How Komichi Makes Money
Last updated: July 2026
Short version: right now, we don't. Komichi is free to use, and for our first year our only goal is to become the most trusted, useful resource for building a life in Japan — not to earn from it. But you deserve to know how a free resource stays alive, and what we will and won't ever do. So here's the whole picture, plainly.
Why we're free
The information you need to move to Japan shouldn't sit behind a paywall, and it shouldn't be shaped by whoever pays the most. People make life-changing decisions on this stuff. Keeping our guides free — and keeping our guidance honest — is the entire point of Komichi. Trust is the asset we're building; everything else comes after.
How we'll sustain it (and how we won't)
To keep Komichi running and growing without charging you for the essentials, we plan to earn money later in ways that don't compromise what we publish. When we do, we'll follow these rules:
We may, in the future:
- Refer you to services we've vetted — such as ethical recruitment agents or reputable language schools — and earn a referral fee if you choose to use them. We'll only ever recommend services we'd point a friend to, and a referral fee will never buy a recommendation.
- Show clearly-labelled listings or ads that are relevant and non-intrusive, always visibly marked as advertising and always separate from our editorial guidance.
- Offer optional paid tools or products for people who want to go deeper — while keeping the core guides free.
We will never:
- Sell recommendations. No company, agent, school, or advertiser can pay to be recommended, to rank higher in our guidance, or to change what we write. Our Editorial & Accuracy Policy makes this binding.
- Sell your personal data. Your email and your information are not products. We use them to send you what you signed up for, and that's it. (Privacy details.)
- Put essential information behind a paywall. The guidance you need to make your move will stay free.
- Hide the commercial bits. Anything sponsored, affiliate, or paid will be clearly labelled as such, every time.
How you can support us today
You don't need to spend anything. The most valuable things you can do are free: subscribe to our newsletter, share a guide that helped you, tell us when we get something wrong, and share your own experience so we can help the next person. That's what makes Komichi better — and it's worth more to us than ad revenue.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you ever see something on Komichi that looks like it breaks these promises, email us at japankomichi@gmail.com. Holding us to this is fair game.
We'll update this page the moment our approach changes — before it changes what you see, not after.