How We Make Money (and How We Won't)

Last updated: July 2026

Komichi is free to use, and we want to keep it that way. Being upfront about money is part of earning your trust — so here's exactly how we plan to sustain this, and the lines we won't cross.

How we'll sustain it

• Vetted referrals. We may refer you to services we've checked (e.g. language schools, registered agents, tools) and earn a referral fee. When a link can earn us money, we'll label it clearly.
• Clearly-labelled listings and ads. Any sponsored listing or ad will be marked as such — never disguised as editorial.
• Optional paid tools or products. Some advanced tools or courses may be paid, while the core stays free.

How we won't

• We won't put essential visa, safety, or "how to get there" information behind a paywall. The things you need to make a safe decision stay free.
• We won't let money buy a recommendation. A paid listing is never dressed up as our honest advice, and our editorial picks aren't for sale. Commercial relationships are disclosed, not hidden.
• We won't sell your data. See our privacy policy.

School and institute listings

We currently earn nothing from Japan language school listings or Japanese classes in India listings. Our directories are non-commercial: we verify accreditation (for Japan schools) and credibility signals (for India institutes), publish official fees where available, and don't accept payment to list or rank schools. If this ever changes, it will be disclosed clearly on this page and badged on listings themselves.

A note on recommendations

If we ever earn from something we recommend, you'll see it said plainly on the page. Our reputation is the whole business — a recommendation you can't trust is worthless to us.

Support us for free

Share a guide that helped you, tell a friend, and give feedback so we can improve. That's the best support there is.

We update this page the moment our approach changes.