OPTAVIA Coach: Everything You Need to Know Before You Sign Up - Websites for Coaches by Lovely Impact (2025)

Are you looking to become a health or weight loss coach? During your research did you stumble across OPTAVIA coach? Or maybe an OPTAVIA coach is trying to recruit you?

Welcome! We’ve heard the good and the bad, and we got curious too. Today, we’re sharing everything we learned.

By the way, we’re Cass + Tee, the duo behind this blog, and our company, Lovely Impact. We’re web designers turned coaches, and we are OBSESSED with all things coaching including certifications, news, branding, web design, trends, and more.

This brings us to OPTAVIA.

Is it legit or is it a scam? Is it a pyramid scheme or MLM? Should you become an OPTAVIA coach? What would that look like?

Keep reading to learn more about becoming an OPTAVIA Health Coach!

P S. We are not affiliated with them at all, so this is a completely objective review.

What is OPTAVIA?

OPTAVIA is a company that has become popular by providing weight-loss plans to its clients. It is focused on “fuelings,” aka food, that clients purchase to help themselves shed weight. The company creates these foods, and they are portion controlled.

Clients can also eat other foods, and the company recommends at least thirty minutes of exercise per day. OPTAVIA has nutrition plans for weight loss maintenance as well as weight loss. These plans advise clients to eat many small meals per day, rather than just a few large ones.

OPTAVIA promotes a high protein diet, and is focused on calorie restriction through the meals that they provide. Many adults will only eat around 1000 calories per day when following this diet, which does generally lead to weight loss.

Clients can choose from multiple different plans to find one that suits them.

What is An OPTAVIA Coach?

OPTAVIA offers its customers access to coaches, and these coaches are there to help the clients complete the programs successfully, stay on track with their goals, and build healthy eating habits that will make them feel and look better.

A coach is often the customer’s first point of contact, and they will be given lots of guidelines on how to support and help clients. As a coach, you will be provided with a whole section of information on client answers to help ensure that you have everything you need to help clients with their journeys.

A coach is part of OPTAVIA’s Habits of Health system, and will work one on one with clients throughout this process. Again, all relevant training will be provided.

How Much Do OPTAVIA Coaches Make?

An OPTAVIA coach’s rate of pay will vary, because they are compensated based on their qualifications and other factors.

There are three different opportunities to earn as an OPTAVIA coach:

• Leadership Development income for Business Leader Competency
• Team building income for Business Coach Competency
• Client Support income for OPTAVIA Coach Competency

There are then ten different avenues via which coaches can earn money. Coaches will be rewarded for a whole range of activities, including client acquisition, mastery of these three levels, team building, and sponsorship.

Coaches will also earn money through client bonuses, team growth bonuses, leadership bonuses, and client support commissions, among other areas. Coaches can earn very varying amounts of money, depending on how much effort and time they put into their work.

To maximize your earnings with OPTAVIA, you need to build and monitor coach teams, not just work independently.

As an example, a senior coach is paid 4%, while an executive director is paid 12%.

What Does An OPTAVIA Coach Do?

An OPTAVIA coach is there to help the company’s customers make the most of the products that they are buying and consuming. A coach’s duty is to provide clients with encouragement and guidance, answering any questions that they may have about the diet.

The main role of the coach is to provide one on one support in the Habits of Health System, which is an exclusive offering only OPTAVIA can provide. This helps clients build healthy habits to keep their eating on track and help them enjoy, as well as follow, the program to lose weight.

A coach will also encourage clients to participate in activities offered by OPTAVIA, including events and webinars. They also will provide support in terms of exercise routines.

Additionally, they are also responsible for informing Nutrition Support if any adverse reactions to the products or programs offered by OPTAVIA occur. Coaches should redirect clients to medical professionals if asked questions about medication, behavior, eating disorders, or medical nutritional therapy. Certain exercise questions should also be referred to field experts.

How Do I Become An OPTAVIA Coach?

You can become an OPTAVIA coach by applying through the company. You should talk to your own OPTAVIA coach about becoming a coach and how to proceed with it. They will give you an insider look at what being a coach is like and what it involves.

You should then get a business kit from OPTAVIA. This kit contains everything that you need to know about running your own business, and everything you need to know about being a coach. With this done, you’ll be well set to get started.

Next, you can get engaged with the coaching community. This is a very supportive network of coaches who all work together to support each other, overcome issues, and follow the OPTAVIA system for success.

It is required that you talk to a coach before you can sign up.

Is There An OPTAVIA Coach Certification?

Yes, there is! In an attempt to ensure that coaches can demonstrate their skills, OPTAVIA offers a certificate. This covers the Habits of Health Transformational System that the company provides, and shows that coaches are officially affiliated with the OPTAVIA program.

You can purchase this from the Coach Store, and you will do a brief exam on the system before receiving it.

If you have already passed the previous exam that the company offered, you don’t have to retake the exam. Your original score will remain visible when you look at the course revisions, and you don’t have to redo it at the moment.

In the future, they may require you to retake the course to show that you are up to date with all present material.

Who Are The Top OPTAVIA Coaches?

There aren’t necessarily “top” coaches inside the OPTAVIA program, but on the site, you can see several stories of successful coaches featured. For example, you should see video clips with Pat Staude, Alex McMillian, and Lindsey and Jeremy Nicks.

These are all coaches who have enjoyed great success and happiness on the OPTAVIA coaching program. You can also see many more stories featured on the website, with the individual coach’s explanation of what they enjoy about their job.

Is OPTAVIA Health Coach A Pyramid Scheme?

No, OPTAVIA Health Coach is not a pyramid scheme, although it has had some misrepresentation and bad press.

BUT, in our opinion, it is MLM… multi-level marketing.

In order to maximize your earnings, you must sign up other coaches and become a manager of those coaches. If you don’t do this, you will still earn money, but your earnings will remain low, and you will not receive many of the bonuses that are available.

Also, the competition to make money increases as you sign people up, which can make the system challenging to manage.

You can find testimonials of successful coaches on the OPTAVIA site, although it should be noted that these are individual success stories and not representative of the overall success rate.

Final Thoughts: Should I Become An Optavia Coach?

Although we can’t tell you what to do, we are not fans of MLM coaching. Your earnings are restricted, you have to recruit others, and if the company gets investigated or closes, everything disappears and you’ve branded your coaching business under them.

It may seem like a quick way to get started, but the long way of getting certified, creating your own offers, and launching your coaching business is the better and more secure route to take.

Here’s how to get started:

First, you can learn how to be a weight loss coach with this affordable weight loss coach certification on Udemy HERE >>

Second, join our resource library HERE and download our business coaching checklist.

Third, create your signature program by reading THIS >>

Fourth, use our Brand Clarity Guide for Coaches HERE, and weight loss logo template HERE to create a professional looking brand.

Last, launch your business using our weight loss coaching website HERE >>