And it is not just stated intent: 68% handed over their WhatsApp number to get early access - a measured opt-in, not a survey answer. And it is already happening: thousands have joined the pre-launch waitlist, from 31 Karachi campuses, before we've even launched. Survey of 2,328 students across Karachi campuses, 2026. The market isn't saturated - it's empty.
How solid is a 2,328-student survey?
Karachi has roughly 425,000 students - the midpoint of the 300,000-550,000 estimates. A sample of 2,328 is about 0.55% of that, which carries a margin of error of about ±2.0 points at 95% confidence.
Margin of error falls fast and then flattens: 400 responses gives ±4.9%, 1,000 gives ±3.1%, 2,328 gives ±2.0%, and 5,000 would only get you to ±1.4%. Doubling the sample would sharpen the picture very little.
Collected across Karachi's major campuses in 2026 by our campus ambassador teams. Happy to walk you through the methodology.
Students are the customers you win early and keep for a decade.
Student habits stick. The café someone studies in at nineteen is the café they bring colleagues to at twenty-five. Karachi has one of the largest student populations in the country, concentrated across a small number of campuses - which makes them unusually reachable, and unusually social. When a deal is good, word travels through a campus in days.
The problem has never been demand. It's been the mechanics: paper vouchers get lost, codes leak to everyone, and "show your student ID" turns into an awkward conversation at the counter that neither side enjoys. Most brands either give up on student offers or quietly overpay for them.
Zabardast fixes the mechanics. Anyone can browse the deals, but only a verified student can get a code to redeem one. Students verify once, then redeem at the counter in seconds.
Every discount you run today is a blind spend.
A promo at the till could be redeemed by anyone, and you never learn what it drove.
Who used it?
A code at the counter could be a student, a reseller, or anyone who saw it forwarded. You can't tell them apart.
Did they come back?
One-off deal-hunters look identical to future regulars. Repeat visits - the whole point - go unmeasured.
What did it drive?
No read on incremental orders, spend per visit, or return on the offer. Just a smaller number at the end of the month.
Zabardast ties every redemption to a verified student - so every visit is measured, and you get it back weekly, per branch, from day one.
Four things a paper voucher can't do.
Verified students only
Every redemption comes from someone who has verified with a university email or student ID. Your student pricing reaches students - not their cousins, not a screenshot doing the rounds on WhatsApp.
No discount leakage
Browsing is open, but a code is bound to one verified student and spent the moment it's used. It refreshes on a timer, so a screenshot is already expired by the time it's forwarded. You can be genuinely generous with students without the discount quietly becoming your new list price for everyone.
Numbers you can act on
Weekly reporting, per branch, from day one: how many students viewed, saved and redeemed your offer, and how that changes when you adjust it. No more guessing whether the campus promo worked.
Incremental footfall
Students browse Zabardast looking for somewhere to go, so you're discovered by people actively deciding where to spend. And they rarely arrive alone - a student offer often brings full-price friends to the table with it.
No setup fee. No monthly fee. No listing fee.
You pay a small commission only when a verified student actually buys - agreed with you per category before you go live, and calculated on the discounted, pre-tax amount the student actually pays. No sales, nothing owed. We only make money when we've put a paying student in front of your counter.
Every rupee stays in your till - no money flows through us. At month-end you get a statement of every verified redemption, and we invoice the commission on that. You can cross-check every line against your own records.
Compare that to marketplace and delivery platforms, which take a significant cut of every order and own the customer relationship. We bring students who walk into your store, pay you directly, and stay your customer - and we can show you every redemption we generated.
Exact terms depend on your category and your offer. Talk to us and we'll give you the numbers straight.
Three steps, and no technical work on your side.
Tell us your offer
You decide what the student price is and where it applies. We'll tell you honestly what tends to land with students and what doesn't.
We list it
Your brand goes live in the app to verified students, and our 90+ campus ambassadors across IBA, Bahria, NED and Karachi University put it in front of them. No integration and no change to your till - your staff use our validator on a phone or in any browser.
You see the numbers
Aggregate views, saves and redemptions, so you can tune the offer. Adjust or pause whenever you want.
At the counter
The student shows their one-time code. Your staff either scan the QR or type the code in manually - in our merchant validator app, or in any browser on the phone they already have. They then enter the pre-tax amount of the order, and that's it.
Nothing to install if you don't want to, no hardware, and no change to your point of sale. Training is a short walkthrough, not a course.
Every category is different. We'll help you shape an offer that fits your brand and your margins - we do this with every partner before they go live.
Already know what you'd like to run? The List your brand page walks through the practical side.
Your data stays yours. Ours stays ours.
Most loyalty and discount platforms want something in return: your customer list, your transaction history, or the right to market to the people you introduce them to. We don't. The arrangement is deliberately simple, and it runs in both directions.
Why we built it this way
Because it protects both sides. Students share their details with us on the understanding that it gets them a price - not a stream of marketing from every brand on the platform. And you get to run student pricing without inheriting someone else's data-protection problem: if we never send you personal data, there's nothing for you to store, secure, or answer for.
We've built our data handling to GDPR-standard principles - data minimisation, purpose limitation, clear consent - a higher bar than Pakistani law currently requires. The Personal Data Protection Bill is still working its way through; we designed to the stricter international standard from the start rather than wait.
Full detail is in our Privacy Policy. Questions about commercial terms? Talk to us.
Your brand, your rules.
Discount platforms have a reputation, and it is mostly earned.
Creative sign-off
Nothing goes live without your written approval - exactly how your brand, your offer and your wording appear.
Verified students only
No bots, no resellers, no coupon leakage. Every person redeeming has proved they are a student.
Price integrity
Student-exclusive and time-bound. Your offer never appears on public deal pages that erode your full price.
Your data stays yours
Never resold, never shared with another brand. And we never ask you for your customer data in the first place.
Curated, not a coupon dump
Quality brands sit alongside you. We run curated tiers rather than listing anyone who will pay to be there.
Join before we launch. Pay nothing until after launch.
Brands that sign before the September 2026 launch join the founding cohort and get:
This is a founding cohort, not a standing offer. Once we launch in September 2026, it's gone.
Become a founding partnerStraight answers.
Nothing to join, nothing monthly, nothing to be listed. We charge a small commission only on completed, verified student purchases - agreed with you per category before you go live, and calculated on the discounted, pre-tax amount the student actually pays. If students don't buy, you owe nothing.
Every rupee stays in your till - no money flows through us. At month-end you get a statement of every verified redemption, and we invoice the commission on it. You can cross-check every line against your own records.
No long-term lock-in. You can adjust, pause or withdraw your offer at any time. Commercial terms are a simple agreement covering the commission rate and payment terms, and we'll walk you through it before anything goes live.
You set it - it's your offer and your margin. Because only verified students ever see it, you can be as generous as you like without the discount leaking to the wider market. We'll help you shape something that fits your category before you go live.
They take a significant cut of every order and own the customer relationship. We do the opposite: students walk into your store, pay you directly, and stay your customer. Our commission applies only to purchases we can prove we generated.
No. We never ask for it, and you never need to provide it. Your existing customers stay entirely your business.
No. You receive aggregate numbers only. If you want to reach students again, you do it by running another offer on the platform - not by emailing them directly.
Students verify once with a university email or a student ID before any offer becomes redeemable, and redemption happens through a one-time code tied to their verified, device-locked account - so screenshots and forwarded codes don't work.
Flag it with us. Because every redemption is a one-time code tied to a verified, device-locked account, misuse is hard to begin with - and if something looks wrong at any outlet, we'll investigate it on our side rather than leaving it with you.
The student shows a one-time code. Your staff scan the QR or type the code in manually - in our merchant validator app or in any browser - then enter the pre-tax amount of the order. That's the whole flow.
No. There's no integration with your point of sale and no hardware. Staff can use our validator app if they prefer, or just open it in a browser on the phone they already have.
It's built to be quick: a scan or a short code, plus the order amount. There's no account for staff to create per transaction and no training beyond a short walkthrough we'll do with your team.
The founding cohort is announced at launch. What we can tell you now is which brands students asked for by name - and if your competitor is on that list, this is the window to be listed before them.
Zabardast launches in Karachi in September 2026. Brands joining before then are listed from day one, in front of the students already on the waitlist.