Kostenloses Tool
Meditations-Retreat-Preisrechner
Wie kalkulierst du dein Meditations-Retreat? Meditations-Retreats sind meist kürzer, mit größeren Gruppen und geringerem Preis pro Person als Wellness. Die Voreinstellungen entsprechen typischen 4-Nächte-Programmen.
Revenue
How much you bring in.
Meditations-Retreats berechnen €700–€1.200 pro Person für 3–5 Nächte
Costs
What it costs you to run the retreat.
Dharma-Zentren und einfachere Retreat-Locations kosten €400–€800 pro Nacht für Gruppen von 12–16. Größere Wohnzentren entsprechend höher
Einfache, oft vegetarische Meditations-Retreat-Verpflegung liegt bei €25–€45 pro Gast pro Tag
Budget für Anzeigen, Content, Material, Zahlungsabwicklung und einen Puffer
Net profit
€5,262
At €900/person with 14 guests, you'll net €5,262 — a 42% margin.
- Total revenue
- €12,600
- Total costs
- €7,338
- Profit margin
- 42%
- Profit per workday
- €658
You need at least 7 guests at €900 to break even.
Share these numbers
Send your draft to a co-facilitator, partner, or accountant to gut-check your assumptions.
How to use this calculator
- Set the group size and number of nights — most meditation retreats run 12 to 16 sitters over 3 to 5 nights, with longer 7 to 10 night silent intensives at the upper end.
- Set the price per guest using the benchmark range, and decide upfront whether you are running a fixed-fee model or splitting a course fee from a separate dana offering for the teacher.
- Enter the costs you have on paper — venue, vegetarian meals, your own fee or expected dana, any guest teacher day rate, marketing, travel, and insurance.
- Read the live summary on the right for profit, margin, breakeven occupancy, and profit per planning day, and stress-test the numbers at 60 to 70 percent occupancy before committing to a venue minimum.
What goes into meditation retreat pricing
A meditation retreat price has to cover three things, and the structure is unusual compared to yoga or wellness because tradition often splits them. The first is the operational cost: venue, vegetarian or plant-based meals, transfers, materials, payment processing fees, and any insurance. The second is teacher compensation, which in established Buddhist and mindfulness traditions is treated as separate from the course fee — paid through dana (voluntary offerings) at the end of the retreat rather than rolled into the price. The third is your own time as the organizer: the months of design, registration handling, kitchen coordination, and on-the-ground hosting that happen whether the retreat fills or not.
Many newer organizers and Western centers use a fixed-fee model instead, where the published price covers everything including a teacher fee. Both models are defensible, but mixing them silently — quoting a low course fee and hoping dana covers the gap — is the most common path to a retreat that runs at a loss. Decide upfront which model you are using, write it on the registration page, and budget the teacher line accordingly.
Benchmark pricing for meditation retreats
European meditation retreats sit lower than yoga or wellness across the board. A 3 to 5 night retreat typically prices at €700 to €1,200 per person all-in, with shorter weekend formats around €300 to €700 and 7 to 10 night silent intensives running €1,000 to €1,800. Plum Village publishes a sliding-scale week at roughly €400 (scholarship), €535 (reduced), €800 (sustaining), and €1,070 (supporting), which is a useful reference point for any organizer using tiered pricing. Donation-based vipassana courses in the Goenka tradition charge nothing upfront, with end-of-course dana from past students typically falling between €50 and €150 for a 10-day program.
Group sizes for meditation retreats run larger than yoga: 12 to 16 is the practical band most facilitators report, with established centers comfortably hosting 20 or more in a silent setting because there is no hands-on teaching to scale. Most Western retreats settle on 3 to 5 nights as the working duration; this is enough time for the silence to actually drop in but short enough that working professionals can attend without taking a full week off. Anything under 3 nights tends to function as a workshop with sleeping arrangements, not a retreat — fine to sell, but it should be priced and described differently.
How to calculate your breakeven
Breakeven is the number of guests at which revenue exactly covers total costs. For a meditation retreat the calculation is simpler than for a treatment-heavy wellness program but still requires a clean split. Fixed costs are the venue minimum, your own organizer fee, marketing already spent, insurance, transfers, and any guest teacher booked on a flat day rate regardless of attendance. Variable costs are food per guest per day, transaction fees of around 3 percent, and any per-session or per-guest expenses. Divide fixed costs by the contribution margin per guest — price per guest minus variable costs per guest — to find the breakeven count.
Aim to break even at 60 to 70 percent of your maximum capacity. With 16 spots, the retreat should clear costs by around 10 or 11 sign-ups. Meditation retreats benefit from one structural advantage over yoga or wellness: variable costs per guest are low (vegetarian meals, no treatments, minimal materials), so each booking above breakeven contributes a lot to net profit. The flip side is that low variable cost makes the venue minimum the dominant driver — if the venue requires you to pay for 16 beds whether you fill them or not, your breakeven is set by that floor more than by your price.
Common pricing mistakes
The most common mistake on a meditation retreat is under-pricing because the work feels spiritual. Time spent in silence is still time at work — kitchen coordination, schedule management, accommodation logistics, and emotional support for participants who hit difficult states are all real labour, and a price that does not pay for them is a discount the organizer is giving themselves without noticing. The second mistake is leaning on dana to make the math work. Dana is a real tradition with serious meaning in established lineages, but it is not a budget line: average dana per retreatant is genuinely unpredictable, and treating it as expected income is how organizers end up losing money on programs they thought were fully funded.
Other recurring mistakes: forgetting payment processing fees of around 3 percent, ignoring no-shows that for short retreats can spike because participants who book a 4-night silent retreat often cancel under work pressure, leaving no contingency for last-minute teacher cancellations, and bundling sliding-scale tiers without checking the math. A sliding scale only works if the higher tiers are taken by enough participants to subsidise the lower ones; if every guest selects scholarship pricing, the program has to be viable at that floor or it is not viable at all. Plum Village and IMS publish their tiers transparently for exactly this reason — the sustaining tier is what actually covers operating cost.
When you can charge more
A higher price is defensible when something concrete justifies it. A named teacher with an established body of work, a published book, or recognised authorisation in a specific lineage moves the program out of the general-mindfulness market and into something participants actively travel for. Lineage credentials matter on meditation retreats in a way they do not on yoga retreats: dharma transmission, a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) certification, formal authorisation in a Theravada, Zen, or Tibetan tradition, or training under a recognised teacher each give participants a reason to pay above market rather than choose a cheaper local sit.
Silent retreats with strong noble-silence containers also command higher pricing than guided programs, because the operational requirements are more demanding: the venue has to support full silence end-to-end, meals have to be served in silence, and the schedule has to be tight enough to hold the form. A clearly defined niche supports a 20 to 30 percent premium over a generic mindfulness week — trauma-sensitive meditation, meditation for grief, somatic mindfulness, MBSR-aligned programs for healthcare workers, or retreats specifically for people in early recovery each narrow the audience but let the people inside that audience feel the program is built for them. Smaller groups capped at 8 to 10 with one-on-one practice interviews also support a different price than a 20-person silent sit.
Marketing budget rules of thumb
A workable rule of thumb is reserving roughly 10 to 20 percent of the total retreat budget for marketing — landing pages, design, photography, paid social, platform fees, and any affiliate or referral spend. Meditation audiences research carefully and tend to value credentials over visuals, so spend on a long-form program description, clear teacher biography with lineage, and a transparent schedule does more work than glossy lifestyle imagery. First retreats often need the upper end of that range because there is no past attendee list yet, and meditation buyers in particular look for testimonials from previous sitters before they commit.
On timing, opening registration 4 to 6 months before the start date is enough for most domestic meditation retreats — shorter than the 6 to 9 months recommended for yoga, because meditation retreats run shorter and participants do not need long lead times to plan international travel. Silent intensives and retreats with named teachers should open earlier, 6 to 9 months out, because they sell to a smaller pool of serious sitters who plan their year around them. The most reliable channels remain your own email list, your local sangha or sit group, and listings on meditation-specific platforms like Retreat Guru — paid ads usually amplify these rather than replace them.
Frequently asked questions
Should I offer dana or sliding-scale pricing?
Both are defensible but they have to be deliberate, not a fallback for an under-priced program. Dana is a real practice in established Buddhist lineages where the course fee covers facility and admin and the teacher is supported by donations at the end — it works because the audience knows what dana is and gives. Sliding scale (Plum Village, Spirit Rock, IMS all use four-tier versions of this) requires that the sustaining tier actually covers operating cost without subsidy, and that enough participants choose the higher tiers to fund the lower ones. Mixing a published course fee with implicit dana expectations is the structure most likely to lose money — pick a model and write the math down.
Silent retreat versus guided retreat — does pricing differ?
Silent retreats typically price 10 to 25 percent higher than guided programs of the same length at the same venue. The reason is operational: the venue has to support full noble silence end-to-end, the kitchen has to serve in silence, schedules are tighter, and participants need more individual practice interviews. Silent retreats also attract a more serious audience that researches teachers and lineage carefully — which makes premium pricing easier to defend if you have credentials, and harder to defend if you do not. Guided programs sell to a broader audience but at a lower per-night number.
What is a typical group size for a meditation retreat?
Most facilitators settle between 12 and 16 sitters. Below 12 the venue minimum starts to dominate the per-person price, and above 20 the practice interviews and one-on-one check-ins become harder to schedule across the retreat days. Silent retreats can comfortably run larger because there is no group dialogue to manage; established centers like IMS host groups of 30 or more in silence. Smaller intentional containers — 8 to 10 sitters with one practice interview per day per participant — sell at a meaningfully higher price point because the teacher attention is the product.
How does meditation retreat pricing differ from yoga retreats?
Meditation retreats sit one tier lower than yoga across the board and run shorter on average. A 3 to 5 night meditation retreat in Europe typically prices at €700 to €1,200 per person, where a comparable yoga week runs €1,000 to €1,800. The difference comes from three places: meditation retreats use simpler vegetarian catering rather than yoga retreat-style sourced menus, they run fewer practitioner-billed sessions, and the audience expects pricing in line with established donation-model centers like Plum Village or IMS. Yoga retreats can charge for asana practice as a billable activity in a way meditation programs typically cannot.
What is appropriate to pay a guest meditation teacher?
Pay structures vary by tradition. For a fixed-fee model, day rates of €600 to €1,000 plus travel, meals, and lodging are typical for an authorised teacher in Europe, with €1,000 to €1,500 per day for named teachers with published work or formal lineage authorisation. For a dana model, you cover travel and accommodation and pass through end-of-retreat dana — typical participant offerings run €20 to €60 per retreat day per person, so a 4-day retreat with 14 sitters generates €1,100 to €3,400 of dana to the teacher on top of expenses. Whichever model you choose, agree it in writing before the retreat opens for registration so neither side is guessing.
How long should a meditation retreat be?
Three to five nights is the standard for a working professional audience, and 7 to 10 nights for serious silent intensives. The first night and morning are usually spent settling the silence and the schedule, so anything under 3 nights barely covers the arrival; 4 nights is the minimum that lets the practice actually drop in. Goenka-tradition vipassana defaults to 10 nights for a reason — the protocol needs that runway — but most non-residential teachers running their own retreats in Europe choose 4 or 5 nights as the sweet spot between depth and accessibility.
What deposit should I require?
A 20 to 30 percent non-refundable deposit at booking is the prevailing pattern, with the balance due 30 to 60 days before the start date — tighter than the 60 to 90 days typical for yoga because meditation retreats are shorter and registration tends to happen closer to the start. The deposit needs to be large enough to cover your non-refundable venue commitment for that bed; for short retreats with low total prices that often means a higher percentage than yoga retreats use, sometimes 30 to 40 percent.
How early should I open registration?
For a domestic meditation retreat, opening 4 to 6 months out is enough — shorter than the 6 to 9 months recommended for yoga, because meditation retreats run shorter and participants do not need long lead times to plan international travel or take a full week off work. Silent intensives and retreats with named teachers should open 6 to 9 months out because they sell to a smaller pool of serious sitters who plan their year carefully. Earlier is rarely a problem; later usually is, because meditation buyers research credentials and lineage carefully before they commit and need time to do that work.
How do I handle cancellations?
Publish a written policy before you take any deposit, and put it in the booking confirmation. A common shape for short meditation retreats is: deposit non-refundable from booking, full refund minus deposit if cancelled more than 60 days out, partial or no refund inside 30 days, no refund inside 14 days. The window is tighter than yoga or wellness because the retreats are shorter and the venue commitment locks in faster. Recommend travel insurance in the same email — meditation participants often cancel under late work pressure or because the silence felt like more than they could commit to, and insurance shifts that conversation away from your refund inbox.