Behind the Director's 70 Million Yen Annual Salary: Naresome Academy Reveals Its Business Model That Challenges the 'Unprofitable' Image of Matchmaking Agencies

Naresome Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Yutaka Uba), which operates the marriage counseling service 'Naresome Academy,' has published an article on Wantedly featuring Director Chizuru Katsura discussing the business structure and compensation design that support the academy's growth.

This article uses Katsura's disclosed annual income of approximately 70 million yen—also mentioned in her appearance on ABEMA's show 'Nana Nii: Chika ABEMA'—as a starting point to explain how Naresome Academy achieves both high marriage rates and high compensation.

(C) AbemaTV, Inc.

How Can a Matchmaking Agency, Often Seen as 'Unprofitable,' Achieve High Compensation?

Matchmaking agencies are generally perceived as 'dull,' 'old-fashioned,' and 'difficult to scale.' Indeed, as labor-intensive businesses that support individuals, there is a natural limit to the number of clients one can handle when striving to maintain high service quality, making it challenging to balance service excellence with business expansion.

In contrast, Naresome Academy has built a unique growth model by introducing logic, strategy, and data into the emotionally driven and seemingly unpredictable fields of dating and marriage.

The article highlights three key factors behind Naresome Academy's ability to achieve high compensation:

1. Building a system that reproducibly and effectively leads to successful marriages

2. Maximizing revenue through marriage success fees driven by high marriage rates

3. Low-cost customer acquisition through in-house YouTube operations

Three Business Structures Enabling High Marriage Rates and High Compensation at Naresome Academy

1. Building a Reproducible and Efficient System for Successful Marriages

At Naresome Academy, support is not based on intuition or chance but on diagnostics, data, and strategic planning.

To visualize members' current situations, values, and compatibility, the academy uses proprietary programs such as the 'Dating Combat Power Diagnosis,' 'Matchgram Diagnosis,' and 'Love Style Diagnosis.' All planners use and share data from these tools, enabling personalized strategy design for each member and increasing the reproducibility of efficiently guiding them to marriage.

This system ensures that support is not limited to individual expertise, allowing Naresome Academy as a whole to deliver high-quality matchmaking services consistently.

2. High Marriage Rates Generate Revenue Through Marriage Success Fees

For matchmaking agencies, members' goal is not 'joining' but 'achieving a happy marriage.' Naresome Academy adopts a 'marriage-first' philosophy, prioritizing guiding members to satisfying, happy marriages, aligning the perspectives of members and the business.

The high achievement of an 84.1% marriage rate directly translates into value delivered to members and customer satisfaction, while also generating revenue through marriage success fees—a performance-based income. The academy's strength lies in building a reproducible structure that enhances customer value and drives business growth by guiding members to happy marriages.

3. Achieving Customer Acquisition Without Relying on Advertising Through In-House YouTube and Social Media

Naresome Academy continuously shares essential information about dating and relationships on social media platforms, starting with YouTube.

A key feature is that content is delivered not by external celebrities but by in-house team members who deeply understand the front lines and, above all, are passionate about the service. Team members with deep understanding and enthusiasm convey the realities of dating in their own words, building trust with potential customers even before they join.

This in-house content creation has created a flow where individuals who resonate with Naresome Academy's philosophy and services proceed to free consultations or membership. Additionally, advertising revenue from the in-house YouTube channel can sometimes cover advertising costs, enabling customer acquisition with low reliance on paid ads.

Image Caption: Key members of Naresome Academy, including management, appear as performers on the official Naresome YouTube channel. From left: Chizuru Katsura (Director, Naresome Academy), Shukuro, Yutaka Uba (CEO, Naresome Co., Ltd.)

A Company That Doesn't Reward Talent Can't Deliver Great Service

Naresome Fes / 8th Marriage Celebration Party held on Sunday, April 19, 2026, at Hotel Metropolitan

The article also introduces the principle of 'fairly rewarding talented individuals' as a key factor supporting Naresome Academy's growth.

Many of Naresome Academy's members possess high professional expertise, extensive social experience, or have held responsible positions in companies.

To provide meaningful feedback on marriage—a major life decision—for such individuals, planners must also possess a high perspective backed by work experience, problem-solving skills, and interpersonal support abilities tailored to each person.

In practice, Naresome employs diverse talent as planners, including graduates from national and prestigious private universities and professionals with experience in problem-solving and management across different industries.

Because the required standards are high, Naresome places strong emphasis on compensation design that reflects performance and responsibility. The average planner salary at Naresome Academy is 6 million yen, with leaders reaching 7 to 10 million yen. For senior management, the system is open-ended, exceeding 15 million yen.

Katsura's annual income of approximately 70 million yen, mentioned on the TV program, is a symbolic example demonstrating that Naresome is a company that responds to high-performing talent with significant responsibility and compensation.

At Naresome, profits generated from business operations are reinvested into talent acquisition, compensation, and service improvement.

The company believes that creating an environment where high performers are fairly evaluated and entrusted with greater roles enhances the overall quality of support and leads to more successful marriages.

Comment from Chizuru Katsura

Running a matchmaking agency is not just about connecting people. It's a job that deeply involves members' lives and walks alongside them toward the goal of a happy marriage.

At Naresome Academy, we've built a system that uses diagnostics, data, and strategic planning—not intuition or chance—to reproducibly guide members to marriage.

As a result, our business has grown, and we've become a company capable of giving back to our employees. Going forward, we aim to remain a 'win-win-win' company that delivers value to members, rewards employees, and contributes to society.

Naresome will continue to seriously engage with major life themes like love and marriage, delivering value to members while remaining a company that rewards employees who deliver results, aiming for further business growth.

Read the full article on Wantedly:

https://www.wantedly.com/companies/company_3235258/post_articles/1065136

Watch the missed episode of 'Nana Nii: Chika ABEMA' #118: 'I Honestly Revealed My Income! Did It Increase After Changing Jobs?'

https://abema.go.link/edupX

The Kind of Marriage Naresome Academy Aims For

Naresome Academy advocates 'improving quality of life through love and marriage,' aiming to realize '50 years of happiness' through 'Best Marriage' by balancing emotional value with rational decision-making under its 'Logical × Love' philosophy.