A few candidates have written to us that ForumIAS Program fees have increased in the past years. This is in comparison to the fee structure where ForumIAS was only an online coaching provider. However, we feel that program fees are reasonable and continue to strive to lower the cost of our programs and are at best competitively priced with some of the Top Coachings in the country.  Some of the major factors that contribute to the fee are :

• Individual Attention and Personal Guidance – which brings in human involvement and associated costs. Since we try to recruit the best talent, this also comes at a cost to us. We proudly say that the level of individual attention that we currently provide is unmatched by any other provider of equal size.
• Subsidisation of certain programs : ForumIAS runs certain programs such as the Select Focus Group for Prelims at monthly fee of Rs. 1100, which is often subsidised  by other courses. Given that a lot of students would choose cheaper programs than more expensive ( but meaningful and complimentary ) programs, we see our revenues fall from our core programs.
• About One Tenth of the seats are given out to those below poverty line ( with income certificate proofs  or letter of recommendations from Department of Social Welfare of State Govt ) at low costs or via NGOs. We do not sponsor these seats ourselves and do not provide direct concessions.
• About 20% of fee paid goes to the government immediately ( GST @18% )  and to online payment gateways / POS Machine providers ( 2%). Thus for every 100 rupees paid by the student, ForumIAS Academy receives only 80 rupees. ForumIAS Academy is a part of association of educational institutes that have appealed to the government to reduce the GST on coaching fees.
• Extremely High Rentals in Student Areas of New Delhi –  Old Rajinder Nagar & Karol Bagh Area, that affect both Students as well as service providers like us. They significantly eat into our earnings as a company. Technically, about 25-30% of the fees over and above the Taxes and Transaction costs go in paying rents. Since we do not own the properties we run our Centers and Offices from, we have to pay through the nose for them. We do not own them, because (a) we cannot afford them (b) we spend that money in improving student services.
• Also, we do not spend more than we earn, we do not give away everything for free and our paid products are reasonably superior to our free and near free initiatives and offer value for money.
• We try to maintain a reasonable profitability, hire the best talent, and provide social security to our employees. We”ll raise a generation of officers that will run the nation before we run out money to run ForumIAS academy 🙂
• Only recently we have had a advertising campaign in print media, after one of our students complained that they did not come to know about ForumIAS programs as they were not advertised in Newspaper. However, this again forms a negligible part of our expenditure as of now.