A large share of new cold email users get their first lesson from someone who earns commission on the tools they recommend. The "start an agency" economy began with SMMA (social media marketing agency) courses, moved to lead-gen and appointment setting, and in 2024–26 rebranded as "AI automation agency". It now runs mostly on Skool. In a sample of Skool's top 1,000 communities, AI and automation was the third-largest theme: 94 communities with 800,000+ combined members. The largest, AI Automation Agency Hub, had 230.4k members (Skool analysis, Aug 2025).
Cold email is the client-acquisition step in almost every one of these curricula. That is why the tools named in lesson 3 get the signups. And because affiliate commission is recurring and lifetime (Smartlead up to 35% for life, Instantly up to 40%, see Distribution), the creator keeps earning for as long as the student keeps paying.
Every guru tutorial that says "sign up with my link" is effectively an Instantly or Smartlead sales rep. Those reps sell to people who often have no offer, no market and no client. You get cheap acquisition and high churn.
The main operators
| Operator | What they sell | Scale (as reported) | Tools taught | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maker School (Nick Saraev) | AI automation agency programme, 90-day first-client guarantee | $184/mo (rising to $204); 2,100+ members; "approximately $290,000 in monthly recurring revenue" in the Skool Games (third-party review) | Make, n8n, Instantly, Smartlead, Apollo | review, Mar 2026 |
| Lead Gen Jay | Lead Gen Insiders and AI Automation Insiders memberships, courses, done-for-you cold email, inbox services | 213 Trustpilot reviews, 4.9; $1,000 course and $10,000 DFY cited in reviews | Instantly, Clay, HighLevel, n8n, Make | Trustpilot |
| Closing Clients Group (UK) | Cold outreach community with AI coach, list building, inbox discount deals | From $97/mo; 54 reviews, 4.7 | Inbox resellers, own AI tools | Trustpilot |
| ListKit (vendor-run) | Free Skool with cold email and cold calling courses | Size not disclosed | ListKit | ListKit docs |
| Instantly (vendor-run) | Facebook group "Cold Email Masterclass", weekly YouTube | 6,000 → 18,000+ members (2023) | Instantly | GetLatka, podcast |
Revenue claims in this world are self-reported or come from affiliate-adjacent reviewers. The $290k MRR figure for Maker School comes from a third-party review page, not an audited source.
This pass couldn't verify subscriber counts for the large "start an agency" YouTube channels, or whether Instantly and Smartlead pay specific creators sponsorship fees on top of affiliate commission. Iman Gadzhi, Alex Berman and others are often named as part of this ecosystem, but none of their numbers were checked here.
How it drives tool adoption
The typical student path goes in five steps. (1) Join a free Skool or watch a YouTube "how I'd start an agency in 2026" video. (2) Buy the paid tier ($97–204 a month). (3) Sign up for the tools in the curriculum through affiliate links: a sequencer, a data source, pre-warmed inboxes, Make or n8n. (4) Send the first campaigns, often with a template the whole cohort uses. (5) Land a client, or more often, don't.
The stack in step 3 typically adds $100–300 a month, so realistic monthly costs are $300–500 before any client revenue (Maker School review). For a vendor these are pure CAC-free signups. Lifetime deals and pre-warmed inbox resellers (Google vs Microsoft vs SMTP) sell into the same funnel.
How it drives churn
Instantly's early monthly churn was about 10%, and the company tackled it with "expanded content and success-focused onboarding rather than product improvements" (GetLatka, 2023). That is the guru cohort showing up in the numbers.
Even well-rated programmes leave failures in public. A May 2026 review of Lead Gen Jay's done-for-you service reports "50,000 leads uploaded to campaigns — never delivered. At most half", and another reports "barely 0–1 clicks per day on a $10,000 campaign that took five months" (Trustpilot). The tool usually takes the blame.
Cohorts also damage deliverability. Thousands of beginners using the same template, the same pre-warmed inbox vendor and the same lead source produce spam complaints that look alike, which hurts shared warmup pools and IP ranges (Does warmup work?, Reputation and blocklists). Instantly's Trustpilot now includes reviews from people who receive "obviously AI-generated junk emails" sent through the platform (Trustpilot).
When a curriculum teaches a whole cohort to send at volume from fresh domains, Google and Microsoft eventually notice the pattern (Provider crackdowns, Google and Yahoo sender rules). A vendor whose users come mostly from gurus carries that cohort's reputation.
2025–2026 shifts
- Facebook groups gave way to Skool. Vendors (ListKit) and creators now run Skool communities. Skool had about 170,000 communities by August 2025 (analysis).
- The pitch changed from "lead-gen agency" to "AI automation agency". Cold email is now taught as one module next to n8n/Make builds, which spreads the student's spend across more tools.
- Gurus became infrastructure resellers. Communities sell inbox discounts and done-for-you setup (Closing Clients, Lead Gen Jay), so they take margin from the infra layer (Inbox & domain infrastructure).
- The vendor moved into services. Instantly's VIP managed outbound ($2k–10k a month, Instantly) competes with the DFY offers the gurus sell.
What this means for an entrant
- Decide whether you want this cohort. Guru traffic is the cheapest signup channel in the market, but it brings churn, support load and pool contamination. If you take it, put guru-referred users in a separate warmup cohort and IP range from day one.
- If you do take it, pay generously and pay for retention. Pay a recurring affiliate rate on a referral only after its third paid month. That rewards creators whose students succeed, not those who just send volume.
- Run your own school. A vendor-run Skool with honest material (when not to send cold email, which countries need consent, see Cold email law: the jurisdiction matrix) earns trust that guru content can't.
- Partner with graduates, not gurus. The few students who become 50–100-client agencies are the customers worth having. Build a "graduate" programme with agency pricing and white-label (Lead-gen agencies, White-label and agency portals).
- Use the cohort for product feedback, carefully. Beginners expose every onboarding gap (Founders and small B2B teams), but their reply rates say nothing about your deliverability.