Full transparency

How we
make money.

We believe you have a right to know exactly how any platform that gives you advice earns its revenue. Here is ours — completely, with nothing left out.

Why we wrote this

Trust is the product.

The visa and travel advice industry runs on hidden incentives. Agents earn commissions from embassies. Travel blogs earn referral fees from the products they recommend. Comparison sites get paid when you click. Most of them never tell you this.

We built ApnaAbroad specifically because we were frustrated by that opacity. So the first thing we did was write this page. If our revenue model ever influences the advice we give, you deserve to know about it — and hold us accountable for it.

Our revenue

What we earn — and what we don’t.

Guide sales — our primary income

When you buy a guide at ₹99, ₹299, ₹599, or ₹899, that payment is our revenue. This is what funds the research, writing, fact-checking, and updates. It is our primary income and the only guaranteed one. The incentive is simple: if the guides are good, people buy them. We have every reason to make them as accurate and useful as possible.

Disclosed affiliate links — occasional and transparent

Occasionally we link to products we use and genuinely recommend — travel insurance providers, forex cards, VFS appointment services. When we have an affiliate relationship with any of these, we say so explicitly in the article or guide. You will always know when a link earns us a commission. We only recommend products we would use ourselves, and the commission never influences which product we recommend.

Embassy or government commissions — never

We earn nothing from any embassy, consulate, visa processing centre, or government body. We have no commercial relationship with any immigration authority anywhere in the world. Our advice is not influenced by any entity that processes visas.

University or institution referral fees — never

We do not accept referral fees from universities, colleges, language schools, or any educational institution. When we launch study abroad guides, this will remain true. We will never recommend a university because they pay us — only because the evidence supports it.

Advertising — none

There are no ads on ApnaAbroad. No banner ads, no sponsored posts, no brand deals, no native advertising. We have no advertising relationships with any company. The content you read is not influenced by any advertiser’s interests.

Our promise

What this means
in practice.

Transparency about revenue is only meaningful if it changes how we behave. Here is what our revenue model means in concrete terms:

Our commitments to you

We will never recommend a destination, university, visa agent, or service because they pay us. Every recommendation in our guides is based on what the evidence and our research supports — not what earns us the most money.

If our revenue model ever changes, we will update this page immediately. This page is a living document. If we add a new revenue stream, you will read about it here before we earn a single rupee from it.

When affiliate links appear, they are always marked. You will never wonder whether a recommendation is paid for. If it is, we tell you. If it is not marked, it is not paid for.

Our guides are priced to fund honest work — not to maximise revenue. ₹99 to ₹899 is deliberately affordable. We would rather sell a lot of guides at an honest price than a few at an extractive one.

Questions about
how we work?

If something on this page is unclear or you want to know more, reach out. We reply to every message.

How wemake money.