The Income Share Agreement, explained without the fine print

Every cohort, the Income Share Agreement generates more questions than the curriculum does. That is healthy. It is a contract about your future income, and you should understand it completely before you sign it. This is my attempt to explain it in plain language. The signed agreement is the document that governs, and we will always send it to you in full before you commit.

What it is, and what it is not

The Fellowship has a standard fee of ₹2,00,000 plus 18% GST, which is ₹2,36,000, payable before the cohort starts. The ISA is an alternative to that fee. Instead of paying upfront, you agree to pay a share of your future income, but only if we place you in a job that pays above a threshold.

It is not a loan. There is no debt, no interest, no penalty for paying late and no effect on your credit history. It is not an employment bond either: you are free to work for anyone you like, change jobs and leave the programme.

The numbers

• Threshold: ₹5,00,000 a year, which is about ₹41,667 a month of gross income.
• Rate: 10% of your gross monthly income, plus GST on that amount.
• Term: a maximum of 24 payment months.
• Cap: ₹4,00,000 in total, excluding GST. You never pay more than this.

"Gross monthly income" means the fixed part of your pay: basic salary, fixed allowances and other fixed recurring pay. Variable pay, bonuses, incentives, reimbursements, stock options and employer PF contributions are excluded. That matters a lot for sales roles, where a large part of pay can be variable.

Take the example in the agreement itself. If we place you at ₹15 LPA fixed, your gross monthly income is ₹1,25,000. Your ISA payment is ₹12,500 a month, plus ₹2,250 GST. At that rate it would take 32 months to reach the cap, but the agreement ends after 24, so you pay ₹3,00,000 plus GST in total, and then nothing further. You can try other numbers with the calculator.

When you pay nothing

Most of the agreement is about the situations in which you owe nothing, which I think says something about its intent.

• If we cannot place you during the Fellowship, you owe nothing.
• If you find a job entirely on your own, with no help from us, you owe nothing on it.
• If you are already employed and stay with that employer, that income is exempt, even if you are promoted.
• If you cancel within 14 days of signing, the agreement is void.
• If you withdraw after that but before we have secured an offer for you, you owe nothing.
• In any month you earn at or below the threshold, payments pause, and that month does not count towards the 24.

Why it is tied to placement

The ISA only applies to jobs that came through our placement efforts: interviews we facilitated, referrals we made or introductions through our network. That is deliberate. The fairest version of an ISA is one where we are paid for a specific result we helped produce, rather than for a share of everything you earn afterwards.

It also changes how we behave. Our revenue from the ISA depends on getting you hired, at a real salary, as early as the programme allows. That is exactly what you want from us too.

When paying upfront is the better deal

I want to be straightforward about this, because an ISA that is sold as free is being sold dishonestly. If the Fellowship goes well for you and we place you in a well-paid role, the ISA will cost more than the upfront fee. At higher salaries you could pay up to ₹4,00,000 plus GST, compared with ₹2,36,000 upfront.

That difference is the price of us carrying the risk. If you can afford the upfront fee and you are confident about your outcome, paying upfront is cheaper. If you would rather we share the risk, or you simply cannot pay ₹2,36,000 today, the ISA exists for you. Both are good choices. The wrong choice is the one you make without doing the maths.

The protections we built in

You pay by bank transfer or UPI, never by post-dated cheques or auto-debits you have not agreed to in writing. You get a receipt within five business days of every payment. Income reporting is a short monthly self-certification while payments are active, and we can ask for verification at most once a year. Your income data is never shared with employers without your separate written consent. You can prepay at any time. And disputes go to good-faith discussion first, then mediation, then arbitration in New Delhi.

If you have questions that this post does not answer, email us. We would much rather answer them before you sign than after.