What’s The Verdict On Cash Cow Academy? (TLDR)
I know many of you are the type to want a quick verdict on courses like Cash Cow Academy, so I would say keep your wallet in your back pocket for the time being.
I’ve written quite a bit on dropshipping that you can check out, like this Mikey Kass review.
Let me first say that I don’t think that Adrian Dimac is trying to scam anyone, or that it’s impossible to make money with dropshipping, because I have made money with this business model.
The issue is that dropshipping today is not like it was a few years ago.
Let’s look at a few statistics.
Nearly 63% of dropshipping stores are in the U.S. alone, so it’s clearly becoming an overly-saturated marketplace for those who are new, but even though the U.S. has most of the stores, we’re only contributing a little over 16% of global retail sales with China leading at 46%, The UK at 36%, and South Korea at 32%.
I suppose the argument could be made that there’s room to grow if you wanted to get in on the Global market especially with projected global growth to nearly double from $243 Billion now to almost $480 Billion in 2026, but you’ll be dealing with companies like Amazon and Walmart who have much deeper pockets.
Now, let’s take a look at some return rate stats.
You’ll find that over 30% of online products are refunded/returned compared to only about 9% at a traditional store. So you’re looking at more than three times the chance or chargeback right out of the gate.
In addition, some of the top reasons for returns are:
- Product was damaged (20%)
- Product looks different (22%)
- Wrong product altogether (23%)
All of which are out of your control for the most part.
Finally, today nearly 50% of retailers offer free returns shipping because about 67% of their traffic goes to the return/refund page first before making a purchase, which I don’t fault them for doing – that’s just being a savvy shopper.
However, it doesn’t really sit well in my mind when one of the first things a potential customer thinks about is getting a refund on something they haven’t even purchased yet.
| Area | Score | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Time Investment | 3.2/5 | Cash Cow Academy takes a good deal of time to learn about dropshipping if you’re a beginner. It goes over many areas of eCommerce including product research and creating videos on platforms like TikTok. |
| Level of Control | 3.9/5 | Students have quite a bit of control over their dropshipping businesses from building Shopify stores, selecting product niches and determining their marketing strategies. |
| Ease of Implementation | 3.8/5 | Adrian’s training is structured in a step-by-step way to allow for newcomers to learn at their own pace, so ultimately implementation will hinge on the students ability to pick up the training quickly. |
| Profit Potential | 3.5/5 | Adrian claims that students can make anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 per month using his strategies, but that will depend heavily on product trends, marketing and competition. |
So where does that leave you?
Well, if you’re like me, I would hate to deal with issues like:
- Sourcing products from places overseas
- Paying high inventory fees
- Paying for returns that weren’t my fault
That’s why I prefer Digital Leasing, because you can make more in passive income with LOCAL businesses without all those other hassles.
Now, if you’re still on the fence with Cash Cow Academy, let’s look at who the program would be good for and who should keep looking…
Who Should Consider Cash Cow Academy And Who Should Look Somewhere Else?
Like many of you, I’m busy. I wake up in the morning and go to work, and when I’m done sometimes I don’t even have to go to the grocery store.
Don’t even get me started on shopping over the holidays!
During the Christmas holiday, going out to do your shopping is just mind-wracking, especially with 30% of shoppers starting in October and nearly 60% in November.
Which is one of the main reasons I like staying home so I can shop online. Sometimes I even do my holiday shopping well in advance, pick out the items I like, and set a reminder for any holiday deals that might pop up.
However, you might be the type of person that absolutely loves spending hours at the outlet stores shopping for all your favorite nieces and nephews, which is why I believe you are the best person to know if any given program is right for you or not – I just like to help move you in the right direction.
So, if you can see yourself in any of the following situations, dropshipping might be a good fit.
- You have your own product and would like to reach a wider audience online.
- You’ve been looking for ways to make money that doesn’t involve becoming a real estate investor.
- You’ve been tossing around the idea of building an online store but don’t know where to start.
However, if any of the following makes you think twice, you should probably pass:
- You’ve been doing your research and found that over 90% of dropshippers fail within their first month.
- You’ve read my review about the top 5 reasons why dropshippers fail.
- This Reddit user saw some initial success and decided he wanted to start scaling by dropshipping clothes. What he didn’t take into consideration is the high return rates, so ultimately he was losing money just as fast as he was making it.
Now let’s get a better view of Cash Cow Academy…
Cash Cow Academy: A 1,000 Ft View
Let me say that I appreciate you sticking with me this far in my Cash Cow Academy review!
At this point, I’d like to take a few steps back with a broad overview and give you a good idea of what you can expect after buying Adrian Dimac’s course.
We’ll start with a quick description of dropshipping which Adrian will cover in more detail if you buy his course.
The Dropshipping Business Model
In its basic element, Dropshipping is about:
- Finding a product that you believe is a winner
- Finding a customer who would like to buy that product
- Making a way for them to buy from you
Now let’s take a look at what’s involved in this process.
First, you’ll need to decide on the type of dropshipping business you want to run, because this will determine the products you sell, the design of your website, and the type of customers you’ll be selling to.
Next, you’ll want to find a supplier for your products. Some popular ones are:
- AliExpress
- Doba
- Wholesale Central
At this point, you’ll want to build your online store. You’ll want an easy to use web builder that caters to dropshipping like WordPress, Shopify, or Squarespace.
You’ll also want to buy a Domain with a catchy name, Web Hosting, and a way to accept payments.
This whole process can be a lot for beginners, and this Reddit user has some helpful tips to point you in the right direction.
Now, let’s learn a little bit about Adrian Dimac.
Who Is Adrian Dimac?
Born out of Toronto, Ontario in Canada, Adrian portrays himself as a young six-figure dropshipping phenom. Which I don’t doubt given all the footage of him that you’ll see on YouTube.
A few years ago, he learned about dropshipping while going to nursing school at Niagara College, determined that this was his future after his initial successes and decided to drop out in 2021 to start growing his business.
Shortly afterwards, Adrian created his Cash Cow Academy course and hasn’t looked back.
Today, Adrian has over 32k followers on Youtube with 53 videos, and over 2.5k followers on Twitter.
| Source | Link | Quote |
|---|---|---|
 | “You are the only person who can make this work” | |
 | “I’ve scaled multiple ecom stores to over $100k months.” | |
 | YouTube | “Hi everyone!! I teach people how to create your online business from home.” |
How Much Does Cash Cow Academy Cost?
While most Dropshipping courses can run you anywhere from $997 to as much as $9,997, Adrian offers his course for $40 per month and makes it accessible through his Discord group.
You can also purchase his program for a lifetime membership of $600 which amounts to 15 months at the monthly fee.
Either way, it’s not a bad deal. However, he doesn’t offer any refunds, which is fair since you’ll get at least $40 worth of training in the first month if you decide to cancel.
As I was researching the cost of his program, however, I found that it’s currently not available. I’m not sure if he ran into issues with Discord or he’s planning on increasing the prices.
I guess, time will tell.
Is Cash Cow Legit Or A Scam?
No, it’s not a scam. I just don’t think it’s as easy as Adrian makes it out to be on his YouTube and Instagram channels.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that I think dropshipping is a scam either. I made a decent amount of money with it for a couple of years, but gave it up because of all the moving pieces that you have to deal with day-to-day.
Which is why I started Digital Leasing.
Think about it…
What if you could create a tiny website in less than a day and start earning $500-$2,000 per month from it.
Now, what if you duplicated that to 10, 20, or even 50 more sites.
How would that change your outlook on life, not to mention your bank account.
Take a look at what Digital Leasing is all about.
Next, let’s take a look at programs similar to Cash Cow Academy.
How Is Cash Cow Academy Different From Other Similar Programs?
Here’s a quick snapshot of Adrian’s course compared to other dropshipping courses.
Dropship Lifestyle
In Anton Kraly’s Dropship Lifestyle course, he has much more advanced training than what you’ll find in Cash Cow Academy. This course can cost you anywhere from about $4,000 to over $10,000.
Lord eCom
Brett Fallarino, like Adrian Dimac, teaches the same basic principles of Dropshipping in his Lord eCom course, although he offers his course as $27 per month, and is accepting new signups from what I can tell.
Dropshipping Titans
Paul Lipsky offers his Dropshipping Titans course for $297. Lipsky says that the reason he sells it so low is that he feels that there’s just too much money to be made online.
My Personal Opinion About Cash Cow Academy
As we start wrapping up this CashCow Academy review, I want to first say that if you definitely want to get into Dropshipping and are determined to make money with it, then it’s certainly possible that you could make on average about $1,000 to $5,000 per month.
That’s not to say that you should get Adrian’s Course or other dropshipping course for that matter.
The issue here isn’t so much the courses, it’s the business model. Dropshipping is just a tough nut to crack unless you have the upfront capital to get through the challenging times that you’ll run into.
For the time being, let’s put aside all those other reviews we saw on places like Reddit, because there weren’t very many on Cash Cow Academy, positive or negative.
So what I like to do us judge a course based on five criteria:
- Experience: Does Adrian have real-world experience in Dropshipping or is he selling a subscription course?
- Community: Does Adrian offer you a hub to connect with other students?
- Value: Does Adrian bring value to his training beyond what you can find on Youtube?
- Honesty: Are there upsells with his course that he doesn’t tell you about?
- Student Success: Can Adrian validate his or his students’ successes?
So that being said, let’s get to my recommendation.
Would I Recommend Cash Cow Academy?
Given my five-point checklist, I’d like to see how Adrian Dimac’s Cash Cow Academy stands up.
First, the Positives:
I do like that Adrian doesn’t charge an arm and a leg to get access to his training, so I’ll give him props for that.
I also like that he offers a community for his students to get together, because no man’s an island in this business.
Now the Negatives:
I did find that he is no longer accepting new students, so I’m not sure if his course is available any longer or if maybe he’s building his social media following for a course that may be coming in the future.
I also found that on his Twitter feed that his course is being offered for free, so there might be some other programs that he’s promoting on the back end.
So, let’s see what’s actually in the course.
What’s Inside Cash Cow Academy?
- Module 1: The basics of Dropshipping
- Module 2: Researching the best product
- Module 3: Creating your store
- Module 4: Building the best creative
- Module 5: Laying out your plan
- Module 6: Optimizing your business
- Module 7: Running ads on TikTok
- Module 8: Marketing to influencers
- Bonus Module – Gettin your mind right
My Conclusion: Should You Join Cash Cow Academy?
I’ve believe that when it comes to a course like this, price should not be the final issue when deciding to buy it or not.
Ultimately, it’s all about value.
For example, if you had two cars to purchase, one being a 2013 Toyota Corolla and the other being a 2024 Lexus RX 350, both being sold for $10,000 – would anything get in your way of buying the Lexus?
If it were me, I would do whatever I had to do to come up with the money, because the value is there.
Now, in this situation, Adrian is offering his course for free. So, I would say that it couldn’t hurt to see what his training is all about.
But, dropshipping still isn’t my best choice, here’s why…
My #1 Pick For Making Money Online in 2024
Before I start breaking down my #1 Pick, let me say first that I don’t believe that Dropshipping is necessarily all that bad – it’s just that there are a lot of moving pieces.
But it’s not impossible, in fact I’ve make money selling dropshipping products like:
- T-shirts with my own designs that I’ve made from Canva
- Baby clothes with help from my older sister
- She even showed me how to sell makeup (Go figure!)
At this point, I’m sure you’ve guessed my #1 way to make money online is Digital Leasing, but let me tell you why it is…
- It’s Flexible: If you have just a few hours a day, you can do this business. If you can devote more time, you’ll see even faster results. Another benefit is that you’re making passive income, which means if you take time off, money is still coming in.
- You Call The Shots: With dropshipping you don’t have control over the quality of the products, you don’t own the platforms, and you have very little influence on the customers in order to create repeat business. Also, what happens if your TikTok account gets banned or throttled in anyway. Now all the free traffic that Adrian talks about is taking a major hit.
- Low Overhead Cost: Getting your own website up and running has never been easier with frameworks like WordPress and Snapps, and using what you learn in this program, you can get it done in just a few hours for around $100 and be profiting from it in less than 30 days.
- Inventory: Sure with dropshipping you aren’t storing tons of products in your garage or basement, but you’re still not in the clear. Since most products come from overseas, the common issues that you’ll run into is supply chain breakdown, meaning your customer could be waiting week or months to get the products they ordered.Worse yet, because of that wait, you could wake up the next morning with a chargeback alert because your customer got a refund.
- Easy Duplication: What’s great about Digital Leasing is that you can easily duplicate the first Digital Rental Property in just a few clicks of your mouse, and every time you go through that duplication process, it becomes second nature. Also, with each asset earning $500-$2,000 per month in passive income with 95% profit margins, you can see how quickly your bank account will fill up. In order to double your income with dropshipping, you would need more products, more customers, or increasing your prices and profit margins.
- Helping Real People: Imaging creating a business where you are helping the guy down the street who cuts down trees for a living, or the HVAC guy you know from Church who’s hit a slow patch and just wants to feed his family. With Dropshipping, the vast majority of the time it only helps the seller – not to mention leave a bad taste in the customers mouth if they have to wait months for a poor quality product.
So, you could jump all in with Adrian Dimac and Cash Cow Academy and try to make money with it, or you could take a look at something that’s a real business helping real people.
