Terms and fees
What you pay, when, and what happens if something goes wrong
Two sides to this page. Families pay an application fee only once a school has agreed to an interview. Schools pay nothing to be listed and pay a commission only after a student they admitted has started. Both rules are written out plainly below. If anything here is unclear, email admissions@boardingmatch.com before you sign anything.
Who pays what
Schools pay us. A school is listed for free. A school pays a commission only after a student it has admitted has started at the school. No school pays to appear in a list, to be seen by a family, or to receive an application.
Families pay us. Submitting your school reports is free. A family pays an application fee of £200 only once at least one school has invited your child to an interview. That fee covers interview applications to your first four schools, and unlocks those schools' direct contact details and the interview arrangements. If no school wants to interview your child, you do not pay anything. We do not charge a family for a school's admissions decision.
No school's fee to the family is increased by anything we do. We are paid out of what the school already receives from the family.
Who we are and who we represent
BoardingMatch is a matching platform. We introduce families to schools so the two can speak to each other directly.
We do not act on a school's behalf in its admissions decisions, and no school appoints us to make them. Every school on this site makes its own admissions decisions, which we never influence. Where a family pays us, we do not also decide which schools they may apply to.
We are registered in the United Kingdom and follow the national code of ethical practice for UK education agents, including its rules for agent aggregators and marketplaces. We are open about which schools we have a signed agreement with. Ask us and we will tell you, for any school, whether we have a signed agreement, and what the agreement covers.
When a school signs up through us, that school must record our details when it reports that student to the UK Visas and Immigration sponsorship system. This is a legal duty on the school, and we give schools the exact wording they need. See our agent declaration page.
For families: the application fee
What it is called
An application fee. It is £200. It is called an application fee, not a deposit and not a booking fee, because it is the same kind of charge a private school already makes when your child applies to sit an interview: it covers the work of arranging the interview and supporting you through it.
What £200 covers
Interview applications to your first four schools. It is one fee covering up to four school interview applications, not £200 per school and not a subscription. If you then want to go beyond four schools with us, speak to us before you pay anything further and we will agree it with you.
When you pay it
Only after at least one school has told us it is willing and able to arrange an interview for your child, and has invited your child to one. If no school wants to interview your child, there is no invitation, and you do not pay anything at all.
What it is not
It is not a deposit, and it is not a fee for a place at a school. It does not buy a school any priority, and it does not change the order schools appear in.
What you get
The school's direct contact details, the interview arranged with that school, and our help with the paperwork for it.
For families: refunds
You pay this fee only because a school has invited your child to an interview. Once that school has given us its admissions time, its staff and its slot in its schedule, we cannot take that back and pass it to another family who is waiting. So the application fee is not refundable. That is the same position a private school takes on its own application fee, and it is why we call it an application fee rather than a deposit.
When we do refund it
We do not have a no-refund rule with no exceptions. We will refund you in full, to the card or account you paid from, within ten working days, if any of these happen:
We do not deliver
We fail to arrange the interview we told you we had arranged, or we cancel your application ourselves. You do not pay for a service that does not happen.
You change your mind
You tell us in writing within 14 days of paying. After 14 days we will have asked the school to hold the slot, so the fee is retained. This is the standard cooling-off position used by private schools.
Immigration
A visa is refused, where the refusal is not the result of anything you or your child misrepresented, and not the result of ignoring our advice or a request from the Home Office. We still refund you if you caused the refusal, because in that case the interview work was not wasted.
Exceptional circumstances
Illness that prevents your child studying, or a bereavement in the close family. Tell us within 14 days and we will ask for evidence. This list is not exhaustive, and we will always consider a case on its merits rather than hide behind the words.
What we do first, before any of that
If the schools in your first round do not manage to arrange an interview, we do not hand back your money and leave it there. Within two working days of your payment we automatically search for further schools and approach them on your behalf, and we keep going. You are not charged again for this, and the £200 covers that further search as well as the first four schools.
How we work out whether a school did its part
A school that withdraws after agreeing to an interview must tell us why. That reason is given to us, in writing, so that we can check whether it was a genuine reason on the school's side or a reason that should not stop an interview.
We do not pass the school's reasons on to you. We do not, because a school telling you why it declined puts that school at a disadvantage against other families considering it, and we think that is the wrong trade for your child. What we do tell you, plainly, is whether the school was at fault. If it was, the fee is refunded. If it was not, we move on to the next school.
So in practice: you are refunded when no interview happened and it was not because of anything about your child. You are not refunded when an interview happened, or when a school withdrew for a reason that has nothing to do with whether we did our job.
For schools: the commission
What it costs to join
Nothing. Listing, being seen by families, and receiving applications are free. There is no subscription and no listing fee.
What we charge
A success-based commission, as a percentage of the first year's net fee income received from a student, plus VAT where the school is required to account for it. The percentage and the exact basis are set out in your signed agreement.
There is no annual fee
No renewal, no retainer, no fee in year two or year three. If a student stays with you, there is nothing further to pay us. The commission is raised once, on the student who starts.
When it is charged
After the student has started at your school. We do not invoice before then, and we do not invoice for a student who does not start.
Who pays it
You do, out of the fee income you receive from the family. The fee you invoice to the family is not increased to cover our commission.
Is it refundable
No. By the time it is charged, our work is finished: the student is at your school. We have not withdrawn anything, so there is nothing to refund.
For schools: if an invoice is not paid
Because the commission is only raised after a student has started, this is not a subscription you can cancel. There is nothing to cancel. What happens instead is set out below, and it is deliberately boring.
1
Invoice
We invoice you within 30 days of the student starting. The invoice states the basis, the amount, and whether VAT is included.
2
Payment terms
30 days from the invoice date. If your school settles on different terms, those terms are written into your agreement and take precedence over this page.
3
If an invoice is queried
Tell us within 14 days and we will hold the dispute and work it through with you. Disputed amounts are not referred on while the query is open.
4
If an invoice goes unpaid
Our system emails you a payment reminder every 30 days until the account is settled, so the reminder does not depend on anyone remembering to chase it. If reminders do not resolve it, the account is reviewed and we may refer it to our solicitors. That referral is a decision for a person, not an automatic step.
5
What we never do
We do not charge interest, we do not remove a student who has already started, and we do not tell a family anything about an unpaid invoice. A student's place and their family's relationship with the school are not a collection tool.
Safeguarding
Most of the students we work with are under 18. That is not an edge case for us, it is the main case, and the basic safeguards below are included in our service at no extra cost to anyone.
Included for every student
Identity and age verification before a student is put forward to any school. Confirmation that a school holds a valid UK Visas and Immigration sponsor licence before we approach any student about it. Basic contact and welfare information collected at intake, and a named contact at your school for anything urgent. A clear route for a student or a family to report a concern to us, answered by a person.
What is not included
Guardianship. We are not a guardian and we do not take the place of one. If a student under 18 needs a UK-based guardian, that is arranged with the school, and it is a separate cost.
Optional extra
Additional one-to-one wellbeing and settling-in support, provided by specialist staff we engage on demand. This is optional, it is charged separately, and no part of the safeguards above depends on you buying it.
Nothing in the safeguards list is optional, and nothing in it is something you can buy your way out of by paying more.
How we are paid, from both sides
We are a company and we have to make a profit. So we tell you both sides of it plainly rather than hoping you work it out.
You pay us
One application fee of £200, covering interview applications to the first four schools. You only pay it once a school has invited your child to an interview. If no school shows interest, you pay nothing.
Schools pay us
A commission, calculated as a percentage of the tuition and boarding fee income a school receives from a student who joined through us. We do not publish the percentage, because our agreement with schools treats it as commercially sensitive. It is set out in your school's own agreement with us, and any school will tell you if you ask.
What that means for your bill
Nothing. The school pays our commission out of the fee income it already receives from you. We do not pass it on, and a school's fees to you are not increased to cover it. Our commission never changes what a school decides about your child, and we do not accept payment from a school for a place, a place in a shortlist, or a faster answer.
Why we tell you this
Because an agent who is paid by a school has an interest in that school saying yes. Industry codes are explicit that this has to be declared rather than left for you to notice. We would rather lose a placement than have you find out later.
Care of students under 18
Most students we work with are under 18, and for some of them that means the UK treats them as a child in law rather than as a young adult. That gives us a duty of care we cannot contract away, and it is why some of the following exist even where we would rather they did not.
Welfare check-ins
For students under 18 we ask how they are settling in rather than only what is happening to the application. If an answer concerns us, we ask a further question, and we tell the family and, where there is a risk to the student, the school's safeguarding lead.
Who decides what is offered
Never us. We do not shortlist on the basis of what a school pays us. Our commission is the same whatever the school and whatever the outcome, and we do not accept payment for a place, a ranking, or a faster reply.
Documents
We handle academic reports and the profile we build from them. We do not hold your child's passport, bank details, or medical records, and we do not ask for them.
Guardianship
If your child is under 18 and studying in the UK, a named UK-based guardian is normally a legal requirement rather than a preference, and details of that guardian have to reach the school before a CAS can be issued. We are not a guardian and cannot be one. This is arranged with the school, and it is separate from everything on this page. Ask the school about it as soon as you have an offer, not after.
What to have ready before you pay a school
Worth knowing early, because it is what slows families down. Once you accept a place, the school asks its admissions office for the documents needed to issue the CAS, and it is the school, not us, that collects and checks them. We never ask for them. But families who gather these early move faster.
- Proof of the fees and the source of the money, in the form the school asks for. UK schools are required to satisfy themselves about where the money is coming from, and this is the single most common reason an admission stalls for weeks.
- Passport and visa or entry clearance details.
- Recent school reports and the certificate or transcript that goes with them.
- English language evidence, if the school asks for it.
- Medical information and vaccination history, when the school requests it.
- Details of a named UK guardian, if your child is under 18.
Every school has its own list and its own form. When you have an offer, ask the school for its checklist rather than working from a general one, because a document that satisfies one school is routinely rejected by the next.
Complaints
If something has gone wrong, we would rather hear it from you than find out later. Tell us and a person will look at it.
Families
Email
admissions@boardingmatch.com with the student's name and the school involved. We acknowledge within two working days and aim to give you a full answer within ten. If your concern is about a child's safety, say so in the subject line and we treat it as urgent.
If you are not satisfied
Ask us to review it. We will look again with fresh eyes and tell you the outcome in writing. You are also entitled to use your school's own complaints procedure if the complaint is about the school rather than about us, and you can raise a consumer complaint with the Competition and Markets Authority if you think we have acted unfairly or misleadingly.
What a complaint cannot do
A complaint does not buy a place, a shortlist position, or a faster reply from a school. If it could, we would be selling access rather than doing a job, and every honest school would stop trusting us.
We are held to the National Code of Ethical Practice for UK Education Agents and to the UK Agent Quality Framework. Our compliance page sets out, in our own words, what we have committed to on both sides.