BE AWARE
My experience with Stay Viral has been extremely disappointing and not worth the $3,000 cost!!! From the beginning, I requested product samples so I could start creating content, but they were never provided. Crickets! I then completed the required modules in a timely manner, expecting to move forward quickly as per the person who signed me up but then suddenly was no where to be found. I was told he left. The original agreement was to complete 5 videos, but that requirement kept expanding into more and more videos, stretching the process out to nearly 3 months. During this time, I was also traveling frequently for business, making it difficult to transition into content creation as expected. Many opportunities were commission-only, which doesn’t justify paying thousands of dollars for access. Even after putting in the work, progress toward actual brand deals was minimal, and there were far fewer brand deals than expected, which makes onboarding extremely difficult. Even after being “brand approved,” I was later told, “you’re not ready.” When I asked for a refund, I was given vague feedback. You didn’t follow instructions. I didn’t become a small business owner from “not following instructions.” I also saw and spoke to others in the discord who were struggling to get brand deals, despite posting multiple videos a day with no conversions. Beginners are especially set up to struggle, since many deals require GMV (gross merchandise value), which you can’t have without prior deals or experience—making it nearly impossible to get started. Brand deals did not help me to achieve GMV. But TikTok will sweat you to buy ads, therefore more money out of pocket to try and gain more views for conversions that never happen. When asked for an account review, SV founder, Michael, aka Dutch, didn’t follow throu so that too fell by the wayside without support. Account issues, including bans and restrictions became another major obstacle. I experienced account restrictions and setbacks that disrupted progress and had to start over losing 10k followers after remaking content instructed by coach. Ban was due to unoriginal content. To be fair, this happens a lot on TikTok, but SV could not help me get my acct restored. As time went on, I continued requesting samples and brand deal opportunities, hoping to rebuild but nothing positive materialized. The pay structure of some deals—around $300/month (about $10 per video for 30 videos)—is not realistic, especially if you’re slower at editing and competing with creators producing high volumes of content daily and earning hundreds per videos and thousands per month. While others with good TOF or MOF content (learned and copied from the course) are left out in the cold without real support. The “setup” could work if you actually got brand deals as promised in a timely fashion, which is what I emphatically explained to my coach when I started. I was told SV should be my priority, as if SV was going to pay my bills while I quit my business and continue to make videos for free, without the needed samples, in hopes something “pops off.” Unfortunately, I was guilty of not being able to slam out multiple videos a day but to be fair that’s not what I signed up for. And I don’t believe it would have helped even if I did because I saw others doing it without results. Despite giving SV my full effort for over 6 months—including attending meetings while traveling—I saw no real progress and became completely burned out and started experiencing illness due to the stress of a very bad business decision, and trying to get at video per day out. I called it quits after a year on TikTok platform without success, only loss. I’m not saying this program doesn’t work for everyone, but it definitely did not work for me and others like me. Overall, it lacks realistic support for beginners, even tho the modules are very beginner friendly but getting brand deals is not easy as led to believe. . Catch 22. SV does not deliver on key promises, and leaves you financially burdened with little return. Communication eventually stopped altogether from founder, Michael. I definitely would not recommend it, if I had to do over again I definitely would not waste my time. If you have a lot of money and time on your hands, go for it. But the setup for failure is real. In conclusion, this was a bad business experience and I’m out thousands. The money-back guarantee was NOT honored, which is the ONLY reason I was willing to risk this kind of money!!! I gave SV twice the time of the 12-week promise to make my money back and only saw failure. Now retirement is not looking like it will come anytime soon. P.S.: Most of the positive reviews you see are from people who work with SV.
By Team N.
Response from Stay Viral· Apr 28, 2026
Hi Darla — Michael here, founder of Stay Viral. I want to address this publicly because the framing leaves out important context, and then I'd like to take the rest of the conversation offline. A few things from our records that don't match the review: You were brand approved through our program, that contradicts the claim that you received no support or no path to deals. Brand approval is the gate, and you cleared it. The 14-week money-back guarantee is tied to participation: completing modules, attending coaching calls, posting required content volume, and submitting weekly check-ins. You mention in your own review that you were traveling frequently for business, weren't able to post consistently, and that you continued for over a year on TikTok well past our guarantee window. The guarantee was built specifically for students who do the work and don't see results — not as a blanket refund after the fact. On the TikTok ban: account bans for unoriginal content are issued by TikTok, not by us, and we're not able to restore accounts on a creator's behalf. We can coach around it, which we did. On commission-only deals and GMV: this is how the TikTok Shop ecosystem works for every creator on the platform, not something specific to Stay Viral. We're transparent about it on our sales calls and inside the program. That said — I hear that you're frustrated, and I don't want to dismiss the time and money you put in. If you'd like to send me a direct message with your account details, I'll personally pull your full activity log and walk through it with you. If there's something we genuinely missed on our side, I'll make it right.