Ad policy and refund terms

What we accept

• Services and products for people living in Korea: moving, phone plans, banks and insurance, language schools, relocation, coworking, international schools, shops and restaurants.
• Apps and websites for life in Korea.
• Employers, recruiters and job boards.
• Community groups with a named organizer.

Categories that need a license or registration number

Send the number with your order, or we ask for it during review.

• Immigration paperwork help: 행정사 registration.
• Real estate agents: 중개사무소 registration.
• Money transfer: 소액해외송금업 registration.
• Banks, cards, insurance and investing: the provider's 금융광고 심의필 number.
• Clinics and hospitals: a flat fee for a set term only, never a fee per patient, booking or share of the bill. Ads follow article 56 of the Medical Service Act (의료법): text the clinic writes or approves, marked as paid, for people living in Korea. No patient reviews or testimonials, no before and after photos, no "best" or comparisons with other clinics, no discounts, no ads aimed at patients coming from abroad, and no claims we cannot check.
• Private academies: 학원 registration.
• Recruiting agencies: 유료직업소개사업 registration.
• Korean job boards: 직업정보제공사업 report (신고).

What we do not accept

• Loans and private lenders (대부업).
• Gambling, crypto and investment schemes.
• Adult content, dating and international marriage brokers.
• Multi-level marketing, political ads, alcohol and tobacco.
• Claims like "visa guaranteed" or "100% approval".
• Job brokers without a registration.

Ad content

• Claims must match your landing page: the same prices, the same terms, the same offer.
• Your link must load, stay on your own domain, and belong to the business on the order.
• The label (Sponsored, 광고, Được tài trợ, Реклама, 赞助, 広告) and the button text are ours. They stay on every ad.
• We translate your ad into the other five editions. You can check each translation before the ad runs.
• Changes to a running ad go through review again. The approved version keeps running until the change is approved.

Review

• We aim to review every order within one business day. We check your business registration, your link and your ad.
• If something needs to change, we tell you which field and why. You fix it and the order goes back into review. We hold your dates for 3 business days while you make the change.
• We can decline an order that does not fit this policy. Nothing is charged for a declined order.

Payment

• After approval, we email an invoice with the amount, VAT and bank details. Use your order number as the payment reference.
• Your dates are held for 3 business days after approval. If payment has not arrived by then, the dates are released.
• Korean businesses receive an electronic tax invoice (전자세금계산서) once payment arrives.
• Businesses outside Korea pay by international transfer in KRW or USD.
• Prices are per 4 weeks for ads and per term for directory listings, before VAT. A booked order keeps the price it was sent with.

Cancellations and refunds

• Cancel any time before your start date for a full refund. A sponsored guide has its own refund terms, below.
• If we take an ad down, or the site has an outage, we add the missing days at the end of your booking.
• Before you pay, you can cancel on your order page. After you pay, cancel by replying to any email about your order or by writing to hello@seoulstart.com with your order number.

Sponsored guides

• We write the guide from what you send and from our own research. We decide the title, structure and tone, as with every Seoulstart guide.
• We do not write sponsored guides for clinics or hospitals. Financial products need their ad review number (심의필).
• We check every fact against a source. You get the English draft and have 5 business days to tell us what is wrong. We send a reminder on day 3. If we hear nothing by day 5, the draft counts as approved.
• The guide runs for 12 months in six languages. Every edition shows an Advertisement label above the title and "Paid for by" with your name. Links to your site are marked as paid links. The guide appears in the guide list for its topic, and no other ads run on its page.
• The guide price includes one fact update when something changes on your side. Each further update costs ₩200,000. Another 12 months costs ₩600,000 and includes one update. Prices are before VAT.
• Banner ads in the same order are 30% off.
• Refunds: if you cancel before we start writing, we refund the full guide price. After we start and before we send you the English draft, we refund half the guide price (₩600,000). Once we send the draft, we do not refund the guide price. Banner ads in the same order are refunded in full until they start running.

Taking an ad down

• We stop an ad if its landing page changes so that the ad breaks this policy, or if the business stops operating. We tell you why by email.