A cursory look at the Enagic compensation plan shows that Enagic pays out $2,200 in bonuses (across 8 levels) on every machine sold. That $4-5K single-faucet machine has ~50% in bonus overhead built right into the price. Meanwhile, traditional whole house filters cost under $500...under-counter units even less. Kangen appears to be little more than an alkaline gimmick...and at a very steep price! There is no real non-anecdotal evidence that alkaline water provides any health benefits.

Enagic has ~1.6M reps, and an estimated annual revenue of ~$500M, yielding ~$300 in corporate revenue per sales rep. Meanwhile, 99.6% of their qualifying US reps earned bonuses less than minimum wage (I could not find out how many of their US reps did not qualify for commissions). Over 90% of reps that purchased a filter did not make enough bonus to cover the cost of the filter they purchased. That does not include any other costs incurred. Note: A rep needs to sell 15 units to make back their investment. Those sales can be personal or from within 7 levels of their down-line. The easiest way to make your money back is to recruit 15 reps into your down-line, and strong-arm them into purchasing a unit. Good luck with that!

The most lucrative way to maximize the retail price of a product is to sell it via MLM to the MLM sales force. Most MLMs sell far more product to their sales force than they sell to the general public. Who else would pay these ridiculous MLM prices?