How to Price Your Retreat (And Actually Make Money)
Not every retreat is a business transaction — and that’s completely fine. If you’re hosting a milestone birthday, a friend group, or a family gathering, your math is simple: take the total cost, divide by the number of guests, and pass it along. Go have an incredible time.
But if you’re running retreats as part of a business — as a coach, teacher, therapist, or any kind of leader — this one’s for you.
The Two Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make
Before we talk numbers, let’s talk about the two things that derail retreat pricing more than anything else.
The first is not factoring in all of your expenses. And I mean all of them — not just the venue cost.
The second is undervaluing yourself. I see this constantly with yoga and Pilates teachers specifically. On average, yoga teachers price a five night retreat at Topia between $2,500 and $3,000 per person. Coaches running retreats for the same number of nights in a comparable space charge $3,500 to $4,500. Is the experience dramatically different? Not always. The content is different, sure. But the gap in pricing doesn’t reflect a gap in value — it reflects a story yoga teachers have been telling themselves about what they’re worth. That story needs to change.
Every Expense You Need to Factor In
This is the list nobody gives you. Go through it line by line.
Venue costs — your per person rate, any minimum guest requirements, deposits, and payment schedule.
Your own room and meals — you are also a guest at this retreat. Your accommodations and meals need to be in the budget. Don’t assume they’re just covered.
Your travel — flights, airport transportation, Ubers, food and drinks at the airport, your pet sitter. All of it. Every dollar you spend getting there and back comes out of your pocket unless you build it in.
Pre-retreat travel — if you want to arrive a day early to get settled and prepared, where are you staying that night? What does that cost?
Gratuity for venue staff — this one surprises leaders constantly. Some leaders cover it as a gesture of goodwill. Some pass it on to guests. Either way, it needs to be in the plan. At Topia, we suggest $20 per guest per day as a guideline.
Time away from work — this is the big one people forget. If you’re a teacher who normally earns money from your regular classes, you are losing that income while you’re on retreat. That lost revenue needs to be factored in. If you break even on the retreat but lost three weeks of teaching income to plan and run it, you didn’t make money — you just moved it around.
Planning time — the hours you spend on pre-retreat communication, guest prep emails, enrollment calls, logistics coordination. That’s real time with real value. Build it in.
Marketing— how are you filling this retreat? A landing page or dedicated page on your website. Photography and video. Social media. Enrollment sessions. Email campaigns. If you’re using a third-party platform to manage enrollment, they’re taking a percentage. These costs add up fast and they’re almost always underestimated.
Activities — budget for activities as a group line item from the start. Leaving guests to book on their own might seem like a way to save money, but in my experience it fragments the group and creates chaos.
A scholarship spot — if accessibility matters to you and you want to offer a discounted or sponsored spot, build that into your pricing from the start rather than absorbing it at the end.
Card processing fees — whatever platform you’re collecting payments through is taking a cut. Know what that percentage is and account for it.
Contingency buffer — what happens if someone cancels last minute? If your retreat only works financially at 100% capacity, your pricing is too thin.
The Math That Actually Works
Once you have your full expense list, here’s the framework:
Total all of your costs — venue, travel, marketing, your time, gratuity, everything. Divide by the number of guests you’re planning for. That’s your break-even number per person.
Then add your profit. Not a little cushion. Actual profit — the number that makes this worth your time and energy and makes your retreat business sustainable.
That total is your price.
At Topia, after our discovery call with potential leaders, we send a pricing support document that breaks down what retreat pricing looks like across our three guest tiers — one to ten guests, eleven to sixteen, and seventeen to twenty-one. It shows what the numbers actually look like per person at each capacity level so leaders can see clearly what their revenue would be, what they’d owe Topia, and what they’d walk away with. It’s not about us telling you what to charge. It’s about giving you a visual so the math stops being abstract and starts being real.
Because the goal isn’t just to run a great retreat. It’s to run a great retreat and actually get paid for it.
