Why Kraftshala’s Programs Are Priced the Way They Are

We started Kraftshala in 2016, and as the institution completes 10 years, I thought it’d be useful for more people, especially those considering our programs, to understand our decision making on key aspects, such as pricing.  

We have a single long-term goal: by 2047, we want to become the first institution that can reliably place 20,000 students every year into high-potential roles. For context: this is more than double of what has been achieved anywhere else in the world thus far. 

To accomplish that, one principle matters: If education isn’t accessible, it can’t Scale with Soul.

So our pricing isn’t built backwards from “What can the market pay?” It’s built forwards from a simpler question:

1) What is the lowest fee at which we can stay transformational AND sustainable?

We charge the least amount of fees that allows us to run a genuinely high-quality institution without compromising outcomes.

We are not interested in superficial outcomes. Success to us means one thing: a high-potential job role that materially upgrades a student’s career trajectory.

That clarity forces discipline. It’s why Kraftshala School of Business is run as a profitable entity, so we have the resources to:

• attract and retain India’s best practitioners as coaches,
• keep upgrading curriculum every month (not once a year),
• run rigorous feedback loops and career support,
• and maintain placement accountability at scale.

This approach has helped us deliver outcomes that are rare in Indian education:

• Marketing programs: 1,000+ placements per year with ~94%+ placement rates
• Sales & Business (SMBL): cohorts that routinely touch 100% placement, with ~10.5 LPA average CTC

Details on our placement outcomes can be found here. 

2) Why are our programs, including offline ones, less expensive/ higher ROI (Return on Investment) than other Bschools?

Because we don’t spend your fee on the usual “signals”.

A lot of education pricing is driven by expensive optics: large marketing spends, inflated list-prices, heavy sales machinery, or degree/ infrastructure choices that look premium but don’t improve outcomes proportionately.

Our bet is different:

Spend disproportionately on what moves outcomes. Save on what doesn’t.

In practice, this shows up in multiple ways. For example:

A) More expert time, more personalised support.
Our students spend meaningful time with practitioners, through live sessions, 1:1s, and small-group coaching.

B) Less “MBA fluff”, 100% focus on developing practical capability.
We deliberately remove modules that don’t materially help you grow a business in the real AI- driven world of 2026.

C) Careers, not credentials.
We don’t help you buy a good-looking but low-value degree. We help you build real capability, and access to one of India’s strongest networks of hiring companies.

This focus is what drives RoI. Most B-schools deliver average placement CTCs that are roughly 50–75% of their fees. Our programs typically deliver 200–400%.

In essence: high-quality education only becomes expensive when the model is built around fixed costs and optics. We’ve built ours around outcomes and long-term impact.

3) ROI isn’t just “fees vs salary”. Time matters.

Most ROI comparisons of programs ignore the biggest variable: time to outcomes.

A simple illustration:

Assume a job after a program that pays ₹10 LPA. That’s roughly ₹80k/month.

If someone finishes an 8-month program and starts earning sooner versus spending 24 months in a longer pathway, they are effectively earning for 16 additional months:

₹80k × 16 = ₹12.8 lakhs of early earnings.

That time advantage is real money, real experience, and real compounding.

4) Finally: What we won’t do (because trust matters more than conversions)

We try to operate transparently, even if it costs us short-term signups. So we avoid tactics that are common in the category, for example:

A) “Zero-cost EMI” as a lure
There is no free lunch. In “zero-cost EMI” setups, the interest or processing cost is simply paid by the institution and built into the fee, meaning everyone subsidizes the loan product. We prefer to keep our pricing clean and honest.

B) Inflated fees + “scholarships” for everyone + random negotiated discounting
Our fees are upfront on the website. Scholarships go to the top ~5–10% of applicants and are not up for negotiation. We don’t discount our programs on “specific” days- if anything, the program prices go up, and once they have increased, there is no way to enrol on the earlier price. 

That’s it. (You can save your negotiation energy for your salary discussions with recruiters 🙂)

5) Help us improve

We are always open to ideas on how we can do better: pricing, policies, or anything else. If you have any suggestions, please email us at: contact@kraftshala.com.