1K a Day Fast Track Review: Can You Make Money With This?

Hey, Drew here. Welcome to my 1K A Day Fast Track review. I bought this course back when it was one of the hottest things on ClickBank, sat through all six weeks of it, and have kept half an eye on it ever since.

So this review reads a little differently than the one I first published. The short version: in 2026, you basically can't buy 1K A Day Fast Track the way you used to. Merlin Holmes has gone quiet, the course got rebranded as "The Fast Tracks," and the affiliate link that used to live on this very page now redirects to a completely different offer. That last part is a big red flag, and I'll explain why below.

I'll still walk you through what the course was, who Merlin Holmes is (and where he seems to have vanished to), what it cost, and whether it ever actually worked. Then I'll show you the $47 path I'd take instead if I were starting today.

🛑 2026 Verdict on 1K A Day Fast Track
The course is effectively abandoned — don't waste time chasing it.
Merlin Holmes has no active launches, the members' area went stale, and the old funnel now points somewhere else entirely. The method itself (poll pages, email lists, ClickBank offers) wasn't bad, but it leaned on $1,000+ in ad spend and dangled income claims almost nobody hit. If you want the modern, far cheaper version of this idea, I put it all in my 2026 AI Business Blueprint for $47. Jump to the alternative below, or keep reading for the full story. 

My Rating: 2 / 5 — Abandoned course, overhyped promises. Not worth pursuing in 2026.

1K A Day Fast Track was built for a 2020-era playbook: pay for ClickFunnels, pay for an autoresponder, pour money into paid traffic, and hope your funnel converts before the ad budget runs dry. It worked for a few people. It drained the wallets of a lot more.

In 2026, AI does most of that heavy lifting for a fraction of the cost. My walkthrough of how to make money online with AI shows you how to research offers, build funnels, write your emails, and create content with AI tools — without the $1,000 ad budget Merlin's method demanded. Grab my free AI side hustle starter kit first if you want to test the waters before spending a dime.

What Is 1K A Day Fast Track?

1K A Day Fast Track is a six-week affiliate marketing course created by Merlin Holmes. It teaches one specific method: build a simple two-page website with a yes/no poll, collect email addresses, and send those subscribers to ClickBank offers to earn commissions. (Brand new to this model? Here's my plain-English breakdown of what affiliate marketing actually is.)

The hook was the poll. Instead of a normal landing page, you'd ask visitors a curiosity-driven yes/no question, capture their email so they could "see the results," then promote products to that list. It was a different angle when it launched, and that's a big part of why it sold so well.

At some point the course was repackaged under a new name, "The Fast Tracks," though the core training and the $1k-a-day promise stayed the same. Same method, same creator, new label.

How Much Did 1K A Day Fast Track Cost?

1K A Day Fast Track cost $997 for the six-week program. But that sticker price was the smallest part of the real bill.

To actually run Merlin's method, you also needed ClickFunnels (around $97 a month), an email autoresponder (roughly $50 a month), and — this is the big one — a paid traffic budget. The whole system ran on buying traffic to those poll pages, and realistically you needed at least $1,000 set aside just to start testing properly.

Add it up and you were looking at close to $2,000 before you earned a single commission. That math matters, because it's the difference between "a course" and "a course plus a part-time job's worth of startup cash." If you didn't have that cushion sitting in the bank, this was never the right fit for you.

Who Is Merlin Holmes — and Where Did He Go?

Merlin Holmes is an affiliate marketer who claimed to have done over $150 million in online sales across health, wealth, and relationship offers, mostly out of Colorado. For years he was one of ClickBank's better-known names, and to his credit, he actually showed real PayPal and Stripe numbers in his webinars instead of the fake screenshots a lot of "gurus" lean on.

Here's the part that changed since my original review. Merlin Holmes has gone dark. I went looking for any recent activity — a new launch, a live webinar, fresh content, anything — and came up empty. His social profiles are quiet, his old sales pages still recycle the same 2020-era copy, and there's no sign of a live, supported product in 2026.

Even back at launch, there were warning signs. A number of buyers reported that course modules stopped arriving on schedule once the refund window closed, and the live Q&A webinars eventually went silent. When the person whose name is on the course disappears, the course usually goes with him.

What Happened to the 1K A Day Fast Track Course?

1K A Day Fast Track got rebranded to "The Fast Tracks" and then, as far as I can tell, quietly abandoned. That's the honest answer.

The clearest signal is the one I ran into myself. The affiliate link that used to sit on this page now redirects to a totally different offer — not Merlin's course. When a ClickBank product link starts bouncing somewhere else, it almost always means the product was pulled or the vendor stopped running it. That's exactly what a dead offer looks like from the outside.

The second signal is what's left online. Search for the course today and most of what you'll find is pirated copies being passed around on file-sharing sites, plus old reviews echoing each other. There's no active, official funnel selling and supporting it. When the only "copies" floating around are bootlegs, the real thing is usually gone.

This isn't unique to Merlin, by the way. Plenty of once-popular programs have quietly closed their doors — I keep a running list of affiliate marketing courses that have shut down so you don't end up paying for a ghost.

Did 1K A Day Fast Track Ever Actually Work?

The method could work, but the $1,000-a-day promise was always wishful thinking for most people. Let me separate the two.

The underlying idea — build an email list and promote ClickBank offers to it — is legitimate. People make real money on ClickBank every day, and email lists are one of the most dependable assets you can build online. None of that is the problem.

The problem was the gap between the promise and reality. Hitting $1k a day means roughly $30,000 a month in commissions, and that's a number even seasoned marketers rarely touch from a single poll funnel. Most people who buy courses like this never come close, and it's worth understanding why so many affiliate marketers fail before you bank on a headline income figure. The FTC has gone after plenty of programs for exactly these kinds of earnings claims, and "you can make $1,000 a day" is the textbook example of one to take with a fistful of salt.

So did it work? For a small number of people with money to spend on ads and the patience to test — yes. For the average buyer — not even close.

1K A Day Fast Track Pros and Cons

Even for a course that's no longer really available, it's worth being fair about what it got right and where it fell apart.

What 1K A Day Fast Track Got Right

The poll-page angle was clever and genuinely different from the cookie-cutter landing pages everyone else taught. Building the training around email marketing was a smart move too — that's a skill that pays off no matter what you end up promoting. And the six-week structure gave beginners a clear, week-by-week path instead of dumping 200 videos on them all at once.

Where 1K A Day Fast Track Fell Short

It rested almost entirely on one paid traffic source, so if that channel stopped working for you, the whole thing wobbled. The hidden costs were steep and weren't made obvious upfront. The income claims were inflated to the point of being misleading. And now, the biggest con of all: there's no working funnel, no support, and nobody home. A course you can't reliably buy or get help with isn't a course anymore — it's a relic.

What's the Best Alternative to 1K A Day Fast Track in 2026?

The best alternative isn't another $997 course chasing the same dream — it's a cheaper, faster approach that uses AI to do the work Merlin's method made you pay for. That's exactly why I built my own course.

The 2026 AI Business Blueprint takes the part of 1K A Day that actually mattered — build an audience, promote offers, automate the follow-up — and strips out the expensive, manual parts. Instead of a $1,000 ad budget and a stack of monthly tools, you use AI to research offers, spin up funnels, write your email sequences, and create your content. It's $47 one-time, versus the roughly $2,000 you needed just to start Merlin's system.

If you'd rather start without spending anything, grab my free AI side hustle starter kit and see if it clicks before you buy.

Now, if you've got your heart set on a traditional, fully-supported affiliate course instead of the AI route, I get it — and I keep an updated roundup of the best affiliate marketing courses that are actually live and worth your money in 2026. Just don't let it be a course whose creator pulled a disappearing act.

  • Learn how to make money online with AI
  • Choose from 5 different business models
  • Get started today even if you are a complete beginner

You Might Also Find These Useful

If you landed here trying to figure out the affiliate game, a couple of my other guides will save you some time. How to make money with ClickBank covers the exact platform Merlin's course was built around, and my how to make money online with AI guide walks through the modern approach I'd actually use today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you still buy 1K A Day Fast Track in 2026?

Not in any reliable, supported way. The course was rebranded as "The Fast Tracks" and then effectively abandoned. The old sales funnel now redirects elsewhere, there's no active support, and the only copies circulating online are pirated. I wouldn't hand over money for it even if you found a working checkout page.

Is 1K A Day Fast Track a scam?

Not exactly. The business model behind it — affiliate marketing through email lists and ClickBank — is completely legitimate, and at launch the course delivered real training. The bigger issues were the inflated income claims and the fact that the creator and his support eventually disappeared. So it's less "scam" and more "abandoned product with overhyped promises."

How much did 1K A Day Fast Track cost?

The course itself was $997 for six weeks. The real cost was much higher once you added ClickFunnels (around $97/month), an autoresponder (around $50/month), and a paid traffic budget of at least $1,000. All in, you needed close to $2,000 to run the method as taught.

Who is Merlin Holmes?

Merlin Holmes is a longtime ClickBank affiliate marketer who claimed over $150 million in online sales out of Colorado. He created 1K A Day Fast Track and later "The Fast Tracks." As of 2026 he has no active launches and a very quiet online presence, which is a big reason this page now reads as a retrospective rather than a buying guide.

What's a cheaper alternative to 1K A Day Fast Track?

My 2026 AI Business Blueprint is the cheaper, current alternative I'd point you to. It teaches the same core idea — build an audience and promote offers — but uses AI to handle the research, funnels, emails, and content that Merlin's method made you pay for. It's $47 one-time instead of nearly $2,000 to start. You can check it out here.

Can I just use AI instead of an affiliate marketing course?

You can, but you'll burn a lot of time figuring out which AI tools actually work and which prompts get results. That's the gap my 2026 AI Business Blueprint fills — it hands you the specific tools and prompts for offer research, funnels, email, and content, so you skip the trial-and-error. The strategy is the same one Merlin taught; AI just makes the execution faster and far cheaper.

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Drew Mann helps aspiring entrepreneurs build AI-powered online businesses in 2026. Creator of "The 2026 AI Business Blueprint" course, Drew specializes in AI tools, affiliate marketing, eCommerce, and YouTube strategy. His honest reviews and practical guides come from hands-on experience — he buys and tests every course and tool he recommends. Featured in Yahoo, Empire Flippers, and other publications. Read more...
Drew Mann

4 thoughts on “1K a Day Fast Track Review: Can You Make Money With This?”

  1. So after the $997, can you give a rough estimate on how much I would need to spend to give myself a chance at real success with this? Thanks

    Reply
    • Hi Derwin, that’s a question I can’t give you an honest answer, unfortunately. In fact, no one can as there are way too many variables to consider. I would watch the free training if you haven’t yet to get an idea.

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