Setting up first drop ship, is a monthly fee to be avoided?

Very few legitimate distributors or manufacturers charge a tiered fee. You must be dealing with a retailer that has decided to cash in on dropshipping or it's one of the dropshipforyyou.com type of scam sites. Best to avoid.

like the plague.I started out with inventorysource and it was one of the most poopbutt things I've ever done.I don't suggest it but you'd literally be better off Amazon'ing to ebay in the mean time while you find suppliers(some people just claim to make money off it by itself which I have seen good numbers for income with it but it's just not my thing).

The fact whoever you're talking about has levels to their membership alone let's me know they are NOT legit wholesalers,more than likely they are middle men and internet marketers cashing in on the dropship boom.It sounds crazy but literally most wholesalers do the very minimum to their websites since some aren't really too familiar on coding and seo.If I was a wholesaler the last thing I'd do is buy a bulk of items then charge fees for people to sell them not to mention have level subscriptions at that.Now a one time fee is another story I hear mixed reviews about that one,some say this others say that IIII just avoid all wholesalers with fees other than the dropship fee per order.Legit wholesalers are pretty HARD to find(mainly because I'm an overthinker and do more research than action)but honestly things that come too easy sometimes can come crashing down just as quick as you started(in this case,saturation would be the cause of the crash).