality) of how much money John makes, when you start getting into affiliate marketing, it is often a journey with hard work and a lot of lessons learned to get to the top. I’ve been in that position before and do make a full time income doing this, but it wasn’t easy and it IS a business that takes time and effort no matter what anyone tells you.

I prefer people and programs that are aligned in their messaging on this topic and what I mean is, I’d rather have a person who is consistent in their messaging about succeeding online that also has a program that backs up that messaging and in my opinion, John Crestani in many cases does not meet that standard.

There are few people and programs that I recommend which do and Wealthy Affiliate is at the top for that which is why if you are looking to do affiliate marketing and you are ready to work at it, I recommend the WA program over John’s content and program as it’s just better in every way: Content, no hype, pricing (way better) and people can try it free (learn more here).

I am promoter of that program and before you call me a shameless affiliate, consider the fact that I do not promote John’s programs. I honestly would make WAY less promoting WA than Super Affiliate System (and you should try it for free first anyway), but I believe in it more than John’s program and that’s why I recommend it.